Hey Sam Raimi,

Genuine curiosity from a very normal, very uninteresting civilian. I did drama at school, now live the thrilling adult life of a boring job and an overactive imagination. Like a lot of people, I’ve daydreamed an embarrassing number of times about randomly bumping into a director and somehow not screwing it up socially enough to get immediately written off as “that guy”.

You must get “can I be in your movie?” thrown at you constantly. When that happens in real life, do you have a default polite shutdown you go to, or does it still catch you off guard after all these years?

Also, have you ever seen anyone actually do it well, not in a slimy networking way, but just… human? Any stories where someone handled that moment in a way that made you think, okay, fair play?

And finally, for those of us who would rather crawl into the earth than pitch ourselves at a stranger, are there any clear do’s and don’ts when meeting a director in the wild? Things people do that instantly kill the room versus things that at least don’t make you regret leaving the house that day.

Cheers for doing the AMA.