One of Us/Film Nerds

""Absolutely, why would I let anybody take this away from me? I will guard it with my Repulsor technology." cue eyebrow."
 * Benedict Cumberbatch is a huge fan of Robert Downey, Jr. During an interview he said that his residence in America is actually right near his office, and one day he should "throw eggs or do something" to get his attention. If they do actually meet, heads are bound to explode.
 * During the premiere of Men In Black 3 he cosplayed as an MIB agent. He seems to enjoy dressing up a lot, actually.
 * Just take a look at these incredibly nerdy pictures of he and Steven Moffat at Marvel Studios.
 * Jennifer Lawrence is a massive Harry Potter fan. “Pencils were wands. I was going to Hogwarts. The whole thing,” she said in an interview.
 * Vin Diesel, of all people, is really big into Dungeons and Dragons. He's actually so into Tabletop RPGs that he's written his own campaign setting, and one of his several tattoos is the name of his player character. He's also quite the avid video gamer and started his own video game production company Tigon Studios, releasing The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, a game considered to be much better than the movie it was a prequel to. He's also written the preface to a hardbound collection of D&D artwork (Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons published by Wizards of the Coasts, current publishers of D&D). He once answered the interview question "Jedi or Sith?" with "I'd be Chaotic Neutral".
 * There was a rumor, during the filming of The Chronicles Of Riddick, he kept bugging Dame Judi Dench to play D&D with him. Dench later confirmed that not only did Diesel ask, she complied.
 * This interview.
 * He's also secretly on World of Warcraft, and Baldur's Gate 2 is his favourite PC RPG.
 * On that note, Dame Judi Dench, who DMs D&D campaigns with her grandchildren. And seriously, how awesome would a game session narrated by her be? No wonder Vin wanted her in on it.
 * Charlize Theron is apparently a huge Game of Thrones geek.
 * If there's anyone that could be described as a full-fledged nerd, it's Christian Bale. Hell, he's got everything in him to be a troper: he plays games, especially Super Mario Bros., he watches Anime among all things, even dubbed an Oscar-nominated one at that... Oh, and he goes to the Internet (Specifically YouTube among other places) to watch people talk about him. Hollywood Nerd at full effect indeed.
 * It's both ironic and funny when you think about his role in Terminator Salvation. Because as we all know, John Connor was quite a geek in his teenage day too (from what we can see in the second film at least).
 * Fighting crime, trying to save the world, here they come just in time The Powerpuff Girls!!!....Do you know it?
 * Another nod to his geekdom: he seems to be pumped up about being able to play Solid Snake in a Metal Gear Solid film.
 * Christopher Lee re-reads The Lord of the Rings once a year. There is also a YouTube video where he reveals himself to be a metalhead, and says "Heavy Metal will Never Die." He has worked with the band Rhapsody of Fire. See also Promoted Fanboy.
 * The first is even more awesome when you consider that he was the only cast member who actually met Tolkien in real life.
 * And the only cast member of The BBC adaptation of Gormenghast who'd met Mervyn Peake. He was also a cousin of Ian Fleming and played Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun.
 * He's also a fan of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn. When he played the voice of King Haggard in the animated movie, he brought a paperback copy of the novel with him to the story meetings, and used a highlighter pen on several passages of dialogue that he felt were mandatory for the storyline.
 * And he was one of the people working on an album featuring poems (both read and sung as songs) and songs inspired by short stories of Edgar Allan Poe - he sung the song "Elanore" and read out "The Raven". (sadly the album was only published in Germany)
 * He has also displayed a liking of Manowar. That's right, folks, THE Rated "M" for Manly band. To elaborate, he has narrated 'Battle Hymns MMXI', Manowar's reissued album.
 * Robert Downey, Jr. has said himself that he has had nerdgasms. One suspects he would have had at least one when he was chosen to play Iron Man. (Terrence Howard, who played James Rhodes in the first movie only, was also a big fan of Iron Man, and Gwyneth Paltrow simply borrowed some of the comic collection that belongs to her husband, Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin).

