In honor of the Traverse City Film Festival: A filmgoer’s secret obsession

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
Leaning toward me in the movie theater, my husband whispered in my ear, “Bet you like him!” The moment was a revealing one, not only for the character in the movie but also for me, or would be in the years to follow. As it happened, the moment was also pivotal for the actor in the role … but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Okay, so the guy had the requisite scruffiness for the part — an unkempt, shoulder-length mane and weeks’ worth of facial hair. But the eyes were luminously blue, the cheekbones delicately sculpted.
“Too pretty!” I hissed back, honestly disappointed in the casting choice for this cloaked and grizzled character from my favorite, thrice-read epic series of novels. Don’t mess with my pubescent imagination, (unsullied through almost four decades), and the sanctity of a story read by millions. Damn it.
These thoughts carried me through chases and swordfights until, by the end of the movie, I fought back the same tears spilling from the cloaked one’s pointy nose, as his filthy fingers cradled the head of a fallen comrade. Dirt under the fingernails, sweat and greasy hair.
Ahhh, this was more like it. The eyes now seemed to burn with fierce intensity.
Fast-forward two years. The former ensemble character has become a protagonist in the sequel. He’s earned his character’s celebration day in the movie and his kudos as an actor, after a mostly-undistinguished 15-year career in Hollywood.
Filing out of the theater, my husband, prescient being that he sometimes is, suggests that I ought to research said actor online, that the guy’s story, like his name, must be an interesting one, that millions of women must be agog. We’ve watched him in at least one movie, he says. Who is he, again? Oh, yes, the American actor with the funny-sounding, foreign name. I don’t write it down. Weeks later, while waiting interminably for our dial-up connection to transmit a mega file to a micro newspaper, I begin to surf. What was that name? I google the closest-sounding possibility. No hits. Then, it strikes me.
Google the movie title, stupid. Up pops the actor’s name. I cut and paste it into my browser. Presto! The first page of multiple pages of hits appears. Geesh. I scroll past the more obvious fan listings, until a clever web address piques my curiosity. I hesitate as I think of the possible hysteria within, the teeny-bopping adulation I left behind a bazillion years ago. I click with more than a little discomfort building in the higher-level, rational part of my brain.
And there’s his face, younger, clean-shaven, not at all my type. A little pang develops as I realize that face, and others in the cast, will not be seen again onscreen for this beloved story.
I read the first few lines at the top of an information-packed page. This was a fan site that made fun of itself! Witty one-liners were scattered all over the multiple pages, acknowledging fan fever while thoroughly dissecting the man. It was exhausting to look at, to read and explore. I was intrigued. Over the next several weeks, I returned to that most-profoundly researched site, whose scholarly precision both repelled and fascinated me. I clicked on proffered links, carefully skipping the one that horrified me most – one I’d never before visited on any website — and read interviews and movie synopses that slowly fashioned the image of a man at odds with the angular, blue-eyed, dark blond that stared back at me from the site’s home page. When all but one of the links had been visited, there was nothing left to do but click on the offending blue, the final blow to my belief that I was a mature adult, a business owner with far-too-few spare moments in my day. I positioned the pointer over the word, “Forum,” and clicked my forty-something self-esteem away.