In 2007, I was invited to chair a Q&A at Bafta with Tom Cruise and Robert Redford for the well-meaning but rather ponderous anti-war film, Lions for Lambs, directed by and co-starring Redford.
Time was tight, I was told endlessly by anxious minders, as these two Hollywood stars were due to fly out that evening to Germany. Before we went on stage, I reminded Redford that we had met before, some 30 years earlier, outside Slough, on a golf course where he had been filming The Great Gatsby. That memory tickled him and he then launched into his own cheerful recollections.
So much so that, he had to be shovelled away by the minders – rather reluctantly, it seemed to me – from our pre-chat chat to join his fellow actor on stage at the Princess Anne theatre.
