If you could have dinner with any 3 living people, who would you pick?

My answer here changes every time I think about it... but tonight, it would probably be: Sandra Oh, Richard Linklater and Conan O'Brien. I would probably be more of a listener in this gathering than an active partaker, their personalities and worldly experience are waaaayy too interesting. There lives are like bestsellers and mine is like a footnote to a forgotten book at the far reaches of the crappy books section of the library.

Sandra Oh. 5'-6", Korean-Canadian, Actress.

"You just don't care about what people think. But it's hard to do because people tell you what they think all the time. It's sort of nuts. We actors, we're a fragile bunch, and yet we need to be strong because 90% of our lives is rejection. You have to figure out what really is important."

I love Miss Sandra Oh. She is probably the first notable Asian actress who actually acts without having to do tiger claws and roundhouses. I first noticed how brilliant an actress she is in Sideways (a.k.a. My crash course on Wine 101) playing an overlooked supporting role. Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang on Grey's Anatomy is flawless casting. As Dr. Yang, she has infectious sarcasm, blunt frankness and a tendency toward sociopathy. She won a Golden Globe for the role and I remember how genuine she was in accepting it. Most winners would be all poised and stagy reciting well delivered and very witty speeches that appear unrehearsed. Not my dear Sandra, she got lost trying to find the stage because some damn friggin A-list celebrities wouldn't even stand up to let her pass. When she did finally get to the microphone, she made no attempt at appearing calm and collected. She blurted out spontaneous thoughts like "I feel like someone set me on fire," or "Oh God, I don't remember any of your names!"

Richard Linklater. (height unknown), American, Writer-Director.

"Most of us are losers most of the time, if you think about it."

He is one of my favorite directors. Richard Linklater wrote the screenplay, directed and sometimes played a cameo in some of, I think, the best contemporary movies of our time. Before Sunrise is my all time fave. Jesse and Celine, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, spending a night in Vienna talking about everything. (My thoughts on this movie needs a whole blog entry or two). Before Sunset, a sequel to the former. Jesse and Celine meet again in Paris after nine years, a grandmother's death, a marriage, a kid, and a book. The movie is shot in real time, following the two in their one hour and seventeen minute strolling conversation that started in a book store and ended in Celine's apartment. Mr. Linklater also did Waking Life, a surreal movie on dreams, Dazed and Confused and The School of Rock. There is a truth in all of his movies, the kind of truth we often don't talk about and the type we only get from true intimacy.

Conan O'Brien. 6'-4", Irish-American, Host.

"If you can really laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk."

Have you seen the movie Sugar & Spice about cheerleaders robbing banks? Anyways, one of those pompom wearing felons was totally obsessed with Conan O'Brien. Who wouldn't be? No one can make me laugh as hard as this guy, and that goes without saying he does it way past midnight. His talk show is scheduled way too late, so I often miss it on weekdays. However when I do, I experience all the types of laughter anatomically possible for homo sapiens. There's the chuckle, the sarcastic ha-ha (like Nelson from the Simpsons), the mind-laugh (you laugh in your head but your face doesn't show any sign except maybe for a slight smile), the polite laugh (at jokes gone awry), and the all out, tears in the eye, wa-poise, slapping your lap kind of laughter I rarely experience nowadays. Last night he did this whole thing again about him being very big in Finland because he resembled the incumbent female president of the country. The show does a split screen, an unflattering photo of Tarja Halonen on the right, and Conan on the left putting on a pair of glasses, tilting his head to the side and doing a hilarious impersonation of the president's sort of smile. He even did a couple of ads, actually aired in Finland, where he promoted Halonen using a talking fish. I also enjoy his choreographed entry when they start the show and the way he makes fun of Max Weinberg, La Bamba, the studio announcer, audience members and most often himself. Can't wait for him to take Leno's spot.

Me. 5'-9.5", Filipino, Stalker.

"My life is so terribly boring compared to these three"

Nod, nod, nod.

Labels: idiot box, movies