Katie and Angel at the BFI screening:
Okay! I was at the screening yesterday, have just got back on the sleeper train from London and crawled into bed to sleep off the last twenty four hours. Since there have already been a gazillion reports on the screening as a whole, I'm just gonna focus on Katie and Angel in this post and then make another one discussing Morgana and Gwen in the actual episode.
Full disclosure? I am a Katie McGrath fangirl to unbelievable levels and the fact that she remembered me from the Expo and called me 'Hugo' (after her hot water bottle) when she was autographing my Merlin annual kind of made me have to go into a corner and spaz out for a few minutes, so these details are hazy because OMG SHE KNOWS WHO I AM. I tried not be too much of that kind of fangirl but I can't help that my brain has filtered a lot of the details to make room for the fact that SHE KNOWS WHO I AM.
*cough*
So bare with me. XP
The cast came in before the screening started, via a side door and the theatre that had been full of people giggling and fangirls and promising to friend each other on LJ suddenly went OMG and shut up to watch them come up the theatre and take seats in the back with the audience. Anyway - I'm down int he front row with shantirosa , who grabs me like the four horsemen of the appocalipse just walked in and we both stare unasahmedly because the entire room is doing much the same thing.
For the Q&A, I took off my shoes. I do this when I'm feeling nervous because for some reason being able to sit cross-legged in my socks makes me feel more in control; and given that, being in the front row, the cast were right there I kind of needed to feel a bit calmer than I was, I took my shoes off and tucked my feet under me in my seet.
This was my view. XP
Katie was dressed in black from head to toe, had her hair scraped back and was wearing her big dorky square glasses - the ones she wore for the set tour for the Australian special a while back. Angel was in pink and had a pashmena and was wearing AWESOME shoes - part high-heal part converse, which I was pretty much on eye-level with.
Both looked their usual gorgeous selves. They were sat next to each other on the left of the stage.
Katie said that she has never been recognised in public aside from one time when she was standing next to Colin. Whilst I think most of us would recognise her in a heartbeat, I have to say, I'm not that surprised. Of them all, Katie probably looks the least like her character when she's out of character - she likes to tie her hair back, she wears glasses and jeans and of course her manner is completely different when she's being herself.
Angel said that the other day someone bowed to her in a kebab shop, which made everybody - the cast and the audience - sporfle. I saw Katie raise her eyebrows and ask Angel really? And Angel nodded.
When asked who on the cast was most like their character Katie and Angel looked at each other then, as one, simultaneiously pointed across the stage at Bradley - who didn't bother denying it.
There was clearly a scene, cut from 1x11, where Morgana eats the rat stew that Merlin made Arthur, since Katie (after Bradley and Colin both struggled to remember what exactly was actually in it - Bradley only remembering that it had to be something vegetarian because Colin doesn't eat meat and that this displeased him greatly) said that it was cold mushrooma and quorn soup. She said it was horrible and she had to keep eating it because the director just let them keep rolling whilst she was doing it.
After keeping my hand up for a good half an hour (shantirosa actually held it up for me at one point) I was the last person to get to ask a question. I was very seriously tempted to ask two questions that I didn't:
One was ask whether Gwen and Morgana actually had just moved into together at this point (obviously implying the slashy undertones).
The other was to ask whether the sexual tension between Morgana and Uther was deliberate or accidental (mostly to embarass the hell out of shantirosa , who was sat next to me in an Uther/Morgana T-shirt, which I SO would have forced her to stand up and show the panel).
I didn't do either of those, though, because the fact was that besides the fangirls the room was full of kids with their parents, who we'd all mostly been good at acommidating, and really, i didn't want to be that fan, who is inappropriate in front of little kids. (Also, the kids definitely made their presence worth it - they were all adorable, several were hilarious and one of them actually addressed Anthony Head as Giles).
So I asked two questions: I asked Katie how Hugo the tiger was (because I genuinely wanted to know if she still had him) and then I asked something that has always intrigued me - which is why Merlin seems to get a moral free-pass when it comes to killing people.
