Dear Gossips,
My etalk assignments for TIFF this weekend: British duty. It wasn’t deliberate but somehow it just ended up that way. I interviewed Tom Hardy on the red carpet at the premiere of The Drop on Friday and again at the junket on Sunday. I fell in love with Cara Delevingne on Saturday afternoon and then I covered the gala premiere of The Riot Club that night, hit up the Hugo Boss party to celebrate that film after hours, spoke to the cast again in the etalk TIFF lounge the next day, and reported from Eddie Redmayne’s carpet for The Theory Of Everything. We’ll get to all of that later. But the non-British highlight that I want to open with is Jon Stewart.
Stewart was in Toronto for Rosewater, his directorial debut. He was scheduled for a one-on-one with Ben Mulroney in the etalk TIFF lounge…which is where I was loitering because, well, obviously all of us wanted to meet him. Even our crew was fanboying over Jon Stewart. And sometimes that’s dangerous. Sometimes, actually, oftentimes, they disappoint.
We could hear his voice down the hall, joking, upbeat, before 10am, not exactly prime celebrity hour. He walked in and introduced himself to everyone – the makeup artist, the coffee representative, handshakes for all…including me. A big smile. So relaxed, so friendly, so unpretentious in his wrinkled khakis and Stussy jacket – the exact same outfit he wore the night before at the InStyle party. And after all that happiness over having met him, then I just felt bad for even doubting it. How could Jon Stewart NOT be awesome?
More TIFF observations are on the way today including movie reviews for some of the most high profile features. Introducing Joanna Adams. Joanna produced me at etalk for three years. She also writes for HuffPo. Sasha calls her “Rain Man for movies”. Joanna is a cinephile fangirl gossip. She’s joining us for the week because she’s been able to get to more films than I have. And there was other sh-t going down outside of TIFF so it’s a really full schedule on the blog today. Keep refreshing! And don’t forget to check LifeStyle for even more photos from TIFF!
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
