My experience meeting Josh Hutcherson

Because so many people were asking, I thought I would just make a giant post explaining the whole experience, including photos! Beware though, because, true to form, this baby is just so long it’s ridiculous :/

So in early December, the news broke that not only would Josh Hutcherson (and Vanessa Hudgens) be visiting Australia, he would be in Melbourne in the exact week that I was going there on holidays. Screaming and fangirling ensued. And then, a few days before the premiere, the movie’s distributer held a competition where you could win tickets to actually see the movie, and be in a special area of the red carpet where they would sign stuff for us. I entered, won tickets, and so naturally, more screaming and fangirling ensued.

The tickets said to be at the Jam Factory no later than 3pm, but being the very conscientious HG fangirl that I am, my sister and I arrived at about 12. We had planned on having a look around, checking where we needed to be, then doing some shopping down the street. But when we got there, not only was the Jam Factory looking awesome with a red carpet and decorations everywhere, there were already lots of people there! So we sat down in the queue, ready to wait out the 3 hours.

My cousins arrived a little while later, and we put the finishing touches on our “I make nice buns” banner. More people started arriving, and we decided that we wanted to give Josh something that would stand out in his mind and he might actually remember: and what better than bread. Not wanting to leave our spot for long, we went to the Nandos across the walkway, and asked for a hamburger bun, minus the hamburger itself, and tied a red ribbon around it.

More and more people started arriving, and to my absolute delight, most of the were HG fans. I saw one girl with a t-shirt that said “I (heart) Peeta Mellark”, I saw lots of Mockingjay pins, plenty of really awesome banners (check out my favourites below, “Come here bread boy” and “Keep Calm and Eat Cheesebuns”) but most noticably, SOOOOO many Hunger Games books. Honestly, I reckon every second person had one of them, it was awesome! It also became apparent that quite a few of the people who were hanging around on the red carpet were actually there to see neither Josh nor Vanessa, but had just seen a big commotion in the Jam Factory and decided to see what all the fuss was about hahahaha!

At about 2:40, the MC arrived on the red carpet, (apparently he worked for a local radio station) he introduced the movie, and then went down the carpet, doing interviews with people, asking them who they were here to see. Well, pretty much all of them said Josh, and a lot of them went on and on about how good looking he was, which prompted lots of teasing and joking from the MC later. It was also pretty amusing that most of the people gave some mention of Peeta or The Hunger Games (and every time someone did, we all started screaming), so much so that at one point he was like “THIS ISN’T THE PREMIERE FOR THE HUNGER GAMES YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT?!” HAHAHHAH!

Josh and Vanessa arrived really late, but they finally did, and of course, that brought on lots and lots of screaming. We were near the end of the carpet, so when they arrived I looked down, but I couldn’t see anything, just lots of security guards. After a while, I could finally see Vanessa breaking clear of the pack. She looks absolutely gorgeous in her lovely dress (and AWESOME shoes)… it surprised me actually, she looked really different in real life than what she does in photos. I don’t think I’ve made it much of a secret that I don’t like her, but when she got to us, I got her autograph for my cousin and we got a photo too, because we really didn’t have anything to lose.

Ugh I look so awkward in these photos, please excuse me

Josh on the other hand, was still up near the front of the carpet, it took him SOOOO long to make it to the end! But when he finally got a bit closer, I looked down the carpet and saw him, actually saw him in the flesh, and that’s when the fangirling started, the worst it got for the whole afternoon actually. My breathing started to get a bit shallower and I legitimately did hyperventilate for a bit. I turned to my cousins/sister and was like “THERE HE IS… I SEE HIM… OH MY GOD HE IS GORGEOUS… LOOK AT HIM!… THAT’S REALLY HIM… IT’S REALLY JOSH HUTCHERSON… HE IS SO CUTE… FGJHSDFGKSHDFGKJHFG… HE IS AMAZING… OMGOMGOMG”. That was the extent of my really intellectual thoughts hahahaha XD

So he got closer and closer, and my breathing just sort of spiked and spiked, I could SEE HIM IN THE FLESH NOT 2 METERS AWAY!! And then he finally, finally, made it to me but I had lots of stuff I needed him to do so it was straight to business. I think he said “Hi” and then I thrust the banner at him and was like “Will you hold this for a photo please?” and he looked at it and read it out loud “I… make… nice… buns… sure”. TBH, I’m not entirely sure he got the reference, or if he did, he didn’t show it. I mean, he must have got the reference, right? I was just expecting him to chuckle or something, but he didn’t really (kind of like his confusion over the “Real or Not Real” thing at GMA, maybe in the heat of the moment he forgets things hahahaha!) But anyway, he posed with the banner, with the most adorable expression you could ever imagine… I hope you’ve all seen it, if not, here is the photo!

And then he sort of started to walk away but I was like “OH can you sign these too please?” and he said “Sure”. He signed the poster, which I am giving away here, and then I opened my book and he signed it too. I do faintly recall perhaps brushing hands with him at some point, although that could just be my imagination running away with me hahaha! While he was signing the book I said to him “You’re going to be an amazing Peeta” (I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF) and he said, in the most humble voice ever, “I hope so”. I think I melted a little bit, it was the most adorable thing in the entire world, how quietly and sincerely he said it. I can honestly say that doing a good job of this role means so much to him, not only to do justice to the character and the story, but also to please us fans. We couldn’t have asked for anyone better!

