Adventures in Press Junkets

The press junket is perhaps one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had. I attended my first ever junket today for the movie “The Wackness,” starring Sir Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby and Method Man. I saw the movie on Monday and fell in love. It was almost everything I wanted in a movie and more. Three days later, I made my way across town from Santa Monica to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, up to the 14th floor in a mad rush, only to be confronted with a room full of publicists and journalists.

As usual, I was the youngest one there. As I gave my name to one of the publicists, I heard someone say “Are you Armenian?” I turned around and it was a young guy my age. We got to talking about why we became writers, how every other Armenian young person we know have either gone the Business or Dentist or Lawyer route, how print is dying, how press junkets work. Somewhere along the line, we discover that one of his friends is the brother of one of my sister’s good friends. This situation right here, this would only happen to us Armenians. Out of all the most obscure places, the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills on a Thursday afternoon for a press junket, do I meet someone I can play six degrees of separation with.

Let me explain what I gathered from how press junkets work. They gather a bunch of journalists into a sort of “holding room,” jam crammed with more food and drinks than you can fathom. You wait and you eat and you wait and you eat, until they assign you rooms to talk to the talent. You mosey on to the room where there is a big round table (hence the term “roundtables”) accompanied with about six or seven chairs for writers. The publicist and the talent walk in the room. The talent sits down, literally 2 feet away from you at the table. Everyone turns on their tape recorders and pushes them towards the talent. Questions ensue. This repertoire continues on for about 15 minutes until the publicist comes in, gives a 2 minute mark and jots out the door. Two more minutes of questions take place. The publicist comes back in, the talent thanks everyone and is ushered out the door. The tape recorders retreat back to their owners and remain on standby, until the entire process it repeated again with the next person.

I was stuck in a room with women older than my mother who (I think) had a hard time understanding the entire film. Sure they asked questions and looked interested, but all around, they just couldn’t begin to understand how many kids growing up in the 90s can relate to the character in this film. When they heard Method Man was going to be part of the interview process, they scoffed. Why him, they asked. They knew nothing about him or his music and they didn’t want to know either.

The shining light of my day was sitting across the table from Sir Ben Kingsley. It was as if I was interviewing Ghandi himself. He is so humble, kind and down to earth. And so articulate and intelligent. What an amazing man. I feel lucky just to have been able to sit in the same room with him.

I didn’t ask any questions during the entire process. It’s not that I didn’t have any, but I didn’t feel it was the right time to ask. I’m not sure. It was either that, or I was nervous. A combination of both most probably.

On the way there in my car, I kept having these day dreams of Ben Kingsley singling me out to talk to me. I don’t know why I would think this. I knew I wasn’t really going to be talking, so I kept imagining him saying in his soothing accent, “You, you over there, you’re not saying anything. Talk to me.” And then I saw myself talking to him, just me and him, no old cranky journalists around, no publicists, just me and him. Then I took a wrong turn on the way to the hotel and my daydream bubble popped.

Method Man is quite charming and handsome. And he has a booming voice. Like the voice of God or something. Olivia is beautiful. She’s only 2 years younger than me. Again I wanted to banish the other women in the room and talk to her like we were friends. She had gorgeous hair as well. Josh Peck has the most striking blue eyes you’ll ever see. And he’s so handsome and nice and funny. I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home.

When the junket was finished, I came out with two tapes full of recordings from Director Jonathan Levine, Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Method Man and Olivia Thirlby, and a pounding headache that still has not gone away. I drove back to work in traffic, stayed for 3 and a half more hours, then headed home.

I will post links to my review and interview once they’re published. Thanks for reading, if you did.