Joshua Jackson
“It was in 2004 or so, and my family was about to fly out of LAX. My sister and I killed time by walking around for a bit — on our way back to the gate, we passed a packed Starbucks and saw Joshua Jackson standing around. He couldn’t have been a nicer guy — after a minute or two, my sister told him she had to get in line for a quick coffee before getting on the plane.
It turns out he was waiting for his coffee, and soon as he got it, he gave it to us and told us he had plenty of time to wait for another one. He was such a cool dude.”
Dave Chappelle
“Dave Chappelle has a history of running very long comedy shows, and my buddy and I saw one of his shows a while back. It ran very, very late (until almost 4 a.m. on a weekday) and by the end, almost the entire crowd had trickled out.
Dave invited us all to play basketball with him the next afternoon, and of course we took him up on his offer. He had rented out an entire gym for an hour, and after everyone finished playing, a handful of us stuck around and shot the sh#t with Dave. He bought us all fruit smoothies and gave us free tickets to his show the next night — he’s a SUPER nice guy, just like he is on TV. He couldn’t have been any cooler.”
Keanu Reeves
“I remember seeing Keanu Reeves in New York a long time ago when I was a young (and probably very annoying) pre-teen. I yelled out, ‘Yo, Neo!’ and then I mimicked the bullet-dodge motion from The Matrix. He looked back at me, laughed, and mirrored the same move in acknowledgement. It’s such a great memory because I feel like anyone would have been justified in getting annoyed and shrugging a kid off, but instead, he was a good sport and humored me. I’ll never forget it.”
Daniel Radcliffe
“My family and I met Daniel Radcliffe in a London hotel when we went out for a celebratory dinner. He was alone in the lobby, so we asked if we could join him, not expecting much. We ended up sitting with him for a good 20 minutes chatting and drinking with him — he raised his glass to my sister, who toasted Dumbledore. It was pretty much the best night of our lives.”
Tom Hanks
“This is my mom’s story: Tom Hanks was in our town because we have a typewriter store and he was shopping there. On the way out, he passed by a bunch of Girl Scouts selling cookies, and he decided to help them sell their cookies for a while. That’s right: Tom Hanks was casually shopping for typewriters and ended up selling Girl Scout cookies on the way out because he’s THAT wholesome.”
Steve Buscemi
“Steve Buscemi meets my friend every year on 9/11 at her dad’s old firehouse, since her dad died on 9/11 — they go out to dinner with a huge group of people, but he always makes sure he spends a lot of time talking to my friend. The last few years I went with her, and the first conversation I had with him really showed his character.
I forget the word-for-word conversation, but we were joking around and he said something like, ‘So, how do you know [your friend]?’ ‘Oh, we met through a camp for people whose parents died on 9/11.’ Do you know what his response was? ‘Well, then, I guess that makes you family’ — he was the nicest person.”
Tracy Morgan
“I work at a pizza shop and Tracy Morgan lives up the street from our little downtown area. He’s a regular customer since his son used to work here, and we hadn’t seen too too much of him since his accident. Tracy came in one day and started talking about his ordeal and everything he went through.
For a good 20-30 minutes he spoke to me and a few other customers about how precious life is, and how it’s so important to be thankful for everything you have since you never know when your last day will be. It was eye-opening and prolific, and good to hear from someone with so much experience in living life to the fullest. It was a very nice, down-to-earth talk.”
Ryan Gosling
“Ryan Gosling paid for my parking on Hollywood Boulevard once (we had parked in the same parking lot). He was leaving as we were arriving, and I struck up a conversation with him real quick. He asked where I was from and why I was there/who I was with (I was on spring break with nine friends and we had two cars between us). He said, ‘Don’t worry about parking today, man, I’ll cover you all for the weekend. Have a fun spring break!’ It was so cool — he is JUST as nice in real life as you think he would be.”
