One Last California Hurrah!

Wowww I haven’t updated y’all in a while. Do people even read this? Haha oh well, I’m bored at work so I suppose I’ll just updatecha.

This weekend was awesome! Starting with Wednesday, when my weekend starts, I went to a taping of Chelsea Lately after work. I wish I could say it was awesome…but I was kind of disappointed. :( The guest was Fat Joe, but he had to pre-record his interview so they just showed it to us on the TV screens. All we got to see was the table chatter, her intro-monologue, and the outro. HOWEVER, Ross the Intern was one of the comedians so that was fabulous, and I was also sitting like right next to Chuy the whole time. So yeah, it was super short, but still fun. :)

Thursday and Friday I kind of just lounged around, packed up the apartment (well, really just my clothes) and cleaned a little bit so that when my parents come on Tuesday they won’t think I’ve been living like a slob, hehe. Friday afternoon my cousin (the one who works at E!) called me and asked me if I had gone to an E! shoot yet (basically what that is is going “on location” to shoot stuff for the news and Daily 10), and I was like no, I didn’t know I could! Haha, so she hooked me up and arranged for me to go to a press junket at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons the next morning (Saturday). The junkets going on there that day were for Nanny McPhee Returns, The Switch, and Takers. Jen dropped me off and introduced me to this girl named Gretchen, whose job is basically to just go to junkets and press conferences and various other shoots and interview celebs. How cool is that? My cousin Jen actually used to do that for Access Hollywood before she started at E!.

So anyways, I imagined a press junket to be like the kind you see in movies – you know, where the celebs are sitting at a long table and then the press is seating and calling out questions, scribbling down on notepads. Well I learned that that IS how the press does it, but only the print press. For television shows like E!, ET, Extra, etc, they actually get sit down interviews. So say you’re watching one of those shows and we’ve all seen the stars sitting down with a background behind them, usually the poster of the movie they’re promoting…yeah, that’s what these were. So the first one I went to with Gretchen was for Nanny McPhee. She interviewed Emma Thompson first, and I got to sit in the room and watch. They’re all set up in actual hotel rooms, btw. So yeah, that was super cool to be in the room with Emma Thompson (credits include Stranger Than Fiction, Love Actually, Harry Potter – Professor Trelawney)! Next we went into the room with Maggie Gyllenhaal. So that was super cool because she’s HUGE, you know? This is going to sound weird, but I have this thing with hands. I really like to watch people’s hands while they talk, because when people talk with their hands it just entertains me. Maggie had really great hands. That sounds so weird, I know, but I just appreciate a good pair of hands. Yeah, so. Anyways. After the interviews were finished we went into the press hospitality room and ate free hotel breakfast…nothing better than that! They had freaking free Red Bulls and fancy waters and Cokes, I was in heaven. I chatted with some other press people about RENT and how amazing Nicole Scherzinger was…

OH – how could I forget?! I had gone to see RENT the night before at the Hollywood Bowl! I literally spontaneously bought a ticket about 4 hours before showtime. Directed by Neil Patrick Harris, starring Nicole Scherzinger, Vanessa Hudgens, Wayne Brady, Tracie Thoms (the Joanne in the movie), and other theatre people I didn’t know, ha. But yeah, despite the fact that NPH had to cut about 20 minutes to adhere to Hollywood Bowl curfew (weird, I know?), it was still good. Vanessa Hudgens, bless her heart. She tried, she really did. But she just didn’t get THERE. Not just anyone can play Mimi. She’s a vital character, and has the best songs. Annnnd V-Hudgens butchered them. She did good on the ballads, but the uptempos (Out Tonight especially), she just was lost. Nicole on the other hand…AMAZINGGGG. I was SHOCKED. Girl needs to be on Broadway. She was incredible.

