I'd seen Audrey Tautou last week on stage, playing a comically and overtly dramatic Nora in a production of Ibsen's Doll's House in Theatre Madeleine- which was great- but a very different sensation to seeing someone you felt like you know well (only in 2D) by mistake.
It's a pretty normal experience for many of you, I'm sure, but having only fairly recently moved to a capital city where widely recognisable people live, it was quite a thrill. My nearest comparable experience during my previous life in Cardiff involved a sighting of Chris Eubank bodyguarding an infamous local arms dealer (according to the proprietor of a nearby greasy spoon on a fag break).
So let's revive the moment. I was writing on the first page of a new notebook under mild sunshine on a late mid-May afternoon, in what was for me the newly disovered Square du Temple in the 3eme, when a dollop landed on my shoulder from above. Pissed off, mostly at not having a tissue, I wasted a fresh page in vane trying to cleanse myself and then got a load of the (weirdly green) gunk under my fingernails as it began to rain.
Now I'd always assumed that the superstition of being the target for a bird's shit being good luck was actually an inversion of the truth designed to cheer up the recipient of the unwanted moist present. Today my belief was topsy-turvied.
As I vacated the park via the exit to my left, I walked past Julie Delpy. And as confirmation of that fact, Julie Delpy's dad, as confirmed by the film Two Days In Paris, in which Julie Delpy's actual dad features as Julie Delpy's dad, then walked past me in a hat. This confirmed for me a strangely normal fact: do famous people sometimes go for walks in parks near where they live with their dads? Yes. Yes, they do.
So in a slight fluster of exitement where I had to stop myself from the natural inclination to say 'hi!' because I knew her (or thought I did) when she had no idea who I was; I trusted my instincts, and followed them.
About a minute later, after watching Julie Delpy not acting but living, in real life- waiting at a pedestrian crossing, then crossing the road and taking umbrage from the rain under a cafe's canopy, I decided that I probably had nothing to say to her, even if I did manage to pluck up enough courage after several minutes of stalking.
What should one do in this situation? If you have any idea, please comment below. You want to say something nice in return for the pleasure her work has given you- but what? In retrospect, I could have asked what she thought happened with Jesse [in Before Sunset]- did he stay with Céline? But what would have been more likely to come out of my mouth would be something like, "Hello. I love your films...[slightly mumbled]...Before Sunrise. Amazing." To which she would have probably half smiled and quickly moved on.
And then I could never watch those films again.
Though amongst my favourites, the horrible pangs of embarrassed shame experienced during my nervous momentary encounter with their star would inevitably liken watching them to re-reading old letters from an ex. You keep them, of course, but for what? For the idea that a horrible, bubble-popping moment of memory, reality and fiction merging be a pleasurable one?
Of course. And it sort of is.
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