Interview with Chelsea Gill or how to land a date with a star

The evening of Jan. 7 is one that Chelsea Gill will not soon forget.  True to his word, actor Jason Segel took her up on her on offer for drinks.

As reported earlier on Dubois County Free Press, Gill’s YouTube ballad asking the Hollywood comedian out for drinks made national headlines, especially after Segel posted on his Twitter account how impressed he was with the song and that a response was “forthcoming.”

His response was an invitation to Chelsea and her twin sister, Megan, to attend the Chicago Film Critics Association awards, where Segel was honored with the Comedia Extraordinaire Award and shared an award for screenwriting with writing partner Nick Stoller.

It’s been a whirlwind sparked by a video that, according to Gill, she never even meant for Segel to see.  As it turns out, she had originally posted it on YouTube at the urging of her roommates, who thought it would be fun to share with her friends on Facebook.

Gill’s admiration of Segel initially stemmed from the fact that he has already walked the path that she is now paving for herself.

“Because I’m an actor as well, I really look up to him for his craft,” she stated.  She describes his style of comedy as, “so personal, so him.  Nobody can do what he does.”

While she first noticed him in his small role in the comedy “Knocked Up,” and “adored him in that,” it was “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” that really floored Gill.

“I thought, ‘You wrote this?  That is just insane.’  That’s when my respect skyrocketed.”

Gill also has great respect for the variety of talent that Segel has to offer and has demonstrated to box-office success and critical acclaim.  “He’s all over the arts,” Gill stated, running off a list of his accomplishments that include not only writing and acting but also singing, composing, and puppeteering.   “The most talented people out there are those who don’t have limitations.”

His movies have come to mean a lot to the recent Indiana University graduate as she continues to adjust to big-city life after moving to Chicago in the past year.  A theater and drama and English double-major, Gill hopes of starting her professional acting career were tempered by the instability that comes with the entertainment business and missing her family back in Jasper, especially her twin sister, Megan, who is finishing up her studies at IU.  Being away from her family has been particularly tough since the loss of the twin’s older sister, Heather, to complications of primary pulmonary hypertension in March of 2009.

“I can watch a Jason Segel movie,” Gill said, “and just forget all of that, not think about it.  I think, ‘Okay, I can go on another day.  I can do this, just be myself.’”

The inspiration struck as she was viewing “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” that Sunday, “just messing around with the guitar,” which she has now been playing for eight years.  Thirty minutes later, the song was complete.   After posting it on YouTube and Facebook, her friends took it from there, spreading it around to other friends and to Twitter.

When Gill’s friend Hillary Kern saw the video, she had a hunch that it might make waves on the internet.  Kern, a fellow IU graduate and now a public relations specialist in Los Angeles, sent the link to BuzzFeed, a news and celebrity gossip site based out of New York City.  From there, the video went viral and began to be picked up by websites all over the internet, including “The Huffington Post”.  That’s when Gill realized that the video she had posted for her friends was big news, and it just continued to spread.  “I never dreamed in a million years that it would be on E! news,” she said.

She also didn’t expect to be recognized at work.  At her day job in downtown Chicago, Gill conducts phone interviews for a staffing agency.  One of her calls last week was to another IU graduate, as and they were talking, her interviewee recognized the name.  “She asked, ‘Did you say your name was Chelsea Gill?  Are you Jason Segel’s Chelsea Gill?’”

Saturday evening started with Segel taking the twins out for drinks at The Ritz-Carlton before the awards.  While Gill had been told by his staff that she could bring a guest, Segel has no idea he would be escorting twins, which he got a kick out of, Gill said.  Among other conversations during the evening, they discussed the fact that the video was never actually intended to make its way to him, “which he found very humorous.”

She was definitely not disappointed after meeting her idol in person.  “He’s 100% like you see him on TV.  He’s just an absolute sweetheart.”

Segel seemed to be equally impressed with the Gill sisters, stating on his Twitter account, “They were the COOLEST!”

As the next few days pass and she attempts to get back into the swing of daily life, Gill will take the time for a few more interviews, including a more in-depth interview with “The Huffington Post” and other television and radio shows that have contacted her.  She will also be trying to work in some practice time, as her first acting audition since moving to Chicago will be coming up this week.

Gill’s also not ruling out posting more YouTube videos on the channel she created to post the song that changed her life.  Since she’s been writing songs for years, she has plenty of material, but she’s taking the time to figure out how to follow this success up and how to make sure it’s the “right song.”

Meanwhile, Gill’s family and friends are still taking in all of her good fortune.  Her parents, Sylvia and Colin Gill of Jasper, are “generously supportive” and “very thrilled,” as so many others will be upon seeing the news about her special night.

“I’ve received amazing support from everyone.  It’s very touching.”