Which of today's actors are "class acts" or genuine nice guys?

Cafe Society
141

Have to add Jeff Daniels. When he is in Michigan, he lives not too far away from where I grew up, and you’d hear stories about him being exceptionally nice to people for no reason whatsoever. He’s also a big proponent of local theaters and Michigan (which, frankly, needs as much help as it can get). I have never, ever heard anyone relate a single negative, or even anything less than glowing, experience with him. He mostly just acts like a regular guy. His family owns a fairly large lumberyard locally, so if you watch a local channel long enough, you can watch his brother try to convince you to come buy some lumber.

If we are including sports, I’ve got one for classy, and one not.

For classy, there is Jason Grilli, who was a relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers for a few years (and widely disliked, mainly because some fans thought he stunk). My mom and a bunch of her friends were in the airport waiting to fly back to Michigan from Florida, and recognized him (this was after the Tigers were in the World Series). When their flight was delayed, they decided to go say hi. He was very willing to chat with them, just asked that they not make too big of a fuss because he didn’t want to attract attention. They spent the rest of the delay joking and playing around. One of the ladies got his email address, and ended up corresponding with him and his wife on a fairly regular basis for the next couple years. Another one of them went to a Tigers game, and went down to the bullpen to try to say hi. He greeted her by name and asked after the other ladies in the group. He always had fans in our household after that plane trip.

In the “not” pile, I’ve heard stories from friends in the Pittsburgh area that Ben Roethlisburger is an absolute jerk.

142

James Franco seems really cool to me in interviews.

Kevin Sorbo is really nice in person, both from personal experience, and from stories I’ve heard from people that work with him.

Adam West is hilarious and friendly in person on a stage, though I didn’t get to see his interpersonal interactions.

Both Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon seem like really cool people. Ed Begley Jr also comes across as both really nice and super into environmental causes (even has a reality show about it).

Say what you will about the Bakkers, but Tammy Fay and her son both come across as really really sweet people.

OTOH, Denzel Washington comes across as an ass in interviews, and when I met Nichelle Nichols she came across as very snooty.

143

I would say so. We’ve talked a fair amount about his work and he’s always very down-to-earth about it. He was very proud of Mysterious Skin and Brick, and he was glad to be able to do work like that. Once when I was really drunk I asked him “So…like (hic!) are you like a… BIG STAR now???” (this was right around the time The Lookout came out, I think) and he sort of laughed and said no. But he seems a lot more excited about organic, collaborative creative projects than the whole Hollywood machine. My feeling is he had a taste of that during the Third Rock era and he is just not interested in being a huge celebrity (again?).

144

Nice. One of my second cousins (my father’s cousin) was his manager for some time and he played at his (my cousin’s) wedding.

145

All sounds cool, give him my regards when you see him next. :slight_smile: I think he’s a great actor and hope he gets to continue picking his projects and doing good stuff rather than becoming just another cog in the Hellywood machine.

146

Wayne Gretzky is, given his near-diefic status in Canada, amazingly patient and kind with fans. He’ll always spend more time with you than you expect. A cousin of mine who is very disabled was given a chance to meet Gretzky for a few minutes, and The Great One spent over an hour with him. On another occasion my best friend ran into Gretzky in the first class lounge at LAX. He told The Great One how much he admired his career, and Gretzky bought him a drink, and they shot the shit about hockey for awhile.

147

Mary Martin and Carol Channing were performing together in their stage show in Philadelphia in 1987. There were invited to an official after hours get-together as part of the Bicentennial of the Constitution celebration.

I got lucky and drew the straw as Mary Martin’s “date” and escort. At the time she was 73. I was old enough to be her adult grandson.

An absofuckinglutely gem of a human being. It was though we had been friends all our lives. Too many superlatives to describe her politeness, graciousness, and all around God’s gift to the Human race.

On the other hand, a coworker got the straw for Carol Channing. An absofuckinglutely self-centered bitch of a human being.

148

Two of my best friends got to meet Wayne Brady in Las Vegas. Said he was one of the most genuine, kind, and likeable people they’d ever met. He talked with EVERY fan that was there, took pictures with everyone, chatted people up about kids, families, etc. Just a nice, regular guy.

149

I LOVE the Chappel show skit where he goes out for night with Wayne Brady and he finds out what a mean crazy mo fo he really is.

If I was some famous nice guy, I’d be dieing to do a skit like that.

150

Having bartended quite a few celebrity events (a couple hundred at least), my experience is that most celebs are pretty likable, many of them classy, more than you might think.

