I find it weird the way people get so excited about celebrity. If

Host: The rain pressed gently against the glass panes of a small café in Soho, where twilight blurred the city into a wash of gold and violet. Steam curled from mugs on chipped wooden tables. Neon from a nearby record shop pulsed faintly through the window, bathing everything in an almost cinematic melancholy.

Inside, Jack sat with his usual stillness — coat draped over the chair, his grey eyes fixed on the street beyond. A half-empty coffee cooled beside him. Jeeny arrived moments later, shaking the rain from her dark hair, her smile tired but warm. She slid into the seat across from him, the table’s candle flickering in greeting.

The café hummed softly — jazz from a scratchy speaker, spoons clinking, a city half-asleep but never truly resting.

Jeeny: (reading from her phone) “Thomas Brodie-Sangster once said, ‘I find it weird the way people get so excited about celebrity. If my friends are on the phone, their friends will say: “Is that kid from Love Actually there?” And the phone gets passed round and I have to speak to this stranger asking: “Are you famous?” I don’t know how to answer.””

Jack: (smirking) “Ah, the eternal curse — being known by everyone but understood by no one.”

Jeeny: “It’s more tragic than it sounds. Fame promises connection and delivers distance.”

Jack: “Because it turns a person into a reflection. No one wants you — they want what you mean to them.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. They don’t see you; they see nostalgia. That boy from a Christmas movie frozen in time. He’s twenty-something now, but the world still sees him at thirteen.”

Jack: “The Peter Pan paradox — eternal youth, eternal invisibility.”

Host: The light flickered, catching the rain streaks on the window like tiny silver scars. Jeeny’s voice softened, thoughtful.

Jeeny: “It must be surreal — to be asked, ‘Are you famous?’ as if fame were a species, and you might not belong to the human world anymore.”

Jack: “Fame dehumanizes by glorification. It’s a mirror that reflects only the surface, until the reflection becomes the prison.”

Jeeny: “And yet, people chase it. Every generation, more desperately.”

Jack: “Because we mistake recognition for love.”

Jeeny: “And validation for worth.”

Host: A pause fell between them, filled by the slow rhythm of rain. Outside, a bus rumbled past, its lights sweeping briefly over their faces — two figures caught between cynicism and empathy.

Jeeny: “You’ve always hated celebrity culture, haven’t you?”

Jack: “Hate’s not the word. It’s fascination mixed with disgust. It’s like watching a ritual where people sacrifice privacy for applause.”

Jeeny: “And yet, the applause feels holy when you’re starved of it.”

Jack: “Sure. Until the echoes fade and you realize the clapping wasn’t for you, just for the idea of you.”

Jeeny: (nodding slowly) “Thomas’s confusion — ‘I don’t know how to answer’ — that’s honesty. Because fame is a question, not a state. Every time someone asks ‘Are you famous?’, what they’re really asking is, ‘Do you still belong to us?’”

Jack: “And he doesn’t. Not really. Fame cuts both ways — you’re seen by millions and known by none.”

Host: The waitress passed by, refilling their cups. The scent of coffee deepened — warm, bitter, grounding. Jack stirred his slowly, watching the swirl dissolve into darkness.

Jack: “You ever notice how the famous always say the same thing — ‘I just want to be normal’? But they never can be again. Fame’s irreversible. Once the world memorizes your face, anonymity becomes myth.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why so many of them retreat. They crave invisibility. Not because they hate attention, but because attention erases intimacy.”

Jack: “Attention’s a counterfeit intimacy. It mimics care, but it’s built on transaction.”

Jeeny: “And that’s what makes Thomas’s perspective refreshing — he’s uncomfortable with it. He doesn’t crave the spotlight, he questions it. That confusion — that humility — it’s rare.”

Host: The rain softened, tapping lightly like a metronome of thought. The candle between them flickered low, its flame dancing against the glass.

Jack: “Do you think anyone can survive fame untouched?”

Jeeny: “Not untouched. But maybe unconsumed. The ones who last treat fame like weather — temporary, unpredictable, not to be worshiped.”

Jack: “Weather changes you, though. Even if you learn to live in it.”

Jeeny: “True. But it also reminds you of what matters when the storm passes — warmth, quiet, friends who don’t care what your IMDb page says.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You make it sound like salvation through normalcy.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. The freedom to not be a spectacle. To be ordinary again — that’s the new luxury.”

Host: Outside, a street performer began strumming a slow tune on a guitar, his voice faint through the rain-slick glass — soft, unpolished, real. For a moment, the café seemed to hum in rhythm with him, the whole world shrinking to the size of that small, imperfect song.

Jack: “You know what’s ironic? The people who crave fame want to be seen, but fame blinds both ways. You stop seeing the world clearly, and the world stops seeing you.”

Jeeny: “Because you become a projection screen. Everyone’s dreams, insecurities, nostalgia — they stick to you. And soon you forget what your own face looks like without them.”

Jack: “That’s why his answer — ‘I don’t know how to answer’ — is the most honest thing a celebrity can say. Fame fractures identity. It creates two selves: the one you live in, and the one the world rents out.”

Jeeny: “But maybe the power lies in knowing which one you own.”

Jack: (after a pause) “Do you think you’d want to be famous?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “For what I create? Maybe. For who I am? Never.”

Jack: “Because who you are belongs to you.”

Jeeny: “And fame takes that ownership away.”

Host: The café door opened briefly, letting in a gust of cold air and the murmur of the wet street. Then it closed again, sealing them once more in their pocket of warmth and reflection.

Jeeny: “You know, I think Thomas was really saying something deeper. He wasn’t complaining. He was bewildered. He was asking — ‘When everyone else thinks they know me, who am I allowed to be?’”

Jack: “A question that only gets harder to answer the more people try to answer it for you.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Fame makes you plural when you only ever wanted to be singular.”

Jack: “And being singular — being yourself — becomes the quietest, most radical act of all.”

Host: The rain stopped. Outside, the wet pavement gleamed like black glass, reflecting the neon glow of signs and the blurred silhouettes of passersby.

Jack glanced out the window one last time, voice soft.

Jack: “Maybe true fame isn’t being known by the world, but being known by someone who doesn’t care that the world knows you.”

Jeeny: (nodding) “That’s the kind that heals you.”

Host: The candle burned down to its last inch, flickering weakly but refusing to die. The city exhaled, quiet after the storm.

And in that small café, between the hum of jazz and the whisper of rain’s end, Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s words echoed — not with arrogance, but with innocence:

That celebrity is confusion,
that fame is not identity,
and that the hardest answer
to “Are you famous?”
is the truth most people never want to hear:
“I’m just trying to be human.”

Host: The candle went out.
The world, outside and within,
kept shimmering —
not in fame’s glare,
but in the soft, forgiving light
of anonymity.