Suffice to say I did score well on the essay if I recall, and really wish in hindsight that I hadn’t burned all my coursework after completing the course (a ritual carried over from my high school days).  And the lecturer did single me out for finding an angle he hadn’t appreciated in the movie, I think I focused on the emotion/angst of his character, but I really don’t recall what was so good about it, only that it did start my following of Jaimz’s career and it’s why I mention it at all. (I passed the course with a distinction if you really are interested!  I have a vague memory of furthering the project, and trying to write to Jaimz at the time but I really can’t confirm or deny this…see above for ‘burning’ incident).

So consider now, a few years later, sitting in a taxi cab on my way to meet Jaimz.  I first properly communicated with Jaimz via email a few years back, it was the Christmas holidays and I know I had some vodka type drink beside me that may have been blue in colour but those details really are not important.  Anyway, at some point I found myself hitting send, fully expecting to get an email back from an agent or fan who possibly run a website informing me to maybe stay away from my computer after a night out with certain friends.  The very next day I got an email back from the man himself and I must have read it a hundred times before believing it, telling all my family (who had invaded the house in the meantime) and after a ‘we’re happy for you’ expression in sharing my joy they would then almost certainly go ‘who?’

Anyways, I was in this taxi just a few weeks ago travelling to a coffee shop that Jaimz had suggested.  It had been a pretty hectic morning already and I was running a little late.  We had been at Disneyland the day before, and that morning had transferred from Anaheim to Long Beach, a relatively simple journey but we managed to complicate it.  The hotel wasn’t ready, we couldn’t check in and we had nothing much planned for the day other than my eleven o’clock meet and a possible trip to the mall.  We arrived at the hotel with only fifteen minutes until I was due to meet Jaimz and so in the end I just jumped into a cab and left the others to check in, having only tried a little to get my friend Paris to join me, I really regretted that later but to be fair she wasn’t sure she should, and didn’t want to leave the two mums to carry all the bags to the rooms when they would eventually be ready! (Four women on a two week trip, lets just say the word travelling lightly simply doesn’t exist).

The cab driver had no idea where the coffee shop was, to add to my semi flustered state, so being the overseas tourist who had never been to this part of the world before I pointed it out to him and told him just to park and I’d cross the street myself.  So I had arrived and on first glance couldn’t see Jaimz and was a little relieved that I wasn’t keeping him waiting.  One of the guys behind the counter asked if I was waiting for someone (no idea what gave it away) and asked if I was waiting for some guy with blond hair, stupidly I answered unsure with a ‘maybe’ and they mentioned something about him owning a scooter and his latte being on the counter. 

Before I had a chance to compute all this and confirm it could very well be the person I was waiting for, Jaimz Woolvett approached all smiles and the weirdness of the morning went up several notches as the realisation that I was here to meet Jaimz Woolvett finally kicked in.

I’m not sure entirely what initially threw me.  A combination of a bloody hectic morning up to that point, the fact Jaimz had actually turned up at all or that he had actually got there on time and before me (ok, I admit, I had a bet he wouldn’t be on time and had a book in my bag just in case!).  Jaimz kindly ordered a tea after reacting to my ‘this is strange’ comment to which I could only quickly describe the stupid morning I had had so far, and then after polluting my tea with milk and sugar we moved into the garden and grabbed a table.

I found my sense and sanity once seated, and assured Jaimz once again that I had not planned to see him all by myself in the manner it had actually happened, it sounded naff that I had left all the others behind to check in (he was horrified by that confession lol!).  The original plan had been to check into the hotel and then all of us travelling to the location, so they could at least meet/see Jaimz if nothing else, as it was, it turned into a tough convince to state otherwise, but I think Jaimz eventually believed me, possibly maybe and I was left thinking it wasn’t going too well.  After Jaimz had left a message for Paris, calling her a fraidy cat for not joining me, we quickly settled into a discussion about well, almost everything it seemed.

Gordon Woolvett had jokingly warned me not to get Jaimz talking about politics before my trip, and this kept going through me head whenever something political came up but on the whole it honestly was a really interesting discussion, and I tried to add my own thoughts wherever possible, and humour, not always successfully.  I especially enjoyed our conversation about fans and fandom in general, hearing the ‘other’ side is always an eye opener and it was no different here.  I felt it was right to mention my own experiences from my side, even though its probably not cool to bring up times you’ve managed to somehow annoy other actors without realising, but I felt it was important to be honest especially as fans are all too quickly dismissed as freaks or scarey a lot of the time, and that its difficult to be seen as genuine, a lot of paranoia exists on both sides, but I was reassured when Jaimz told me about his back out plan, and the fact that he hadn’t used it so that was good to know, a vote of confidence at least.  

I have been very fortunate to have met a good number of actors I admire and whom I also follow their work, but this was the first time I had met someone outside of the relatively safe environment of a planned event surrounded by fellow fans.  Previous times I have managed to get maybe at most a couple of questions in with actors, or words to the effect of liking a particular role or episode they were involved in but here I was talking one on one and what made it really interesting was that I was being challenged on a few things, making me really think about the stuff I do and by the same token we were discussing stuff that I have never got to discuss with an actor I have followed the career of before, so it became almost like that conversation I had years ago with my film studies buddy, when she asked ‘why’ I was doing my essay on the Schofield Kid when there’s so many other actors in the film I could have focused on, I mean ‘why’ all these years later was I meeting with Jaimz Woolvett who my family are forever asking me to remind them what he does, full circle, one day I might find an answer! lol

I think we must have talked for just over an hour an a half, in which time we drank tea (ok he had coffee), walked a bit, browsed around a really funny ‘dog’ shop, found a bit of beach.  Covered topics as varied as London, the first settlers on American soil, Disneyland, fans, fame, work, stuff and nonsense and I learnt that as I had always kinda suspected Jaimz was a genuinely interesting funny guy, who had a good few things to say about probably everything, to be fair.

Naturally when it was all over I was wondering if I had made an idiot of myself, and in the taxi back to the hotel I looked over the stuff he had given me as keepsakes, which was really cool (signed photo and audition script for a show I’m not sure I can mention…) and I was glad I had remembered to give him a small key chain I had brought with me of a car from a classic british comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’ that he once mentioned, ok it was a stretch but I couldn’t think of anything else hehe!

On reflection it was a really pleasant experience, and not as weird as I first feared, Jaimz is pretty easy to talk to and unlike a few actors I have met seemed genuinely interested in stuff I had to say and at the end of the day I was thrilled to be able to say I had finally met him.