"Dolphin Tale 2" Director Charles Martin Smith asked me to thank everyone at Bay News 9 for letting his movie crew shoot scenes in our studio.

Ashley Judd told me I have a wonderful speaking voice.

Morgan Freeman announced I was having a girl after checking out the shape of my pregnant belly. (We don’t know our baby’s gender - of course until now!)

These are highlights of the "Dolphin Tale 2" press junket.

What’s a press junket, you ask? Well, it’s when a bunch of media - local, national and international - descend on say, a hotel. Said hotel has conference rooms with movie bigwigs inside of them, and rows of chairs for said media outside of them.

Most junkets happen in places like LA or New York, but this is special - Dolphin Tale 2 was shot here - and so the stars and director return here and give face time to dozens and dozens of journalists.

The hotel was the Sheraton Sand Key Resort on Clearwater Beach, and the row of conference rooms with rows of chairs outside them was just off the main lobby. There were curtains separating our situation from the rest of the hotel, bodyguards at either end of the hall and in the middle.

The conference rooms are big, airy and darkened, and there is a mini-set deep inside.

There are two low directors chairs, backdrops with pictures of Winter and Hope, and three banks of lights so low you have to duck to get into this tiny perfectly lit world.

There are two cameras, one for you and one for the interview subject, and all these production people.

You sit, say hello and then a timer person points at you, the red tally light on camera lights up and you get three, maybe four minutes.

The best interview was Morgan Freeman. He was remarkably present, looking straight into your eyes, asking his own questions and taking the interview wherever he felt it should go.

It was a little unnerving but exciting too!

(Of course our interviews will all be on Channel 999 Bright House Local On Demand. And if you watch Freeman’s interview, then please be prepared to look up Bobby Gentry’s song “Ode To Billy Joe.”)

Freeman returns as Dr. Cameron McCarthy, the man who creates the prosthetic tail that turns Winter’s life around.

Young stars Cozi Zuehlsdorff and Nathan Gamble were quite funny and engaging. I’d already interviewed them several times, they’d just hit town in the past month for movie promotion. They remembered me, I assume because I was the only really pregnant reporter they’d met.

Zuehlsdorff plays Hazel, the daughter of Harry Connick Jr.’s character Dr. Clay Haskett. She is coming of age in this movie and the father-daughter scenes depict the tender struggle of their changing relationship.

Gamble is also “growing up” throughout the movie, with Ashley Judd’s character as his mom Lorraine, giving thoughtful and loving advice. Basically, these young characters have maybe the greatest and most respectful screen parents of all time.

Gamble is actually a blonde and Zuehlsdorff has her own song out now. Music is another dream of hers.

Of course Harry Connick Jr. was smooth and funny during our interview, as a true New Orleans Jazz man, who also finds himself an actor, reality show judge and national personality.

He spoke with a great deal of respect for the character he portrayed - a man trying to save animals - and for the hard work of everyone at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

When I asked Ashley Judd what made her jump on board the sequel, she said there was no need for jumping, because it was meant to be. Both Judd and Smith told the story of dolphin Hope’s rescue during wrap party for the original "Dolphin Tale" on December 2010.

Smith mentioned the crew shot the fictionalized version of Hope’s rescue scene exactly three years to the day of the original rescue.

Finally, I spoke with the dynamic duo—the two Austins.

Austin Highsmith, who once again plays dolphin trainer Phoebe, and Austin Stowell, who plays Nathan Gamble’s older cousin Kyle, the injured veteran inspired by Winter in the first movie and now a volunteer at the aquarium.

Both Austins say they were thrilled to be part of the sequel and thought of Clearwater as a home away from home.

It was a really exhilarating day.

Not only did I get to hang out with stars - for three to four minutes each - but I also met reporters from France and Italy, Ohio and Los Angeles, all in the Tampa Bay area saying how great it must be to live here.

I even got a souvenir blinking water tumbler and coffee mug – like I was a visitor!

And as I watched Morgan Freeman walk toward the main lobby after he completed his interviews for the day, he saw me, stopped and repeated the potential girl baby name I’d whispered to him at the end of our interview.

And in his voice, it sounded like gold.