When I publish this, it will be April thirteenth, 2014. Last year, on April thirteenth, I saw 'Trance' in the cinema with two of my friends. Well, I sort of saw it. One of my friends got to the torture scene where James's fingers are being ripped to shreds, and collapsed. We ended up going home to my other friend's house and going into Glasgow to play Crazy Golf. I think that was the first time I daydreamed about James.
I remember at dinner that night imagining him coming into Di Maggio's and sitting down at the table next to us, laughing at our haphazard attempt to watch his movie. On the way home, the friend who feinted and I were a little obsessed with the MTV Movie Awards, for which Bilbo Baggins was up for Best Hero - technically Martin Freeman but we felt like Bilbo deserved a lot of credit. We ran the few minutes up to my house. Flat out. Seriously, we were choking by the time we got to my house, although that didn't stop us hurling cries of 'For Bilbo!' into the air as we ran.
I thought a lot about James as I waited for my parents to get here with my other friend and her little brother and all our parents. I thought about how I was sad that I never got to see the end of his film and how I was sure I had never heard anything so pure and brilliant as James's monologue at the beginning of 'Trance'. I thought about him for the rest of the night - and about Bilbo.
The next morning, a Sunday, I woke up to learn that Bilbo was ahead in the 'spirited' battle with the Snow White fans - how is Snow White a hero? She has a handsome Prince and Bilbo has almost double the dwarves. We were ahead by about sixty thousand. I woke up with elation and tweeted some of my Ringer friends (Lord of the Rings fans). I also woke up disappointed. I desperately wanted to see the end of 'Trance' and resolved to ask a slightly less squeamish friend if she wanted to go.
She did. And I saw it that afternoon. I freaked out when I realised that James's character was [spoiler but you know what I mean if you've seen it]. I remembered thinking that I had known I was going to develop a crush on this guy. My dad had mentioned the film while he, my mum and I were hillwalking up Ben A'an, and that the actor in it was getting to use his own accent for once. I was intrigued, yes, but I was acting like a mountain goat at the time to keep myself entertained so I wasn't particularly interested.
Well, that was idiotic. As soon as I looked James up on April thirteenth, I realised that I had seen him before in a few things and liked him. For example, when I watched 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', I looked him up. Not either of the young boys that were probably around my age - I looked up 'Mr Tumnus actor'. And found James. At the time, I let it be and didn't see him again until a Graham Norton episode in January 2013.
He had his beard at the time, so for some reason I was expecting him not to be interesting. I always associate beards with really cool, mature men who would think I'm crazy for enjoying Doctor Who as much as I do. Of course, that interview proved that James was obviously far more nerdy and sincere than that but I still didn't begin my obsession.
It took until April thirteenth, 2013, for my Jamesy obsession to finally begin. It has not let up since, and I hope it never does.
No comments:
Post a Comment