""I haven’t. I’ve been traveling. I think this is what happened with people and Avatar. I want to see Inception the right way. I’m not going to watch it on an airplane. I’m not going to grab it on the run. I want to have that experience.""
 * Priest star Lily Collins is an avid Harry Potter fan.
 * Rosario Dawson is an avid comic book fan, particularly of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. In fact, she's the co-creator of a series called Occult Crimes Taskforce. She is also an avid Star Trek fan who admits to speaking Klingon.
 * She also looks damn hot in glasses.
 * Robin Williams, believe it or not. He's confessed to an addiction to the internet, being an anime fan, and has even referenced Doctor Who in an interview. Really, if you think about it, it's not all that surprising, considering his first television role was an alien in rainbow suspenders. He actually named his child after Princess Zelda. And, according to the Dork Tower webcomic arc that provided the page image, he's a Warhammer Fantasy Battle player. He's also an active online gamer. Ever been sniped during a round of Call of Duty? It might have been him...
 * It's even better than that for being an anime fan. In One Hour Photo, the Neon Genesis Evangelion toy he gives to the little boy is his, and that line about "It being one of the good guys..." was a little stealth joke by him (apparently he must hate Asuka). He also auditioned for the role of Gendo in Rebuild. What could have been....
 * It's also been heavily implied that he's a goon. At least, he correctly answered the "stairs" question.
 * He's also gone on record saying that if they ever make a Live Action Adaptation of Pokémon, he wants to play Professor Oak.
 * And he expressed interest in playing The Joker for both the Burton film AND the Nolan film!
 * And in a recent interview he said he wants to be Riddler and if he can't be Riddler he at least wants to be a random loony in Arkham Asylum. The guy desperately wants to be in a Batman movie in any role possible (don't we all?).
 * Williams is also a huge fan of classic cartoons, especially the works of Chuck Jones. He wrote a forward to Jones' autobiography, "Chuck Amuck", presented Jones with an honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar, and hired him to produce some animated footage that was used in the movie Mrs. Doubtfire.
 * Robin and his daughter Zelda recently starred in a commercial for the 3DS remake of Ocarina of Time.
 * Zelda herself is a fan of Majora's Mask and Super Smash Bros. Melee and now lurks /v/.
 * Robin also stated he plays Battlefield 2 as a sniper, and the 2 stands for "2 in the morning".
 * Williams was also a huge fan of Wizardry back in the day. Considering the difficulty of that series, one can only imagine the hysterical outbursts he would have when his party was wiped out.
 * Nicolas Cage. Sold a truly gigantimous comic book collection during his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. Named his kid Kal-El. Collects geodes. Has a tattoo of Ghost Rider. Might have played Superman, had Superman Lives not fallen through. Hell, he takes his screen name from Luke Cage, Power Man! It's a gag very close to the truth in comic-fan circles, that his role as Johnny "Help, my head's on fire!" Blaze was the result of auditioning for every comic book movie going until they gave him one.
 * That last one has a partial aversion, though... he was offered the role of the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie, but turned it down, probably because he doesn't like to play bad guys.
 * Apparently, playing Dr. Tenma in the recent CGI adaptation of Astro Boy was something he wanted to do for a very long time.
 * According to David X. Cohen, Cage spends large sums of money collecting trilobites.
 * Jessica Alba plays MMORPGs. She even responded to a random blinking challenge video in some site. Imagine, staring at that beauty for several minutes.
 * She's on a website called beatmyrecord, and as of late, nobody has yet to beat her staring challenge of 1 minute 32 seconds.
 * The website is ibeatyou and it's her husband Cash Warren's website.
 * Steven Spielberg is apparently into video games and Transformers, which he got into playing with his kids. He once famously said, "I will accept video games as a story-telling medium when someone can honestly say, 'I cried at level 17.'" He currently has a deal with EA to help develop games, one of them Boom Blox.
 * Spielberg was one of the creative forces that developed the Gameworks mega-arcade chains.
 * The Medal of Honor series essentially started when Spielberg decided to try making a video game version of Saving Private Ryan.
