Stars Who Had The Most Awkward Real-Life Interactions
Many celebrities got into their chosen line of work for the love of the craft, but just as many are lured into the industry for the fame it brings. Most stars enjoy the attention, especially from fans and well-wishers, and being recognized out in public can often be both humbling and life-affirming. Nevertheless, there are times when a star gets into an awkward situation with an encounter that isn't quite so pleasant.
This can come in the form of an over-eager fan who makes things difficult, or a public servant who doesn't seem to care how famous or respected they may be. Other times, it could even be someone who doesn't recognize them at all. This might lead to an uncomfortable exchange or even a bitter one, with tempers flaring if things go sideways. Most often, though, stars take these situations in their stride. Let's take a look at stars who had awkward real-life interactions and how they handled them.
Millie Bobby Brown
Many stars enjoy interacting with the public, but while most encounters are fairly innocent, some fans can take meeting their favorite star too far. This was the case when "Stranger Things" actor Millie Bobby Brown had an uncomfortable meeting with a would-be photographer while out holiday shopping.
Brown, who was just 16 at the time, was out with her mom when she encountered a fan who wanted a selfie. Brown politely declined the invitation, but not before the fan whipped out her phone and began recording video. The person even questioned why Brown wouldn't want to be filmed. "I don't need to justify it to anyone," Brown said on Instagram while discussing the incident (per E! News). "If I don't want to be taken a video of, I don't have to be."
Holding back tears, Brown stressed the importance of consent and the need for fans to show respect to celebrities, especially when out in public. "It just makes me upset when people try to push the boundary," the actor said. "I wish people were more respectful."
Jaye Griffiths
Some fans flatter and gush about when they have a chance encounter with their favorite celebrity, but even those moments don't always lead to the most positive experiences. Actor Jaye Griffiths learned this the hard way after meeting a viewer of her TV program "Casualty" while at a local supermarket.
Though media coverage of the encounter described the person as a fan of Griffiths, it's hard to say whether that's the case, because she wasn't told how much they loved her work — quite the opposite. "Someone said to me last week in Tesco, 'Well the lighting wasn't very flattering, you looked awful,'" Griffiths told the Mirror in 2017. "On national television, I look awful, apparently."
As Griffiths told the paper, she was so affected by the comment that she had to leave the store. Thankfully, she got support at home when it came time to make sense of the incident. "My husband helped me see that maybe her intention was kind ... behind it all she was saying, 'You haven't looked as good as you have at other times.'" Looking to see past the negativity, Griffiths chose empathy. "Everybody bears a cross and maybe hers was really heavy that day and it came out wrong."
Tom Hanks
Few actors have as sterling a reputation as Tom Hanks, who is often considered one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. But even someone as friendly as Hanks can be pushed too far. And one of those occasions came when the "Toy Story" star had an uncomfortable meeting with a group of rowdy fans on the streets of New York City.
It happened amid the press tour for the 2020 film "Elvis," when Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were in the Big Apple. Mobbed by throngs of excited fans and onlookers, Wilson was shoved aside and almost pushed to the ground by the crowd eager to get a glimpse of Hanks, and the actor lost his composure. "My wife?!" Hanks was said to scream at the crowd. "This is my wife, back the f*** off!"
It was a rare outburst of anger from Hanks, but certainly an understandable one. As the Mercury News detailed in their coverage of the scene, fans were apologetic, but that didn't make Hanks feel any better. Thankfully, neither Wilson nor Hanks were injured, and they were whisked away by their entourage before things could escalate further.
Bill Hader
Actor and comedian Bill Hader came to fame on "Saturday Night Live" long before he appeared on "Barry," the critically acclaimed comedy-drama that he wrote and starred in for four seasons. But he's also famous for helping create the "voice" of the droid BB-8 in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy. And working on the iconic sci-fi franchise has earned him a whole new group of fans, at least one of which drew his ire during an awkward meeting.
Describing the interaction as "f***ed up," Hader says that in 2015, he met a fan who wanted an autograph that put him off the whole enterprise of signing for fans. "I used to sign stuff," Hader told the Happy Sad Confused Podcast (per The Independent) "And then one time I saw somebody and they had their kid come up to me to sign a BB-8 thing." It may have seemed innocent at first, but that it was three o'clock in the morning was the first alarm bell that something was off. "It was super late, and this guy kept his kid up all night." Then, Hader heard the man telling his son, "Go over there so he'll sign it so I can sell it online."
In response, Hader told the man point blank that what he was doing wasn't right. And as a result, Hader is now one of many stars who refuse to sign autographs for fans.
