He couldn’t Skip it, so to Stonewall he went

Popcorn, candy and… Hamm?

Griffin Levenec, who owns The Flicks Cinema in Stonewall with other members of his family, thought he might be seeing things a few minutes before the lights went down for Sunday evening’s 7:30 screening of The Running Man.

“Jon Hamm came in first, and I thought, ‘He kind of looks like Jon Hamm,’ and then Johnny Pemberton walked in and I thought, ‘There’s no way two guys can come in who look like Jon Hamm and Johnny Pemberton and not be them,’” Levenec said Monday.

After loading up at the concession stand — “they bought all sorts of stuff to support us,” Levenec said — Hamm and Pemberton (Fallout), joined by actor Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird), went into the 200-seat theatre, found three seats to their liking and settled in to watch the two-hour action thriller with about a dozen others.

Hamm, the Emmy-winning Mad Men star, has been in Winnipeg since early November, filming the eight-part TV series American Hostage. The temporary Winnipegger has taken in a Jets game, attended the Grey Cup and enjoyed some of the city’s myriad restaurants.

And Sunday, he and his friends took a ride to the bedroom community about 20 kilometres north of the city to catch the movie.

Pemberton and Hauser are in Winnipeg working on the curling film Sticks and Stones.

Levenec admitted he wasn’t 100 per cent sure he saw who he thought he saw in the lobby during the film’s 101 minutes

That is, until the house lights came on.

“The whole time we were waiting for the movie to end,” he said. “The movie ended and people were taking photos of them. That’s when I knew for sure.”

“Having them here is great for the community. We love it when stars get out in the community, and (Hamm) is a very fun and wonderfully kind human being.”

Levenec, who got a photo of himself with the three, said he had a chance to ask Hamm why they drove all the way to Stonewall to see the movie.

“He told me the movie’s director, Edgar Wright, directed him in Baby Driver and he wanted to support his movie,” the theatre owner said.

“He looked at where it was playing and he saw it was in Stonewall and thought, ‘Where’s that?’ He said he looked where Stonewall was and he looked at our website, he really liked it, and he thought he’d come out to a small town. They personally thanked us for helping keep the movie industry alive.

“I didn’t go outside so I don’t know how they got here.”

Kenny Boyce, the city’s manager of film and special events, said many of the stars who come here are issued vehicles by movie companies for them to use during their stay.

Boyce said it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for people who live in Los Angeles not to blink at the prospect of driving a half-hour from the heart of Winnipeg to Stonewall.

“They live in Los Angeles and they spend an hour-and-a-half in a car going from one area to another,” he said. “Half an hour to Stonewall is nothing.

“Having them here is great for the community. We love it when stars get out in the community, and (Hamm) is a very fun and wonderfully kind human being.”

Levenec said both his dad, and his mom who works in Winnipeg, are Hamm fans.

“It’s funny because my dad thought he would come to the theatre, but then he decided not to and watched something (on TV) with Hamm in it,” Levenec said. “He said, ‘You mean the only day I didn’t come to the theatre Jon Hamm was inside?’

“I told my mom, who is a big fan, ‘I think Jon Hamm is in my theatre right now,’ and then I sent the photo, and she called me back in seconds. She said, ‘If I had been there I probably would have thrown up.’”

Levenec, who recently bought the theatre with his brother, dad and stepmother, said it was wonderful to have a brush with film celebrity fame.

“We bought it on May 27 and we opened on Sept. 19,” he said.

“It was exciting to be saying, ‘oh my God.’ I said to my girlfriend, ‘If I had told you two years ago that Jon Hamm would walk into my movie theatre, I would have had lots of questions.’”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca