The Patti Report
On Location for Numb3rs
January 13, 2009

So, there I was sleeping soundly when my phone went off really early on this Tuesday morning…OK, at about 8:45 AM, but I *had* gone to bed after 2 am, so it was early for me. It was my friend, JC, and she starts the call with, “Sorry to wake you before 9, but I have some news...” Since she works at a news monitoring company, that could mean, quite literally, anything! I woke up a bit more—she usually only calls early (OK, early-ish) when it’s Something Big. She went on to tell me that after some serious sleuthing, she found out that Numb3rs was filming on location today in downtown Los Angeles. Now, let me mention right off here that JC does not live anywhere near L.A., so she did this just for me, and for that she gets major *SMOOCHIES*!

Anyway, the information she found didn’t list who would be there, but hey, like I was *not* going to go check it out?! I jumped out of bed and ran around like crazy to get out of the house and into L.A., which is a good hour’s drive for me. I arrived about 10:45AM and headed toward the address I’d been given, which turned out to be the Biltmore Hotel in the heart of Downtown. The way I drove into the area, I wound up on the street which runs along the back side of the hotel by accident. I noticed as I got within a couple of blocks of the address that there were a bunch of film equipment trucks and the ubiquitous yellow placards that are always posted when a TV or movie is filming ‘on location’…except the placards said House. *scratches head* (It turned out that 3 shows were filming within just blocks of each other—I think all the studios decided to take advantage of the completely-unreal-even-for-California, 80+ degree, sunshiny January day!)

As I was driving by the address itself, I glanced over…and there was James! Just sitting in the sun, bold as you please! WOOT!!! He got up just as I had to pull away, and though I circled the block as quickly as I could, he was nowhere to be seen the next pass. But, I had seen a parking lot just up the next block that I’d been in the wrong lane for the first time around, so I quickly drove to it and parked—it was about 11AM by then. I took up a position across the street from the back doors of the hotel for the next few hours… OK, so the reality of it is…they were mostly filming inside, and I am not pushy enough to try to schmooze people to crash the set, so I just sat and waited a lot, watching the comings and goings of the crew and extras mostly.

So anyway, there I stood, waiting. There were big lights facing inside the building, but no cameras were visible outside so all the filming was taking place inside the building, darn it all! Every so often I would see a glimpse of James inside—once he jumped up on a ledge to sit, and was off it seconds later! LOL—how very James! About 30 minutes in, James suddenly came outside, took a position near the end of the sidewalk facing the doors—yes, his back was mostly to me. Sigh—with a couple of extras poised behind him. He huffed and blew a couple of times and then just…changed. Even from across four lanes, with his back turned and cars and buses passing by, I could see the change in body language! And then at a cue I never saw or heard, he *sauntered* purposefully into the hotel, very self-assured, doing one of those sideways looks to his right as he came near the doors. Just the way his profile looked as he was looking gave me chills! Very predatory! And I have no clue if the camera could even see him yet at that point, but he was fully into it before he hit those doors!

This pattern repeated twice more, at about half hour intervals, plus a couple of times, James came out and got a bottle of water he’d stashed and sipped from it before going back inside. James looked…very much like he did in Without a Trace, though likely the suit and shirt are MUCH nicer! The shirt was a sort of bronze silk (I think), and the suit was a similar bronze-olive color; hard to describe the color actually, but they looked VERY nice on him! James looked *good*; his hair was the current ‘usual’ style, short-ish with just a hint of wave on top and he looked healthy and rested.

Finally about 12:15PM, I noticed people were starting to leave for lunch…and they were going in the direction of my parking lot. It turned out that the dressing-room trailers and the catering area had been staged in the next parking lot just up the hill from mine.

