Hello everyone, Lelia here. As you can guess by now Claude is with me and we are both going to telling you our story! Anyway we both decided on the spur of the moment to take a quick trip.
Claude needed a vacation from work and decided to take a week off and drive down to meet me in Tennessee and then we drove down to Alabama.
Claude: I left Friday night and arrived Sunday afternoon (It was a 16-hour drive for me though I stopped along the way for the night). We left soon after and 7 hours later, we were in Wetumpka, admiring the old house on the hill and what was left of the Big Fish sets in that area. We also both bought Big Fish t-shirts. We drove around, and took plenty of pictures of the downtown area. We also managed to find what we're sure is the baseball field Ewan had been practicing for his big scene.
They were filming in a warehouse nearby and with a bit of cajoling we managed to get a very cute crew guy (a lot of these film guys were very handsome but of course no one could replace our man!) who said that we could stick our heads into the back door and maybe see some filming. (He was really friendly) Extremely excited, Lelia and I tried not to race up the stairs and "calmly" strolled up and looked inside. There unfortunately was no filming in this warehouse but we did get to see several sets that were under construction as well as several signs that were being painted. The place reeked in Aerosol. We left after a while and as we were walking back out a car came up behind us so we both moved out of the way. As we turned we immediately recognized the same red car that Ewan and Steve Buscemi had used the month before for the bank robbery scenes! I asked him if I could take a picture of the car and he said sure but hurry because he had a location to take it to. We're ashamed to admit it (kids do not try this at home!) but we followed him ending up back at the baseball field! One of the guys there told us that if we stood outside the warehouse that Ewan would come out when they finished up around 7pm. So, we ran back to the hotel to both freshen up to return a couple hours later only to find that by the time we arrived (two hours earlier than we were told) that Ewan had left already!! All the crew were already leaving and the place was almost deserted. Lelia and I hung around for an hour longer on the off chance he might still be there but no such luck. We went home empty handed that night.
Lelia: Ok, the next day they were filming on a lake. We managed to find it and to see the trailers (including Ewan's!!)
Actually as we were walking up I immediately spotted our boy in his Edward Bloom gear (complete with baggy hat) walking out of his trailer! But he quickly disappeared from our view. Jessica Lange walked by us but we didn’t speak to her. Then Tim Burton appeared driving past us on his little buggy. I smiled at him and stuck my hand in the air, waving at him. He grinned and waved back, saying hello in reply. That was too cool! Once again, we were foiled. One of the main guys came over after this and said that the set was closed and we would have to leave. But he did say that we might be able to see Ewan the next day since they were scheduled to film the football and baseball scene at one of the local schools and if we didn’t see Ewan to ask for him (the guy) and he would see to it personally that Ewan’s publicist got our gifts. We were both very disappointed but we didn’t want to be a problem and made to leave. You won’t believe it but as we were walking downheartedly away we looked back only to find a gorgeous Ewan wearing a bright red shirt stepping out of his trailer and being wisked away by one of the crew! (somehow he had gotten by us and back in his trailer!! Groooannnnnn) So, we decided to do what the man suggested and try again the next day.
Maybe the third time would be a charm? Claude and I both sure hoped so!
I had already seen him of course, but was looking forward to seeing him again and Claude had come such a long way I really wanted her to see him!
The next morning was Wednesday and we got up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am and went down to the school to stand and wait. There was already quite a bit of activity and we decided to ask someone where we could stand that Ewan might come in. A security guard said we were most welcome to sit with him which absolutely thrilled both of us! We sat up on the wall and had been talking to him for about 20 min when this woman came out and asked us who we were and why we were there. We explained that we were there to see Ewan and that we had something to give him that we wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. She wasn’t having none of it, even after we mentioned that guy we met the day before said we could be there. So she ran us off basically to the sidewalk in front of the school. Needless to say this woman had ice in her veins. I’ll refrain from any name calling….b****!!! Over the next two hours we saw a lot of trucks, minivans and buses bringing in equipment and extras dressed in stunning 50s period costumes. The school was also in session and all the young kids were gawking at seeing the frenetic activity of the Hollywood environment. It was really funny because at one point we could see many kids hanging out each and every window they could find!
