Oh such a long time.....

I have been a bit off the radar lately and I do apologize for that. Perhaps I just find most of what I do not really blog worthy so in actuality I am sparing you all from my boring dribble. But, finally, I did something of interest in the recent weeks. I was sent by Channel V to cover the Asia World Premiere of Valkyrie in Seoul Korea. It was a pretty strange and fun experience for me. Strange because it was the first time I had worked that side of the barrier at a red carpet, and let me tell ya, it was like a mosh pit. Before the craziness of the red carpet I had two sit down interviews with Brian Singer and Chris Mcquarrie, director and writer of Valkyrie. I was uber nerbous as these two were responsible for one of my all-time favorite movies, "The Usual Suspects", but it was all fine because they were both super cool. Then the true insanity started as we started out on the "press" trail following Tom Cruise. Not in a creepy paparazzi way at all, but as in different small shin digs they had going on around town so that Tom Cruise could meet the fans. It was always high pitched screaming and a sea of camera phones. But finally came the moment in which I was actually sent for...my one minute red carpet interview with Tom Cruise himself. 

So, this was my little "area" that was only really surrounded my a mere red rope that was meant to stop these ravenous Cruise-ites...yea right, but we'll get to that in a moment...

We stood there for about an hour. The crowd was heaving with tensed up fanatical energy. A Korean across the way from me slapped on his homemade "Valkyrie" eye-patch and....BAM the place exploded! There he was at the entrance of the red carpet. I was taken aback. Dude's definitely got charisma. He then proceeded to take another 45 minutes making his way down the relatively short carpet shaking hands and taking pictures with EVERYONE. It was really amazing.

At this point, my palms are sweating so badly that the microphone keeps slipping out of my hands. Then, after an eternity, he started talking to the reporters before me, and to my absolute horror I see that he shakes all their hands first, and I panic as "He's gonna think I'm a sweaty pig! Holy Crap Tom Cruise is gonna think I'm a greasy monkey!!!" And then...there he was in front of me...

It was all kind of blur as I tried to keep my composure and not look like the newbie I was. Apparently I got the right questions out of my mouth and responded appropriately, and didn't make an ass out of myself, so all in all  the interview was a success. But then, as he moved on to the next reporter the entire crowd decided that I could be used as a stepping stool for them to get closer to their idol, and came down on me like a Korean tsunami. It was crazy! Thank goodness my producer Sam is not slight of build and managed to rescue me from the ground and push me to the outside of the crowd. After the Cruise man had finally moved on I found my previously pristine sign that was hanging on a nice little silver stand trampled on the floor. They somehow had even managed to rip my sign down in their frenzy...

I survived in one piece, and it was one heck of a learning experience. Now I feel like I could probably handle any sort of red carpet interview situation. It was like  a red carpet boot camp :-)