Sometime just after 12:30PM, James came out. I headed in the direction of my car, and as I was on the side of the street that the lot was on, I got to the ‘near’ corner ahead of James and a blond (actress? extra?—she didn’t have a crew badge, but left the set when he did) with whom he was walking. He got about two-thirds of the way across the street where I was before he looked up and saw me smiling there…and broke out into a huge grin! I gave a small wave and watched as he forgot about the blond and came straight over to me, saying, “HI darlin’! It‘s really great to see you!” and then grabbed me in a big bear hug right there on the street!!!!! Wheeeeee!!!! We talked for a moment, but he had to rush off and have pictures taken, so I asked if he would be returning this way, and he said yes. I told him I had a book to give him but had forgotten it in the car, so I’d meet him on the way back, and he said great, and indicated he really looked forward to seeing me on his return.

I waited. And waited. It was *hot*. I know those actor types get an hour and half for lunch so I figured it would be about 2 before they would be returning to work. I waited some more. At some point, I noticed a few people start straggling back from lunch. Then I noticed a van pull into the lunch area, then pull out. Then another van. Except that second van had about 4-5 people in it…and one looked a lot like James’ suited back, which I had just spent the morning watching… Turned out, a studio van picked them up and drove them *four* blocks to get them back *down* the *one* block for work—even though they had to walk *up* there in the first place. *rolls eyes* Only the stars, mind you, not the extras or crew! LOL! And Sigh. I still had the book, and missed getting to talk to James.

I went back to my waiting and watching spot across from the hotel, but they had moved completely inside in the afternoon, sadly. However, about 2:30PM James suddenly came outside and headed in the opposite direction from earlier. I started off in that direction, but then he reversed course and returned inside—I guess the break was very short and he didn’t quite get to wherever he was going! Another 15 minutes and he appeared again, and this time I had kept my position leaning in the new direction, so I took off down and across the street, catching up to him shortly before he got to the first trucks parked on the next block. I yelled out “James” and when he looked over and saw me, I swear his whole face lit up in a big smile! He stopped, walked towards me, saying, “There you are!” Then he told me he was sorry, but he had been taken back in a van. I smiled and told him I had noticed. He then said, “I tried to get out of it, I told them I was meeting someone but they said they had to keep us all together” Aw!!! (Studios! They have the weirdest rules!) So, I gave him the book, the latest by Naomi Wolf (author of “The End of America”) (*if interested, see description at the end). At first, he kind of looked at it with this puzzled expression, but when I pointed out the author and said “it’s her latest, I believe” he ‘tiggered’ out! LOL! He got very excited and mentioned “The End of America” which I had in my purse (as I am in the middle of reading it), so I pulled it out. He got even more animated that I had it and talked about something from that book…which I haven’t gotten to yet, apparently! LOL! Then his phone rang, and he thought he was being paged to go back on set, and he hadn’t gotten to his destination yet, and he had to take the call, he was so sorry…and I just waved him on and said, ”I don’t want to hold you up, I know you’re busy working!” He gave me an apologetic/appreciative look, and as he was turning, I said “love you’ kind of quietly. I don’t know if he heard, but he turned back to me and gave me this stunning smile and said something I couldn’t hear, and then he was off for what turned out to be the mobile canteen and a cup of coffee—and since he had a phone call, I thought it would be rude to tag along, so that was it for the up close and personal moments.

I didn’t get to see James again, except for when he was returning from that little jaunt for caffeine. A bit later I saw Rob Morrow arrive. At 5 PM I finally got up the nerve to ask if I could go inside, since the filming was obviously not going on near the entry. The guy said that there was a bar inside, open to the public…but he didn’t tell me that… LOL. I did go in, but they were filming in an adjacent room, so I couldn’t see inside to the actual filming; however, the nice PA let me sit in the lobby where I could see Rob Morrow and other actors sitting around waiting for their cues and *almost* hear the acting going on in the next room. Sadly (though happily for my strained budget), about 10 minutes later, I got a sudden, last-minute call to go to work 'right now' and had to leave. Sigh. I really sooo did not want to leave right then, but being self-employed and not having worked almost at all the entire past month…and with Feb 15th approaching… I did -- and got a very rare and large tip for doing so!

Talk about charmed days!

Peace
Patti
1/14/09