 * His favorite two games are Myst, and Monkey Island.
 * On that note, Ron Gilbert (creator of Monkey Island) said Mr. Spielberg enjoyed visiting Lucas Arts and playing whatever they were cooking up.
 * He was also quoted on The Castleof Cagliostro as having the best car chase scene in any film, ever.
 * He is a HUGE fan of the original Ghost in the Shell manga. He's one of the influencing factors that a live action movie is being made.
 * His wife Kate Capshaw said that her first experience with him had him asking if she wanted to play an arcade game he had in his office.
 * Jude Law has a tattoo of Rorschach.
 * Peter Jackson likes video games. He personally selected developer Michel Ancel to develop the King Kong tie-in game because he was a fan of Beyond Good and Evil, and because of the inconsistent quality of Lord of the Rings games. He was supposed to do a new Halo game with Bungie, but that ended up being cancelled.
 * Peter Jackson allegedly got hooked on Halo 2 online multiplayer during the production of King Kong, leading to his attempts to adapt or work on a Halo property.
 * Said project eventually becoming District 9.
 * He also has a friendship with the Perry Twins (the two original sculptors for Games Workshop, and is taking sculpting lessons from them in his spare time.
 * In William Shatner's Star Trek documentary The Captains, Christopher Plummer admits to having been a livelong trekkie before he got to play General Chang in Star Trek VI the Undiscovered Country.
 * Ben Affleck played DnD as a kid with his best friend Matt Damon. He's also a major comic book fan, especially of Daredevil, so much so that he jumped at a chance to play the character in the movie adaption.
 * Apparently, Affleck is also a big Duke Nukem fan, and there was a rumor at one point he was gonna play him in a movie. A rumor, mind you.
 * Oh, no, that's coming out any day now, and it's going to be awesome!
 * Haha, oh hindsight, you fickle dog you.
 * I think it's fair to say that being friends with Kevin Smith automatically qualifies you for this page.
 * Samuel L. Jackson, actor, bad motherfucker, and comic book collector. His most prized collection, original copies of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga. Has a framed picture of Ultimate Nick Fury in his living room and actually asked if he could portray him in Iron Man and the upcoming Avengers movie (which then got extended into a nine-film contract with Marvel). Which makes sense, since Ultimate Nick Fury was based on him in the first place. Word is that he allowed them to base Ultimate Nick Fury on him so that if they put Nick Fury in a movie he'd have an excuse to play him. He also asked to be in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, is a huge anime fan (Voice actor for Afro Samurai), and may or may not be an excellent chess player. He actually had the initials BMF etched into his light saber. He also plays Eve Online, and was the voice of Tenpenny in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
 * Actress and model Jaime King told Jimmy Kimmel she loved science fiction. She also displayed greater-than-usual knowledge of Star Wars, and she's married to the director of Fanboys.
 * And now that she does the voice of Aurra Sing on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, she counts as a Promoted Fangirl.
 * Ryan Reynolds is a pretty big fan of Deadpool, the character he is now known for playing in X Men Origins Wolverine (Well, until Wade Wilson is converted into Deadpool, at which point Scott Adkins takes over).
 * He was also in the Green Lantern.
 * And similarly to Nick Cage, he got those roles by auditioning for every single comic book character possible until someone finally gave him one.
 * And he also was Hannibal King in Blade Trinity. I think that's a record. He nabbed 4 comic book characters (3 as roles one as wife)
 * Keanu Reeves likes Cowboy Bebop, and will be playing Spike Spiegel in the upcoming Live Action Adaptation. So the enthusiasm is pleasant, but as for the actual acting...
 * Take this as you will, but Reeves is the single-biggest reason that a Cowboy Bebop movie was even greenlit. He's traveled to Japan many times to pitch the concept and eventually it was accepted. So you have Reeves to thank for a movie even being made... but his role as Spike is pretty much set in stone because of this.
 * Of course, given how extremely emotional Spike is constantly, this is expected to be a tragedy.
 * Jack Black is also known to be a big video game fan. One of the reasons that he got involved in Brütal Legend was that he liked Psychonauts.
