party lines

Meryl Streep at the Speak Truth to Power Reading

Who knew classic “that guy†Elias Koteas (Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!) would have so many fun stories about sitting next to athletes on flights? At last night’s reading of Speak Truth to Power: Voices Beyond the Dark, a benefit for Habitat for Humanity that also featured Meryl Streep, Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore, Alfred Molina, and Marcia Gay Harden, we got Koteas to spill the beans on his recent in-flight run-in with Reggie Jackson. “He was so full of life. He showed me how to roll up a hat without wrinkling it. Like, a felt hat. He pushed it up and rolled it around and made it into this compact little thing, and then put it in his pocket. Then he takes it out and unfolds it and out pops this beautiful unwrinkled hat.†Awesome! So is that the first time you’ve had a celebrity seatmate? “One time I was sitting next to Patrick Ewing in 1989. He was going off to be in some movie — he was playing the angel of death or something [Note: It was The Exorcist III]. That was the fall of 1989. Jesus. Patrick Ewing.†See some celebrity quotes that aren’t related to legendary New York athletes in our Party Lines slideshow.

Meryl Streep at the Speak Truth to Power Reading