Last night, I along with about 1200 others, attended the Sean Astin Lecture at Bucknell University. After a very informative introduction by Amanda Forsburg, chair of the Student Lectureship Committee Sean, entered the stage of the beautiful Weis Center Theater. It was packed! The applause turned into chants of Rudy at one point during his opening remarks. He also got some of his quotes in from the movies Goonies and The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers in at the beginning. The part from Goonies was at the bottom of the well when Mikey was encouraging the “Goonies” to go on, that they had gotten farther than anyone else in finding the treasure. And from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Sam is speaking to Frodo about the stories they heard growing up and that there was still some good in the world.
At this point he also made the whole of the audience honorary “Goonies”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about see his website. SeanAstin.com 7th bullet down.
He continued on speaking of how he was given the opportunity to speak to the students at Bucknell and what he was doing at that moment. Riding with his brother Mackenzie to Fatburger. His brother asked him how much they pay for him to talk and what he would talk about for that much money!? He said pretty much anything he wanted too. (chuckling) He spoke for an hour and a half about family, his passions, how hard it is to get into paying jobs as a director, his meeting President G. W. Bush as Sean is part of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation. He spoke of some of the lessons he has learned through his 25 odd years as an actor. He is very honest and revealing as a person. I was surprised at how frank he was at times during his presentation.
He told us of former President Jimmy Carter’s getting in touch with him, that he and Rosalin are fans of the Lord of the Rings and he sent an autographed, leather bound, gold leafed edition of his memoirs to him. That they were in touch with each other regularly when they were both on tour promoting their books. He spoke about his interest in politics and saying if Arnold can be Governor of California maybe he, (Sean) could be a Congressman.
At the end there was a brief question and answer session all of about 4 people, and then before being whisked away by the committee and his handler, (he had a 6 am flight back to LA and at least a two hour drive back to NYC where his hotel was.) he met with some fans at the front of the stage and took this photo with us. I’m the one with the blue LOTR shirt on. 🙂
