Every year HHN gets bigger and better with people travelling from all over the world just to experience our humble halloween event and celebrities are no different (they’re people right?). Hollywood gets their own massive influx of celebrities whom all work and live locally whereas you’d be forgiven for thinking that Orlando just pulls in Professional footballer players, golfers and the odd WWE Wrestler (like our buddy Scotty on ScareZone).
But you’d be wrong along with these living locally celebrities there’s also a bunch of Hollywood actors etc who regularly make their own HHN pilgrimage to the humid climbs of Orlando to experience our very special event, so here’s our top 7 celebrity spottings at Universal Orlando during HHN.
1. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake
Years before he was rocking out with Can’t Stop The Feeling and she was lighting up the Vegas skyline the pop powerhouses were a couple (man I feel old saying that). Spears and Timberlake had both been linked since they were kids on Disney’s The Mickey Mouse Club and into the late 1990s, when Timberlake had taken over the world with N Sync and Spears was arguably one of the most famous pop performers on the planet. They started dating way back in 1999 but it was 2001 when HHN’s Eddie was the main icon (though was actually replaced by Jack), that the pop duo flew to Orlando to experience the thrills and chills of millennial HHN. If this had been today I’m sure social media would have imploded…
2. Richard Gere
Gere has been spotted by plucky HHN goers for many of the last few events and has been rumored to be visiting the event for much longer. Gere who is no stranger to the Central Florida theme parks was also on hand during the opening weeks of Diagon Alley. He is rumored to be a HUGE Universal Orlando fanboy.
3. Ariana Grande
This native floridian and mega pop sensation has been visiting our Orlando event since she was a kid, and although she now resides in the City of Angels (where she has been visiting Hollywood’s event in the last couple of years), she always takes time out of her busy schedule to visit her home state and enjoy some Floridian horror (no not the humidity).
4. John Landis
What many of you will know is that John Landis has visited Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando for the opening night of his movie, An American Werewolf in London’s house in 2013 (and the subsequent re-run of the house in 2015). What many of you won’t know is that prior and since this house running in 2013 he has visited the event with his family for a great number of years. He had a great hand in the creating of this house and an even bigger role which was rather contentious on the 2015 house (read more here). Landis, who not only has made iconic horror but has literally wrote the book on the genre, loves HHN at Orlando and will surely be a regular visitor for years to come.
5. Tippi Hedren
Okay so I wager some of you have just looked at your screens and said “who?”. Well before we throw the internet at you let us inform for those that don’t know, Miss Hedren is THE Hitchcock blonde. Not only is she one of only a few surviving actresses to work with the great master of suspense but she was also discovered and tutored personally by the man himself. Only starring in two of his movies, though arguable her performance in The Birds is still one of the most iconic additions to the horror zeitgeist, she has (as far as we know) only visited Halloween Horror Nights once back in 2009. The year that saw the likes of Chucky, The Wolfman, Jigsaw, Dracula (and the debut of The Usher) saw a vast number of Hollywood stars crossing the country to experience the horrors for themselves. Which only leaves us with one final query, Mike – we know you read this so can we PLEASE have our Hitchcock house for #HHN27! 🙂 He Universal trolled us all below on this back in May this year…
While we are on the subject check out this vid from a Hitchcock tribute we did in 2012! https://t.co/W2sHahy0jg courtesy of @InsideTheMagic
— HHN – Orlando (@HorrorNightsORL) May 11, 2016
6. The near WHOLE Walking Dead Cast
So we all know that The Walking Dead have been at HHN Orlando EVERY year since 2012 (though rumors we reported on say that this year is the final year to that run). And every year and before during initial production, a number of the cast have been coming to the event to help promote it and to relax into the iconic HHN Orlando fog. The reason that vast numbers of the cast and crew (including TWD creator Greg Nicotero) have been visiting our event is due to the proximity of sets to Orlando. Shot mostly over the state boarder in Georgia, the event is a nearby attraction that is very popular with this show’s company. Our good friend and former HHN Creative Director James-Michael Roddy even guest starred on the show as a decomposed walker! He has also wrote the introduction to our brand new book that can be found HERE.
7. Penn & Teller
The magical duo have been involved with HHN since the very beginning of event (they appeared in Hollywood’s first year); they’re also rumored to be HUGE HHN fans of both coasts! But it wasn’t until 2012’s Penn & Teller: New(kd) Las Vegas 3-D that the duo not only designed their own house but starred within it as scareactors for select nights. We rumored heavily back in February that the duo were in talks for #HHN26, which never came to fruition, but could they be back for #HHN27 or for some other attraction at Universal Orlando? The talks are supposedly still happening…
**Bonus addition** Scarlett Johansson
Though no photographic evidence exists, we have heard from a number of sources that the Black Widow herself visited HHN Orlando for the first time this year. Johansson like thousands of other guests experienced HHN for the first time this year and are sure to be regular future visitors. Johansson visited in the first week of the event this year on an exclusive RIP tour. She was in a group of 7 friends that visited under Universal’s radar and not for publicity reasons. She supposedly posed for no photos and wore a grey hoodie the whole time. She visited every house and many of the rides but did not catch any of the shows. She was rumored to have said on the night that The Mummy ride and the Halloween 2 house were her favorite parts of the trip.
So have you spotted any celebrities at HHN Orlando? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear your stories!
If you’d love to see more stories from Halloween Horror Nights, then why not pickup the latest edition of the HHN Survivor’s Guide available from all good bookstore or right here at Amazon.com
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