Supanova Sunday full report - the day of awesomeness!
Below is the full report for my Supanova Sunday adventures with clarrisani and her sister, StalkerofShadows (SoS). I have put each talk under a lj cut so that you can find what you want or else just click and read the whole lot if you so choose. Be warned this is 6,000+ words of adventure! Now to get onto remembering Saturday and typing that one up...
The day got off to an interesting start when the train driver decided to stall the train. They obviously missed first gear. Luckily for us it was as a train station that they had just pulled into. So a minute or two was spent while the power was off on the train. It then powered up and we were on our way again.
We rocked in a wee bit late to find that James Marsters Q&A had been moved to the Madman Theatre, which is a larger seated venue off to the side of the autograph and photo lines. This is where the VIP pass was gold. SoS had to wait outside while we walked in to the front and took our seats.
In the short time we had to watch James there were a couple of interesting questions asked.
Most importantly in the very important question of Pirates vs Ninja’s James believes that Ninja’s would triumph because Pirates are basically drunkards.
He was asked if we would ever see Spike on our screens again. He said that when Angel ended he told Joss that if he had anything he wanted him to do in future, be it two lines or a lead he would jump at the chance, but for Spike there was a seven year window opportunity as Spike is not supposed to age and well… he does. Joss just gave him this look that James very much interpreted to mean that it was unlikely to happen. We may get him as voice over but no live action as the seven years ended this year.
Another interesting question was how he became to be on Torchwood. He was touring in the UK with his music when he was going to meet with someone. They told him that they couldn’t that night because Doctor Who was on. They still invited him around but said that they would be watching tv.
James watched it and 15 minutes in looked at the time as he thought from all the plot that he had seen that the show was now over. He was exceptionally surprised to discover that there was another 45 minutes to go, so in terms of American television he had 3 more shows to fit in.
Once it was over he immediately went in search of his manager and told him to get him on that show. When Russell T Davies was approached he replied that he didn’t have a part for James on Doctor Who and would be unlikely to have one but there was this spin off that was a little more adult and had a character that RTD had intended to get off the ground but hadn’t found the right actor yet that he would be perfect for. Hence Captain John was born.
James muddled up if he was Captain Jack or Captain John at this stage. As he said, same bloody name.
A young boy asked James how he deals with not getting a job after auditioning as he himself had just started audtioning and tends to feel quite down if he doesn’t get the job. James offered him the advice that once an audition is over and if he doesn’t get he throws out any feelings about the job. He said that for every 16 - 35 auditions he does he will get one job, so there is a lot of rejection. He looks at it that all actors are talented and only one of them is right for any one job at any time. So he is always out there actively looking for that one job that he has the right vibe for at that time.
I knew from getting him to sign Pat’s calendar yesterday that he was a bit of Trek geek. Today I found out just how much. He went to the very first ever Trek Convention in 1978. He dressed up and made his own costume.
He had his blue science shirt, Vulcan ears that a friend had made and his own hand made phaser that he still has to this day. His Spock costume was topped off by a blond afro!
His most vivid memory of the convention was lining up to get Leonard Nimoy’s autograph, but when he got to the front of the line, Leonard had left. He has since met Leonard and said that he is the loveliest man but it impacted on him that he will stay around and make sure everyone gets their photo or autograph as he does not want to be “that guy” who leaves a fan waiting.
There were some other amusing comments but that is all I can really remember at the moment. From James’ talk we headed off so that Clarrisani could get her extra autograph tickets for the day.
Karl was signing at this stage and had a shorter line, so I took the opportunity to give him a little note that I had written out that morning. The note was a quote from Gene Roddenberry about his vision for Star Trek and specifically about why he created the three characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. I showed it to Karl and said he needs to show it to JJ so he can understand that it isn’t all just about the Kirk and Spock epic friendship as many promote TOS as being, it was actually the triumvirate. I told him that my friends and I want to see more McCoy in the next movie. We had a little chat about the new movie and TOS in respect to this and what the fans would like to see. Karl said we need to get it out there, start a web blog etc. Which was very interesting to hear that he was actively promoting using the internet for the fans to have their say and implying that TPTB keep an eye on what they are thinking. I didn’t want to hold up other people who had been waiting for him to sign stuff, so excused myself and off we went again.