John Stamos
“I met John Stamos on the set of his Fox show, Grandfathered, before it was taken off the air. First of all, when Stamos walks into a room, your jaw will drop. When he was taking a break in-between scenes, we snapped this photo — in addition to being super nice and not at all weirded out by the girl who could hardly form a cohesive sentence in front of him, he was a true gentleman on set and to me for the rest of his shoot. As if I weren’t in love with Uncle Jesse before!”
Jason Momoa
“I met Jason Momoa at a convention. I was in a wheelchair, and he was in the elevator. I wheeled in and looked up in shock, and he grinned at me and said, ‘I’m not that guy, I’m just a good cosplayer.’ He got quiet for a moment and then laughed really hard. When my floor came up, even though it wasn’t his floor, he insisted on helping me out. I squeaked out a request for a picture and aimed the camera at him — he said, ‘Hell no, sweetie, you’re getting in this one,’ and tossed my camera to his friend. He was so sweet — also huge. H-U-G-E.”
Muhammad Ali
“I worked at a magic shop in my twenties, and one day Muhammad Ali came in. My boss (a huge Ali fan from back in the day) was visibly in awe. Ali hung around for a couple of hours — we did some magic tricks for him, he did some for us, and he was beyond cool taking pictures with us. He sent us a ‘thank you’ post card a week later and signed it: ‘Cassius Clay — oops, I mean Muhammad Ali.'”
Michael Jordan
“My cousin caddied for Michael Jordan at a charity golf tournament — he was around 14 years old at the time, when baggy Dickie pants were all the rage. By hole #9, my cousin was sweating in the Midwest heat — as they passed the Pro Shop to proceed to hole #10, MJ stopped and handed my cousin his credit card, saying, ‘It’s hot outside and [you’re] sweating. Run inside and get yourself some shorts.’ My cousin quickly got a pair of shorts and caddied the rest of the round, and MJ tipped him $600.”
Adam Sandler
“My grandmother and Adam Sandler’s father had back-to-back chemo appointments in Boston — every week she would see Adam Sandler in sunglasses bringing his father to chemo. Her cancer was stage three at this point, and she was under a great deal of stress — and honest to god, Adam Sandler would help ease her nerves by rubbing her back. Unfortunately his dad died that year, but my grandmother made a full recovery — the way Adam treated my sick, elderly grandmother was incredible.”
Ice-T
“Ice-T was on the same flight as me, my mom, and my sister when I was younger. My sister needed help getting her bags off the carousel, but I was too busy reading Harry Potter and basically told her to f@#k off. Ice-T came walking over and grabbed all of my sister’s bags and helped her carry them to our car. I learned a good lesson that day: never help anyone because it’s easier to let a celebrity do it for you.”
Danny Glover
“I met Danny Glover at a meeting for the United Auto Workers (some people from my university attended in support of the workers). At the end of the meeting I talked to Danny for a while — I told him I was minoring in economics, and he got really excited because that was his major in college. He talked to me for a long time about being a force for change, and that it’s never too early to try and change the world. He’s a really smart man, and you can tell he genuinely cares — it was a really nice encounter.”
Rowan Atkinson
“Rowan Atkinson and his family were in the same heliskiing group as me and my family in Chamonix, France (it was a private group company, but the guide we hired had a pretty bad injury, so they had to join our group). My family was really excited, as we all really love Blackadder, Thin Blue Line, and Mr. Bean — when Rowan, his wife, his daughter, and my family first met up, we introduced ourselves as huge fans of his, and if he wouldn’t mind giving us his autograph. He said he’d do us one better, and he took us out to dinner after we finished skiing — it was the funniest dinner I’ve ever had!”
Ben Affleck
“A week after the 9/11 attacks, my father (a New York City carpenter) stepped into an elevator with Ben Affleck. It was just the two of them in the elevator, and they were both going to one of the upper floors of a very tall building — they ended up talking about the attacks on the World Trade Center, and got into a deep conversation about humanity. According to my father, Ben was a really cool, intelligent, and down-to-earth guy.”
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