Me and Mr Defoe.

I guess I can confidently and just a little smugly say that I am not one to get star struck. The only time I did feel star struck, it was a mistake as the person in question turned out not to be a star, so it didn’t count.
Part of it is that I usually recognize famous people. If I do, I’m just not one to faint or squeal and I definitely don’t think Orlando Bloom & Co. are good enough reason to go to Caprice.
I have worked with a few stars and it just never felt appropriate to start stammering at the sight of some famous naked breasts whether they were Beth Dito’s or Natalie Portman’s. The latter especially seemed just like any other normal girl with a bad post-breakup haircut (it was just after she had finished V for Vendetta). It may have also simply been too early in the morning when we shook hands and I hadn't had coffee and a cigarette yet to be properly awake and thus star struck despite the haircut. Now that I think of it, before the guys get envious, I also never saw her boobs as she was very shy and always changed by herself behind a curtain.
Now that I think about it, I might just be so smug as I haven't really met anyone star struck worthy yet. The time I was in Nureyev's house, would count, but then again he wasn't there. In fact he was already long dead and no, I didn't see his ghost. So I guess, you cannot really consider it star struck, I was just in awe by being allowed to walk on the floors which his very talented feet had once touched.

Yesterday I stumbled across this video again:

Despite not missing my old job one bit, I was thinking how it came that I was never on a shoot like this and whether I may have missed out on my chance to be ever properly star struck. What are my chances now after leaving fashion to ever meet someone like him? I started thinking how it would have, could have been. Would I call him Mr Defoe? Probably, but not because I’d be star struck, but because it’s simply polite. Not because he is famous either. I wouldn't call him Mr Defoe because he is The Mr Defoe, but because he is well...older. Yes, my mother would approve. I'd be well behaved, but also cool. Because though he is older, he is also very cool. We’d be a match made in a very cool heaven.
You could call me intriguing. Yes, he would definitely be quite intrigued by me. He'd probably give me a little sexy smile and say Please, call me Willem. May I add that my heart rate is up as I’m typing this? Whatever…okay… who am I kidding? I’d be completely and utterly star struck and yet in ideal world nobody would ever notice.
In the regular world however I would probably start to stutter with a strong German accent as one does when hit with proper star-struckness for the first time. In the regular world he would also stare at my breast and make a sleazy line about the great views of Manhattan. Or he would ask me to get him a double soy latte from the bar while dropping his last outfit from the shoot at my feet instead of in my waiting hand.
Both scenarios are actually quite horrifying. After all, we are talking about The Talented, Amazing, Genius Mr Defoe. So I'd rather dream of losing my composure, even in front of him. And so maybe it is just as well that I have never met anyone star struck-worthy. As it I can keep my cool and so can the stars.

Starstruck.

Some people get starstruck and others don't. I belong into the second category. The only time I got close to starstruckness was when I was about to teach a class and my teacher told me before that an actress was going to attend as her production company had called and made arrangements. That didn't really make me nervous since he didn't even know who she was and even if – who cared? Once he told me her name though, I got a bit excited – the girl with the dragon tattoo was coming to my class?? Mind you not the Swedish one, but the one from Hollywood, the one who had hot steamy onscreen sex with Daniel Craig. Which was probably why I got excited, because I pictured us becoming guru and disciple and she telling me all about filming the sex scenes with him. Have I mentioned that I like Daniel Craig so much that I even dated a lawyer for a couple of months in New York just because he had the same nose? A lawyer! The nose! And the nose is really not Daniel's best feature as we can all see.

In the end it was much ado about nothing. It was not the girl, but just a girl with a very similar name and a C class acting history behind her. Nevertheless she was lovely and we got on well, though there was no dirty dishing about Daniel.

So you can see that actors don't really do it for me. Neither do musicians. Definitely not models. I don't know...maybe one gets cool after living in New York and in the fashion industry for too long. I saw quite a few literally stripped naked in front of me and thus they lose facade and what's left is not necessarily pretty or even witty and entertaining. A friend of mine actually snatched a date with Jonathan Rhys Meyers after working with him and she still tells the tale of how he was so boring that she begged one of her favorite bartenders to get him high, so she would at least have some sort of a fun dinner companion.

But you know who gets me non-star-starstruck? Ballet dancers! When I worked on one of my very first shoots in St. Barth's I didn't care about Kate Moss and ignored her request for a Corona at 9am, I cared that we were shooting in Nureyev's house. I felt like I was walking on holy ground – the honor, the prevision that little me, was allowed to set foot into his holiday home!

I remembered that today, because the just recently retired prima ballerina of the Cape Town City Ballet comes to my yoga studio. Not only that, but I had her in the class I taught on Monday and apparently she loved it so much, that she not only told me after class, but again today. Then she chatted to me. Like a friend. I sat there with my mouth slightly open, thinking I must be the luckiest girl alive that a real prima ballerina was talking to me. I was completely starstruck. When we walked to our cars together, I quickly told her my Nureyev story, which let's be honest is little more than an anecdote, but there she was, now looking at me, well, starstruck.