There have not been many times in my career when I have been a bit star struck, but this was definitely one of them! I was very excited about photographing Richard E Grant, one of my all time favourite films is 'Withnail & I' and his performance in that is legendary. The shoot was arranged in a hotel in Richmond, and I decided to bring a back drop with me as I had never been there before and didn't know what to expect. I did a quick recce to see if there was any place suitable to shoot him around the hotel in-situ, so to speak, but it really was unsuitable and I was very glad of the colorama.
They say you should never meet your heroes, just in case they turn out to be horrible, but in Richard's case he was adorable, really really friendly.
Everything was turning out well, I had been introduced , had set up my make shift studio in the restaurant of the hotel ,and was looking forward to my 15 minutes to get my portrait. Of course something had to happen to spoil all this, and sure enough it did.
On shoots like this, journalists are the bane of my life, not only did she run over her allotted time with him (there was no press officer to keep a tight reign) but she then insisted on talking to him during our now greatly reduced 9 minutes. I was RAGING, what planet did she come from to think that she could carry on her interview whist I was trying to work? After a few minutes of this I had had enough and had to tell her in the politest of ways, through gritted teeth to shut up.
So in the end I had 9 not so perfect minutes with the lovely Mr Grant who had to rush off for a live radio interview. I never did meet that journalist again, probably just as well...
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