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.