Off to the Trading hall to case the joint again. Bumped into the lovely MissKikkiKat and her stunning and brilliant dolls, including the zombie red shirt.
Also in the trading hall was Roy whose debut sci fi novel Silverbirch sounds very interesting. I had a nice little chat with him about how we both look at sci fi as coming from the human angle more than the science. I told him about Terry Pratchett discussing GK Chesterton in his Richard Dimbleby lecture this year and Roy wanted to check it out, so after passing that info on it was off to see if we could find another author.
We wandered past “sparkly” aka Jennifer Fallon to see if she had pulled up well after the chocolately alcoholic goodies that she was enjoying the night before. She apparently has the world’s most awesome liver. Jennifer is so lovely, very giving and willing to chat about the writing process. I will definitely look at saving up to go visit at her 10 bed roomed converted pub + resident ghost that finds thing in New Zealand that she has turned into a writers retreat.
In our chat we bonded over a mutual love of sparkly jewelery; she admired my Bali bracelets that my 12 year old second cousin had bought over there for me, with a little assistance from my mother. While chatting we taught Scott Sigler, an American author, that Hippos kill more people than planes, that there are Hedge Pixies in New Zealand and that the reason Rhinos are so grumpy is that they have a permanent hair headache.
You know when you do your pony tail in your hair really tight and the pressure on your scalp causes you to end up with a headache? Well a Rhinos horn is made entirely of hair, imagine that it is wound so tight and what pressure that is creating on their forehead. No wonder the poor buggers are so grumpy. We thought that the African plains needed more conditioner and then the rhinos could have a lovely flock of seagulls hair do and be way more pleasant creatures.
We then headed back out and over to the JB Seminar room to catch up with Liam O'Brien and Tara Platt’s panel. We came in towards the end but what we heard was funny and also informative about voice over work. Like many of these smaller, niche type jobs there are similar perks and pitfalls to them just like with the more recognised bigger jobs.
The night before we had asked David, who was one of the MC’s if he had ever introduced someone as “and now a man who needs no introduction…” and then just walk off the stage. He said yes and today he proved it again. Yuri, who is Tara’s lovely husband and the voice of Ben 10 was the one who got that introduction. We unfortunately had some other things to chase so we couldn’t stop and listen to Yuri, who we knew to be lovely and funny and very quick witted.
So we were off again to get our tickets, some food, more shopping and back in time for Gareth’s talk.
Gareth has been practising his Australian accent and he does it pretty well. Not quite right on the G’D bit of g’day, but overall better than Robin Williams who ends up sounding like a Kiwi when he tries to do ‘Strine, the affectionate way we call our broad accent.
A couple of things that stuck out for me in his talk was his description of Ianto’s death being from an “alien brain fart” and that as Gareth said, Keith the security guard is a star. He came to the rescue of Gareth when one question was if he was a folder or a scruncher in reference to how he wipes up after number twos. For the record he is a folder as ”he likes to see the pattern.”
He is a little upset that no one asks John Barrowman what it is like to kiss Gareth. John has kissed many men and Gareth has only kissed one man, John. Gareth’s answer to the question though was that John is rubbish and he is fantastic.
One guy who asked a question got Gareth’s attention for the jacket he had on. Gareth was much enamoured with it and the guy told Gareth where he could buy one. Gareth told Gemma, his fiancée to take down the details, so he could wear it to a Goth club.
The twitter reaction to Ianto’s death he liked. He had more hits than Michael Jackson’s death and he was sexier than Robert Pattinson, which I think he was most proud of.
His favourite villain was Captain John and he did let the room know that his character was due to die every season. When he made it through each season it was like in a video game where you don’t want to die on a particular level.
k_haldane's neice asked a question where her delivery was a little on the aggressive side, but I think that was more nerves than anything else. She seemed to be very pro about british actors all doing drag and wanted to know what was up with that. Gareth explained that he hasn't done drag so they don't all do it. He was in a movie with drag queens, he got to be very camp and orange, but he didn't do drag.
There were more questions, but overall they were the main ones that stuck out in my head.
From Gareth’s talk it was back to waiting around again for Karl to possibly turn up for photo’s as I had one left. So while the time got closer to Karl’s talk, I sent clarrisani and SoS off to line up and save me a seat and hopefully I would get my photo soon.
