Big in the City

When "Pirates of the Caribbean" came out I was told by co-workers that I looked like the Commodore. "Is that who Johnny Depp plays?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Is it Orlando Bloom?"

"No, it's the guy who wanted to marry Keira Knightley."

"Uh-huh. Sounds like this Commodore character goes home alone." And he did. And in a three-cornered hat I would look a lot like the stuffy British seaman. And for a long time, that's the only movie actor I'd ever been told I look like.

But, a few weeks ago I was walking through Universal Studios, next to the fake Hollywood Sign photo spot, when a tourist called over to me, "Mr. Big!"

"What?"

"You're Big?" the middle-aged woman called to me.

"Yeah, I'm big."

"I want to get a picture with you!"

She handed off her camera to her husband and scrambled around a railing to where I had stopped. This wasn't so unusual. Sometimes a Japanese tourist will want their picture with me because I'm big. At six-two and pale I think they consider me exotic. The woman approaching me wasn't Japanese but I was glad to oblige.

"You are Mr. Big, right?" she asked. I was starting to catch on, she thought I was the actor who played Mr. Big in "Sex and the City".

"Chris Noth?" I asked, but she was already posing next to me. So, I went with it. Later, she'd have photographic evidence to tell that I was absolutely not Mr. Big but in the meantime I just played along for a woman who had come to Hollywood hoping to see someone famous. Later, I looked up the statistics of this actor who plays Carrie Bradshaw's on-and-off love interest. We're the same height and both have dark hair, though he is twenty years older than me.

When Chris (Mr. Big) Noth meets a fan, he probably says something like, "Thanks for watching," or "I do it for the fans." I had to think of something that the accomplished actor would say on the street. So, I told the woman to, "Stay sexy." Because, you know, because he was in a show called "Sex and the City."

It sounded good at the time.