People Share Their Best-Ever Run-Ins With A Celebrity

Gordon!

Bumped into Gordon Ramsay in the lift in a hotel in Hong Kong. He was very friendly. We didn't talk to him or ask for a picture. I just blurted out "You're Gordon Ramsay!" and he acknowledged and smiled. He insisted on us going first because we had our suitcases with us, wished us a nice day, said bye several times when we saw him in the lobby again. Very friendly! Turicus

Good Service. 

All of these were waiting tables:

Waited on Gene Wilder for his birthday years ago, he was incredibly nice and laughed so hard he cried when I told him we had "everlasting pistachio" ice cream.

Betty White was hilarious and tipsy after wine and would not stop flirting. If I had been 60 years older....

NPH was also gracious as humanly possibly, insisted we have a drink with his table while we waited on him, and tipped like a champ.

Seth McFarlane was amazing. Drew me an original cartoon and signed it there at the table. After paying and tipping 100% he refused to let me buy him a shot of whiskey and instead bought me one, then invited us to meet him out later. aestusveritas

Good John. 

I was working on a set once where John C. Reilly acted as one of the main characters. It was a pretty small set and low budget (not even sure if the show ever aired) so we all found ourselves working closely together for the most part.

I sat across from him during lunch one day and we chatted for a bit about random stuff.

The guy talks the same way he acts, which is why I think he plays such a great character in any comedy because he quite literally plays his own attitude in many roles.... at least it seems.

But anyway he was a very nice and down to earth guy, I found it hard not to giggle every time he spoke because I just couldn't shake the image in my head of all the roles he's played. tommyboy6733

"hey, you're the quietest kid ever, don't you talk?"

I met John Candy on a plane when I was a little kid while traveling with my family. He was a big man. He had the whole row to himself in front of us with the armrest up between seats so he could be more comfortable. The stewardesses were blocking anyone from coming up and bothering him, even though they themselves were not exactly leaving him alone what with talking to him constantly and laughing at his enjoyable banter the whole trip.

At some point he got up to go to the bathroom. When he came back he looked at me, pretended to do a double-take like he was surprised and said , "hey, you're the quietest kid ever, don't you talk?" The way he said it was so friendly that I just smiled and giggled. Then he had a pleasant conversation with my parents, who had been DYING to talk to him the entire flight, but were too polite to bother him.

Not even 2 weeks later we heard he had passed. starstarstar42

Laurie!!!

Jamie Lee Curtis was one of the sweetest people I've ever met, bar none and easily the nicest celeb I met working the camera. Very considerate and thoughtful person. She kept checking with us to see if she could do anything for us or if we needed any more shots she could help with. Great sense of humor too. tikikatt

Helen the Great!

A few years ago Helen Mirren came to my job. I worked as a weekend hostess at a Ukrainian diner in NYC's the East Village, and very famous for its pierogis. I didn't know who Helen Mirren was at the time, and as it was a busy Saturday brunch, I asked for her name, put it on the wait list and let her know it would be 20 minutes. She just stood off to the side and talked with her two other companions.

Never bothered me. Never demanded to be seated sooner. Never brought up her celebrity status. Customers kept coming up and asked if that was THE Helen Mirren. My boss eventually made me seat her before everyone else. Helen looked at her watch and remarked it hadn't been 20 minutes! All in all, Hellen Mirren 10/10 lovely person. la-noche-viene

See Adam Run!

I ran into Adam Sandler outside of a Planet Fitness in Brooklyn in early 2016.

As I was leaving the Planet Fitness, it looked like he was walking in. We made eye contact, so I stopped and held the door for him. He got to the door and stopped right before he walked through, in one of those fake poses that little kids make when you tell them to freeze. I stood there holding the door, plenty confused.

For about five seconds, we just stood there- him, motionless and I, standing there holding the door. Finally, he turned his head and said in the stereotypical Adam Sandler voice, "Ahhh, who we kidding? I'm not going in there!" Giant grin on his face. We both laughed and then he continued down the street.

Awesome. WatchTheBoom

Fan Girl...

Met Colin Mochrie at some obscure convention in my city. He actually talked to us for a few minutes and I basically just fan-girled about Whose Line and Royal Canadian Airforce. Really great guy, he has my absolute respect. slackbabbith

Talk to me Bill....

For a couple years I went to a private school in Connecticut. My last year there, Bill Murray's sons transferred in. Neither was in my grade, but one of them was in the play with me. I was super nervous, but I was an SNL fan my whole life and had the 20th anniversary book that talked about all the cast members and behind the scenes stuff. After the show I (really shyly) said hi and told him I was a fan and asked him to sign it.

He said "whoa! I haven't even seen this yet! Cool!" and then told the biggest lie ever told and said I was good in the show (I was awful, I forgot all my lines).