Claude: Ok, we didn't want to be in the way so we stayed on the sidewalk. Once again, we spoke to a few people including two very nice police officers and some of the crew that passed by. One of the guys that walked by exclaimed: “You guys are here everyday!” We smiled at him and said yes! and that we wanted to meet Ewan. He smiled at us, shaking his head and called us very dedicated fans. Duh! A short time later, a minivan pulled up and a baseball player come out by himself. All the others had come in groups but we were too far away to tell who it was. Forty minutes to an hour later, we found out that had been Ewan driving right by us in his baseball costume!!! How had we missed him again?? Lelia kept asking if there was any place we could stay and wait for him and finally a very nice officer (there to close down the street for the big scene) took pity on us and went to ask one of the production people what we could do. A few minutes later he returned to tell us that the lady he spoke with said that because she didn’t know us she couldn’t allow us onto the set but that we were most welcome to move up by the dumpster which was 100 feet from the field below. We were unable to really see anyone up close (however Mr. Burton was very noticeable due to his habit of wearing black and some very wild hair!) and believe me we were looking for Ewan! But we were much closer to the action this way than in the street with the stupid street washers that kept going by and spitting dust in our faces! We thanked him gratefully and moved up next to the dumpster where we were finally able to sit down on a low wall after standing since about 6am (it was now around 8 something). We enjoyed several minutes of watching all the activity without really being able to see anything as we were still pretty far away.
At some point, I heard a van behind us and looked back to notice the person on the passenger side was Ewan! He was driving away from us! We picked up our things and raced up the parking lot as the van came to a halt at the red light and yelled his name. He waved at us but the van pulled away when the light turned green. We had just missed him again! Luckily one of the crew told us that he was just going for a costume change.
Lelia: Before we left I had made a large sign saying “Happy (Early) Birthday Ewan” on yellow posterboard and the night before Claude and I worked on it to make the letters really visible from far away in the hopes that Ewan would see it and come over to us. So we were waiting for the van to come back with the sign we had brought at the ready.
Claude: Half an hour later we spotted one of the vans coming back into the school. As it came past I saw Ewan again in the passenger seat dressed in a football uniform!
Lelia: The van was almost halfway past me before I realized Claude said Ewan was in it. So I immediately stuck our sign into the air hoping he would see it. I think as I held out the sign it somehow caught the corner of his eye because I could see him do like a double take and turn his head sharply around as the van got almost through the schools underpass. Amazingly Claude and I both watched in shock and awe as the van skidded to a complete halt and the next thing we knew we saw Ewan hanging his entire upper body out of the window a huge smile on his face and waving madly to us and then he blew us a huge kiss!! We both waved back to him and Claude also blew him a kiss. He had seen us!!! Claude and I were absolutely ecstatic and began hopping up and down with excitement! Maybe this would mean that he would stop for us on his lunch break or when the completed filming for the day…. Ok by this time we both had eaten very little and neither one of us had gone to bathroom since leaving the motel, so I decided to make a quick run into the school and after that we would take time to get something to eat.
Claude: I was still standing on the sidewalk waiting for Lelia to return. Not 2 minutes after she had disappeared into the school, a production person who had previously ignored Lelia’s attempts at getting Ewan a note to stop on his way out, walked up to me and said...
"Let me see that sign of yours."
I was holding it for Lelia so I opened it up and showed it to him. He stepped back, looked at it and said,
"Okay. Your presence has been requested on the set by Mr. McGregor."
Claude: I panicked for a second because my brain was trying to not only process the amazing thing this man just said but Lelia also hadn't returned from the bathroom!!! I told the guy about it and he said "no problem, go and get her". So I ran into the school and caught her coming out of the ladies' room. Out of breath, I repeated the guy's words to her. OMG!!!
Lelia: I came out of the ladies room to find Claude tearing through the schools halls calling Lelia! Lelia! She then told me that guy came back and said that Ewan had requested our presence on set! It felt like my jaw dropped and said what??? and made her repeat that a couple of times for me before it sank in that Ewan was inviting us onto the set! Astounded, I quickly followed her out of the door.
Claude & Lelia: We caught up to the guy rather quickly and he took us behind the school and down onto the field where they were busing filming. I can’t tell you how amazing it was to make that walk. We went down through all the people (no one stopping us this time we had the green light !!) Everyone was busy doing their job. The extras were sitting in the bleachers while the lighting and crew members were milling all around us. Lelia and I were in the middle of a Hollywood film set OMG! He parked us right behind the tent with Ewan's chair and told us we could watch from there.
They were rehearsing for the football scene at this point and we looked over to see Ewan on the field putting on his helmet while Tim Burton was showing him how he wanted Ewan to do the touch down and wave his hands in the air in triumph. When they finally finished rehearsing and yelled action (OMG I still can’t believe we were seeing this!) Ewan ran to his left and jumped over two players vaulting high up into the air (it was really him doing this!) and running to where the goal posts would be. He would then throw the ball on the ground and lift his arms in triumph. He even pumped his arm in victory at one point.