 * Neil Blomkamp, director of District 9, plays video games.
 * Correction: He makes video games.
 * Michele Boyd. Just read her resume.
 * James Woods is an avid video gamer, as he noted during a press interview for Kingdom Hearts II. He attended MIT, although he dropped out shortly before graduation to pursue an acting career. He is also a gadget nut; he appeared on an episode of Conan O'Brien with a digital camera to post pictures on his blog - back in 2001, before every celebrity and their mother had a blog and/or Twitter account.
 * Zac Efron is a Death Note fan according to this interview. And it just so happens that he looks like Light Yagami... He also likes Dragonball Z, Bleach, Naruto, and he's a video game addict. He likes American Comic Books as well. He was also rumoured to be put in a Live Action Full Metal Panic! movie, but, as he stated: "Not bloody likely."
 * He's also supposed to be a big Star Wars fan and has talked about wanting to be Luke Skywalker. And he got pretty close to that when he did the voice of Anakin Skywalker in Episode III of Star Wars: ((Robot Chicken))
 * And on top of 'on top of all this' he recently asked to be shown around the Stargate Universe set when he was at the studio... then asked to be sent a screening of the first episode, because he loved Stargate.
 * Shane Black, who has been hired to direct the US adaptation of Death Note, is a big fan of the manga. So much so, in fact, that he said "NO!" to Executive Meddling-induced Adaptation Decay.
 * Alfred Molina is a big fan of Marvel comics. Naturally playing Doc Ock appealed to him.
 * The Gyllenhaals (Maggie and Jake), both colossal nerds. There was an interview where Reese Witherspoon mentioned that Jake won over her son, a big Batman fan, by giving him toys and such Maggie had gotten from The Dark Knight set. And while filming the Prince of Persia film, Jake played through the game a few times, to get the feel of the Prince's movements, and occasionally asked filmmakers if they could get a specific move in.
 * Zach Snyder is a huge comic fan, to the degree that he originally refused to direct the adaptation of Watchmen -- because he agreed with the Fandom's general opinion that the book was inextricably tied to the comic book medium itself, and was thus unfilmable. He only reconsidered when he realized that his refusal just meant that the studio would get somebody else, and that somebody else probably wouldn't share his reverence for the original novel (and would thus be more amenable to Executive Meddling).
 * Robert Rodriguez was such a huge fan of Sin City that he shot a scene from Booze, Broads, and Bullets in his basement, and then showed it to Frank goddamn Miller as proof that he could make a loyal adaptation of the comics.
 * He also started playing video games with his kids in order to make Spy Kids 3 more realistic.
 * Which is to say nothing of his Hetero Life Mate, Quentin Tarantino.
 * Watch Eli Roth in any list show about horror movies; you can tell he's still amazed he gets to make horror movies for a living.
 * He also attends the Ain't It Cool News annual film festival Butt-Numb-a-Thon (a 24 hour straight showing of classic and new films in Austin, TX) religiously...whether or not he has a film to promote.
 * James Cameron has such a strong desire to make a Battle Angel Alita movie, that he already has a fleshed out script and more than 1 year of design work completed. Unfortunately, he's not certain when he'll ever get around to actually making it.
 * James Cameron's answer to question 'Have you seen Inception?' also counts.


 * Paul Giamatti is an avid collector of comics and rare books, particularly the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
 * Kristen Bell may fall into this trope; she does enjoy Comic Con and other displays of nerdiness.
 * She was also very excited to be involved in the Assassin's Creed series, being a gamer herself.
 * Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man, has admitted that he derived the film's half-scripted, half-improvised structure from his days of running Dungeons and Dragons.
 * Alicia Witt has an IQ of 180, and apparently auditioned for the part of Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man.
 * One of her first big screen roles was as Alia Atreides in the David Lynch film adaptation of Dune. Must've been one hell of a start.
 * Steve Martin only agreed to do Looney Tunes Back in Action if
 * Then there's the story of him approaching Olivia Hussey on the set of Roxanne and telling her "You were in one of my favorite movies of all time!" "Oh, Romeo and Juliet?" "No, Black Christmas! I love it, I've seen it 27 times!"
