For most of my life I’ve been chronically awkward around anyone who’s even remotely famous.
I once effusively greeted former British chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne because I knew I recognized him from somewhere. I just assumed he was a friend of a friend. At a conference in Berlin circa 2010, I spilled coffee on the back of former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s suit. On another reporting assignment I tripped and lost a shoe while trailing the late Fiat Chrysler CEO, Sergio Marchionne. Stopping to retrieve it would have caused me to surrender my coveted spot in the press scrum, so I obtained my soundbite barefooted, triggering the notoriously grumpy Italian to crack a pitying smile.
And then there was that time I walked alongside Nicolas Cage’s car for at least half a mile because, well, Nicolas Cage was inside and it’s not often that Hollywood A-listers visit the quaint British spa town of Bath.
So you can imagine the potential for comedic commotion when, toward the end of 2022, a bona fide celebrity moved into my building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
My first source of the breaking news was a mother of five who lives on the eighth floor. “Have you heard,” she half-whispered in the elevator one morning, eyes wide, dramatically over-articulating a very famous name. A fearless and intrepid journalist, I quickly turned to a second source. “Yep, moved in with his wife and kid,” the young, indiscreet doorman confirmed later that evening. And so began the wait for my first — inevitably awkward — encounter with my celebrity neighbor.
It didn’t happen immediately. Movie stars probably don’t care as much as mere mortals about simultaneously paying rent in both New York and Bel-Air. But then, about a month later, I returned from dropping my daughter at daycare to find him maneuvering his own toddler through the lobby and out of the building.
“Good morning!” I declared with the confidence of someone who had spent weeks planning a two or three-word interaction. “Hi!” he retorted with a genuine smile. “Hello!” I then addressed his child, who mutely looked up at me from beneath strands of hair with a look in her unimpressed three-year-old eyes that said: “I get it.”
Later that day, I hauled myself to the tiny windowless gym in the basement of our building. In the three years that I’d lived there, I could count on one hand the number of times someone else had been in the gym during my workout. Alas, things were changing. Just as I’d adjusted the pace on the treadmill, the door opened and he walked in. “Hello!” he beamed again. “Oh hi! Nice to see you again,” I chimed, perilously turning away from the treadmill to offer a wobbly wave.
I spent the rest of my slow jog wondering whether it would be ruder to initiate conversation or not to. What was more normal? What would I do if he were a tax accountant from Poughkeepsie? I skipped my cooldown and stretch and wished him a “happy workout!” before slinking out. A happy workout? Oh lord.
And then it started to become silly. The next day we repeated the charade of me arriving home from drop-off at exactly the same time that he was leaving, then bumping into each other at the gym. When I went out to get coffee, he was in the elevator with his dog. The day after that, walking to a meeting, I spotted him on the other side of the road, so I looked the other way lest I say something dumb. A second later I heard him call from across the street: “Hi, neighbor!
Later that week, after several more unnaturally frequent encounters, I bumped into him as I headed down to get my mail. “Are you stalking me?” he asked. For a milli-second I was overcome with paralyzing fear. Was I about to go down in history as the crazy woman who got a restraining order for holding the door open for her famous neighbor one too many times? Then he laughed.
Soon I decided it was time to take action. One day, at the gym, I pulled myself together. “I don’t think I’ve ever properly introduced myself,” I said, stretching out my hand. “I’m Josie.” Polite as ever, he reciprocated the pleasantries, introducing himself by his first name and inelegantly fist-bumping my fingers which, at that point I realized, were disgustingly sweaty. As he uttered it, a brilliant instinct overcame me. “S-sorry?” I answered without missing a beat, prompting him to repeat his name. I could almost see the look of disbelief in his face: don’t you know who I am? Have you been living under a rock? Have you never read the Daily Mail?
Then — and I might have imagined this — it seemed like his entire demeanor relaxed. If I didn’t know who he was, then I wouldn’t turn out to be a weird superfan trying to get a whiff of his body odor or a lock of his hair or something even more macabre than that. We got on with our workouts and continued crossing paths and exchanging pleasantries: me, relieved he wouldn’t think I’m an unhinged stalker; him, relieved by my entirely feigned ignorance.
We recently crossed paths with our kids in tow. They’re of a similar age so I did what I would have done with any other parent who lives nearby and who doesn’t seem mind-numbingly boring: I suggested we arrange a playdate. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s do it.” I can’t tell whether he meant it. It hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it never will, but if it does, I’m going to treat myself to asking: “So, what do you do for a living?”
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2023 World edition.
