It Happened to Me

It was bound to happen at some point. As a PA (read: slave) on Mr. and Mrs. Smith during its hellish post-production phase, I figured it was certain to happen that I would have a run-in with the man himself. I just didn’t think that it would involve eye contact and, yes, an exchange of words.

I had been slaving away as a second assistant to one of the producers of the film, working directly under the first assistant, who was all too happy to wield power over me, the green college student working illegally for free. (After all, who would pass up an opportunity to possibly come in contact with a living god? Certainly not any breathing, heterosexual female.) It was getting down to the wire, though, looking less likely that I would actually have a brush with A List stardom. Until I heard the good news: we were doing re-shoots.

Re-shoots on a project like Mr. and Mrs. Smith involve a lot of stress, a lot of long hours, and, for me, a lot of running around. Being that I was still in college, I didn’t make it to all of them, but I made it to enough to solidify my desire to be in the film industry. The first day I was up extra-early in order to make the 7 AM call time. But the hour wasn’t on my mind. What was on my mind was looking my very best—on the off chance that the rumors weren’t true and Brad was, in fact, on the market. That first day I did have a brush with him at the craft service table. However, I was too immobilized by his beauty to make anything more than a guttural sound that was enough to send me slinking back to the production trailer for a significant portion of the day.

But the real experience, the real memory that is forever seared in my mind happened on the last day of re-shoots over a month later. After a rushed morning of shopping for “spoiled celebrities,” as my “boss” said, we raced through LA traffic to make it to the tightly-secured location where the final shoot was to take place. Our purchases included several bottles of mid-grade wine for the cast to celebrate the end of the affair. When the day was coming to a close, I ended up ordered to serve the wine.

I watched him like a hawk as he chatted and laughed with his co-stars and the crew (diplomatically, I noticed, avoiding “Angie”), my heart pounding so loudly I feared it would give away my amateur status in regards to being in the presence of such celebrity. He wound his way over to where I was standing, shaking wine glass in hand, waiting to serve. And then, he smiled—at me. Sending my heart straight to my nether regions and causing a lump in my throat so big I thought I would pass out.

“Red or white?” I squeaked, positive that I was giving myself away as a psychopathic fan.

“What are you, the wine girl?”

I giggled—I actually giggled—and said, face flushed, “I guess I am. What’ll it be?” I swallowed the lump and thought, “Be cool, Caroline, be cool.”

“I don’t know, what do you think goes better with a bike?” (He had ridden his motorcycle to set that day.)

“Um, red?”

“Red it is.”

And then with a wink and a smile, he turned away, and our encounter was over. But I will forever be able to say: I served wine to Brad Pitt.