Mingling with the Stars in London

As mentioned in my last post, I have recently been to England and Belgium and had THE perfect trip! One of the highlights was accidently coming upon a movie being shot in London. I was on my way to the Globe Theater, to talk with the Gift Shop manager about selling a line of Shakespeare related charms in their store, when, just coming off the Millenium Bridge (or as the Americans keep calling it, “the Harry Potter bridge”),

I saw a film crew setting up a scene for a picture the BBC is making. I love movies so I stopped to watch a little of the process.

I started looking around and I suddenly I saw an actor that I recognized as Hugh Bonneville,

one of my FAVORITE English actors.

He looked like he was going over lines while waiting for the scene to be ready,

so I asked one of the employees that was assigned to keep the public at bay, if she would take a business card I had and ask him for his autograph. I explained that I was visiting from Arizona and he was a favorite of mine. She said sure and took the card and pen back to him. They spoke for a minute and he looked in my direction and to my amazement, he started coming out to meet me.

He was so nice! I introduced myself and told him I really enjoyed his work and he asked if I was visiting or what, so I was able to explain about our trip to Oxford and about my line of Shakespeare charms that I was trying to sell. I asked about the movie they were working on which is entitled “London 2012” and he explained to me a little about what it is about. We joked that I wouldn’t get to see it for about 2 years after it is released because that is about how long it takes for English movies to make it to America. He was even nice enough to have his picture taken with me also.

Although I had many amazing experiences on this trip, and yes, you will be hearing about many of them in the coming weeks here, I would have to say that this was in the top 5 of the exciting things that happened on this trip.

Hugh Bonneville is not only a really good actor he is a really nice man and now he is officially my favorite English actor (See updated favorites list in the side bar!). Sorry, Rupert, Richard, Colin, James, and Ben. (Hugh Jackman doesn’t count since he is Australian).

Some of my favorite Hugh Bonneville movies are:

Notting Hill

Mansfield Park (1999)

Miss Austen Regrets

Lost in Austen

and Daniel Deronda

…plus many others. Check him out!!!