15 Minutes of Creepiness

There is a general assumption that all actors want to see their airbrushed face plastered onto the side of a building. If your photograph is so large that vandals have to use a push-broom and a barrel of tar to black out one of your teeth, you've "arrived." You can toil away for years doing important scholarly work deconstructing the Ibsen cycle or making sure that needy children have an artistic outlet and a safe place to go after school, but if someone Googles your name and can't find a picture of you with Tara Reid, somehow success has eluded you.

Logically, a great way to measure success is how many people scream your name wherever you go, and how loudly. After all, you can't spell "fame" without "fan." If you think of the "n" as being an incomplete "m." And I do. I consider myself to be a fan of many things. I really, really like coffee. Put a hot lady in a tank top and have her kick people about the face and neck and I will tune in or buy a ticket. I am one of the 32 Americans who saw Elektra. And who doesn't love puppies?

But I can't say I've ever been a die-hard fan of a person. While I've met a fair share of lovely, level-headed people who understand the boundaries of fandom, here are some phrases that, for some reason, rarely precede the word "fan":

Soft-spoken…
Chronically staid…
Laissez-faire…
Devil-may-care…
Acceptably nonchalant…
Clinically apathetic…

Conversely, results of a Lexis-Nexis search demonstrate that 56% of the time, the word "fan" is used in conjunction with the word "rabid." Rabid, for pete's sake! As in, "affected by an acute virus of the nervous system that is characterized typically by increased salivation, abnormal behavior, and eventual paralysis and death." Paralysis and death, people. In my experience, rabid people need 30 injections to the stomach or, if I'm to believe my zombie lore, a good beheading. And let's not forget the derivation of the word "fan" itself; it isn't short for "tryptophan," folks.

The place with the highest chance for fan-to-actor interaction is, of course, the stage door. When it comes to exiting the stage door, there are two types of actors: actors who find the reception there a reward for a job well done and actors who see it as another part of the job. You can spot the actors who enjoy it because they typically open the door, feign surprise and say something like, "Well, what have we here?" Now I don't consider myself to be famous on any level; I don't simply whip out a Sharpie and assume that people want me to sign their programs, T-shirts or breasts. No, I like to come out, give the crowd an obligatory wave, and if no one asks for an autograph, I am out of there, or "outy," as the kids say. Although I'm not sure that's how the kids are spelling it.

I don't delude myself. More often than not, the crowd is waiting for the marquee names. I'm giving nothing away in telling you that I am not a marquee name. I mean, if I were, would I be writing a weekly column? No, my assistant would do it. By the way, my assistant has just informed me it is spelled "Audi." I have had one too many experiences of going down a line of autograph hounds only to come to the sweet open face of a little boy, gazing up at me with big, saucer eyes, who shyly shakes his head and pulls his program back as I reach out to sign it. That innocent-looking moppet knows what sells on eBay, and non-marquee names ain't it.

Hidden amongst the autograph-seekers and the casual oglers are the line-quoters. You can spot them in the crowd as they stare at you in anticipation, muttering under their breath as they practice their line. When they think they have your attention, they mumble enthusiastically, "Hey, Curly! Oh! What a beautiful morning!" Then they flash you that big uncomfortable smile. I just avoid eye-contact, nod graciously and give a noncommittal titter because A. I've never heard that one before, B. It isn't morning, C. My name isn't actually Curly, and D. I'm scared of you, don't hurt me.

Sometimes the fans take the fight to you. And that can mean only one thing … fan mail. Same awkwardness, just in handy postal form. This is pretty much what you'd expect; you get your self-addressed, stamped envelopes and a request for a signed headshot. You get the occasional scented letter which strikes just the right, lovely tone until the very end where they ruin it with some creepy turn of phrase about how much they like the new curtains you've put up at home. You get your photographs of kids posing in home-made replicas of obscure costumes from Act II or, more disconcertingly, adults posing in home-made replicas of obscure costumes from Act II.

A creative new variation on the fan mail is the request for the surprise, personalized birthday card for the kid. I can't pull myself together enough to write my own brother a birthday card on time. Should I be expected to write a strange 13-year-old girl a card just because an industrious mother included the card, wrote out a cute message from me, forged my signature on it, pre-paid the overnight postage and now all I have to do is "touch it?" I'm sorry. It just reminds me too much of my days as a birthday clown. Wait. I think that came out wrong.

I'll leave you with my favorite bit of correspondence. In some ways I respect it because it cuts out all the baloney. "Dear Actor, please sign enclosed index card. Do not include personal message of any kind. Just sign card. Thank you." No. Thank you, dear fan. As long as I know I've touched just one heart, I can sleep at night. I'm Audi.