Stargate Chicago Con 2012 - Q & A
I missed Chuck Campbell, Dan Payne and Alex Zahara on Friday afternoon because I wasn’t due to arrive until around 4:00 that afternoon. Then I had some travel problems (which I will talk about later), so I missed Robert Picardo as well.
I ended up not taking notes, something I sort of regret. When you’re watching these talks, things move really fast and sometimes it’s hard to hear so I was afraid that I would miss something while trying to take notes. If I ever go again, I think I would give it a shot, but there’s something to be said for just being in the moment. I figured if anything really important got said, I would at least remember that!
Tony Amendola and Cliff Simon:
Cliff was a total surprise because I didn’t realize he was from South Africa and thus had one of those sexy accents. He talked about how it wasn’t safe living there. He was cast on a show that became really successful and the cast was recognized and mobbed everywhere. I think he did that show for 6 years and became tired of not being able to go anywhere. He decided to come to North America because he wanted to be able to walk his dog at night and not have to watch his back. I think Cliff was also the guy that said if you are really associated with a role, after that show goes off the air, work offers just dry up. He was up for a role on 24 and one of the casting directors whispered to him that she loved him in Stargate. He groaned, thinking he wouldn’t get the part, but he did end up with it. Someone wanted to know if they were like their characters. Cliff laughed saying, oh yeah. *g*
Tony talked about working with Don Davis and their friendship off the set. He said Don was one of the last true gentlemen. Tony is also on the new Canadian show Continuum along with Lexa Doig (Michael’s wife). He described that in depth then also talked a bit about his part on Once Upon a Time, which he really enjoys. (Last night after I wrote this I saw on Twitter that a network here in the US has picked up Continuum. Yay! Didn’t say which one though.)
Kate Hewlett:
First of all, Kate had on the most adorable dress. Looked great on her. Someone asked where she got it, but she couldn’t remember the name of the shop. She saw it in the window and went in to try it on. Can’t blame her! I loved it. Then she played a game with the audience and once she had a winner, she told her the prize was a picture of David. The catch was she was going to deface it with our help. So whenever someone asked a question, they also got to tell her what to do on the picture. David ended up with devil horns, an eyepatch, a bra, diaper, stink lines and a host of things I forget. Funny. She talked about her relationship with David and the projects they’ve worked on together. They’re trying to pitch one now about a haunted inn which sounded cute. On Atlantis she wanted Jeannie to have to leave her family behind and then be forced to shack up with Ronon. LOL
Steve Bacic:
Oh, poor Steve. I think he had a hard night the night before. Made many references to it. And I know he was with Michael Shanks the next night because Michael talked about it. LOL So, Steve played two different characters in SG-1 and someone asked about Major Coburn and he really couldn’t remember the character. He said he likes doing stuff like Andromeda where he has a steady part for a long time because it allows him to really sink into that character and it’s much more satisfying as opposed to the one-off episodes he’s done. Someone asked him about being in the new show Arrow and he said that is not him. He played that character on Smallville though so that must be where the confusion comes from. Even IMDB has it wrong.
Jewel Staite:
Jewel looked totally adorable. She had on these bright coral pants and her shoes were the same color plus about 5 inch spike heels. How do women walk in those things?!! Jewel talked about shows she did while growing up in Canada which I’m not familiar with at all. Also talked quite a bit about LA Complex. Again, I’m not watching although I did try it. (Oh, and Kate Hewlett is on there now, both as an actress and writer.) She told the story about her and Nathan flipping each other the bird and each time it got a little more crazy and elaborate. Someone wanted to know if they did a remake of Buck Rogers, who would make the better Buck - Nathan or Joe Flanigan. She picked Nathan and said don’t tell Joe! Someone asked her about kissing David Duchovny in the X-Files and she was like, Ew, it was not great. She was 13 (I think), it wasn’t really even a kiss, and they were all freezing. In between takes, they (Jewel, David, Gillian) would all sit in a hot tub fully clothed and talk. Very surreal. She also talked a bit about playing Keller and how her real-life friendship with David eventually ended up as the Keller/McKay romance on Atlantis. She said she would always defend Keller (she saw some of the not-so-nice things that were said online) because she felt like Keller was the underdog and was a good character.