 * Cate Blanchett openly admitted that she took the role of Galadriel mainly because she got to wear pointy ears. She later kept them - and had them bronzed.
 * John August recently started a post on his blog by casually mentioning he had just been playing Battle for Wesnoth. He went on to say that while reading up on the scenario he had just finished, he found his way to our page for All of the Other Reindeer...and so he titled his post after it. He wrote, "If you haven’t spent an afternoon clicking through TV Tropes, it’s well worth the time suck." So double points (this and TV Tropes Trollers) for Mr. August!
 * Daniel Craig. Yep, James friggin' Bond.
 * In the section right above that, the article mentions his love of Star Trek.
 * Whoopi Goldberg is an avid sci-fi fan who asked to be cast on Star Trek the Next Generation in literally whatever part they could think up for her even if she was just in the background doing the cleaning. She also hosted the Battlestar Galactica finale panel at the UN for the show's fans.
 * Can you imagine if she WAS in the background cleaning?
 * On the other hand, if she was in the background cleaning as Guinan...
 * Though ironically, she became a Star Trek fan after seeing Nichelle Nichols as Uhura who "wasn't a maid."
 * Not just a fan: Nichelle Nichols as Uhura was what made her want to be an actress in the first place.
 * Kevin Grevioux, best known for playing the lycan Raze in the Underworld films, is the one who originally came up with the setting and co-wrote, has a degree in microbiology and was studying for his master's in genetic engineering, writes comic books and founded two comic studios, and still looks and sounds like he could kick your ass.
 * Kevin Smith often references comic books and Star Wars in his films and mentions various other nerdy interests of his Evening With Kevin Smith movies.
 * He named his daughter Harley.
 * Not far enough, friend: He named his daughter Harley Quinn.
 * He founded a charitable organization named The Wayne Foundation, after both Wayne Gretzky, and Bruce Wayne's fictional charity.
 * Being a friend or close associate may automatically grant One of Us status. Seriously, just listen to any random show on the Smodcast Internet Radio network.
 * Speaking of Star Wars, Mark Hamill was originally Tiger Beat material. You wouldn't think one saving throw by Fox Studios to hire an indie film maker would make its main star more known for voicing video games. He's also written graphic novels. And of course, it's never "How was Corvette Summer?" or "I loved you in The Big Red One." It always goes back to that one farm boy. That, or The Joker.
 * A possibly apocryphal story that turned up in Starlog a while back described security briefly losing Mark Hamill at a press junket where they were promoting the first Star Wars film prior to its release. Why? He had heard that one of his favorite writers for Cinefantastique was a guest and rushed down to meet them.
 * Wes Anderson has placed Neon Genesis Evangelion on his list of top 5 dvds.
 * Leonardo DiCaprio likes Code Geass.
 * Daniel Radcliffe can sing The Elements from memory. Behold.
 * Bonus points for making the audience stop clapping so he could concentrate!
 * He's also a fan of Hunter S. Thompson.
 * He's also an admitted geek for cartoons, including SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * Gabourey Sidibe, star of Precious, described herself as being a "creepy fangirl" of the original novel and therefore highly interested in getting the film version right. One of the many things that makes her awesome.
 * Joan Collins has said she is a big fan of Scrabble.
 * Richard Corliss, longtime film critic for TIME magazine, has been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 since its inception, and often wrote about it in his columns.
 * Guillermo del Toro is a pacifist - and he thinks Bioshock has one of the most immersive worlds out there. He enjoys Left 4 Dead partly because he had an idea very similar to the game, and someone else made. Once, at a book signing, he even defended video games as an art form, and teased a massive game he's working on, called Insane and having "Lovecraftian" influences. And by "massive", we mean it'll take two or three years to finish; the tentative release date is in 2013.
 * In a featurette for his episode of Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes, while talking about his character, William H Macy makes a Firesign Theatre reference (in particular, Nick Danger).
