Michelle Monaghan and Sam Childers Machine Gun Preacher

The Angelika Theater in Dallas was doing an advance screening of Machine Gun Preacher and Michelle Monaghan and Sam Childers were in town to promote the movie.

That created some buzz in the Dallas Autograph Community. About a dozen of us camped out in front of the theater to get some autographs.  We knew Michelle was going to give an intro before the movie and Sam was going to do a Q&A after the movie.

When Michelle Monaghan arrived with Sam Childers our group swarmed on them.  Everyone was interested in Michelle. (Amazing how pretty girls get all of the attention.)  She signed for about half the group and then her ‘people’ rushed her inside. Sam followed her but I caught his eye and he paused as if to sign but decided not to stop.

Those of us (including me, I have already established I’m slow) that didn’t get signatures knew we had one more shot when she left the building and since she was most likely going to leave after she did her presentation we knew we would not have to wait long.

We were right. We didn’t wait that long and we got her signature on the way out.

She was smiling and friendly and signed for the last of us.

Then everyone left. They got what they wanted.  I was still there though.  I wanted Sam’s autograph.

I know you don’t know who he is. That’s okay; I never heard of him until that morning either.

I really don’t know much about him or the movie - I know just know the 30 second elevator speech.

Machine Gun Preacher is a true story. It’s Sam’s story. Is the movie accurate?  I don’t know. The plot did intrigue me though.  A drug dealing biker goes to jail. He changes his ways and after jail he goes to Africa and ends up defending the young children that would be made into soldiers by the local warlords.

That is someone changing from one tough life to another tough life. That takes a lot of courage and mental strength and that is why I wanted Sam Childers’ autograph.

I waited by myself. I was determined to wait until after the movie and the Q&A finished. It meant getting home very late and a short night of sleep but I loved this story. It was important to me.

I found a nice spot to set my bag down and to sit that wasn’t too far from the entrance of the theater.  I was out of the way and unobtrusive so I wouldn’t bother anyone.  I figured I had 2 hours to kill.

I started playing with my phone and reading emails and the like.  I was pretty engrossed in that when I just happened to look up.  Only 45 minutes had passed but Sam had walked out the doors of the theater with a few people and they were talking about getting something to eat.

He saw me as soon as I saw him. I just raised my clip board and my eyebrows – silently asking him if he had time.  He nodded and took a step toward me. I hurried over to him (well as fast as I can hurry) and he pulled out his own Sharpie.  He signed and I thanked him.  I shook his hand and thanked him again.

He met up with his friends for dinner. I went on my way knowing I just met someone that did something real. He’s not an actor. He’s not a socialite. He’s not an athlete.  This is one of my favorite autographs.

AH