I didn't expect Katie would recognise me (partly because - uh - there were HUNDREDS of people at the Expo; and also because, even if there hadn't been, I actually look quite different now anyway - I've changed my hair and lost about a stone and a half in weight since the beginning of the summer so am two dresses sizes smaller). And when she answered - that Hugo was fine, she still has him and he was now indispensable to her character - I didn't know whether she had made the connection between me asking now and me asking about him at the Expo. But it didn't matter 'cause she was still being nice to me. ^_^
I said something about how awesome Angel's shoes were (I'm using the fact that I was running on about an hour of sleep at that point as an excuse) and then asked about Merlin's killing issue.
Of course they couldn't REALLY give me a satisfactory answer, because this isn't a complex enough show that they can really explore the point of a character who is one minute against killing and yet has in himself killed several other sentient characters when people he cares about are in danger. Colin gave the best answer (in that he gave one that made sense) - that Merlin is against killing for frivolous reasons but will do it when he needs to protect people - the producers didn't deal with it as well (they pointed out that Merlin has only ever killed one human - Edwin - the others all weren't human. Which... is besides the point because if Nimueh wasn't human than neither is Merlin or, arguably, Morgana, which I don't think is what they meant - and anyway, they were all still sentient, conscious beings so it amounts to the same thing).
Still, I was glad to get any kind of answer at all.
And then it was over and the cast left - they all had to get back to France to keep filming (they clearly work these guys full-on, twenty four seven for the eight months they spend filming). The girl sitting on shantirosa 's other side (whose LJ name I didn't catch - but she was really nice) managed to get Angel's autograph as she was leaving, since she was clearly a HUGE Angel Coulby fan, and she was happy because Angel was so nice to her.
Okay - so getting stuff signed wasn't well organised. The BFI would have done better to handle it a bit more like the Expo did, with a queing system and some kind of way of making sure only people who'd actually been to the screening were getting things signed. Katie and Anthony stayed behind to autograph things and whilst Anthony's fans (kids and fangirls, mostly) were fine - swarming in a fairly orderly fashion - Katie was practically mobbed because of the number of really sleezy guys hanging around trying to get her to sign multiple things quite obviously so that they could sell them on.
Thankfully, the guy who had compaired the Q&A, who was HUGE, was with her, and kept people at a reasonable distance, and Katie herself handled it really well. She prioritised signing for the children who gathered around her first, and then the fangirls, and then she dealt with the sleezy older guys (mostly by telling them as nicely as possible to back the fuck off because she was signing for the kids first and no, she was NOT going to sign more than one thing each - at one point she actually forced an apology out of a guy who was getting frustrated and started swearing about how his poster was getting crushed in the crowd. It was highly entertaining to watch).
When she was kneeling down to sign something for one of the kids, her jacket rode up a bit and you could see her tattoo (the word 'purity') written across her back. I could have taken a picture but the idea felt - I dunno - a bit too invasive, maybe, so I didn't.
I hung back - I've already got the entire casts autographs anyway so I thought it was a better idea to let other people - particularly the little kids - go first, since Katie only had about ten minutes to sign. I stood a couple of rows of people back and did my best to shuffle and nudge people aside to let the children who were coming and going through the crowd. But once the crowd began to dwindle and it was clear she was going to get to everyone, I borrowed a pen and sidled over to her with my Merlin annual (they were giving away the books and annuals free at the event so long as you only took one each).
She grinned at me and me said, "Ah! Hugo! Nice to see you again!"
And I was all - "...!!!..." (actually, i think I managed to say something along the lines of 'mm, yeah, sorry - back again. I've sort of started and ended the summer with the Merlin cast, though.' and she laughed and said not to worry about it, and signed my annual. I thanked her and scurried off to hyperventilate let more people through).
