It’s 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning, and David Archuleta is standing in a corner of the Los Angeles International Airport talking to me on the phone.
He’s got his back turned, a trick he learned to try to stay incognito, and he’s facing the wall, but it only takes a minute for the first person to walk by and happily ask for an autograph. Sure, he’s on the phone. And sure, he’s so tired he yawns and apologizes for it about every five minutes. But no, it’s no problem to sign an autograph.
“Wow, that’s ironic,” he says to me, since I just asked him if people recognize him everywhere he goes, and nonchalantly he said something like “not always.”
“I think they’re going to take a picture with me now,” he says. He poses for a second, then goes on to tell me the logistics of avoiding the mobs of fans that lurk in malls and high schools. “Dangerous” is the word he uses, but before long, he pauses, and I can hear him smile, and without missing a beat he says, “Hi! How old is he? Sure. You’re welcome.”
Another picture. Not only is David Archuleta tired, busy, and standing in a corner, but he is genuinely gracious and interested in these strangers who keep stopping him. It’s not forced and it’s not false, it’s just who he is: a guy on the verge of his 18th birthday, traveling with his dad to Disneyworld.
He’s also the guy with a new, self-titled debut album that’s been riding high in the pop charts, the guy who’s tired because he was up performing the night before at a big-ticket concert, who has girls screaming his name, and who was a runner-up on one of the country’s most popular television shows, American Idol.
But Archuleta is trying to move away from that last one. He started wanting to shed his American Idol identity before the show was even over, like many who use the show to break into the music industry.
It happened in his dressing room, just after the season finale. Archuleta was taking it all in, reeling in the moment, when Simon Fuller, the show’s creator, stepped through the door.
“He said, ‘You did great work,’ and, ‘Aren’t you excited to be with Jive Records?’“ Archuleta says. “I was like, whoa. It was all thrown at me, and it never stopped. Right there, in my dressing room, I got signed.”
Life has been a whirlwind since that night in May. There was the Idol tour, then radio shows, interviews, an appearance on MTV —appearances all over the place, really—recording his own album, releasing it in November, filming music videos, and keeping his fans updated on his Myspace page,
www.myspace.com/davidarchuleta.But somewhere in there, in between the concerts and photoshoots, Archuleta took a break. He came home to Murray to spend time with family and see friends—and get his Eagle project finished. In three days.
The newly-hatched pop star went on a merit badge blitz, making up for lost time. And one day, before he had to go to a recording session, A
rchuleta got friends and family to help him plant 180 trees and shrubs in a little park alongside the Jordan River. “I don’t know how it happened, but I started out with 10 and I ended up with 21 (merit badges) by the end of it,” he says. “It was really exciting to me, especially when I almost gave up hope. I think that shows you should never, ever give up hope.”
Archuleta is incredibly grounded for a guy who can—even in a hat and after the lights have gone down—get recognized walking into a Broadway showing of “Wicked” and cause a scene. He says he owes his normalcy to his family.
“I think I’ve pretty much stayed the same,” Archuleta says. “It feels like I’m going through a transition in life and going through a different stage, but I feel the same.”
He pauses as another fan walks by and calls out, “Nice CD!” and he thanks them, then goes on talking about how normal things are.
“I’m just David, and a lot more people know who I am now than before, but it’s not like I’m a different person because of that,” he says. “That’s the important thing about family, because they help remind you. They say, ‘This is David,’ and when you come home, they still treat you like a David.”
All of this talking is making him thirsty. So he goes to look for a drinking fountain with his dad’s cell phone still in hand, and then suddenly he realizes that his own phone is missing.
“Oh no, oh no,” he says. “Dang it. I think I left it on the plane. That is not good.”Archuleta starts negotiating with the airline employees, trying to get back on the plane that’s about to take off for Vancouver, but they’re less than helpful. They say no, and they give him a toll-free lost-and-found number to call instead, but Archuleta never pulls the celebrity card.
Even though while he was standing there —on hold with the lost-and-found messaging service, watching the plane take off with his phone, a man asking for his autograph—Archuleta never said to the airline employees, “Don’t you know who I am?”
A few minutes later, Archuleta has to head to the gate where his father is waiting, where his flight is already boarding.
His phone is long gone.
“It’s OK,” he says, “I’m over it now.”
He’s willing to hope for the best and move on, kind of like the next step in his career. Archuleta is already planning his own tour for next year. He’s already filming more music videos, already singing at more concerts. There’s a lot left to Archuleta’s future, and not all of it has been pinned down yet.
“I just want to continue improving,” he says. “I want to continue trying new things and keep on doing music. Along with music I want to keep on doing my best in whatever it is I do—to make sure I’m happy with what I’m doing so I can look back and say I’m happy with what I did and with what I was able to accomplish, no matter what it is.”Archuleta barely makes his connection to Florida, where the Disney crowd awaits.He says the attention he receives as one of America’s newest heartthrobs is “a gift you receive that you’re trusted to use well,” and that it’s “important to reach out to as many people as you can because of the attention you’re receiving.”
I’m betting there will be plenty of people to ask Archuleta for an autograph wherever he goes next, especially if and when he returns to Utah. And since he’s bound to receive so much attention, there’s one thing that he could really use—a new phone.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF DAVID'S PHOTOSHOOT
David photographed near his home in Murray, Utah November 2008.
One of the nicest guys you'll meet. We were all impressed.
Getting David ready for the next few shots.
The "studio" was freezing, but David was a great sport about it.
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Lo mas antes posible les traigo la traduccion, pense que las fotos eran MUY importante ponerlas, por eso me adelante de poner la entrevista en Ingles....!!!!!!
Quien dijo que David no es sexy ??????? .. OMG .. estas fotos estan .......... bellisimas ..!!