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Julia writes:
I am sending you several pictures that I took today at Lincoln center. There are 2 pictures of Sean Astin, 3 of Bernard Hill and 1 of Andy Serkis.
I attended the Lincoln Center showing of the Lord of the Rings movies on Sat January 10. Well I actually saw only the Fellowship of the ring because I didn’t have tickets prior to the show. My sister and I arrived there at 8.30 am and waited in line for about an hour. We got pretty good seats and there were actually lots of tickets left. Then we right away went to the stage entrance to Alice Tully Hall, conveniently located just around the corner, to wait for the arrival of the cast even though we weren’t really expecting to see anyone. We stood there for several minutes when a black car drove up and ELIJAH WOOD got out of it. There were only 5 other fans waiting there at the entrance with us (which was pretty strange – with a theatre full of fans I expected crowds to be standing there waiting for autographs), and when Elijah came out we were all really shocked and surprised and did not say a word, just watched him walk by two feet away from us. He didn’t even seem to notice us, even though we were right there, didn’t turn, look ar say “hi” as other cast members did. I wasn’t able to get any photos of him except for one of his back which I’m not sending you. After he went inside, we waited for about 10 minutes when at 5 minutes before the start of the show another car pulled up and SEAN ASTIN came out. This time we were ready. I got a picture of him just when he got out of the car and one with him that my sister took. He was really nice and polite (when my sister dropped her wallet he right away said “Oh look, you dropped something.”) He posed for pictures and gave everyone autographs even though he was late.
We watched Elijah and Sean talk on the stage for about 5 minutes before the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition, which by the way was wonderful. After the movie we left the theater and came back to the stage entrance at 1.30, half an hour before the Two Towers was going to start. At about 1.57 pm a car arrived with BERNARD HILL and ANDY SERKIS. When they got out they both smiled at us when passing by. Bernard Hill even said “hi” to the fans and managed a “You look cold” before the security guards rushed them in, a woman telling us that they couldn’t give autographs because they were late. We decided to wait for them to come out instead of going to the Two Towers because we noticed that the car they came in was still standing there with the driver in it obviously waiting for their exit. The actors did come out about 15 minutes later, and this time they took time to give EVERYONE (around 15 people) autographs even though the security kept telling them to get in the car. Bernard Hill was very understanding, to the summons of the security he said something like “These people have been waiting here for a very long time!” He then asked every person their name and wrote them things like “with love” or “lots of love to you too,” plus decorated the signatures with little Xs. He had time to pose for several pictures, joke and say something to everyone before he finally got in the car where Andy Serkis was already waiting. As they were pulling out he rolled the window down and waved to the thankful fans.
Thus ended our first encounter with the LOTR cast members (as well as with celebrities in general – we haven’t met any before) which proved to be amazing – we’re still star-struck!
