The Existential Hollywood Reporter

Chapter 2: The Usual

Hi Readers!  
Ready for Chapter 2?  I sure am.
Always happy to hear your feedback. :) 
~cw 

Before I progress further with the tale of breakfast... I have to defend myself a little, here.  I'm a Hollywood reporter.  It's my job to interview people in the business, and I have met, literally, hundreds of actors.  The "good looking" ones.  I met with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto during their first Star Trek junket.  I interviewed the cast of Downton Abbey, including Dan Stevens, Mr. Blue Eyes himself.  I've met all the "young, hot guys" like Liam Hemsworth and Nicholas Hoult, and all the "funny fat guys" (who are actually all super-adorable, and totally more my speed) like Kevin James, Louis C.K. and Jonah Hill.  I've met Hollywood "royalty" like Denzel Washington (super cool),  Brad Pitt (snooze), and Leonardo DiCaprio (odd), and the closest I'd ever come to being swoony over meeting an actor was the day I was scheduled to meet with Johnny Depp.  But during the interview he seemed tired, and occasionally like maybe he was on something, and looked past me every time I asked a question. I haven't been swoony over an actor, since.  

In short, over the years, I have learned the valuable lesson that actors and actresses are just people; they put their pants on one leg at a time, they all have bad days, and all of their shits stink.  And nobody is worth freaking out about, least of all a 'name' actor.  

With this actor, I didn't intend to go in all swoony.  That is not how it went down.  I went into it thinking, "I'm going to work," as if my job were accounting, or selling home owner's insurance. So what came over me during the first few seconds of sitting with him is, truly, beyond explanation.  He was just different.  Our meeting was different.  Really, really different. 

That's it. I just wanted that out there, for the record. 

So.  We'd decided to meet at my favorite little café in West Hollywood, at 8:00AM.  I picked this particular café for two reasons:  one, so I wouldn't have to think about what to order, and two, so I wouldn't have to worry about how to get there.  In LA, this really is a thing, getting lost or being late, and I didn't want to run the risk of either. Plus, his 'thing' (a 10:00AM table read) was just around the corner, in the same neighborhood. So, my favorite cafe, it was.  

I also chose it because they make this incredible, life-changing latte thing with dark chocolate and sweetened condensed milk which I can never remember the name of, and an excellent veggie quiche.  And I figured, you know, why not knock his socks off with food? I was betting that he liked food, actual food-food, and not, you know, macrobiotic chia seed and sprout cakes, or something.  What can I say?  I threw the dice on that one. 

After we'd hung up the previous night, (at exactly 10:04PM, not that there's any reason that time was particularly memorable, no reason at all), I spent two hours trying to figure out why we were going to have breakfast.  Finally, when I realized I'd have to get some sleep, I unilaterally decided that this breakfast had to be professional in nature.  There was simply no other reason, no earthly reason, a quasi-handsome-but-not-classically-handsome actor/superstar type would want to meet me for anything else.  Had to be business. Had. To. Be.  And I believed this to be true, in that moment, because my sanity was at stake. 

But the reality of the morning was different.  I got up early, dressed casually (Green Converse, again, for luck), and did the best with my hair. But on the walk over, I replayed his voicemail message, and started panicking.  I thought about our call again, the four-minute long holy shit why are you asking me to breakfast call.  And there was one thing, in both, one thing that seemed just a tad unprofessional: his tone.  He was so earnest. So... happy to hear from me.  Excited, sweet.  Nice.  It just didn't feel like an actor making a business call.  It felt... personal.