So for the past few weeks, I've been working as a PA on a silly little comedy called BENCHWARMERS. Fun stuff. Might be good. It's got Rob Schneider, David Spade, Jon 'Napoleon Dynamite' Heder, Jon Lovitz, Tim Meadows, Craig Kilborn, Molly Sims and Nick Swarsden in it.

It's been a fun job and has garnered me many many more contacts which I hope to use to get myself closer to an actual production gig that is ABOVE the line rather than below, since I'm more interested in the pre and post production phase ...

Anyways ... there's also a robot in the flick. I knew there was a guy inside the robot but never thought to assume it would be anybody I'd ever heard about or cared to know.

Well, this past Tuesday, we're on lunch and I'm standing in the line when this tall, skinny man comes up and grabs a plate. I look at him a second and then ask, "Are you Doug Jones?" The man lights up at someone knowing his name and says yes. "Cool! You were Abe Sapien."

He lights up even more, "How do you know me?"

"I watched the dvd."

And then we just start talking on and on about his films and his awesome work as Abe. It was a very cool experience. He was a great guy. He was so stoked that I recognized him. He couldn't talk much about Hellboy 2 yet as no contracts have been signed. Although, he is vying for the chance to do the voice as well next time, but we'll see. Naturally, Tuesday was his final day on the film so I wasn't afforded as much time to shoot the **** with him as I would've liked. He was off to Spain next to do a Spanish language film, Pan's Labyrinth, with Guillermo Del Toro.

I never get starstruck anymore. I've met enough celebrities to have been desensitized to all of that by now. So it's funny that I geeked out after meeting a guy who spends his career behind masks.

Truly a great experience in my life. I hope I can meet him again, one day. In fact I was so overexcited, I forgot to take note of the direction of the sun ... sigh ...

Daniel Beals, La Habra, California, June 23, 2005

POST SCRIPTUM

A nice epilogue to this tale.

Went to the Benchwarmers wrap party tonight (I am nice and "woozy" right now). Doug was there and we talked for quite a bit again. He met my girlfriend Anne and we met his super cool wife Laurie. Can't say enough good things about this guy. Turns out we're all midwesterners at heart. My next run-in with him can't come soon enough. Sad ending to the tale is that I wanted to say goodbye to him and his wife, but they had already left. So now I don't know when I'll have another chance to exchange info or hook-up some kind of connection. But life is funny that way.

Sidebar: my girlfriend had her great moment when she went up and talked to Jon Heder and then even got her picture with him. Very nice guy. Extremely down to earth considering his overnight success.

Dan

Folks, it's all uphill from here.

Daniel Beals, La Habra, California, June 26, 2005