Awards shows and Now You See Me red carpet story

I got invited to go to the SAG awards tomorrow. I will do a write up on that when I get the chance. I was talking to my friend about all the weird celebrity stories and he encouraged me to write them out so I thought this would be a good place to do it and this one was a good one to start off on.

Even though I was in 21 Jump Street, I wasn't able to go to the premiere because I had just gotten a small role in the movie Now You See Me at the same time the premiere would have happened. I had already bought my plane ticket to Los Angeles, rented a car, found lodging, and everything. But then I found out I booked this role and I was on the fence on whether or not I should go to the premiere for the potential to network, or take on an actual role in a movie that was waiting for me in Louisiana. I asked for advice from Phil Lord (one of the directors from Jump Street), Henry Griffin (my screenwriting teacher from UNO), and my co-stars in Jump Street. All of them said I should just take the work. There are always more premiere to be had and honestly they're not very cool anyways.

So I did take the role and it did end up being a great experience. I did want to follow up on going to other premieres so I asked early about going to the premiere for Now You See Me. At the time, I was already living in Los Angeles, but not actually working that much, and I found out that the premiere would actually end up being in New York. Because my role was really small, I felt like it would have been kind of a waste to fly out to New York for the premiere. However, they did tell me that I could go to a press screening that was happening in Los Angeles. I figured a press screening was just a small screening for people in the press to watch and give reviews or something, which isn't glamorous but I could at least watch the movie.

I rolled up to the movie theater wearing my office clothes because I had come out of working as a temp in the HR department of some office in Koreatown. As I walked up to the entrance of the theater I noticed that there was a red carpet with a line of photographers and everything. Apparently, even though it's a press screening, it's still a red carpet event and was actually pretty much another premiere. I got nervous and hung around the sidelines because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to just walk in like everybody else or if I was even allowed to go on the red carpet. I was also by myself because I invited my friend Brett (who was also from Jump Street) and he told me last minute that he was bailing out.

So as I'm hanging on the sidelines, I see the director (Louis Leterrier) also standing around the side. I was debating on whether I should go up and talk to him, but was worried that he might not even remember me since I had a pretty small role. Eventually, he caught a glimpse of me and walked straight up to me. He definitely remembered who I was. "I've been editing this movie for months! How can I not remember you?" He asked if I was living out in L.A. and about how I was doing etc. Then near the end he asked if I got a chance to walk the red carpet. "Am I even allowed to walk the red carpet?" He then told me of course I was. I was in the movie. Why wouldn't I be?

So, I decided to try and make my move. After all, the director told me I can go up right? I started walking up to the red carpet. I noticed Jesse Eisenberg had just started walking down and I was going to go in right behind him. I stepped up to the entrance of it and this big guy stops me and asks what I'm doing. "I'm in the movie. The director said I'm allowed to walk down the red carpet." The guard kind of scoffs a bit and just says "Yeah right" then gets some people to escort me away into the theater.

Because I already felt like I didn't belong at all, I really didn't have the strength to try to back any of it up and I just let them escort me away. It was pretty embarrassing. He told me I don't belong there and I pretty much agreed with him. I eventually walked into the theater and just sat in my seat. I watched the movie and saw my part and my eyes lit up for a second. Then I realized my part was less than 10 seconds and before I knew it I was gone. I finished up the movie and left the theater. That was it. I guess premieres really aren't that cool.

New Podcast and Videos!!!

So I finished one of the videos that took forever. Tried handing it off to two different editors before finally just doing the final touches myself. The video came together because we all met up to shoot one video and we realized we weren't ready to shoot it at all. So we came up with an idea on the spot and ended up shooting this. Go ahead and watch it. It came out pretty ok.


I also went on a podcast today called Box Office Breakdown. It was the first time I was a part of a podcast that was at a studio so that was an interesting experience. Thanks to SchmoesJTE for inviting me on that one. Hopefully I get more chances to talk about random stuff.


Edit: I was on another episode of JTE Movie Thinks so here's the link for that one. It's the 1/26/16 episode.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jte-movie-thinks!/id955398045?mt=2

Golden Globes

So this past Sunday the Golden Globes happened. Leading up to it, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to partake in any of the activities, but The Big Short was nominated for four awards. About a week before the awards, I got an invitation to attend one of those parties where companies just give you watches and stuff to wear to the awards. I wasn't actually invited to the awards themselves, but my manager definitely me to just go to get free stuff. Unfortunately, the day before that party actually happened, I got a notice that the list was severely shortened and unfortunately my invitation was a part of that short list. It was kind of strange and disheartening, but I figured it just wasn't my time yet.

