perks of living in hollywood
On the first weekend of November, I had a friend visiting me for her first trip to LA. I love when my out of town friends come into to town and visit me. It gives me a chance to show off the city I’ve spent three and a half years growing to love.
We did all the stereotypical things one would expect when coming to LA: Disneyland, Hollywood Blvd., and the beach. I asked her if there was anything particular that she wanted to do only to receive an apathetic reply. So, I made my own little tour for the weekend.
Following a day at Disneyland, we decided to go to Hollywood on Saturday. The most obvious and tourist friendly place for out-of-towners is the Highland and Hollywood center. It’s $2 parking for 4 hours, accessible to the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame.
On this particular day, we had a nice quick lunch before walking out and noticing that Hollywood Blvd. was blocked off. The one thing she had kinda requested was to see the hand and foot prints at the theatre. As we walked over there, we noticed a bunch of lights, microphones, cameras, and slowly people congregating. Then we noticed that the theatre was off limits. Turns out there was a premiere for the movie Fred Claus.
We eventually decided to stick around since apparently the premiere festivities were about to start. I grabbed my camera and looked like a paparazzo perched to the side amongst a little crowd near the entrance of the red carpet. Eventually, black cars drove up and let out celebrity after celebrity, many of whom I couldn’t name or had no idea who they were.
After standing there taking photographs of whomever I could, a guy approaches us with a stack full of passes in his hand. “Does anyone want a pass to a screening?” he asked. Sounded good to me. So we both tried fighting for passes not thinking much of it. Maybe it was just some random screening of this movie on another weekend. Our diligence paid off as we were the last two tickets that he had in his hand.
After receiving the tickets, we looked on the passes to see what date this screening was for.
Hey, wait, isn’t this today’s date? I asked.
“It sure looks like it; what time is it?” she replied.
The premiere start time was 4pm on Saturday, November 3rd. Wait, that was… we had the golden tickets to this premiere! We walked to the entrance of the red carpet and they let us right through! I walked my very first and only Hollywood premiere!
As we passed on the left portion of the red carpet, we passed all the celebrities on the right as they were doing interviews with the media. I got a good look at most of the celebrities up close and even met a couple. Premieres are all they’re cracked up to be too: free everything and unlimited access to all of it. Hollywood knows how to party in style
The strangest part of the whole experience for me was after the movie was over. We waited a couple of minutes for the crowd to die down before making our way up the aisle. Then, as if on cue, stands up Vince Vaughn, Fred Claus himself. How many times in your life do you see a movie with the lead star, only to see him in person after the movie is over?
Only in Hollywood.
I got a phone call last Tuesday evening for an invitation to a screening of the movie Atonement. Once again, not expecting anything, I got to see a pretty decent movie with some very mature and deep themes of romance, lost hope and lifelong regret.
The screening finished followed by a Q&A with the director. Then, the surprise turned even better: all the leads were in attendance. It was quite a treat to hear each of them talk about different elements of the movie and how it was all put together. Keira is even more attractive and radiant in person.
In a span of a month, I attended two events which were spontaneous and unplanned surprises. People back in Texas ask me when I’m moving back, expecting me to be ready to go back to what I had before and continue life in Texas. As far as I’m concerned, I’m enjoying the availability of events like this and look forward for more to come. I’m just having too much fun to actually go anywhere else.