We watched the filming for about half an hour whispering every now and then to each other how amazed we were at being invited by this wonderful actor to watch him at work. It was really hot and humid down on the field when the sun finally decided to make an appearance that day and it was reflecting off the red clay making the field almost like an oven. Everyone was sweating profusely and drinking a lot of water. Ewan had to be roasting as he and the others were all wearing those huge football uniforms and helmets which are really bulky and cumbersome. At one point we saw him lay down in mock exhaustion on the ground. (though I doubt he was joking around! You could tell he was burning up!). But our man was sweating bullets, running around wearing that costume and the helmet. He dropped the ball before being able to throw it down on the second to last take that we saw. Poor guy, he was exhausted and drank lots of water, removing his helmet between takes even just drinking to spit it out at one point.
Some guy walked up to us and eventually told us to move much further back that we were in the way of some equipment so we moved back and Lelia sat down on a small bench while I stood and continued to watch the action from there. The crewman who had brought us in noticed this after a while and came up to us and said “Did someone move you?” We told him yes, and he asked us who. We pointed out the person, and watched as the guy walked up to him (apparently he fussed at him because Ewan had said we could be there and then this goofball had moved us!). After several minutes he came back and told us we could move back to about where we were or just stay there just to make sure Ewan saw us. BTW, Lelia and I both noticed the man who had run us off the day before standing behind us a little to our left and couldn’t help the twinge of wicked satisfaction that ran through our veins. He did actually walk by us at one point and said “You finally got in ?” We both grinned and replied that we did.
Our guy that brought us in also came back by and asked us if he could get us anything to drink and we gratefully said yes, and he brought us a coke and a water! We seemed to be getting the star treatment! This was just surreal!
They did one or two rehearsals and then did about 4 takes of the same thing. About an hour later, Ewan started walking towards us! He smiled as he came over and said “Thanks for the birthday wishes, girls!” and proceeded to kiss us both on the cheeks!
Claude: My memory's a bit fuzzy about what happened. As he arrived, he gave me a kiss on the right cheek and I moved to kiss him on the other cheek (we do that in Quebec and in Europe). He said something like "oh, European fashion" and kissed me on the left cheek. He then kissed Lelia. I tried a bit of French on him, saying "Je parle français" (I speak French) and he replied (in French) that he spoke it a little.
He pointed at Lelia's shirt and said "brilliant!" I told him that we (the sisterhood) had raised over $1000 for CHAS. He was very pleased with that. Lelia told him we ran websites for him. I had printed the welcome page of my site for him to sign. He said he liked the picture and commented on the Mustang that he had purchased in England. He asked me what my website was and I said "The Best of Ewan McGregor". It felt weird saying that to Ewan McGregor! I gave him a business card with my site's address on it. I told him how *awesome* it was to be here and thanked him.
I'll let Lelia describe what happened between her and Ewan. He then shook my hand, gave me another kiss and went back to his chair.
I really looked into his eyes. They were the most gorgeous shade of green with a very complex pattern in them. He was very sweaty (understandable given how hot it was and he'd been running around) and his skin was very pink, flushed from the heat. His hair was cut short and was quite light. It seemed dark blonde to me. I really took the time to look at his face, his hair, eyes, arms... Swooooooooooooooooon!
Lelia's report:
I saw Ewan coming over to us and quickly stood up! He said “Thanks for the birthday wishes girls.” And I saw him lean down to kiss Claude on the cheeks and I almost died knowing I was about to get a kiss from Ewan McGregor! I then did find myself being kissed by a very wet, very sweaty, Ewan McGregor! He was so sweaty that my cheeks were damp for several minutes after he kissed me! *THUD* Claude spoke to him in French and he replied I couldn’t understand a word of it but listened quietly smiling. He pointed to my sisterhood shirt which I was wearing (the new one I had just gotten!) and smiled saying “Brilliant!” Claude explained to him how much money we had raised for CHAS and then I told him we both ran websites for him and Claude handed him her welcome page which she hand printed out for him to see and he kindly signed it for her as she told him about her website.
He then turned to me and I said “I met you before in January and you signed my shirt.” He nodded and said “Yes I remember you, Wetumpka, right?”