A day before the awards, I got a notice that I was invited to the Viewing and after party hosted by Paramount Pictures. I found out I was also able to bring one guest. My first go to choices were either my sister or cousin who had always begged me to invite them to something like this. Unfortunately both were busy. From there I wasn't really sure who to invite, but then I had the idea to invite my co-star from the film Jeffry Griffin since he was still in Louisiana and wasn't really getting invitations to stuff like this. So I told him he could crash at my place and he offered to fly up and the plan was set in motion.

The next day I picked him up at the airport and went straight to the party at the Chateau Marmont. This was apparently a famous party hotel for the Hollywood elite. I wasn't really sure what we were going to walk into, but I was preparing myself for what might possibly be the biggest night of my life. We dropped our car off at the valet, took the elevator to the penthouse floor, and walked into the party only to find that there were only like ten people there. I was really confused actually. I didn't really recognize anyone (though I imagine anyone I would have recognized was probably at the awards themselves). Me and Jeff got some food and sat at a table and met Emma who was the fiance of Jeremy Strong, he was in the scene with us. She knew who we were when we walked in the room and we talked to her mostly through this. The costume designer of the film and her husband were also around and talking to us. Still, this was not quite what I expected for a big exclusive Golden Globes party.

We watched the Golden Globes and ate food. The big disappointment of the night was losing best comedy to The Martian because most of the blogs and critics had Big Short favored to win. While the Big Short can't really be classified as a straight comedy, The Martian most definitely is not a straight comedy either. I imagine they'll change some of the criteria for the award in the future. Either way, once that happened the energy in the room quickly died. Once the awards were over people started leaving and we asked people what was supposed to happen and the best answer we could get from anyone was "We'll have to see. A lot of people don't even want to go out because we lost." So me and Jeff were at this party that was breaking down at like 8 PM and we were wondering if we should just go home. Around the moment that we were getting read to leave though, Brad Pitt walks through the door and someone exclaims "Oh, nevermind. Looks like the after party will be here after all."

So little by little, everyone who was at the awards starts to show up. I got to catch up with Jeremy Strong and Hamish Linklater who were really cool and excited to see me when I went to the first screening. Had a decent conversation with Finn Wittrock about what he was doing next and how he felt about everything. He was a cool guy. There came a point where me and Jeffry kept trying to find our in to talk to Brad Pitt and Adam McKay who were sitting at a couch with people surrounding them. Eventually a girl (I forgot her name) must have seen how clueless we looked and made a point to walk us up to introduce us. Had a short conversation with both. It wasn't much, but I guess we got to let our presence by acknowledged.

Eventually the focus started to turn to getting into the WME party on the ground floor. I wasn't really sure if we could really get in because it seemed like we could barely get into the Paramount party. Hamish was really cool though and made a point to champion our way in. He walked with us down to the first floor and tried to starpower his way in. Unfortunately the doorperson even turned him away, which must have been a little embarrassing. He then called up his girlfriend Lily Rabe (I think?) and eventually the door person must have gotten word from someone and we were allowed into that party.

This party was absolutely nuts. Like shoulder to shoulder with people and it was crazy because every single one of those people were celebrities of some sort. I saw 2-3 people walking around with Golden Globe statues themselves. Had random mini conversation with people like Selena Gomez, Aziz Ansari, Eric Wareheim, the daughters of Eric McLeesh (one of the actual lawyers from Spotlight), Jonah Hill (who mostly wanted to talk to about my mom), Rick Famuyiwa, Sam Smith, etc etc. It was just a crazy night. Pretty much everyone who was at the Golden Globes was at that party. Not sure what else to say. Around 3 AM the party started shutting down so we left.

I came out of it feeling like I had just done one of the most Hollywood things so far in my L.A. journey, but at the same time I felt like I'm pretty much the same person the next day. Even though I got to briefly meet a lot of people, I'm not sure if I really solidified any real relationships with anyone. Maybe I did it wrong, not sure. Anyways, it was neat. I'm going to post again soon with a video I made recently. Also I'm excited for the new year. 

P.S. Hi Melanie, since I think you're the only one who reads these posts.