Weirdly, this wasn't the first time I saw him. When I was about 6 we were at a restaurant in new jersey and he and his wife were at another table. Ghostbusters had just come out and I wanted to say hi but my parents stopped me.

Nice dude. LeastCleverNameEver

"Ok. So he is kind of a Baldwin!" 

I met Paul Rudd on a flight from NY, sat next too him on the plane. My buddy leaned over and told me that he wanted to compliment him on this band shirt he wore when making Clueless, but he "didn't want it to be weird." So his solution was to write him a note and slip it to him, lol.

So he does this, and Paul just gets this nervous look on his face, opens the note and reads it. Starts cracking up laughing, leaned over to us and said "best note ever." He then told us the whole story of the shirt, how he fought with the costume dept about it because it was the shirt he wore to set that day. We talked the whole flight, dude was super cool. _Glibnik_

Robin.

When I was younger, my grandmother and I ran into Robin Williams eating alone in a Whole Foods. We approached him and introduced ourselves and he immediately cleared a space for us to sit and chat with him. I was pretty young at the time, so he spent most of the time trying to make me laugh by doing voices.

I may have been too young to truly appreciate it at the time, but looking back I can easily say it's one of the greatest moments of my life and Robin has always had a special spot in my heart because of it. barkleyhound

Guy. 

My only experience with Guy Fieri thus far was cordial. Did a guest presentation for us and took plenty of photos.

But every time there's a wildfire or other depressing thing going on around here, he has his "second responder" crew ready to feed and care for all the first responders. nayhem_jr

Samuel. 

Samuel L. Jackson at the Calgary stampede in Canada. He was super nice. My family went up for it because my uncle is part of the committee that organizes the stampede every year and he got us VIP seating. I was a kid at the time and I was like does your wallet really say OBAMF? He laughed and said he left that one at home. Of course when I told the story at school I told everyone his wallet did in fact say that. nokarma4ulolz

Vin. 

I met Vin Diesel at a truck stop diner when I was a kid.

It was like 4 in the morning and me, my grandpa and vin and his friend were the only ones in the diner, and we ended up getting sat at the table next to them.

Vin and a friend were getting ready to go on some fishing trip which was made obvious by the clothes they were wearing.

My grandpa struck up a conversation about fishing with him, completely oblivious to who he was. He was a really nice guy and apparently knew a great deal about fishing techniques.

I was a bit geeked out and didn't say much or contribute to the conversation but I spent the next hour of our road trip explaining to my grandpa who vin diesel was and why it was a huge deal we just met him. weekendbrainsurgeon

"What's going on fellas?"

Met Dave Chappelle a few years back. Long story short, a friend of a friend got me and two friends into an after party. We were sitting at the bar when his manager offered us some shots. We talked with his manager for a while. Then Dave sat down near us. Dave was kind of sitting by himself and he looks over at us and goes "What's going on fellas?" And we talk to him for about an hour. We thanked him for coming to our town, talked about music, sports, all kinds of stuff. Super cool dude. One of my favorite memories. nstb21

Don. 

My husband and I were wandering around Philly a few years ago and Don Cheadle was walking toward us. We both stopped and turned as we watched him go by. After he passed us he turned around with a big smile and waved/winked.

I just thought that was pretty cool. Janisneptunus

Gentle Neil. 

When I was a teenager, I met Neil Armstrong at a retirement ceremony that my dad brought me to. It was at a museum and it was a private event. There was time for everyone to wander the museum, and my dad saw Mr. Armstrong looking at one of the planes that my dad helped design. Nobody else around. They struck up a conversation and Neil asked me questions about what I was studying and how I felt about the work my dad did (my dad worked on classified planes when I was much younger). He seemed like such a gentle guy to me.

A bunch of other men suddenly joined as and started asking him for autographs, which he declined. It seemed to snap him out of his happy mood, and he kind of shut down and walked away. At that time I thought he was a bit of a jerk for not saying goodbye or anything, but I recently read about the hard time he had with fame, and I guess it makes sense. rain-dog2

Harry.

Photo by Jonathan J. Castellon on Unsplash eggsmashumactually

Blessed Tea. 

Went with my parents to a function for some charity group and we shared a table with Ice-T. Super nice guy, down to earth and not high on himself. He has a mouth on him but when he found out my Dad is a retired preacher never heard a bad word again the rest of the night. I ended up talking music and how he goes from Rap to Metal. Man is cool and knows his stuff about the metal and Punk scene. Gundamsafety

Dwayne.

My mom and sister met The Rock when he was still a wrestler. They had a couple car seats and tons of bags having a heck of a time getting off the plane and people were waiting and then this massive guy offered to carry some things for them and they happily took the help, he grabbed some bags and held the baby carrier with my niece in it and helped them off the plane and left. After people kept going up to them asking how they knew The Rock and they were very confused until someone explained who he was. sendgoodmemes