It was not to be. Karl finally left his auto line when he was brought right past us in order to enter the seminar room via the back way as all guests are. This was behind the photo booth. So I hastily moved off to the seminar room, very glad to have the VIP pass which meant that while they had people lined up along the side of the walls as they had run out of seating spaces. I found my friends had saved me a seat.
Now we knew that Karl did not like to sit behind the desk, that he pulled the chair out so he could move around a little bit and use the hand held mike. The seat that they had saved for me was directly in front of that space, a metre at the most between me and where Karl would be sitting. I looked in shock at the three of them and checked that they meant me to sit there. For this I shall love them to the end of time!
So out comes Karl, to much applause and cheering, with his sunnies on. Considering he has just come from the back room, it is very rockstar. He brought with him again a red bull and a water bottle. Sure enough he pulls out the chair and plonks it down directly in front of me. He is handed the microphone and we are off again.
He was asked very early on in the session about reboot and TOS and the relationship and more to do with what he would really like to see. He provided a similar answer to the day before where it was all about the relationships between the characters for him. He then proceeded to scare the crap out of me.
He mentioned that a fan gave him a quote this morning that was from Gene Roddenberry. He says that the fan is probably in the room now. At this stage I am now in a state of shock that he is referencing the note I had given him. The other girls all point at me and tell him who it was. I put up my hand a little bit and agree with them. Karl stops, looks towards me and says, “of course it was you” in this slightly amused voice. Oh dear, I now have Karl’s attention. (and I have a brilliant icon thanks to eumelkek, *points upwards*)
He leans forward to get the note out of his back pocket. Now there might have been some sotto voice conversation between our front row and him, as he leaned towards us and had a bit of difficulty getting the note our of his back jean pocket. It wasn’t me that told him that he could stay right there and play with his arse all day. :D It really wasn’t me, honest, although I chuckled and agreed with the sentiment.
He got it out, sat back down and read out the quote to the whole room.
The quote is this:
"In novels, stream of consciousness goes inside the hero's head and you can read what he's thinking. You don't have that in television and so I thought that if I took a perfect person and divided him into three parts, I could have the administrative, courageous part that would be the Captain; the logical part who is the Science Officer and the humanistic part with the Doctor. Then when something comes up, the Captain could say, 'I don't know, fellas. We must do it,' and Spock would say 'However, the logical thing is...', and the doctor would say, 'Yes, but the humanity of it,' and I could have them talking about it without having stream of consciousness, and it worked."
He did pretty good at reading my writing and only stumbled over a few words. At the end he said to the room that it is a brilliant quote and then he told me to give him five.
Now the whole while he had been reading out the quote I could literally feel my heart pounding in my chest. So he puts his hand out towards me, parallel to the ground and palm up. This is more in tune with a ‘bit of skin’ than a ‘five’. So I go for a bit of a skin instead. He then informs the whole room that I gave him a bit of skin and got it wrong. My nerves disappear and my natural cheeky nature takes hold again. I wasn’t going to stand for that and I told him he got it wrong and you do it this way and put my hand up for a ‘high five’, so we ‘high five’. That is obviously not right to him and he again informs the crowd it was wrong. He then does the Vulcan greeting, I match him and we 'high five', Vulcan Style, much to the rest of the rooms amusement.
Then it was time to sit back in my seat and quietly freak out in my head over what had just occurred.
Karl was asked who were his three major influences in acting when he was first starting out. I can’t remember the first name he said, but there was early DeNiro and then he tried to remember the name of the French actor in an awesome movie.
He stumbled a little bit over the possible name and came close when someone in the crowd prompted him with Queen Margot and then he remembered it was Daniel Autreil once he had the film in his head. Told us all to watch it as it is an excellent film. So if you haven't seen it, go watch Queen Margot. Karl approves.
A question was asked if he could go back and replace DeForrest on any episode in TOS which one would it have been. Karl would not do it as he said you can not top anything DeForrest did.
A guy in a superman t-shirt started to ask a question, Karl interrupts with a "hey superman, where you been?" Quick as a wink Supes' replies, "there are no phone booths".
The next guy after him starts to ask a question about Chronicles of Riddick. The first part was what was it like to manhandle Vin Deisel and the second part was what were you thinking during the kissing scene? Karl was a little perplexed by this question. He pointed out that there was no 'manhandling' of Vin and he wanted to know what movie the guy was watching because if he meant kissing Vin then what movie was he really watching?
