Well, today proved to be a much more interesting day o’ TIFF than the first two days. If you hadn’t noticed, I didn’t even write anything about those two days because not a whole lot happened. However, here’s a brief recap:

Day 1: Worked a big 10.5hrs shift at the fest. Spending all that time doing a not-so-interesting job this year made me miss the bustling days back when I was a Volunteer Captain. I really do miss the headset. I feel out of the loop. Didn’t see much in the way of celebs, other than local repeats like Jian Ghomeshi and George Stroumboulopoulos. Wasn’t able to watch any movies, but slept like a baby when I got home.

Day 2: Got a ticket to catch a 9:15am screening of “Like You Know It All”, a Korean flick, before working a much shorter festival shift. The movie was alright, but it’s clear that I should’ve gotten a coffee beforehand. Apparently, staying alert for two hours in a dark room, barely an hour after waking up, is a bit of a chore for me. I didn’t fall asleep, but damn, I got pretty close. My actual shift went by pretty quickly. Just five “Press & Industry” movies to worry about. As for celebs, not a single one.

So here we are, about a half-hour after getting home from my shift at Day 3. I spent the morning watching an Irish movie, “Perrier’s Bounty“, which I had to “rush”. It wasn’t a packed house by any means, so getting a seat was easy. The movie was great! For lack of a better description, it’s like an Irish version of a Guy Ritchie caper. Actors Jim Broadbent and Cillian Murphy were perfectly cast as the estranged father/son pair. On my way to meet my boyfriend for some all-day breakfast afterward, I passed actor Alexander Siddig on the sidewalk outside one of the hotels near the theatre. He’s in town promoting his movie “Cairo Time“. But of course, when I saw him, my first thought was “Hey, that was Dr. Julian Bashir!” (from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). He’s much shorter than I expected, maybe just a couple inches taller than me.

After I scarfed down some delicious Eggs Benedict, off I went to my third festival shift. It started off pretty slowly, but later in the afternoon/evening there were a couple of Public screenings that called for some red carpet action. Being stationed where we are at the Varsity, we are right next to the makeshift “green room” and paparazzi area where any of the movie talent wait it out before making an appearance and Q&A before a public screening. First, to promote their flick “Defendor“, Woody Harrelson, Elias Koteas and Kat Dennings hung out with the press for a bit, about 10 feet to our left. A couple hours later, in support of his screening of “Solitary Man“, Michael Douglas zipped through 20 mins after the scheduled showtime, so he promised the press that he would be back to answer questions and have photos taken. He’s another actor that’s a lot shorter in person. Although he isn’t in the movie, Matt Damon, hand-in-hand with his wife, also came to the screening. He was pretty much just as I expected.

I’ll admit that I do get starstruck by stars, major or minor, so it does irk me a bit that my little cell phone doesn’t have a camera on it. Grr.