I need to give a shoutout to Pajiba for flagging this next story because it gave me a good laugh. It’s a great “Celebrities Are Just Like Us” anecdote from Zach Braff. Zach was the guest on Dax Shepherd’s podcast this week. He and Dax look a lot alike, and have long joked about how fans confuse them for one another in public. As it turns out, it’s not just plebes like us who get them mixed up.

Zach kicked off the episode with a funny yet cringey tale about an encounter he had in Las Vegas with his bestie Donald Faison. They were drunk and went to a club. Donald disappeared into the DJ’s booth, and when Zach went to find him, he was stopped by Michael Fassbender. After basking in the praise that Fassbender was heaping upon him, Zach realized that, once again, it was a case of mistaken identity. He would have let it go but because all three of them were drunk in Vegas, hilarity ensured. Here’s the story from Braff:

“I’m just starting to get insecure, and I look up and…I squint and I see Donald in the DJ booth. I see him and he sees me and he’s gesturing to me to come. I work my way up there and just as I get in the DJ booth, I’m grabbed by the shoulders by Michael Fassbender. He grabs me and before I can say anything, he says, “I love you.” And I go, “Oh my god.”

He goes, “I love your work. I love everything that you do…The sh-t you make is f-cking awesome. I wish we could work together.”

My ego is like *here,* and Donald’s looking at me like, proud boy. Like, “Yeah, boy. Yeah.”

And then [Fassbender] goes, “I mean, f-cking CHiPs, dude!”

And I just felt my heart sink because now, not only is [he talking] about Dax, but I don’t know how to get out of this encounter.

Then, Donald being like my wing man is like, “No man this is Zach Braff.”

I would have just walked away. I would have been like, “Oh, thank you. CHiPs is the best.”

But [Fassbender] was like, “Yo.” And his face dropped, as embarrassing as it was. Then, he just starts to kind of back away like, “Oh, man. You guys have the best night.”

Donald goes, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You come back here.” Like a proud wife. “This is Zach Braff. Do you not know? You’ve never seen Garden State?”

[From Armchair Expert’s YouTube]

This story is so freaking funny. We’ve all been there! I know I’ve definitely said hello to strangers before, thinking that they were an acquaintance. The worst is when someone else recognizes you, and even though you know they’re not a stranger, you just can’t quite place them or remember their name. Zach even mentions a time that he and an ex-girlfriend (not Florence Pugh) got into an Uber and the driver mistook both of them for Dax and Kristin Bell. Dax’s co-host, Monica Padilla, also shared that Claire Danes once came up to her at the Netflix Golden Globes after-party, and it was clear early into the conversation that Claire was confusing her for someone else. It happens!

My favorite part of Zach’s encounter with Fassbender is a buzzed Faison stepping in to not only set the record straight but to then go through his bestie’s list of accomplishments. He and Braff really are just like Turk and J.D. in real life.

Here’s the video of Zach telling the Fassbender story. It’s cued up to start at the beginning, but just in case, it’s at 3:49.

photos credit: Marion Curtis/StarPix for HBO/INSTARimages, Martin Sloan/Avalon, Cat Morley/Avalon, Justin Ng/Avalon