It was confirmed that the guy meant the kiss with Thandie. Karl responds with, "what would you do if you were in my shoes?" So the guy asking the question starts to answer. Karl heads him off with a, "you don't have to answer that, it's a rhetorical question!" What Karl learned from that scene was that tongue is good. :D
While taking a sip of red bull he decided to enlighten us as to a certain ingredient in the drink.
Taurine is apparently made from Bull’s testicles. At the combined “eeew” from the audience, Karl then smiled and took a long drink before smacking his lips and putting the can back down on the table.
I did a little googling later and it’s a nice urban (hee!) myth and it gave us another good Karl expression so we will let him go on that one.
For some strange reason my mind is blank when trying to remember what question he was answering here.
It must have been good as it was followed up by this.
I realised at the time with a quick glance that I had captured the moment when he put his tongue out and no wonder I completely had no idea what else was happening on around me.
It might have been when he was asked, "Pirates, Ninja's or Zombies?" His fairly quick answer was Pirates and he gave us a good pirate growl.
k_haldane's niece, another VIP, asked a question of Karl where she started off by saying "As a New Zealander..." At this stage Karl got up out of the chair headed straight over to her to celebrate being a Kiwi together. Then she revealed that she wasn't a Kiwi it was part of the question to him. I think his face says everything. Not a happy Karl!
As part of his response to her question he used the wrong word within the context. I can't remember exactly what it was but obviously my face gave away that I knew it was wrong as it prompted his response of, "it's a word. It's in the dictionary. Look it up!" at me. I knew it was an actual word, I was tempted to tell him that he might need a thesaurus but I figured I had done enough insulting of him for a while. It happened twice in the whole Q&A that he used that little saying about a word. Only once on me though.
For most of this Q&A it seemed that people were very good at asking him not ONE question but two when it was their turn. One example of this was the guy who asked what it was like being Nicole Kidman's brother in law. Now Karl has been very attentive and listened to any and all questions. This question got this response.
Then this, as he looked at the crowd as if to say is that question for real?
and the response from Karl that it is probably the same as being Keith Urban's brother. We think the guy meant it to be funny as he then asked a serious question.
Another questioner pointed out that he talked about pranks on the set of Star Trek but were there any that happened on Lord of the Rings that he could tell us about. This made him stop and think and assure us that there were pranks that occurred but it was a while ago. He did struggle for this but then remembered that for one take where the Riders of Rohan circle around Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn that he and Viggo did the entire scene as horses. Neighing their way through the lines. He did a couple of the lines to much mirth.
A reaction at one stage was in his best sheep voice, "are you my daahaadee?" He then started to tell the kids in the audience to ask their parents about it, which he quickly amended to "no, don't ask them". This was then followed up by him pointing out that there are more sheep in australia. Well yes, we are bigger and plus the kiwi's all scared them our way for protection.
He pointed out that one of his favourite shows is Doctor Who and that he had heard great things about Matt Smith. He said that he would do ANYTHING to be on Doctor Who. He thinks being the new Master would be very cool. He is going to get his people to see what they can do. Karl on DW would be insanely good news.
A very important question about what his weapons of choice would be for a Zombie Apocalypse. He didn't even have to think on this one and rattled off the list of weapons he required.
A shotgun for starters, then a sniper rifle, followed by a machete for the close up work and finally a pistol in his back pocket for, it was here that he raised his hand up and made the gun signal at his head and did a "boom" moment. Then he remembered the children and put his hand further away, started with the boom and went into a little bit of beat box to cover the moment.
When someone again asked two questions in one, they got this.
He was indicating that it was two questions not one... probably.
An interesting question was if there any jobs that he regrets taking. He gave a bit of a long answer to this one.
He said he won't mention the film but there was one where the Director took cuts from other scenes and spliced them into different scenes. Why he has no idea, could be because he hadn't taken enough reaction shots, but it did annoy him a little. To get around issues like this he recommended working with only the best people where possible. He also talked about how Doom was not the movie he had signed onto. Three weeks before filming, the Director was fired and a new one brought on board. That Director made a completely different movie from what had originally been pitched to them all.
