I was shopping in a local Baltimore grocery store the other day when I spotted Terry O’Quinn, the actor who plays John Locke on Lost. I didn’t realize at first why I thought I knew him, and so I admit I sort of stared him down for a second while I tried to recall where we met. Once I realized who he was, I felt bad for intruding on his psychic space and promptly returned my attention to my own produce. Brian nudged me to say something to him and later my dad said he would have asked him about his show, but approaching him–even to just say, “Hey, love your work!”–never even occurred to me.
But later it made me wonder: Do performing artists want to engage in conversations with strangers about their work? Pause in their cereal selection for a thumbs up from a passing shopper? Or would they prefer to just be left alone? As a fan, what’s the best response to this kind of situation?
Living for many years in celebrity-dripping Malibu as I did, this kind of thing occurred fairly often (and yes, frequently in the grocery store. Celebs gotta eat and buy kitty litter too, I guess. Imagine that). Most of the time I had nothing of pith to say to [name your famous actor here]; I mean, either they are so utterly gorgeous that one is tongue tied, or they are so frighteningly plastic surgeried and Botoxed out of their gourd that one is… uh… tongue tied.
But one day I was in the health food store, and there was TV’s then popular U.S. President Martin Sheen standing in the checkout line next to me. Not long before, a remarkable West Wing episode had aired which featured… gasp!… contemporary music! The Prez had been reticent to attend a concert with a new symphonic work, but at the end of the episode he stood on the White House balcony and reflected upon his epiphany that hearing the new piece was soul-altering (wow, can we put this in a drug and sell it??).
In addition to admiring Sheen’s real-life activism on behalf of the homeless, I very much wanted to tell him how much it meant to me and countless peers that the writers and producers had scripted all of this bit about new music, and so touchingly. But instead, as Mr. Sheen placed his organic produce on the black rubber conveyor belt, for some reason I couldn’t figure out how to quickly say something to him before he left the store. That was the one time that I’ve truly regretted not speaking up. So now, if I have something positive to say to a stranger, I no longer hesitate!