Last spring, the folks in central Kentucky were all agog at the thought of running into Katy Perry. The pop superstar temporarily lived here while her husband Orlando Bloom was filming a movie.

CELEBRITIES IN KENTUCKY

I remember this Facebook post from an onlooker who thinks she spotted her:

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Then there's TV icon and Star Trek's Captain Kirk, William Shatner, who lived on a farm in Versailles until he lost it in a divorce settlement. Neither he nor Katy calls Kentucky home any longer.

KENTUCKY ISN'T EXACTLY CRAWLING WITH A-LISTERS IN RESIDENCE

In some states, it's pretty easy to run into celebrities--California and Tennessee leap to mind--but that's not the case in Kentucky. Oh sure, we've heard any number of stories about Johnny Depp showing up in Owensboro for this reason or that, but none of those visits were ever substantiated.

...UNLESS YOU COUNT THIS VETERAN ACTOR

However, if you're in the Georgetown KY area, you could very well run into an actor who's been hard at it for nearly three decades, isn't one of the biggest names in the business (although he's very good at what he does), and who just recently scored his first-ever Emmy nomination for the HBO Max series The White Lotus. In fact, it was his first acting nomination of any kind. If you didn't see that, you may well have seen Steve Zahn in this 90s twenty-something-angst movie. It's the first time I remember seeing him:

STEVE ZAHN -- LONGTIME KENTUCKY RESIDENT

Yes, Zahn is a resident of Georgetown--he and his wife own a farm there--and, by all accounts, loves it. Well, for one thing, they've been in the Commonwealth for a long time; in a 2017 interview with Vulture, he mentioned his farm and that he and his wife, Robyn, had been living here for 13 years. They're settled in.

Here's what he told The Irish Times' Tara Brady in 2021:

I’ve never been a slacker. I live on a farm. You wake up. Period. Horses and dogs don’t care if it’s Christmas. I get up at 5.30am and I’m in bed at 9.30pm. I’m that guy. I only use an alarm when I’m working on a movie. And that’s to wake up later.

A CONVENIENT FILM SHOOT FOR STEVE ZAHN

Last winter, Steve Zahn was spotted with actor/director Ethan Hawke in Louisville's St. James Court, a perfect "movie" location. Zahn is a member of the cast of Hawke's upcoming film Wildcat, starring Maya Hawke as author Flannery O'Connor.

I'm guessing if you hang around the Lexington/Georgetown area long enough, you WILL run into Steve Zahn. He seems like an affable fellow, pretty approachable. And he seems like a Kentuckian through and through.

Not bad for a guy from Marshall, Minnesota.

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We could have a whole OTHER list of country stars from Kentucky--and athletes, for that matter. But how many of THESE celebrities did you know were from the Bluegrass State?

I Bet You Didn't Know These Celebrities Were Kentucky Colonels

14 Movies That Were Filmed in Kentucky

Kentucky hasn't gone ignored by Hollywood, with regards to the usage of filming locations. But there could always be more, right?