A fan wanted to know if he had to take any courses in Russian prior to filming on Bourne. He said that Russian's can do things with their tongues he didn't know was possible. I think he meant that slightly without the innuendo we were all thinking. The hardest part was when Krill gets into the back seat of the car and has the long speech to deliver. They completely changed it on him the night before. He was trying to learn it furiously but by the time filming came around his solution was that he had written it all out phonetically and he pasted the paper on the back of the car seat. So as he moves his head from side to side while delivering it, he remembered the start of it for us at this point, his eyes would take in some of the speech so he could keep talking. He told us all to go back and watch his eye line.
He was asked again what souveniers he has from any of his roles. He repeats again about the ring and badge from Star Trek, adds in that he has Krill's leather coat and while thinking this reminds him about the first time he put on the Star Trek blue uniform. He would really have loved to have taken the pants, they have pleats (you have to see him describe this as no amount of words can cover what he did). He then talked about how he wasn't originally given boots like the others and he put his foot down so they went and found a pair of boots for him. Hissy fit Karl would have been amusing to see. He then stood up from the chair and demonstrated what happened the first time he put on the costume.
Imagine you are a little kid getting something you have always, always wanted in your life. Think about the little jump up and down and arm waving you would do. That was Karl.
A standard question was asked about what it was like filming on Xena. He talked about how much he learned from Lucy, about how she would keep up moral on the set and he took that on board and tries to do the same. He then told us about the scene in one of his early Caesar roles where Xena is crawling along the bed towards him. He started to demonstrate the crawl.
He decided that Caesar would be quite intent in his perusal back.
As she got closer one of the worst things happened. His contact fell out of his eye and he pulled the most hilarious face, as he was no longer able to see, but tried to keep acting in the scene. It didn't work.
The dolls were mentioned again, he again only mentioned the 6 and 10 inch sizes. I got warned by him that there were children present when I piped up with the number 12. It was a playful warning. There really are 12 inch dolls. If he is going to play with himself it is nice to have a few sizes to pick from, I say.
There was a lot more questions but for the life of me this is all I remember so far. I am sure that others will pop up later into my mind that I have forgotten about at the moment.
At the end of the panel I did the same trick I did for Saturday, put out my foot and took a photo to show how close I really was. I have short legs so you have a pretty good idea about how close I was in reality.
I then decided to be quite silly and take a picture of the hand that high fived Vulcan style with Karl.
anntarot then told me to go and sit in the seat. I was a little, um can I do that? I asked Chris, the MC, if I could and he said yes, so I sat on it and anntarot took the picture. Chris decided he needed to get in on the act as well.
The seat was a little warm still and possibly slightly sweaty. I left clarrisani and the others after this silliness to go back and stand in the line to wait for my final Karl photo.
It was a long time in coming and the girls were doing the best they could. I can not speak highly enough of the job that they did and we chatted for a while about anything and everything. The reason it took a while was that Karl was over in the trading hall with his family purchasing up big time on DW memorabilia and toys. He finally came back and they snagged him for photos. When I went in I told him that 1972 was a good year and he was all, "oh, you too? What month?" After telling him December I asked if I could have a hug in the picture if that was possible. He said sure and the man does give good hugs, nice and firm. I said thank you and told him I hope he comes back and if he does then I will definitely make the trip from Adelaide again.
I headed off to find clarrisani and SoS. They were easy for me to find actually. Apparently they had sent lots of messages to my phone to say that they had got my James Marster's autograph in the Script book for Once More With Feeling that I bought earlier. That had given SoS an opportunity to meet James who admired her glasses a lot, so much that he said he would have liked them for himself. When then headed off to see if we could get a ticket for the Gareth after drinks for SoS.
While that was going on I headed back to the trading hall to get another 12" McCoy (are you all seeing a theme here?) that could play with the 12" Kirk that clarrisani had found for me yesterday.
I got one for $30 which I was very happy about and then wandered back past MissKikkiKat's stall to say bye and make her envious with my Karl reportage from the Q&A> She had told me to try and make her envious eralier. Seeing as when I told her that I had sat in the chair directly after Karl and that I possibly have his sweat on my arse, she proceeded to bend over and sniff my arse, after asking if she could of course. Heaven knows what people were thinking who were watching on. I didn't mind at all, it was just another silly thing I got up to. I was just surprised and so was her friend that she didn't lick it! I hugged her goodbye and headed out again.
