During high school I was completely and totally head-over-heels for Tom Cruise. Let me clarify that I now think the man is an absolute loon, but back in the day I thought Tom Cruise was the bees knees. 🙂 Each week in my high school Spanish class we were assigned three 5 minute conversations, to be conducted outside of class entirely in Spanish. We were required to keep detailed logs of when, where and with whom these conversations took place. My girlfriends and I would always sign at least one conversation each week with the code name “Tom C. Ruz” in honor of our movie star crush. Looking back, I am pretty sure our teacher knew exactly what we were up to, but we thought we were hilarious. 🙂

So when I found out, while browsing the Internet this week, that the Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie – under the code name “Rubicon” – was being filming at a church in Pasadena on Thursday, my inner-high-school-girl forced me to do some stalking. I was also really hoping to spot Katie Holmes, who has really been growing on me ever since she cut her hair. 🙂 So, at around lunch time on Thursday, I headed to the Valkyrie set. Between the hours of 12 and 1PM is usually the best time to stalk a film set, as the actors usually break for lunch around that time and you have a good chance of spotting them walking from the set to their trailers.

I am very sad to report that even though I spent a good 4 hours on the set!!!!!!, I did not get to see Tom OR Katie (who was there WITH Suri). 🙁 Apparently, Tom never comes outside during film shoots. One of the crew members told me that he wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Ruz had an underground tunnel built from the church to his trailer so that he wouldn’t have to set foot outside! LOL All was not lost, though, as I did get to see Bill Nighy, who walked right past me on his way to lunch. Bill played musician Billy Mack in the movie Love Actually, one of my favorite romantic films of all time. Bill was very friendly and even said hi and saluted as he walked by (he was in military costume at the time). 🙂

Even though there was no TomKat sighting, it was still super exciting to be on the set. And let me tell you, it was quite a production! There was even an on-set barista, making mocha’s and frappaccino’s for the crew all day long. 🙂 Most of the crew was extremely nice and friendly and I even got to snap some pictures of the filming, which is usually a big no-no on movie sets. I was surprised at how laid-back the set actually was, being that the biggest movie star in the world was there.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Westminster Presbyterian Church is located at 1757 N. Lake Avenue in Pasadena. The church has been around since 1928 and is a frequent location for weddings. The movie American Wedding filmed just across the street froom Westminster Presbyterian at Saint Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church, which is located at 1879 N. Lake Avenue, on the corner of Lake and Woodbury. The picture to the left is of Saint Elizabeth’s.