Angela Scanlon
It's not just superstar actors who have awkward interactions, but some of Hollywood's biggest directors too. One such incident was revealed in an episode of the British game show "Would I Lie to You?" the series where guests take turns describing a personal story that may or may not be true. In a 2019 installment, guest and TV presenter Angela Scanlon revealed a curious meeting she had with director Steven Spielberg that tuned out to be all too real.
According to Scanlon, she was attending the BAFTA Awards when she bumped into Spielberg, but she had no idea who he was. "I saw this, you know, very refined older gentleman standing there and thought he was maybe somebody's dad," Scanlon recounted. "He looked a little bit lost and I thought 'I'm just gonna have a chat with him.'" During the subsequent discussion, Scanlon began to realize she wasn't talking to any ordinary man, but still couldn't work out quite who it was until the rest of the press came their way. Amazingly, the opposing team of players didn't believe the story, scoring Scanlon a much-needed point in the game.
Jonathan Frakes
Known for his role as William Riker on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Jonathan Frakes later transitioned to a director. Since moving behind the camera it seems he's become less recognizable, though, which led to an awkward interaction with a member of hotel security while filming a new project.
Appearing on Michael Rosenbaum's podcast "Inside of You," Frakes relayed the story. "When I was called to the set we'd go up the ramp and I had my little acting bag with me ... for days I'd just been walking back and forth into this hotel past this security guard." But on one occasion, the guard wanted a peek inside Frakes' bag. Assuming the guard was messing around, Frakes made a sarcastic quip, but the guard wasn't laughing.
"This guy wasn't having that. So he said 'Who's your boss?' [and] a***hole move number two, I said 'I guess you are.'" Immediately, Frakes was detained and searched. The actor, seriously humbled, felt enormous guilt and immediately apologized. "Sometimes you just think you're funny and you're just not ... and people think you're just an a***hole. This was that moment."
John Krasinski
If you're a well-known actor and director like John Krasinski, it can be awkward enough when someone questions your identity in an official capacity. But when the "A Quiet Place" star was questioned by a customs agent in London, things got even more cringey when the man seemed to doubt his credentials — and insulted him to boot.
Asked what he did for a living, Krasinski said he was an actor, to which the agent inquired if he might know him from anything. While Krasinski joked that he "remade" the iconic British sitcom "The Office," he didn't get any laughs from the Londoner. When he told the agent he was in London visiting his wife — the British superstar Emily Blunt — he was given a rude response. "He said, 'You? ... You married Emily Blunt?'" Krasinski told Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on "The Tonight Show."
Not believing that the man standing before him was married to the "Edge of Tomorrow" star, the customs agent simply rolled his eyes and told Krasinski to move along.
Blake Lively
Meeting a fan whose nerves leave them speechless isn't uncommon for a Hollywood star. But what happens when it's the stars themselves who are at a loss for words? Well, we found out when actor Blake Lively met President Barack Obama, and she told the tale while appearing on "Late Night with Seth Meyers."
"The only thing I could think of [to say] was that he'd left my husband [Ryan Reynolds] a voice mail when he was running for president," Lively told host Meyers. "So I said, 'You left my husband a voice mail!'" But if her awkward, non-sequitur outburst wasn't strange enough, she followed it up with the even more perplexing, "And he deleted it!" The U.S. President might have found the innocent comment a tad funny, but things only went downhill from there.
"I was like, 'He deleted it cause you were just a senator then!'" By then, Lively was deep in a hole but kept digging herself further. "'Well, he didn't know you would be president. I mean, who thought that?'" she continued. Thankfully, Obama had a good sense of humor about the incident.
Thandiwe Newton
Going unrecognized can be strange enough, but when a star is mistaken for another celebrity entirely it can be truly awkward. That's exactly what happened to "Westworld" star Thandiwe Newton. This time it wasn't a lobby security guard or grumpy customs agent, but another famous face who was guilty of a case of mistaken identity.
The British actor was stateside during the encounter and found herself in a cycling class alongside former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham, who decided to start chatting. "I was in SoulCycle in L.A. and Victoria Beckham, who I have actually met a few times, was there," Newton recalled to host Graham Norton while on his show in 2018. "We were chatting away when she said, 'It's so great that you are here when you are pregnant.' I said, 'I actually had my baby a couple of months ago.' ... We carried on chatting and it was obvious she thought I was someone else."
Who that someone else was, however, just made the situation more uncomfortable. "'Do you think I am Zoe Saldana?'" Newton said she asked the singer. "Victoria was absolutely mortified!"
Bryan Cranston
Though Bryan Cranston had some great roles before, it was his performance as Walter White on "Breaking Bad" that made him a household name. Cranston's awkward encounter wasn't with an overzealous fan, though, and it didn't even happen when he was a star — but decades before as a kid. And the man he encountered wasn't anyone you'd ever expect.
