As I sit at the Newark airport awaiting the last leg of my trip home from another year’s visit to the Toronto International Film Festival, I  know that the first question that I will be asked by my friends and family upon my return will not be “What films did you see?” or “What films found distributors?” or “How was the weather?” but “Who did you see?!” For this reason, I have decided to go through the week in my head and write down the names of as many of the notables that I encountered as I can remember—and, let me tell you, you can see more stars in a day in Toronto without trying than you can over a week or even a month in Hollywood or New York or just about anywhere in the world. Anyway, without further ado, a walk down (recent) memory lane…

FRIDAY Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons at the Warner Brothers press conference for Appaloosa… Adrien Brody switching rooms between interviews at The Fairmont Royal York… Ethan Coen lunching two tables away at the Avenue lounge in The Four Seasons… Zac Efron, Claire Danes, and Geoffrey Rush at the CinemaNX shindig for Me and Orson Welles at the Empire Lounge’s ground floor, while Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear mingled with guests at an event for Ghost Town downstairs… Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Brad Pitt, Francis McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Richard Jenkins at Roy Thomson Hall introducing the Gala premiere of Burn After Reading and then watching it from the high-up seats a section away from me, allowing me to shake Pitt’s hand on his way out of the theater like a little fanboy… Coen, Coen, Pitt (sequestered in a little corner with some buddies and a punk bodyguard), McDormand, Malkovich (wearing a murse, or man-purse), Swinton, and Jenkins, along with Brody, Efron, Jeremy Piven, Miramax studio head Daniel Battsek, MSNBC newsman Dan Abrams, and Canadian-born Phoenix Suns basketball star Steve Nash at the Burn After Reading after party at  Spice Route   SATURDAY Brody at our interview at the Park Hyatt, while co-star Rachel Weisz chatted with other journalists in the same suite… Coen, Coen, Pitt, Swinton, and Malkovich at the festival’s hot-ticket Burn After Reading press conference at the Park Hyatt… actor-director Clark Johnson outside The Intercontinental… Keira Knightley, accompanied by three or four handlers, gracefully hustling through the main hall of the Park Hyatt… director/TIFF patron Ivan Reitman in the lobby of The Four Seasons… Martin Landau, Ellen Burstyn, Adam Scott, and 23 year old director Nic Fackler at the first public screening of their film Lovely, Still at the AMC at Dundas… Efron, Christian McKay, and director Richard Linklater at the first public screening of their film Me and Orson Welles, with director Jason Reitman in the audience, also at the AMC at Dundas… Director Fernando Meirelles and his cast of Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Oh, and Danny Glover, joined by Brody in the audience, at the Gala premiere of Blindness at the Ryerson Theatre, which commenced following a painfully long introduction… Meirelles, Ruffalo, Brody, and Gael Garcia Bernal at the all-out after-party for Blindness at CTV Queen Street   SUNDAY Landau, Burstyn, Scott, Canadian director Atom Egoyan, and Egoyan’s actress-wife Arsinee Khanjian at a tea reception for Lovely, Still at the Empire Lounge… director Danny Boyle and actors Dev Patel and Freida Pinto at the tremendously-received premiere of the final cut of their film Slumdog Millionaire, with Reitman in attendance, at the Ryerson Theatre… Boyle, Patel, Pinto, Reitman, and Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart at the post-premiere celebration of Slumdog at Flow by The Four Seasons… director Richard Eyre and stars Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, and Antonio Banderas introducing the Gala premiere of The Other Man, with Banderas’ wife Melanie Griffith in the audience… Eyre, Linney, and Nash at the Other Man after-party, held at the best venue in Toronto, the awe-inspiring Casa Loma castle   MONDAY Shohreh Aghdashloo for our interview at the at the Avenue-and-Davenport Metrick residence… Brody, Ruffalo, Weisz, Edward Norton, Lauren Graham, Reitman, and former Miramax/current Weinstein Company studio head Harvey Weinstein at the Summit party for The Brothers Bloom at The Park Hyatt’s rooftop lounge  TUESDAY Boyle for our interview at The Fairmont Royal York Hotel… director Kevin Smith and cast members  Jason Mewes and Katie Morgan at the Visa Screening Room special presentation of Zack and Miri Make a Porno… Ethan Hawke animatedly conversing with a friend over drinks at The Park Hyatt’s mezzanine-level bar/restaurant… Benicio Del Toro causing piercing shrieks as he entered the Visa Special Presentation of part one of Che  WEDNESDAY Catherine Keener, a few rows ahead of me on a Porter Airlines flight from Toronto to Newark, and then directly behind me in the Customs line, where we compared our Obama t-shirts…