Okay, back to the junket. I was chatting with Gretchen, this little white chick probably in her late 30s/early 40s, and I was asking her who her favorite people she’s interviewed were. She kept naming all the rappers! It was so funny! She was like, “Yeah, I walked in to the room and Ludacris goes ‘Gretchen, she’s my homie!’” Too funny. Then we went downstairs and met up with E! News correspondent Kristina Guerrero and went over her questions that she was going to ask Jason Bateman and JENNIFER ANISTON during the junket for The Switch. Since E! News and the Daily 10 was going to air this, they had the talent do the interviews and Gretchen acted as their producers on this one. So we were all just hanging out in the hotel room waiting for the interviews to start. It was so cool, just hanging with these people I see on E! News on the Daily 10 all the time. Ben Lyons was the correspondent for Daily 10 (um he’s adorable…kinda was crushin), so he was there to interview, too. It was so funny, he just started talking to me as if he knew me and I was so confused but just went along with it, then later Gretchen was like “Ben, have you met Nicole?” and I was like “yeah we kinda met a few minutes ago but not officially” and he was like “wait, I don’t know you? We’ve never met before?” Hahaha he was confused. However, I think his “assistant” who was with him might be his girlfriend. Shucks.

Well anyway, we waited around for a few more minutes, and then BAM, in walks Jennifer Aniston! I was sitting in a chair in the entryway by the door so I was the first person she saw in the room and she looked right at my and was like “HI!” I think I just kinda started and waved. She is sooo gorgeous in person. And seriously, all us girls were talking about this after, but she was just wearing white jeans and a navy tank with a gold necklace, but she somehow makes it look so damn classy. I just want to be herrrr. Anyways, I got to watch Ben and Kristina do their interviews and it was sooo cool. She’s so awesome. I kept thinking “RACHEL GREEN is right in front of meee” hahaha. So then she left, and kind of paused in front of me to say bye, and I was like ahhhh. She is so sweet. Bah. Starstruck. Then Jason Bateman came in to do his interviews, also a very funny, cool guy, and we hung out in the hallway a little more to go over the answers they gave and blah blah blah. I went out into the lobby to get phone reception and I walked by Jennifer again. So cool!

PS - Perez posted this story: http://perezhilton.com/2010-08-09-maniston-might-make-a-twitter

I was totally in the room when she spoke those words to Kristina Guerrero. Hahaha really weird, if you think about it.

The next junket was for the movie Takers, with Chris Brown, TI, Hayden Christensen, etc. We went back up to the press hospitality room and got more food haha, then went over questions for that junket. However, I didn’t get to stay for those interviews because my cousin was coming back to pick me up and take me to her brother/my other cousin’s house in Pasadena. I wasn’t that bummed because no one would really top Jen Aniston, but I kinda regret not sticking around just to SEE TI and Chris Brown. However, Kristina was NOT thrilled about interviewing Chris Brown. She was like “I have no desire to speak with him”. He is NOT popular in the entertainment world after that Rihanna shiz. He deserves it, though. My cousin was talking on the phone to Gretchen after the interview and they were instructed to ask NO questions other than ones pertaining to the movie, but we slyly asked his thoughts on Eminem’s new video featuring Rihanna (for the song about domestic violence…bahaha love the sneakyness) and then his publicist killed the interview after that and he didn’t answer. Neener neener neener! :p

Then off I went to Pasadena to my cousin Sean’s house. I haven’t seen him or his wife since their wedding in NYC when I was NINE! So it was great to see them, and I got to meet their two little ones for the first time! They were precious! Emily is 3 and Matthew is 6, I think. So so cute. We hung out at their house, which was in a total Brady Bunch neighborhood, then we went into town and ate at a Benihana type place. The kids were freaking out whenever they caught the stuff on fire, haha. So that was fun. Then we got ice cream afterwards and headed back to LA with my cousin Jen. :)

The rest of the weekend consisted of me trying to salvage my measly tan and packing up the rest of my stuff. I have to say…I am REALLY going to miss LA and everything about it. Through E!, I pretty much have constant access to tapings and junkets and things like that, and just living in LA I can wander wherever celebs roam, and can freely go see shows like RENT anytime I want. I’ll definitely miss that accessibility, but I am SO ready to get back to Texas. I’m just so anxious to set up my room at the new house and start the school year! I miss my friends and Baylor and Theta and…DRIVING. I haven’t done that in 3 months…should be interesting the first time I get behind the wheel, haha!

Well, adios for now! I’ll try to bang out one more update before I leave Cali. Coming up: parentals come to town, possibly Disneyland, and POSSIBLY going to the SYTYCD finale!!! Cross your fingers! :) :) :)