Month: May 2018

It’s been exactly a week since I left for Hollywood to attend the world premiere of the new Star Wars movie, Solo: A Star Wars Story. Honestly, I can’t believe I even typed that last sentence. Our adventure in Hollywood was a trip neither Charlotte or I will ever forget, and I wanted to share a few more details from our whirlwind trip out west!

Charlotte and I both flew out a day ahead of the premiere on Wednesday. The last time I flew this far west was my family’s vacation to Hawaii when I was in middle school and I had forgotten how big this country is. Opening my window to see the desert spread out underneath me was amazing – there’s nothing like it on the East Coast!

Charlotte arrived a few hours after me and once we had our obligatory In-N-Out burgers and shakes we headed over to the Fox theater and finally got to announce that we were in Los Angeles for the Solo Premiere! You can check out that video here if you’re interested.

The next day was premiere day and it would be an understatement to say we weren’t freaking out. We spent the morning with coffees walking around Beverly Hills looking at beautiful houses and trying to keep our cool. Everywhere we looked there was promotional material for Solo, and everything seemed like a good sign that we were in for an amazing night. After walking around we headed over to DryBar to get our hair done for the evening. I’ve never been to DryBar before so it was such a treat to get a little pampering for the big event! Sushi was on the menu for lunch and it was delicious. If you remember our struggles from The Last Jedi premiere (i.e. Charlotte getting sick because we only ate popcorn and cheese sticks the whole day), it was essential we stopped and had a real meal before the festivities began!

Suddenly, it was time to get ready. We slid on those comfy hotel robes and got to work. And by work, I mean face masks, mai tais, and popping in Empire Strikes Back. Aside from the actual event, this was my favorite part of the day: relaxing with my best friend, watching one of our favorite movies, and getting ready for the biggest event of our lives. Both of our outfits took some nods from Star Wars characters: Charlotte had an amazing cape in honor of the original cape connoisseur, Lando. My outfit was inspired by Enfys Nest with the colors and patterns on my dress and jewelry. We recorded a little spot for the show and then we were off to the premiere!

The premiere was everything we could have hoped for and more. I can’t stress that enough: I feel so grateful and humbled that we were invited and able to make everything work out in order to attend this event. It was truly amazing.

When we arrived we met up with our close friend Savanna Kiefer of The Dorky Diva blog and stood in line to get our badges. Of course Charlotte and I originally went to the wrong line, but we ended up in the right place eventually! They took us into the red carpet space in groups and we were placed in the middle of the fan section. I could not have asked for a better spot to be located. If you were watching the live stream coverage from the Star Wars Show, we were on the right side of the screen next to Andi and Anthony. There are some screen shots friends sent us where you can see us on the live stream, usually on the far right side!

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We probably stood on the red carpet for about 45-minutes before the cast and crew started arriving. Andi and Anthony were already there doing rehearsal and making sure their sound and visuals were all good. There was a small TV were they could monitor the live stream and feed coming in from David Collins on the other side of the red carpet, so from where we were standing, we could actually watch the live stream while being on the live stream. Talk about live stream inception.

Once the cast and crew started coming down the line it was complete chaos and about an hour of straight clapping, screaming, jumping up and down, and yes, even a few tears! Joonas Suatamo was the first person down the red carpet and he was so lovely and kind to everyone. He took so many pictures and got a very special picture with our friends Danielle, and her daughter Sloane. I can’t stop looking at it, it’s too adorable.

Since we were right in front of the stairs that led up to the Star Wars Show stage, anyone getting interviewed by Andi or Anthony had to walk right past us. You better believe we were asking for pictures from anyone we could. We had no chill and no shame in reaching out to shake hands and ask for pictures! Everyone who came down the red carpet though wanted to spend time with the fans and take pictures with everyone. The stand-outs for me were of course Dave Filoni and Rian Johnson.

Guys, you know I’m the biggest Dave fan and I may have had a minor panic attack when he entered the red carpet. He shook our hands and then had to pop onto the Star Wars Show to get interviewed, but promised he’d come back to get a picture with us and he did. I was freaking out. He was the only person we had a minute with to chat and I don’t remember at all what I said but I’m sure it was gushing and incoherent. I posted a little thread about my freak out if you want to see a few more pictures from our meeting.

Rian Johnson was such a surprise, I don’t think anyone thought he would be there! He brought his usual Rian Johnson charm and it was so great to hear his voice in person?! He had on such a big smile and we got to tell him how much we loved The Last Jedi. 

It sounds weird but seeing people in person reminds you that they are real people. They exist outside of TV and computer screens, and move on their own and everything! I know, this is all obvious…but it was fun to see these people we talk so much about up close and in real life. Scroll to the end to see all our other pictures with everyone who walked down the red carpet!

After the Star Wars Show ended their broadcast it was time to start heading into the theater. The only bummer of the whole evening was that we didn’t get to walk through the Millennium Falcon that they had built for the red carpet, we had to walk around it. I wish we could have seen Lego Falcon or the Solo Cup display, but that’s alright! Before we went into the theater they had a little space where you could take pictures with the Solo logo while we waited to relinquish all our digital devices. We placed our cell phones and recorders in the a little pouch that was locked and prevented any recordings or signals. Inside they had free popcorn and drinks that you could just grab at your leisure.

We were seated inside the Chinese Theater which…wow! I have now seen the premiere of a Star Wars movie inside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. How cool is that?! All we wanted to do was take pictures of the theater, but of course our phones were all locked up! As fate would have it, we were seated right in front of Courtney from Knights of Rant, and it was so fun to meet her and get ready for the movie to start.

I won’t go into any details about the movie, except that I can’t imagine a better audience that all massive Star Wars fans. I can’t wait to see Solo again in a few weeks! We have a spoiler discussion from that night that will be up once the movie is released, so look out for that! We also have our non-spoiler show up right now!

Once the film was over, we all just took a minute to gush about the film, the experience, and everything else from the night! We said goodbye to all our friends and Charlotte and I took some pictures with the Solo movie poster outside the theater. Sadly, it looked like they had already dismantled the red carpet. As we were walking to go get an Uber home though, we noticed that they still had the Falcon up and were letting people with badges in to take more pictures with it!

Of course we had a time photo shoot with every part of that Falcon and the Solo signs. We had some camera issues so we ended up staying there far too long, but it meant that we ended up being the last people in there and got some great pictures without any background photo-bombers!

After that we headed home and recorded some thoughts for the podcast. We pinched ourselves the whole was there and back out of disbelief it all actually happened. A big thank you to Disney, Lucasfilm, and the entire cast and crew of Solo, for putting together an amazing event that I will never forget! I can’t wait for you all to see Solo so we can all talk about it together.

From our big shot gangster crew to yours, may the Force be with You!

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