Just at the exit, Tara and Liam were signing and I stopped to say bye and a thank you for the lovely chat we had with them last night. As my hair was up I looked a little different and Liam was a little taken aback. He told me I wasn't to tell him my name, he was going to see if he could remember it, and even though he is a voice actor and he doesn't have to remember lines anymore, he got it in one guess. They are so lovely and if you get a chance to see them I can say that you will enjoy their talks, even if you have never thought about 'voice' actors before.
Back outside again to meet with SoS to find out that we need to pay for the ticket via cash as the atm at the showgrounds has run out of money (surprise, surprise). I had over what I can and we get a ticket all paid for.
This gave us plenty of time to head back home, dump our little trolley of goodies, grab a bite to eat and catch the train back into town again for the drinks. We arrive fashionably late at the Chi Lounge in Chinatown which was the same venue for the Cocktail Party, so at least we knew where we were going. It is a lovely decorated room and there were groups in each area. So we sat and people watched. I have to say that whipping out your camera to take a photo of an actor as he pulls up his pants from the back view is not my idea of proper behaviour, but that's just me. He is being managed by James' manager now and the state of Gareth was probably not his ideal situation. When he came and sat next to us to say hi he was incredibly pissed by this stage.
Holding a conversation with a drunk guy while you are stone cold sober is always a challenge. I did ask what I thought was the most relevant question was though, how was he getting home as the flights to Europe are currently on hold. His reply, by boat hopefully. He got to practice his aussie a bit more and I made him repeat his g'day as he wasn't quite blending the g and the d together enough. He got it in the end. He said we were rude, but he loves it. I pointed out that we only insult people if we like them.
clarrisani twitters and emails regularly with James Moran, a writer on TW and other shows. I have had email chats with him too and he is a lovely man. He has caught up with a mutual friend of ours in LA a couple of times, so we know he is as lovely in real life as he appears to be over the internet. When he found out that we were coming here, he made her promise to send him a pic of us in costume. She had also told him about the previous night with Gareth and her walking stick. James had left a reply that he wanted brought to Gareth's attention. It was shown to him and he gave a suitable reply that I will leave up to clarrisani to report on. :)
There was also the spanking incident. Standing near us was a group of which Gareth is quite familiar it seems. He grabbed one of the girls, pulled her onto his lap and proceeded to spank her, before pushing her off and back to her girlfriend. The others in that group thought this was vastly amusing and told him that her boyfriend looked a little jealous. So Gareth grabs the boyfriend and does the same treatment to him. The boyfriend didn't look too impressed, but what can you do?
Not long after this he got up, was joined by Gemma, his fiancee, and with his manager, leaves the venue to stumble off somewhere.
We stayed for a little bit finishing off our drinks, then we get up and head off, our Supanova 2010 adventure all over.
I hope you all enjoyed reading and if anyone who was there remembers things in the talks that I forgot, have at it and remind me in the comments as I would love a record of the weekend for posterity. :D
The day got off to an interesting start when the train driver decided to stall the train. They obviously missed first gear. Luckily for us it was as a train station that they had just pulled into. So a minute or two was spent while the power was off on the train. It then powered up and we were on our way again.
We rocked in a wee bit late to find that James Marsters Q&A had been moved to the Madman Theatre, which is a larger seated venue off to the side of the autograph and photo lines. This is where the VIP pass was gold. SoS had to wait outside while we walked in to the front and took our seats.
In the short time we had to watch James there were a couple of interesting questions asked.
Most importantly in the very important question of Pirates vs Ninja’s James believes that Ninja’s would triumph because Pirates are basically drunkards.
He was asked if we would ever see Spike on our screens again. He said that when Angel ended he told Joss that if he had anything he wanted him to do in future, be it two lines or a lead he would jump at the chance, but for Spike there was a seven year window opportunity as Spike is not supposed to age and well… he does. Joss just gave him this look that James very much interpreted to mean that it was unlikely to happen. We may get him as voice over but no live action as the seven years ended this year.
Another interesting question was how he became to be on Torchwood. He was touring in the UK with his music when he was going to meet with someone. They told him that they couldn’t that night because Doctor Who was on. They still invited him around but said that they would be watching tv.
James watched it and 15 minutes in looked at the time as he thought from all the plot that he had seen that the show was now over. He was exceptionally surprised to discover that there was another 45 minutes to go, so in terms of American television he had 3 more shows to fit in.
