I love riding the elevators in the hotel on Oscar day. They are very fast and constantly packed and never boring. You see the early risers who want to work out, and then later the influx of Makeup and Hair artists troop in, and you can tell what their clients are like by how rigid and set their faces are. You can see fledgling reporters and harried producers and last year, Common beamed at me in the elevator, having a great day. It set my whole Oscars up right.
Which means this year would have to pale in comparison.
AND YET.
I was in the lobby when Common strode in. Now, people come into the hotel all day, and most of them beeline for the elevators and the gawkers who are in the lobby gawk and wonder if the person they just saw was ‘someone’ or a seat-filler. Not Common.
Common walks into the lobby, and I swear to you that a cheer goes up. And Common BEAMS at everyone. He didn’t stop still so that everyone could adore him, but he knew that just by being there, he was giving everyone something. Which, don’t get me wrong, he’s getting something too.
He wasn’t the only one. I also saw Dave Grohl in the lobby, and if I were betting, I would say he was a head-down-sunglasses type, the don’t-talk-to-me method of choice would be a face of detached disinterest. But I was mistaken. Instead he appeared in the lobby with his hair still wet, smiled and hugged a bunch of people he knew, and then had a long, animated conversation while smoking outside. He ate up the attention too, which I would not have predicted.