Off the top of my head, the one who takes the cake for me is Steve Van Zant. At the Sopranos Emmy Party of 2000, on his way out the door he stopped, turned around, walked to my bar and stuck a $20-bill in my shirt pocket, smiled and headed for the exit.

Nice enough. He was the first celebrity to ever tip me. (They tend to not tip at complimentary events.) It also happened to be the night I met my wife; she was the tarot card reader for the party.

Not done. Here comes the good part.

So, flash forward about six years (?), the final Sopranos Emmy Party, and he comes to my bar again. I can’t help but tell him the story, really to thank him (not fishing for another tip, I swear) and to point out what a special night it was for me.

This time on his way out he stuck $100 in my hand and gave me another $100 to give to the other bartender.

Now that was a class move.

Others:

Charlize Theron, Tom Hanks, Jenny McCarthy, Kathy Bates, Forrest Whittaker, Jeff Probst, Pet Benatar & Neil Geraldo, gosh, I could go on for a while. Oh, and Brad Pitt & Jennifer Aniston. Bartended their wedding. Both pleasant and grateful to the worker bees.

151

Just remembered Drew Carey. He is a total football (soccer) nut. He got into the game when he saw a match between Rangers and Celtic a while back. Since then he has become a huge fan of the US Men’s National Team and makes a point to rub elbows with the regular fans. At the USA v Italy World Cup match in Kaiserslautern I was close to the field, and Carey came up and said hello, then gave one of the guys a bunch of money, maybe a couple of hundred dollars, so he could go buy beers for everyone that was in that section. Best part was he didn’t go in celebrity mode. He actually got a photographer’s credential and was working the game. He wore the same flourescent vest and cap like all the other journalists that are on the field. You’d have never recognized him if he hadn’t come around and talked to us.

He’s also a part owner in the new Seattle Sounders MLS franchise, which has a ton of money invested via the Seattle Seahawks and Paul Allen of Microsoft.

152

One of my cousins had a small speaking role in The Pursuit of Happyness and had nothing but nice things to say about him.

153

Kid Rock was in town and he saw a group of kids doing their prom dinners at an expensive steak house and he paid their bill.

154

I remember when he was on the show The Powers that Be, a too brief sitcom in which he was the son of David Hyde Pierce and Valerie Mahaffey [bka Eve on NORTHERN EXPOSURE, though she would have been good for the roel of Maris if she’d ever been shown], and thinking “that kid’s got a future”- he was actually acting as a kid. My main problem with him though is that he made me feel like an aging pervert when he got nekkid in a movie and I was thinking “ooh… damn… kid’s grown up”.:wink: Glad to hear he’s nice as he seems extremely intelligent on interviews as well.

155

Some friends of mine had a daughter with a terminal illness, and she visited with Will Smith as a part of a program that grants wishes to seriously ill children. Her family spent a few hours with Smith, I believe in his trailer on a movie set. They could not have been more pleased with him and the visit.

156

I’ve worked with agencies for the mentally retarded and I have a friend who had a MR son, and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson volunteers a lot of his time with these groups and met my friend’s son and some of the guys I worked with. By all accounts he was an absolutely super person- very nice, no star ego at all, posed for pictures, even got other wrestlers and celebrities to pose with them.

157

He [Will Smith] visited the children’s hospital I work at recently, and everyone who met he said he was a genuinely nice guy, and had a lot of fun playing & singing with the kids.

158

Just thought of another one… a friend of mine used to be a Federal Agent and was stationed in Hawaii. One night he and a buddy stopped at a little dive for some dinner and a beer. They SWORE the guy a few stools down was Kurt Russell, my friend was the more outgoing one so he went over and asked him - sure enough, it was (even showed ID since my friend seemed to be in disbelief;)) Kurt stayed and had some beers with them, chatted, laughed, shared an order of buffalo wings like he’d known them all their lives. My friend said he was the “real deal”, a super-nice guy who seemed to really enjoy hanging out and doing regular “guy” things.

159

I can’t say whether or not she’s a “class act”, but Kaori Momoi (she played ‘Mother’ in Memoirs of a Geisha) was extremely friendly and outgoing to everyone when I was an extra in a TV show with her. Despite the fact that shooting had gone past midnight she was still going from table to table (it was restaurant scene) chatting everyone up.

160

Precisely what I was thinking.

“Tax Deductible” does not mean you just get all the money back that you donated in your tax return… just that it doesn’t count against the “taxable” income that you pull in for the year.

To generalize, if you make 100k a year, and your tax rate is 35%, you pay 35,000 in taxes for the year and take home 65k.

If you make $10k in tax-deductible donations, you’re taxable income then becomes 90k, and you end up paying 31,500 in taxes rather than the original 35k.