What it’s Like to Spend 45 Minutes with Christopher Nolan at an Open Bar

Talking to a famous actor or filmmaker at a premiere or event party is, usually, a terrible experience. Here are a couple of examples. There was an event for John Wick 2 around the time New York Comic Con was happening. A publicist I like asked me to stop by. It wasn't totally out of the way and I hadn't seen this publicist in a while so I decided to do so. At this event, there was some sort of interactive John Wick 2 experience that she had to tend to and, I'll never forget this, she said to me, "I have to go deal with this. Can you do me a favor? While I'm gone, can you hang out with Keanu?"

Now, the "Keanu" she is referring to is the famous movie actor Keanu Reeves. Before I could answer, I'm being escorted over to him, "Keanu, this is Mike. I'll be right back." Keanu Reeves is an extremely nice man. But there were not two people on earth at this moment who had less to say to one another than Keanu Reeves and myself. Keep in mind, too, this is a busy event and it's hard to hear another person in the first place. I remember it went something like:

Keanu: "How's it gong?"

Me: "Good, how are you?"

Keanu: "What?"

Me: "How are you?"

Keanu: "I'm fine."

[Long pause.]

Me: "I remember interviewing you for the first John Wick movie. You gave a funny answer..."

Keanu: "I did?"

Mike: "I asked if you had ever seen Speed 2: Cruise Control. You answered, 'I haven't yet.'"

Keanu: "Oh, I still haven't seen it."

Me: "What?"

Keanu: "I still haven't seen it."

Both of us then stood there in silence for what seemed like 30 minutes, but was probably closer to two minutes.

Here's another example. I went to a premiere party at a film festival for a movie starring Cary Elwes. As soon as I got there, a publicist said to me, "Oh, you have to meet Cary." Before I knew it, I was at a table sitting with Cary Elwes who, understandably, was asking me what I thought about the movie. The problem was, I hadn't seen the movie. I remember Elwes saying, "Ah," before giving me a long description of the plot of his movie that had just premiered, as I nodded along.

This is usually how these kind of interactions go ... awkwardly.

Why go to these in the first place? It's good to catch up with publicists that I like who I don't get to see very often. Or to see old colleagues I don't always get to see because they don't live in New York. (Also, the open bar doesn't hurt.)

The year Interstellar came out, Paramount had a holiday party in New York City in celebration of all of their movies that had been released that year. I distinctly remember the publicist at Paramount coming up to me and saying, "You should meet Chris." She is speaking of the director of the aforementioned Interstellar (and, currently, The Odyessy), Christopher Nolan. For reasons I just explained above, I did not "want to meet Chris." No good would come from this. The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was annoy Christopher Nolan at a holiday party thrown in his honor. Despite my reservations, I was taken over to "meet Chris" ...

(The Hard Pass only exists because of paying subscribers and I do need to have posts just for them. If you decide to become become a paying subscriber today, there is plenty left to this story, plus a lot more like the story I was told about Tom Cruise that is now my favorite Tom Cruise story, and my weird night at The Rise of Skywalker premiere party.)