I was rather impressed with the initial four celebrities that were going to be attending the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, over the weekend of June 11-12, 2011. I have already covered Tracy Roberts, Mark Pillow, and Alaina Huffman (as seen here), and the fourth was Sam Huntington. So impressed with these four was I that I had a strong inclination to head down there to see them. But I don’t think it was until the fifth one was announced that the trip became a bit of a no-brainer.
Although I quite well remember Sam Huntington for his lead role in the Tim Allen comedy Jungle 2 Jungle, and his role in the KISS-inspired film Detroit Rock City, his Superman connection was that he starred as Jimmy Olsen in the most recent film in the Superman series, Superman Returns.
I opted to purchase the official Superman Celebration photo for $15, rather than the nicer ones that he was selling for $30. He signed this photo in addition to the Celebration program free of charge. In addition, I must say that he was one of the friendliest actors that I had met in a long time. Although the lines seemed never-ending, he was as vibrant, animated, and friendly with every single fan that had waited hours to see him. He even made extra efforts to stretch over the table so that everyone could get a nice tight shot with him. Although Alaina Huffman had been incredibly sweet, Sam Huntington gets the award as friendliest actor of the event.
The main draw though (if you haven’t gathered it from the photo at the top of the posting) was Brandon Routh, who played Clark Kent/Superman in Superman Returns. This was a huge deal for me and everyone else present to actually have one of the actors who portrayed Superman himself at the Superman Celebration.
Brandon was not unfriendly by any stretch of the word, but wasn’t quite as outgoing as the others signing that afternoon in the bank. I was interested in the t-shirt that he was wearing, since I had some good film preservation connections. Turns out, his interest did not lie in this area (although he assured me that he was all for film preservation), but the shirt was being worn for a friend promoting a fund-raiser for a film his friend was making. In any case, it gave me an excuse to chat for a minute or two.
Although I didn’t want a personalization on my photo, he had already written the word “To”, so instead of trying to have him cover it, I told him to just go ahead and put my name on it. After all, it’s kind of nice to know that Superman knows your name.
I was mostly concerned with getting a good photo with him since the idiotic arrangement of the tables made it incredibly awkward to go around and get next to him. My request to lean in for a nice, tight photo went unheard and he barely leaned forward at all. But I guess beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m extremely happy that I got the chance to meet Brandon Routh.
This concludes the celebrity postings from the Superman Celebration. Return to the original posting here…
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