I Could Have Been A Star

I’ve told this story approximately a zillion times, not because it is a super awesome story but because it is one of only 3 celebrity-meeting stories I have and definitely the most interesting.*

A zillion years ago, I met my husband at a country line dancing bar. Wait, let’s call it a club instead. Cool people go to clubs. Huge rednecks go to country line dancing bars, and even though I played one for a while in my early 20’s I am not really a redneck – although I can do a mean Boot Scoot Boogie. I noticed E because he was the best dancer. Seriously. He is a REALLY GOOD DANCER (back me up, real life friends) even though he is a skinny white guy from Ohio who played soccer while his brother and sisters took tap and jazz and ballet. He told me once that when he first started going to clubs/bars he recognized very quickly that he was a terrible dancer so he would practice in front of the mirror – but he might die of embarrassment if I wrote that on the internet so pretend I didn’t.

(Truthfully, I am NOT a very good dancer, but if I let E lead I can fake it enough to pass for someone who knows what they’re doing.)(Also, we’ve tried taking actual dance lessons before and get super bored and quit because who wants to spend all their time one-two-cha-cha-cha-ing when you can just TWIRL?)

Anyways, we spent a lot of time at that country line dancing bar club. We were friends with the bouncers and the bartenders, we knew which dances you were supposed to do to which songs, we knew the HARD VERSIONS of all the HARD DANCES*. One of the guys who also came and danced a lot was named Chad, but because he wore suspenders and button down shirts like a chorus orphan from a local production of Oliver we called him Suspenders. It turned out Suspenders was a choreographer, quite a good one, and was contacted to work as the choreographer for a movie that was being filmed in town. He had already invited all his fancy dancer friends to audition as back-up dancers for the movie but he needed a couple more people. He told E and I to show up on a Saturday and proved to the movie people we could fake-swing dance and smile pretty we could have parts in his movie too.

And that’s how I ended up as a back-up dancer in The Notebook. I had two costume fittings and one rehearsal and then I showed up one day to hair and make-up and BAM! I was on the set with James Marsden and Rachel McAdams.

Yep, that's me.

There wasn’t actually too much dancing involved – we were just background to the main character’s fancy choreography – but E and I were Couple Number 1 and it was our job to spin back and forth in front of the camera because my skirt looked cool when I did that.

After being on set for a few minutes and rehearsing with the director’s guidance and gawking nervously at the movie stars who deigned themselves TOO GOOD to come say hi to us (except for James Marsden, who watched us dance and said “Hey, when do we learn to do that? You guys are great!”) one of the wardrobe ladies came over to me.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I need your earrings.” And then she removed them from my ears, walked over to Rachel McAdams, and put them on her. Apparently they were TOO SPARKLY for an extra. Or maybe just too sparkly for an extra with SUPER AWESOME HAIR.

Wearing my replacement, less-sparkly earrings. Also, my own mother looked at this photo on my mantle and said "Oh, is that E's grandparents?"

In the movie, the entire scene has been cut down to five seconds of slow-motion dancing during a montage of Rachel dating/falling in not-good-enough-love with James. I am not even a tiny bit visible.

They told us not to bring cameras (and cell phone cameras weren’t a thing) so to prove this really happened I only have these two pictures in the parking lot, plus a pay stub for $125 worth of work as a “dancer”.

It was still really really cool.

*Here are the other two stories:  #1 I won backstage passes to the TRL Concert Tour in 2001 and met Jessica Simpson who was incredibly sweet and got me a Diet Coke from her dressing room and also Destiny’s Child who were bitches and wouldn’t let anyone touch them or take photos. #2 I was an extra in the movie Radio, where I Cuba Gooding Jr called me cute and Ed Harris swore a lot and was very short. I told you they were boring.

**Because I am a dork, I YouTubed one of the fancy line dances to see if it was there (it is) (but they’re not doing it very well, I’m way better) and got lost in a YouTube hole of ALL the line dances we used to do. It’s kind of ridiculous HOW MUCH I miss line dancing. DORK OF THE YEAR.***

***ALSO, I would like to point out that YouTube wasn’t really such a thing in 2000, so to learn the dances you had to watch people in real life do them at full speed and then just JUMP IN with the choreography. You didn’t get to learn it at home in your living room. This is why they are mostly done at bars – you need a couple beers before you’re brave enough to try it.

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27 Responses to “I Could Have Been A Star”

  1. raincheckmom says:

    I concur…E is a REALLY good dancer…

  2. Swistle says:

    Those are, as promised, VERY COOL STORIES.

  3. Robyn says:

    So cool! this should be the first story you tell people when you meet them. also, now i need to watch The Notebook tonight. i know you said you can’t see you in the movie, but i still feel the need to rewatch the scene.