Once it was over he immediately went in search of his manager and told him to get him on that show. When Russell T Davies was approached he replied that he didn’t have a part for James on Doctor Who and would be unlikely to have one but there was this spin off that was a little more adult and had a character that RTD had intended to get off the ground but hadn’t found the right actor yet that he would be perfect for. Hence Captain John was born.
James muddled up if he was Captain Jack or Captain John at this stage. As he said, same bloody name.
A young boy asked James how he deals with not getting a job after auditioning as he himself had just started audtioning and tends to feel quite down if he doesn’t get the job. James offered him the advice that once an audition is over and if he doesn’t get he throws out any feelings about the job. He said that for every 16 - 35 auditions he does he will get one job, so there is a lot of rejection. He looks at it that all actors are talented and only one of them is right for any one job at any time. So he is always out there actively looking for that one job that he has the right vibe for at that time.
I knew from getting him to sign Pat’s calendar yesterday that he was a bit of Trek geek. Today I found out just how much. He went to the very first ever Trek Convention in 1978. He dressed up and made his own costume.
He had his blue science shirt, Vulcan ears that a friend had made and his own hand made phaser that he still has to this day. His Spock costume was topped off by a blond afro!
His most vivid memory of the convention was lining up to get Leonard Nimoy’s autograph, but when he got to the front of the line, Leonard had left. He has since met Leonard and said that he is the loveliest man but it impacted on him that he will stay around and make sure everyone gets their photo or autograph as he does not want to be “that guy” who leaves a fan waiting.
There were some other amusing comments but that is all I can really remember at the moment. From James’ talk we headed off so that Clarrisani could get her extra autograph tickets for the day.
Karl was signing at this stage and had a shorter line, so I took the opportunity to give him a little note that I had written out that morning. The note was a quote from Gene Roddenberry about his vision for Star Trek and specifically about why he created the three characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. I showed it to Karl and said he needs to show it to JJ so he can understand that it isn’t all just about the Kirk and Spock epic friendship as many promote TOS as being, it was actually the triumvirate. I told him that my friends and I want to see more McCoy in the next movie. We had a little chat about the new movie and TOS in respect to this and what the fans would like to see. Karl said we need to get it out there, start a web blog etc. Which was very interesting to hear that he was actively promoting using the internet for the fans to have their say and implying that TPTB keep an eye on what they are thinking. I didn’t want to hold up other people who had been waiting for him to sign stuff, so excused myself and off we went again.
Off to the Trading hall to case the joint again. Bumped into the lovely MissKikkiKat and her stunning and brilliant dolls, including the zombie red shirt.
Also in the trading hall was Roy whose debut sci fi novel Silverbirch sounds very interesting. I had a nice little chat with him about how we both look at sci fi as coming from the human angle more than the science. I told him about Terry Pratchett discussing GK Chesterton in his Richard Dimbleby lecture this year and Roy wanted to check it out, so after passing that info on it was off to see if we could find another author.
We wandered past “sparkly” aka Jennifer Fallon to see if she had pulled up well after the chocolately alcoholic goodies that she was enjoying the night before. She apparently has the world’s most awesome liver. Jennifer is so lovely, very giving and willing to chat about the writing process. I will definitely look at saving up to go visit at her 10 bed roomed converted pub + resident ghost that finds thing in New Zealand that she has turned into a writers retreat.
In our chat we bonded over a mutual love of sparkly jewelery; she admired my Bali bracelets that my 12 year old second cousin had bought over there for me, with a little assistance from my mother. While chatting we taught Scott Sigler, an American author, that Hippos kill more people than planes, that there are Hedge Pixies in New Zealand and that the reason Rhinos are so grumpy is that they have a permanent hair headache.
You know when you do your pony tail in your hair really tight and the pressure on your scalp causes you to end up with a headache? Well a Rhinos horn is made entirely of hair, imagine that it is wound so tight and what pressure that is creating on their forehead. No wonder the poor buggers are so grumpy. We thought that the African plains needed more conditioner and then the rhinos could have a lovely flock of seagulls hair do and be way more pleasant creatures.
We then headed back out and over to the JB Seminar room to catch up with Liam O'Brien and Tara Platt’s panel. We came in towards the end but what we heard was funny and also informative about voice over work. Like many of these smaller, niche type jobs there are similar perks and pitfalls to them just like with the more recognised bigger jobs.
