On Meeting Idols and Being a Fan

I usually never want to meet my idols or heroes.

I’m always scared I’ll be disappointed, always scared I might not like them. You have a perfect image of someone in your head and don’t want that to be ruined…. Sometimes you do get to meet the people you admire and everything’s just great. They are nice, amazing and afterwards you like them even more than before (hello Flava Flav). But sometimes you meet them and they turn out to be real douche bags (hello Ludacris).

So last week I was at some award show and *BAM* there he was! 74 years old (his birthday is a day before mine) but still there was no doubt about it – it was him! Dieter ‘Didi’ Hallervorden. The guy that made me laugh when I was a kid, the guy that still makes me laugh. I held my breath. My first intention was to go over there and say something. Tell him that I was a huge fan, that he was so important to me when I was little, that it meant so much to watch him as an immigrant kid in the 80ies. To this day I think that Dieter Hallervorden is the only comedian my parents know by name. We watched his films and my parents learned German with Didi. One facial expression was enough to have the entire family rolling on the floor laughing!

Now fast forward 25 years.

I’m sitting opposite to him. He’s with a woman. I’m wondering: is that his wife? Are they sharing a pivate moment? Would it maybe be just rude to go and talk to him? Maybe he doesn’t wanna be bothered. He was in a conversation. What if he was unfriendly? I’d be crushed. I was battling with myself for more than 40min. Discussing that question with my friends. You had two camps: some where saying “Go! How could he possibly be unfriendly or rude if you’re being honest and sweet enough to talk to him?” The other camp was a bit more hesitant saying something like “Don’t you think it would be just weird to pop into his conversation and give him this awkward fan-moment in a situation where he’s just not expecting it?” Hhhhhmmm. Maybe. But if there’s one thing I really hate it’s asking myself the what-if-question. You won’t ever know what would’ve happened if you don’t just do it!

So I took a deep breath, went over there, tapped him on the shoulder, introduced myself and started bubbling about……everything. I think I repeated the phrase “You have no idea how important you are to my family” about 50 times. And him? He was amazing! He listened to me and smiled. Then he told me how honored he was and that he was very happy to hear whatever I had to say. We talked about his new job as the owner and director of the Schlossparktheater in Berlin. He invited me to see the next play he was going to be in, asked me about my job etc. My heart was beating like crazy, I was sweating and through our entire conversation I was cheesing like a little kid on a sugar high. It was great! I asked him for a picture and he was more than pleased to pose with me!

I felt invincible all night and somewhat proud to see that, after I broke the ice, all of a sudden everybody started a conversation asking for a picture. I had mine. And most of all I have an even better image of Dieter Hallervorden in my head. Thank you Didi for not making me regret the fact that after all I’m still just a fan! Oh, and how I love the funny face he’s making!!!