I went off to find the other people I knew - nikkidarling , fidel , solochan and a number of others - and we all hung around watching Anthony Head being incredibly nice to his fangirls. We saw Katie McGrath leave and then we wondered off outside in search of some dinner.
Full disclosure? I am a Katie McGrath fangirl to unbelievable levels and the fact that she remembered me from the Expo and called me 'Hugo' (after her hot water bottle) when she was autographing my Merlin annual kind of made me have to go into a corner and spaz out for a few minutes, so these details are hazy because OMG SHE KNOWS WHO I AM. I tried not be too much of that kind of fangirl but I can't help that my brain has filtered a lot of the details to make room for the fact that SHE KNOWS WHO I AM.
*cough*
So bare with me. XP
The cast came in before the screening started, via a side door and the theatre that had been full of people giggling and fangirls and promising to friend each other on LJ suddenly went OMG and shut up to watch them come up the theatre and take seats in the back with the audience. Anyway - I'm down int he front row with shantirosa , who grabs me like the four horsemen of the appocalipse just walked in and we both stare unasahmedly because the entire room is doing much the same thing.
For the Q&A, I took off my shoes. I do this when I'm feeling nervous because for some reason being able to sit cross-legged in my socks makes me feel more in control; and given that, being in the front row, the cast were right there I kind of needed to feel a bit calmer than I was, I took my shoes off and tucked my feet under me in my seet.
This was my view. XP
Katie was dressed in black from head to toe, had her hair scraped back and was wearing her big dorky square glasses - the ones she wore for the set tour for the Australian special a while back. Angel was in pink and had a pashmena and was wearing AWESOME shoes - part high-heal part converse, which I was pretty much on eye-level with.
Both looked their usual gorgeous selves. They were sat next to each other on the left of the stage.
Katie said that she has never been recognised in public aside from one time when she was standing next to Colin. Whilst I think most of us would recognise her in a heartbeat, I have to say, I'm not that surprised. Of them all, Katie probably looks the least like her character when she's out of character - she likes to tie her hair back, she wears glasses and jeans and of course her manner is completely different when she's being herself.
Angel said that the other day someone bowed to her in a kebab shop, which made everybody - the cast and the audience - sporfle. I saw Katie raise her eyebrows and ask Angel really? And Angel nodded.
When asked who on the cast was most like their character Katie and Angel looked at each other then, as one, simultaneiously pointed across the stage at Bradley - who didn't bother denying it.
There was clearly a scene, cut from 1x11, where Morgana eats the rat stew that Merlin made Arthur, since Katie (after Bradley and Colin both struggled to remember what exactly was actually in it - Bradley only remembering that it had to be something vegetarian because Colin doesn't eat meat and that this displeased him greatly) said that it was cold mushrooma and quorn soup. She said it was horrible and she had to keep eating it because the director just let them keep rolling whilst she was doing it.
After keeping my hand up for a good half an hour (shantirosa actually held it up for me at one point) I was the last person to get to ask a question. I was very seriously tempted to ask two questions that I didn't:
One was ask whether Gwen and Morgana actually had just moved into together at this point (obviously implying the slashy undertones).
The other was to ask whether the sexual tension between Morgana and Uther was deliberate or accidental (mostly to embarass the hell out of shantirosa , who was sat next to me in an Uther/Morgana T-shirt, which I SO would have forced her to stand up and show the panel).
I didn't do either of those, though, because the fact was that besides the fangirls the room was full of kids with their parents, who we'd all mostly been good at acommidating, and really, i didn't want to be that fan, who is inappropriate in front of little kids. (Also, the kids definitely made their presence worth it - they were all adorable, several were hilarious and one of them actually addressed Anthony Head as Giles).
So I asked two questions: I asked Katie how Hugo the tiger was (because I genuinely wanted to know if she still had him) and then I asked something that has always intrigued me - which is why Merlin seems to get a moral free-pass when it comes to killing people.
