I mentioned before that Matt (Felds) and I were going to be attending the showing of The River Why as part of the Savannah Film Festival. (Again, many thanks to Cris for giving us her tickets.) All week I'd been hearing about the different celebrities who were in town for the festival, so in the back of my mind I had this secret wish that Matt Saracen (whose real name is Zach Gilford, but I will forever know him as Matt Saracen and I don't care how obnoxious that is) would be there for this movie. But I didn't even mention that secret wish because I'm weirdly stupidly superstitious and didn't want to jinx it.
So on Friday night we headed downtown to the Trustees Theater and found our seats. I had to go to the bathroom (maybe I'd had 6 Diet Cokes at dinner?) and while I was waiting in line one of the other women was talking about how she and her husband had just seen Matt Saracen on the street. (!!!!!!) So I began to freak out. When I returned to our seat, I was giddy, and told my Matt, "Guess who's here!!??!!" My Matt seemed interested, but not crazy like me, and then sent me back out to the lobby to get us something to drink. (In his defense, he would have gotten it himself, but I was already up.) So I returned to the lobby to get our drink, and the line took FOREVER. When I got back to the theater, the credits for The River Why had started. I sat down, and my Matt timidly told me while I'd been waiting in line Matt Saracen had come out to introduce the film. "But he's coming back out for a Q&A after the movie!," he made sure to add, perhaps fearing that I would never ever let go of the fact that he sent me away and made me miss Matt Saracen. (Like the time Tanya made me miss meeting Dan from the Miami season of The Real World when we saw him at the Cherry Blossom Festival. Don't think for a second that I've forgotten about that!)
We watched the movie (that wasn't very good--sorry, Matt Saracen) and then we watched a short, Streetcar, that was very good, and then we got to enjoy Matt Saracen's Q&A for the last thirty or so minutes. I know that it's not cool to be starstruck or to giggle incessantly when in the presence of a star from one of your favorite shows, but I don't care. I was so excited to sit there and listen to him talk. I was even more excited to learn that real-life Matt Saracen is really funny. Like really funny.
He mentioned the latest show that's he's working on, Off the Map, which is about doctors in the jungle. In describing the difficulties of practicing medicine in the jungle, how there are none of the luxuries to which we've all become accostumed, Matt Saracen told the interviewer, "There's no fucking jello in the jungle."
He also assumed a [hilarious] air of authority for the rest of the interview (even though he was clearly uncomfortable being the center of attention), telling us all, "I'm a goddam doctor."
But my favorite part of the entire interview was when Matt Saracen leaned back in his chair, and with goofy confidence told us, "I won a state championship a couple of years ago--I was the quarterback--and now I'm a plastic surgeon. . .IN THE JUNGLE."
I may or may not have taken 145 pictures of him. Here are more than you probably want to see.
Oh, and I should also add that after the Q&A, I--along with about 6 other 30-year old women who are also obsessed with Friday Night Lights--tried to chase him down to befriend him and get our pictures taken with him. We were, unfortunately, turned around by some SCAD guy who decided that we were not important enough to hang out with someone who had once won a state championship but now practices medicine in the jungle.
BUT, Cris--the baller, the shot caller--Cris was at a party last night with him. She said that he was making out with some girl (I'm pretty sure that was the girlfriend he'd mentioned the night before--at least I hope it was) and that she got a picture of him dancing.
I went to sleep consumed with jealousy, but secretly happy that she got to meet him because I'd felt guilty about seeing him with the tickets she'd given us.
Anyway, that was a whole lot of dorky rambling. It's probably best that I didn't get to meet Matt Saracen. In the next year I will become cool, and not starstruck, and I will meet him and we will be friends and he will teach me how to play football and how to do nose jobs.
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