Torri Higginson:
Torri played a game with the people asking questions. They had to answer her question first and then they got a prize. Well, no matter what answer you gave, she said it was right. LOL The questions were like how many jumpers on Atlantis. And the prize was always a piece of Canadian maple (?) candy. She drove to the con through Canada and must have picked up the candy along the way. When answering questions she referred many times to the different ways her character died. She talked about being the second actress to play Elizabeth and said she didn’t know at the time that was the case. Said she was glad because she might not have tried for the part had she known. Of course the best answer was the Sparky one. This really young girl talked about the Shepherd/Weir connection and their “eye sex” moments. Torri said that obviously they couldn’t have a romantic relationship due to their jobs and the “eye sex” were moments of dramatic tension. But she thought if the show had gone 10 years they would have had a “dirty one-night stand.” Oh Torri. LOL Classic. Someone up front suggested they had UST and she agreed that was a good term. She also talked about being sick. Said she has had an illness that kept her from working this past year. She had surgery and now has some scars on her neck. You’ll notice in the pictures from the con she is wearing a scarf so the scars aren’t noticeable. She didn’t talk about future work, but hopefully she’s ready to get back to it.
Andee Frizzell:
I meant to grab lunch during Andee’s talk, but Paul (bless him) was taking forever with his autos so I was stuck in line during Andee’s talk. She was very funny. She was wearing these funky pink tennis shoes and that’s how I knew her when I saw her around the hotel. She told some great stories of how the cast wouldn’t recognize her out of the wraith makeup. Paul came up on stage and contributed to those stories.
David Nykl:
I missed David. *sniffles* Since I missed lunch earlier, I had to do it here. We’ll have to get a report from JT, but she did say David talked about Radek and Elizabeth. Twice.
Michael Shanks:
I missed the beginning here as well, but not much. There were quite a few questions about Saving Hope and the hockey movie he is filming right now. He told a story about how he, RDA, and Chris would act differently (according to Amanda and Teryl) when there was a female guest star on the show. Then he imitated how Amanda and Teryl would act in reaction. Michael acting as a female is always hilarious. Then he told this gross, but funny story about him and Chris and their practical jokes. He put something icky on some toilet paper and left in on Chris’s bathroom floor. He waited 2 hours for Chris to confront him and when he didn’t, he went over and asked Chris if he hadn’t seen what was on his floor. Chris (who was wearing his Jaffa armor) said he just thought it had fallen out of his armor. LOL Michael also said that if Atlantis had gone to season 6, there was serious discussion of bringing Daniel Jackson on board. He mentioned a couple of people who talked to him about this, but I wasn’t paying attention at the beginning of this so I don’t remember who it was. Pretty sure it wasn’t our favorite JM though. Can you imagine the uproar if this had happened?
Paul McGillion and Joe Flanigan:
These two were a hoot together. Joe was really wound up. One of the first questions Paul got was from a young kid who wanted to know what it was like to die on the show. OMG Paul gave him grief. LOL Then Joe ended up talking about the exploding tumor and imitating how it killed Paul. And every so often throughout the talk Joe would get up and do it again just to torture Paul. Very funny. Paul also said they gave him a hard time for his final 2 episodes which were shot after Sunday. They would say things like dead man walking to him. LOL Joe told the story of how he and Jason tortured Rachel when she was dressed like a wraith and had to breast feed her baby. That baby never acted normal again. Shame on you boys. LOL Also heard the Galaxy Quest story of how Joe invited everyone to his house at the beginning and showed that movie. Afterwards Torri said to him I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Joe basically laid his head down and laughed hysterically after he said that. *g* At one point a fan named Sally got on stage and played the Atlantis theme on her harmonica. Paul was holding her music so Joe ran around the stage pretending he was in the opening credits and holding his gun. At one point he was behind Paul shooting him. LOL At the end he said they now had the theme song if they ever did Atlantis - Walton’s style. Joe also went through the whole we didn’t like them getting rid of cast members and I told them it was a bad decision so TPTB quit talking to me thing. Nothing new, but he sure doesn’t mind putting it out there. Paul has some work on Fringe coming up and Joe talked about his new release 6 Bullets and was also pretty excited about a video game he worked on, but isn’t supposed to talk about yet. They were asked is either of them stole anything from the set and Joe said he took the People’s Choice Award. LMAO.
Pkprd should have further information on these talks. In addition to flirting shamelessly with all the women on stage, he asked a question of almost everyone.
All the actors were just plain awesome all weekend. I can’t say it enough.
Feel free to ask me questions in the comments. You might jog a memory loose!