  4. Shari says:

    How COOL is that? What a fun, once-in-a-lifetime experience!!

    Also: isn’t it so nice when you meet a celebrity and he/she is gracious in person? Makes up for the ones who act oppositely!

    • bebehblog says:

      Yes! I actually sort of hate meeting famous people because I get so awkward and tongue-tied around them, so the ones that are good at dealing with fans are such a nice surprise. The same thing goes for not-real-life-famous people, like the super popular bloggers.

  5. Aunt Katie says:

    Don’t forget you and your sister were on the Eazy Bake Ovem box….. You are a star!!
    Love you ;)

    • bebehblog says:

      The FAKE Eazy Bake Oven box. And mine was actually the box for a stupid slushie machine that didn’t even work. I wonder if my mom still has those boxes somewhere…

  6. bahahaha! that is so fun! i mean i’m laughing a little a the line dancing but who DIDN’T go through some kind of embarrassing bar phase? that picture of the two of you is priceless. and your hair!

  7. Nicole says:

    Very cool! What a great story.

    I would need a lot more than two drinks before I was brave enough to dance in public. I’m genuinely terrible. And like Elaine, I actually enjoy it, which doesn’t help at all.

  8. Tanya says:

    You are awesome! You crack me up every day. I used to go to ‘clubs’ and line dance too. Though I was not very good. I was getting pretty good at the waltz and two step:)

  9. Katie says:

    I am instantly jealous, thats so cool!

  10. Other Erin says:

    I remember some of the other stables of that “club” but I won’t say their names because this is a family place.
    Also, E is pretty much the best dancing guy I’ve ever met.

  11. MomEinstein says:

    Are you kidding me? Your stories are wicked cool. I have absolutely no celebrity sighting stories, and you have THREE. You’re like a celebrity by default.

    Also, LOL at your mom not recognizing you in the photo.

  12. dude! coolest story EVER!!!! I’m totally jealous. Plus? You rocked that hair!!

  13. Leah says:

    You are your victory rolls are totally adorable. I lost the ability to act like a normal person around Dr. Scott the Paleontologist. I can’t imagine what a goobery mess I would be like around actual famous people.

  14. E says:

    I told you that I DIDN’T practice in front of the mirror, because that is loser-ish. I picked up the line dances making fun of the line dancers. We (my buddy Toth and I) went to the line dancing club because we thought is was fun to laugh at the line dancers. We went so much we starting doing the dances. Atleast tell the reason correctly. I hear there are putting these in the library of congress…

  15. Kimberly says:

    That is so fun! You don’t find many country bars on LI, but I did spend a summer in WV during college and learned all the fun dances. I may spend way too much time tonight searching them on youtube to reminisce.

  16. Alena says:

    I met Jessica Simpson years ago in Germany when her and Nick were doing that variety show on ABC. They did the whole show in a hanger in Germany. She was a total b*tch. Even rude to a little girl who tried to shake her hand.
    Oh and she had her dad kick us out of the hanger into the freezing cold {we got there really early and one of the producers felt bad and let us hang out inside} all because she kept messing up “These Boots” with Willie Nelson (I met a lot of people that night…I won’t list it all. The point is in between the years where she was a sweet teeny girl…and the year I met her she had a big personality change).

    Oh and with that…my friend and I totally called that her and Nick were getting divorced. And they did like 8 months later. Callin’ ’em like I see ’em.

    • bebehblog says:

      I always suspected she had changed – she didn’t seem NEARLY as cool on her reality show as she was when she was the opening act for Destiny’s Child (who was actually the opening act for Nelly). But in 2001? She performed even though she had the flu AND she still posed for lots of pictures, acted super nice and went to her dressing room to get me and my friend Erin diet cokes because it was hot.

      See, it’s a GOOD thing I never became famous and started acting like a total B.

  17. You are so cool. Nuff said

  18. Erin..... says:

    WAIT!!! I’m late reading this!!! Yes, E is the BEST DANCER EVER!!! (And I love that he had to comment so that he could clarify :) ) Also, thank you for not posting the picture with Jessica Simpson where she looks all tiny and we look all…..lets just say sparkly but that wasn’t the word I was really going to say.

  19. Amanda says:

    You look stunning in the 1950’s look! work it girl!

  20. andrea says:

    I love this story! Also, you look gorgeous. That look really suits you and E. And you do look like someone’s grandparents ;)
    xxo

  21. HOW the hell did I miss this?!!? So much awesome.

  22. Veronica says:

    Well. Best post ever and that picture of you is to die for. Also destinys child can suck it!

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