Swooning for Free

PaleyFest 2010

Thursday, March 11

FlashForward

When my friend Glenn had offered to buy tickets to PaleyFest for me and my other friends, I couldn't afford the seats I wanted, so I passed.  But a few weeks later, Aura saw that Goldstar was offering free tickets to the event, and I jumped at them.  Seeing Joseph?  For FREE?  Are you frickin' kidding me?  So off we went.

I arrived really early, because I went there straight from work.  My tickets wouldn't be ready for awhile, so I sat in my car and caught up with a couple of friends on the phone.  Aura called to tell me that she was running late and traffic was being evil.  So I picked up our tickets (after leaving the confirmation in the car -- duh), and walked into the Saban Theatre.  I found Mox sitting in the same section, so I sat there, and eventually waved to Glenn and Cindy, whom were sitting in the front orchestra section.  

I actually wasn't sure that Joseph would be there, seeing as his wife had just given birth to their child the day before, but, like my friends said, "She's done, though, right?  Why wouldn't he be there?"  I just figured he'd want to bond with his child, but OK, whatever.

We were given a rough cut of the first 20 minutes of the first show of the return from hiatus.  Whoa.  They stopped the film at quite the cliffhanger moment, and the whole audience let out a collective "AUGHHHH!"  

Then the actors, the writers, and producer from the show were introduced, and I tried to remain calm.  I think I did a good job of it, considering the fact that I was so busy staring at Joseph and smiling, thinking of unzipping those zippers on his jacket...Oh, hi, there.  Well, it didn't help when Joseph himself said that the cast has porn names for each other's characters, especially when our group had just been discussing porn names the previous weekend.  For the record, Joseph's character's porn name if "Mark Bangford".


I kind of lost my mind at that point, but I do remember Dominic Monaghan wondering about the kangaroo.  I also laughed at the fact that Sonya Walger was teasing Brian Byrne about not knowing the show was based on a book.  Dude, you're ON the show!  The exchanges between Courtney Vance, Jack Davenport, and Dominic were hilarious.  John Cho was funny, as well, and I loved his reaction to the question of movies vs. television.  Kinda snarky, but I still liked it.  

Here is TVGuide.com's clip of the event:

They had a Q&A afterward with the audience, and I was happy that someone acknowledged Joseph's new daughter (Congratulations, Joseph!).  I like the question on the PaleyFest site that asked if he would do any theater in L.A., but nobody asked that there.  I was way too shy (yeah, me!) to ask anything, and didn't even go up to the stage for an autograph.  I figured that Joseph and I needed to meet in more memorable circumstances....plus, seriously, I was too shy!  There was the star of my favorite movie of all time, speaking in that awesome accent, and...oh, I'll probably just faint if I ever met him for real.  


I had a fun time, though, and I get to say that I had been in the same room as Joseph Fiennes.  Thanks for the Goldstar tip, Aura!  


This is, unfortunately, the best picture that I took of Joseph that night.  We were kind of far away, and I think I might have been shaking a little bit.  ;)  Still....swoooon!