I smiled and said yes that I wasn’t sure if it got through about my site or not but that I had brought him some of my work and handed him my folder with a few selected wallpapers from my site that I had printed out at Staples. They did a really good job btw making the images very glossy. I was happy with them. Ewan took my folder and began thumbing through the pictures. He said. “Yeah, I’ve seen your site.” I gave him a big grin and then he saw the wallpaper I had given him of Solid Geometry and he asked surprised, “Have you seen this?” I replied that yes I had and when he asked me how I had gotten it I told him that a friend in the UK taped it for me. I then told him we had watched Family Style the night before (Claude had it on her laptop and I had never seen it!) He seemed really pleased at this and smiled widely and said he’d done that a long time ago. I then told him that the first picture in the folder was for him and Eve. He pulled it out and I said there is a poem there by Yeats. I watched as he read it and he then thanked me and kissed me on the cheeks again and I wished him happy birthday. If you want to see the art I made for him and Eve it’s
http://www.eccentricity-online.com/ewaneve_art.jpg
He then kissed Claude again and thanked us both. My memory is a bit fuzzy and I’m not quite sure what he said as he walked away but it was something to do with enjoy watching or something like that and he moved to back to sit in his chair. They had to put an ice pack on his neck so he was really feeling the heat. Some guy whose son was an extra came down to us and started asking us questions wondering why we were getting kisses and all the attention from Ewan. We explained that we had been waiting to see him for a few days and what happened with the sign. It was really hard to concentrate on this person and I barely remember him as I noticed while he was talking to us that Ewan was sitting in his chair looking at the pictures I had given him (Oh! And Claude got to give him her card for her site too! She made some gorgeous cards with her logo on them and website addy!) His assistant and someone else were leaning over him looking at the pictures too!
Lelia & Claude: After waiting around some more (he didn't do any other scenes), he got up to leave and as Ewan moved past us, he waved, smiled and said "bye girls, thank you." The crew broke for lunch at this point and one of the extras stopped by to chat and we learned she was one of Ewan’s neighhbors. She told us how nice they were and how everyone was bringing them casseroles and of one night where Ewan played basketball with the neighborhood kids.
We do want to say here that apparently there have been problems with invasions of Ewan’s privacy. Through his neighbor we discovered that some bus loads of people were being dropped off at his door step as his address apparently has gotten out. They have even had to put a sign on their door saying “please don’t ring the doorbell, please respect our privacy” and one of the reasons the crew kept running us off was they explained that there had been an incident in Wetumpka where some girls had interrupted him during filming. I don’t know of any of these incidents but Claude and I were rather shocked to find this information out. We both did our very best to be as respectful and not cause any problems for the cast and crew. Every time we asked and they told us something we followed their wishes and I think this is was made for a better rapport with them. We just want to make this known because this is just an amazing man to have done what he did for the two of us and we want him to stay that way. Please if you decide to venture near this film set be kind and be respectful. That’s all we have to say. We don’t know of any other actor or actress out there that would do something like this for one of their fans. Ewan is one of a kind and we don’t want him to change.
When we finally left for the day which we did as the broke for lunch (we didn’t want to wear out our welcome. Ewan had already given us so much) we were hot, sweaty, and sticky but we were in heaven!!!
We stopped for lunch which was almost impossible to eat! and then made the entire drive back to Tennessee all on adrenaline I think since we had been up since 4:30am! that morning.
Unfortunately we couldn't take any pictures on the field (Claude asked) so we can’t show you any. But We have taken pictures of the school and what we could see before we were invited onto the set and I (Lelia) will get mine developed soon and post them. For now here is a scan of the picture he signed for Claude. She is about to head back to Canada as we post this so will probably not reply for a day or so.
In all the excitement we may have forgotten a few details but I think you get the gist and Claude and I would both like to simply end the post with:
This was FUCKIN’ TOPS!!!
Claude & Lelia
~The fans that turned Ewan's head!
Ich kann das durchaus verstehen, denn ich hasse Russel Crowe. 
Aber ich fand es auch traurig, dass er bzw. Maximus gestorben ist. In dem Film gefiel mir Joaquin bis jetzt am besten - so böse. 
Ich weiß allerdings nicht, ob es diese Version auch in Deutschland geben wird. 
ich meine, ich war mir schon bewusst, dass ewan ein lieber typ ist und es gab ja schon andere berichte, wo er auch so nett rüberkam, aber der hier war einfach nur klasse und zeigt wirklich schön, wie 'normal' und rücksichtsvoll er doch ist. ich meine, ganz ehrlich, wer würde das sonst noch tun? es gibt wohl sehr wenige celebrities, die sich wirklich die zeit nehmen würden und einen auch noch EXTRA einladen aufs set zu kommen. 
Muss am Montag direkt mal schauen, ob wir die hier haben.