 * Vic Mignogna, probably best known for voicing Edward in Fullmetal Alchemist, is a diehard Star Trek nerd. He conducts panels at conventions in which he challenges the audience to stump him at original series trivia. By his own admission, he used to tape-record the audio of TOS episodes and fall asleep listening to them at night, and got his mother to teach him to sew just so he could make a Trek costume to wear to conventions. He plays racquetball with Michael "Worf" Dorn, and at Genericon 2011, he informed those attending his Trek panel that he went to see the film reboot with Dorn because "what's more awesome than seeing the Star Trek movie with Worf?"
 * He also regards himself as a Promoted Fanboy, since he now does conventions with George Takei and Nichelle Nichols and the other actors he grew up revering, and he has to outwardly be cool and calm when on the inside he's freaking out because Sulu knows his name.
 * He's also a Star Wars cosplayer... who makes custom lightsabers.
 * There's a picture floating around the internet of someone who looks very much like Ellen Page holding a sign up that says "Hi /b/"
 * Edgar Wright has been quoted as saying on his TV show Spaced, "It's a show by geeks, for geeks." Also, he casually mentions the difference between the Green Goblin and Hobgoblin on the commentary track to Hot Fuzz.
 * And this is before we get to Scott Pilgrim.
 * Horror producer and director Oren Peli was a video game designer before becoming a director. In fact, his work as a video game designer basically paid for Paranormal Activity.
 * Masi Oka. He's a fan of manga like Eyeshield 21, One Piece, and Pluto. His love of World of Warcraft and other MMOs inspired him to make a movie about teen gamers. He admits playing Hiro is essentially being himself with a thick Japanese accent. Oh, and he does special effects and CGI work, with Industrial Light and Magic no less, on the side.
 * Joel Schumacher is a lifelong comic fan, and his original version of Batman Forever was much more in-line with the tone of the first two films. Executive Meddling lead to what we ultimately got for the third film as well as the fourth.
 * So, it was the executives who turned Batman and Robin into an Adam West-era throwback?
 * Tom Hanks is a big Star Trek fan and wanted to play Zephram Cochrane in Star Trek First Contact but was already committed to a different film. Furthermore, he's a huge space nerd; Ron Howard commented on Hanks' knowledge of the US space program during the making of From the Earth to the Moon.
 * Andrew Garfield is a fan of Spider-Man, at least judging by this bit at SDCC where he took to the Q&A mic in a fan-made costume, gushing about how excited he was to be at his first Comic-Con and how inspirational Spider-Man was to him growing up. May also count as Ascended Fanboy.
 * Will Smith is an Ultraman fan.
 * Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame is a Doctor Who fan who once asked Sylvester McCoy for his autograph.
 * Freddie Prinze Jr. of I Know What You Did Last Summer and the television series 24 said in a Game Trailers interview about his character in Mass Effect 3 mentioned that he is a big sci-fi and video game nerd, being a fan of the first two Mass Effect games. Makes sense, considering who he's married to...
 * He's also a huge pro wrestling fan and appeared at WWE events numerous times before officially being brought in as a writer for the Smackdown brand. He parted ways with the WWE in 2009 but around a year later came back as a producer and director.
 * Max Landis, son of famed director John Landis and scriptwriter for Chronicle, is at the very least aware of TV Tropes, as can be seen by him comment here.
 * Madhuri Dixit studied microbiology at Mumbai University before she became famous.
 * Dante Basco is currently liveblogging Homestuck. While he was pretty confused at first, he's clearly come to quite enjoy it. This is even more interesting because one of the characters he's played, Rufio from Hook, actually has a small role in Homestuck. Especially since that role involves, at one point, Rufio's dead body being kissed by Andrew Hussie. (Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.) He was rather bemused at Rufio's first appearance.
 * Katie Leung is a fan of Kick-Ass, Russian constructivist art, and photography.
 * Chloe Grace Moretz of Kick-Ass fame is implied to be a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender. This stems from when she was rumored to play Toph in the sequel to The Last Airbender, and while denied, she expressed delight at portraying the Blind Bandit.