And so while he was signing the stuff, my sister gave her camera to his security guard (his and Vanessa’s security were taking photos, it was so lovely of them, and the photos turned out really nicely). He tried to run away again but I was like “Oh and a photo too please?” and then he said “okay” (or something along those lines, it’s a bit fuzzy haha) and then posed for THIS GLORIOUS SHOT, which is now my favourite photo in the entire world hahahahahha! That’s me directly on his left, SO CLOSE TO HIM OMG!

And so after that I said “Thank you so much” and I don’t really remember what he said to that, probably “you’re welcome” or something. Just as he was walking away, my cousin lent over and passed him the bun, she didn’t even say a word she was so starstruck, it was hilarious. And he took the bun and was like ‘errrr… thank you’. And then his security guard took it straight out of his hands, it was funny how quickly he removed the offending object! Like I’ve said before, he probably thought it was poisoned or whatever XD

So then Josh moved on to the next person, and I could still see him so close to me, and I was just grinning like a fool. And the MC dude was like into the microphone “Did you just give him a burger?!” And I said to him “It’s a bun!” And he still looked really confused, so the girl who was standing next to him, another HG fan, explained the whole Peeta-is-a-baker thing, and then he said, into the microphone again “Ohhhh, a baker’s son… I see what you did!” So I guess if Josh didn’t get it the first time, he would have got it then hahahahaha! And yeah, then I bounced up and down for a while and called my Mum and then grinned and laughed a lot more, and then went into Nandos to get some food where I met Brooke, without even knowing it was her!

Then we were taken into the cinema, and we were told that Josh and Vanessa were going to come in and do a quick interview/introduce the movie, but they never did :( Anyway, we saw the movie, and idk, lots of you have probably seen it by now, but yeah. I didn’t think the movie was very good, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. I can say though, that Josh looked HOT, and his performance was actually pretty good (AND THERE IS ALSO A QUICK SHIRTLESS SCENE ME GUSTA). Most importantly though, at least for me, was that I could actually SEE Peeta in him… I honestly felt like I was watching Peeta (the physical form at least, the character was different) with brown hair. Josh looks bigger and older (and better looking for some reason I can’t understand) in the movie, which is really good because he is going to be next to Jenn onscreen. Also, js, the similarties between this movie and THG are quite hilarious. They are stranded in the forest, get chased by a weird mutant lizard thing, he’s in love with a girl who doesn’t want him, he picks berries and most startling, he sprains his ankle and has the whole bottom half of his leg strapped. And after his leg is bandaged he complains about something at which point I lent over to my cousin and said “No. Shut up and eat your pears” of which I think she missed the reference hahahahaha! But yeah, then he was limping around for the rest of the movie and I just couldn’t believe my eyes!

Anyway, that was the experience! There were just a couple of other things I wanted to quickly say, because this post has breached essay-length.

• I want to emphasise more than anything else in this whole post, that Josh stopped and signed stuff for every single person. Everyone. And, in the case of people like me, for some of those people he was signing more than one thing and also posing for photos. The reason it took him so long to make it down the carpet was for this exact reason. Can you comprehend the importance of that? At most red carpets, it is SO rare to get pictures/signatures, most people miss out, but everyone who wanted one (at least all those who were near the front) got one. He is such a sweetheart for doing that, because he really didn’t have to, but his fans (and especially the HG fans I think) just mean so much to him and he wants to make them happy. So, in the future, he probably won’t be able to do that because there will be SO many people, but remember that he would if he could, and he is so sweet for that :’)
• We all know Josh as being this happy, charming, friendly, lovely guy, who, according to others, is Peeta in real life. I was expecting that 100% but I felt like he looked quite flustered and less charming/happy… he was still lovely of course, but not quite so talkative/bubbly etc. I think he was probably just tired and maybe over-awed by the whole thing and especially all the HG fans there, so I don’t think of him any differently, I still believe he is that happy, charming boy, he just didn’t seem like it totally.
• I think he was a little bit… scared by me. Idk why, that was just the impression I got, he kept trying to run away, I think he wanted to get away from me hahahaha! Maybe I was a bit full on, who knows, but I felt like I noticed the fact that he was a bit stressed out more than other people did, maybe he was friendlier to them, I don’t know. He’s lucky I didn’t outright propose like I was joking about doing, that would have been even more awkward hahahah!
• In real life he is totally gorgeous (and really short, but we all knew that) and he actually looks exactly like he does in photos. I thought Vanessa looked different in real life for whatever reason, but he really didn’t… which meant of course that he was absolutely beautiful :3
• The whole thing is still kind of a blur, I can remember specific details but on the whole, it kind of feels a bit like a dream, if that even makes sense. I don’t think I really fully grasped that I was looking at Josh Hutcherson, the boy I had been fangirling about for like 8 months before, and more than that, Peeta Mellark in the flesh. It didn’t really register until after that I had actually met him. It still hasn’t really registered…

So yeah, if you’ve actually read this far, thank you, I appreciate that haha. It was by far one of the best experiences of my life, and a moment I will always treasure. Amazing. I can’t believe how lucky I was to get the opportunity, that photo and my book are now my most prized possessions. And to other people out there, you might all get the chance to meet him one day, you just never know. In Australia we hardly ever get anyone, especially where I’m from, but the timing so that he was here a) before HG came out and b) WHILE I WAS IN MELBOURNE ON HOLIDAY was just incredible. I want to meet him again now omg :’)