First in a four-part series on the day that changed America.
Do you remember where you were on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001?
TheWrap queried a number of actors, filmmakers, producers, writers and bloggers, some New Yorkers and others not even U.S. citizens, to remember where they were on that fateful day, and how it changed them.
PAUL McCARTNEY
"I was on my way back to England, and we were at JFK on the tarmac, and the pilot just suddenly said, 'We can't take off. We're going to have to go back to base.' And out of the window on the right‑hand side of the airplane, you could see the twin towers. You could see one plume of smoke, and then you could see two shortly thereafter.
I said, 'Well, that's an optical illusion, you know.' Then one of the stewards came to me and said, 'Look, there's been something really serious happened in New York, and we've got to get you out of here.'
I ended up in Long Island watching it on TV, watching the whole story unfold ‑‑ like everyone else in the world ‑‑ wanting to go into New York, but nobody was allowed back in.
So while I was kind of sitting out there twiddling my thumbs thinking of what to do, was there any role I could play in this, the idea came to me that maybe we could do a concert, maybe get something together. And that thing grew into a conversation with Harvey Weinstein, who said that MTV was putting one together and maybe we should all get together on that.
[At the concert] it was a kind of post-fear. We were emerging from the fearfulness of the immediate impact, and now you were seeing the emotion releasing through music, which I always think is a great thing. You could see particularly the firefighters and the volunteers and their families and victims' families were able to release this emotion that had been pent up. It was a great feeling. It was a really great feeling."
-- Jordan Riefe
-260x261.jpg)
AL PACINO
"It was the most terrifying, the most heartbreaking day. I was on a plane the evening before it happened, September 10.
I was in Los Angeles, and all I wanted was to get back to my home -- New York.
I couldn't get back, the planes wouldn't move. It was devastating."
-- Mikey Glazer
MATT DAMON
"I lived in lower Manhattan at the time. So I just remember walking out of my apartment and seeing it and then going back in and watching CNN 'cause I was so hungry for information, trying to figure out what’s going on.
I just remember being glued to my television despite the fact that it was happening kind of right outside my door."
