Billy came to my local University, Trent, on March 18th. It was pretty hush hush, but somehow about 500 people showed up. The man running it, Stephen Brown, is Billy's second cousin, and has been trying to get him to speak here for years. He even proposed letting Billy and Dom come here to work on their script peacefully. So anyway, my friend and I wanted to get Billy a gift, so I did some research and read an interview where he said that he would have loved to keep his scarf from LOTR, because he grew very close to it. So we got him a scarf and a pewter beaver pin, for that very Canadian feel, lol. We were hoping to be able to meet him afterwards since we had several connections to Mr. Brown. Anyway, when Billy came in, he said right off the bat that he hasn't been feeling well. From what I've read he had lost his voice a few days earlier, so we were lucky that he was able to speak so well for so long. He coughed several times throughout the presentation, but he didn't seem too bad. Billy spoke about LOTR most, obviously, starting with a few clips and then commenting on them. These included the fireworks scene ("What he didn't tell me is that it was filled with explosives. So that reaction you see is real. I fell out the back of the tent!"), the infamous second breakfast scene, and the cave troll scene. Then they showed about 10 minutes of Sniper 470, which was a bit odd but really interesting, and I wish I could have seen the whole thing. Btw, Billy's naked at one point, lol. Then there was a question and answer period. I was the second person to speak, though the first girl stole my original one about his script with Dom (which he says is being looked at by some producers). I asked him if he'd ever consider a music career, since he sings and plays guitar. While he was answering I had the biggest butterflies, because he was looking right at me and laughing and smiling and talking in that accent of his and ohhh boy. This went on for quite some time (the q&a session, not the butterflies), but finally they called it quits. You should have SEEN the rush. It was crazy. Half the people in there swarmed around him. He was just darling, signing autographs for at least 20 minutes, with hardly ANY room. I was really close to him, but before I could get an autograph or give him his gift, he had to leave. So I gave the gift to a neighbour who works at Trent, and she gave it to Mr. Brown to give to Billy. He received it and apparently he was "thrilled"!!!! I'm so happy. He put it into his suitcase immediately. Teehee. I'm just ecstatic that I got to make Billy smile, especially when he was feeling so sick. Hopefully some day he will be back with Dom!