I didn't expect Katie would recognise me (partly because - uh - there were HUNDREDS of people at the Expo; and also because, even if there hadn't been, I actually look quite different now anyway - I've changed my hair and lost about a stone and a half in weight since the beginning of the summer so am two dresses sizes smaller). And when she answered - that Hugo was fine, she still has him and he was now indispensable to her character - I didn't know whether she had made the connection between me asking now and me asking about him at the Expo. But it didn't matter 'cause she was still being nice to me. ^_^
I said something about how awesome Angel's shoes were (I'm using the fact that I was running on about an hour of sleep at that point as an excuse) and then asked about Merlin's killing issue.
Of course they couldn't REALLY give me a satisfactory answer, because this isn't a complex enough show that they can really explore the point of a character who is one minute against killing and yet has in himself killed several other sentient characters when people he cares about are in danger. Colin gave the best answer (in that he gave one that made sense) - that Merlin is against killing for frivolous reasons but will do it when he needs to protect people - the producers didn't deal with it as well (they pointed out that Merlin has only ever killed one human - Edwin - the others all weren't human. Which... is besides the point because if Nimueh wasn't human than neither is Merlin or, arguably, Morgana, which I don't think is what they meant - and anyway, they were all still sentient, conscious beings so it amounts to the same thing).
Still, I was glad to get any kind of answer at all.
And then it was over and the cast left - they all had to get back to France to keep filming (they clearly work these guys full-on, twenty four seven for the eight months they spend filming). The girl sitting on shantirosa 's other side (whose LJ name I didn't catch - but she was really nice) managed to get Angel's autograph as she was leaving, since she was clearly a HUGE Angel Coulby fan, and she was happy because Angel was so nice to her.
Okay - so getting stuff signed wasn't well organised. The BFI would have done better to handle it a bit more like the Expo did, with a queing system and some kind of way of making sure only people who'd actually been to the screening were getting things signed. Katie and Anthony stayed behind to autograph things and whilst Anthony's fans (kids and fangirls, mostly) were fine - swarming in a fairly orderly fashion - Katie was practically mobbed because of the number of really sleezy guys hanging around trying to get her to sign multiple things quite obviously so that they could sell them on.
Thankfully, the guy who had compaired the Q&A, who was HUGE, was with her, and kept people at a reasonable distance, and Katie herself handled it really well. She prioritised signing for the children who gathered around her first, and then the fangirls, and then she dealt with the sleezy older guys (mostly by telling them as nicely as possible to back the fuck off because she was signing for the kids first and no, she was NOT going to sign more than one thing each - at one point she actually forced an apology out of a guy who was getting frustrated and started swearing about how his poster was getting crushed in the crowd. It was highly entertaining to watch).
When she was kneeling down to sign something for one of the kids, her jacket rode up a bit and you could see her tattoo (the word 'purity') written across her back. I could have taken a picture but the idea felt - I dunno - a bit too invasive, maybe, so I didn't.
I hung back - I've already got the entire casts autographs anyway so I thought it was a better idea to let other people - particularly the little kids - go first, since Katie only had about ten minutes to sign. I stood a couple of rows of people back and did my best to shuffle and nudge people aside to let the children who were coming and going through the crowd. But once the crowd began to dwindle and it was clear she was going to get to everyone, I borrowed a pen and sidled over to her with my Merlin annual (they were giving away the books and annuals free at the event so long as you only took one each).
She grinned at me and me said, "Ah! Hugo! Nice to see you again!"
And I was all - "...!!!..." (actually, i think I managed to say something along the lines of 'mm, yeah, sorry - back again. I've sort of started and ended the summer with the Merlin cast, though.' and she laughed and said not to worry about it, and signed my annual. I thanked her and scurried off to hyperventilate let more people through).
I went off to find the other people I knew - nikkidarling , fidel , solochan and a number of others - and we all hung around watching Anthony Head being incredibly nice to his fangirls. We saw Katie McGrath leave and then we wondered off outside in search of some dinner.