"My cousin and I used to go horseback riding at the Spahn Ranch," Cranston said on "The Dan Patrick Show." As Cranston describes it, they were out riding when some riders at the ranch shouted that a man named Charlie was coming. "In the middle of this pack was this one little man with black hair and dark dead eyes who was on the horse but he wasn't holding his own reins, the guy in front of him was holding [them] ...and he was just out of his mind."
Both Cranston and his cousin thought the incident humorous until a year later when the news of the murder of Sharon Tate made headlines. Upon seeing the image of Charles Manson on TV, Cranston knew instantly that he'd had a run-in with the infamous murderer.
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Often it is the stars themselves who make light of awkward encounters on talk shows and podcasts, but there's one that made mainstream news back in the 1980s. The incident was one of Hollywood's biggest stories in 1989 when Zsa Zsa Gabor was pulled over by police in an interaction that was surely much more awkward for the officer.
It happened when Gabor was driving through Beverly Hills and she was flagged by police officer Paul Kramer for an expired tag. The entertainer was also without a license, didn't have any registration, and there was an open flask of Jack Daniel's in the vehicle, escalating the potential charges. Rather than accept responsibility, Gabor struck back — literally — slapping Kramer before fleeing the scene.
This earned Gabor an appearance in court where she wound up receiving hefty fines, community service, and a psychiatric evaluation. Oddly, Gabor refused to perform the appointed community service and served three days in jail instead the following year.
Nathan Fielder
Despite his many antics — that often blur the line between real and fictional — we're taking Nathan Fielder at his word regarding an incident that occurred when flying across the country to attend a wedding.
It was during a stop on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" that Fielder relayed the story, which got him in hot water with police. He'd just landed at an airport and grabbed his luggage, only realizing later that it was someone else's bag. Thanks to the kindness of the man whom it belonged to, Fielder wore the other person's suit to the wedding. But when he was pulled over by police, the officer noticed the strange bag of white powder on the seat that Fielder had discovered in the man's jacket pocket.
Thankfully, when police got ahold of the suit's owner, Fielder was set free. Still, what the contents of the bag turned out to be just made it all the more awkward. It wasn't drugs — as Fielder and the officer feared — it turned out to be the ashes of the man's late mother.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson
An encounter with a celebrity can make even the most enthusiastic fan nervous. However, when the star is also a physically intimidating presence, it can make things even more uncomfortable. When that celebrity is Dwayne Johnson, though, it can be even more awkward. According to those involved in an incident at a gym in 2019, it was downright scary, even if it was all an innocent misunderstanding.
As reported by Page Six, Johnson and his team stopped by an Equinox gym in Aventura, Florida. The problem was, that the star never bothered to check in, and staffers were forced to confront the oversized Johnson about his error. Intimidated by the man known as "The Rock," the employees hesitated, afraid of what kind of response they might face from a man who could lift them over his head without breaking a sweat.
All ended well, though, after Johnson apologized for not following procedure, explaining that he had a flight to catch and just wanted to get in a good workout before leaving the area.
Christopher Nolan
Not all awkward encounters are in person, and one of the most recent involved director Christopher Nolan, who was participating in an at-home exercise program with an unsuspecting online trainer who had no idea he was part of the class. It might not have been so awkward, though, if not for the fact that the trainer decided to go on a diatribe about her dissatisfaction with the 2020 sci-fi film "Tenet," directed by Nolan.
Peloton instructor Jenn Sherman admitted to being baffled by the film, bluntly asking her class, "What the f*** was going on in that movie?" It was clear that Sherman didn't know Nolan was in the group, but that didn't make it easy for the director, who said he may be skipping class for a while. For Sherman, it was even more embarrassing, of course, because the video of the session was dug up and found its way online for all to see. While she did issue Nolan an apology and invited him for a private, "insult-free" session (per Variety), she still maintains that "Tenet" made no sense.
Leslie Jones
We've heard from a star who was mistaken for someone else, but Leslie Jones got into a similar predicament — from the other side. She told the story to Seth Meyers on "Late Night," who had to prod her to tell the embarrassing anecdote to the audience.
"So we're standing in front of this hotel and I spot Al Pacino. And I go over, and I'm like 'Oh my god, I love you, I think you're one of the best actors in this business.'" Pouring on the compliments, Jones admitted to being a bit over-the-top in her praise, but it's what happened next that made it truly awkward. Because after 'Pacino' walked off and got into his car, Jones' friend had some bad news, asking her, "You know that was Dustin Hoffman, right?"
All things considered, it's not the worst interaction she could have had, joking that "Hoffman was probably like, 'damn, Latifa be tripping.'"