The night before we had asked David, who was one of the MC’s if he had ever introduced someone as “and now a man who needs no introduction…” and then just walk off the stage. He said yes and today he proved it again. Yuri, who is Tara’s lovely husband and the voice of Ben 10 was the one who got that introduction. We unfortunately had some other things to chase so we couldn’t stop and listen to Yuri, who we knew to be lovely and funny and very quick witted.
So we were off again to get our tickets, some food, more shopping and back in time for Gareth’s talk.
Gareth has been practising his Australian accent and he does it pretty well. Not quite right on the G’D bit of g’day, but overall better than Robin Williams who ends up sounding like a Kiwi when he tries to do ‘Strine, the affectionate way we call our broad accent.
A couple of things that stuck out for me in his talk was his description of Ianto’s death being from an “alien brain fart” and that as Gareth said, Keith the security guard is a star. He came to the rescue of Gareth when one question was if he was a folder or a scruncher in reference to how he wipes up after number twos. For the record he is a folder as ”he likes to see the pattern.”
He is a little upset that no one asks John Barrowman what it is like to kiss Gareth. John has kissed many men and Gareth has only kissed one man, John. Gareth’s answer to the question though was that John is rubbish and he is fantastic.
One guy who asked a question got Gareth’s attention for the jacket he had on. Gareth was much enamoured with it and the guy told Gareth where he could buy one. Gareth told Gemma, his fiancée to take down the details, so he could wear it to a Goth club.
The twitter reaction to Ianto’s death he liked. He had more hits than Michael Jackson’s death and he was sexier than Robert Pattinson, which I think he was most proud of.
His favourite villain was Captain John and he did let the room know that his character was due to die every season. When he made it through each season it was like in a video game where you don’t want to die on a particular level.
k_haldane's neice asked a question where her delivery was a little on the aggressive side, but I think that was more nerves than anything else. She seemed to be very pro about british actors all doing drag and wanted to know what was up with that. Gareth explained that he hasn't done drag so they don't all do it. He was in a movie with drag queens, he got to be very camp and orange, but he didn't do drag.
There were more questions, but overall they were the main ones that stuck out in my head.
From Gareth’s talk it was back to waiting around again for Karl to possibly turn up for photo’s as I had one left. So while the time got closer to Karl’s talk, I sent clarrisani and SoS off to line up and save me a seat and hopefully I would get my photo soon.
It was not to be. Karl finally left his auto line when he was brought right past us in order to enter the seminar room via the back way as all guests are. This was behind the photo booth. So I hastily moved off to the seminar room, very glad to have the VIP pass which meant that while they had people lined up along the side of the walls as they had run out of seating spaces. I found my friends had saved me a seat.
Now we knew that Karl did not like to sit behind the desk, that he pulled the chair out so he could move around a little bit and use the hand held mike. The seat that they had saved for me was directly in front of that space, a metre at the most between me and where Karl would be sitting. I looked in shock at the three of them and checked that they meant me to sit there. For this I shall love them to the end of time!
So out comes Karl, to much applause and cheering, with his sunnies on. Considering he has just come from the back room, it is very rockstar. He brought with him again a red bull and a water bottle. Sure enough he pulls out the chair and plonks it down directly in front of me. He is handed the microphone and we are off again.
He was asked very early on in the session about reboot and TOS and the relationship and more to do with what he would really like to see. He provided a similar answer to the day before where it was all about the relationships between the characters for him. He then proceeded to scare the crap out of me.
He mentioned that a fan gave him a quote this morning that was from Gene Roddenberry. He says that the fan is probably in the room now. At this stage I am now in a state of shock that he is referencing the note I had given him. The other girls all point at me and tell him who it was. I put up my hand a little bit and agree with them. Karl stops, looks towards me and says, “of course it was you” in this slightly amused voice. Oh dear, I now have Karl’s attention. (and I have a brilliant icon thanks to eumelkek, *points upwards*)
He leans forward to get the note out of his back pocket. Now there might have been some sotto voice conversation between our front row and him, as he leaned towards us and had a bit of difficulty getting the note our of his back jean pocket. It wasn’t me that told him that he could stay right there and play with his arse all day. :D It really wasn’t me, honest, although I chuckled and agreed with the sentiment.
He got it out, sat back down and read out the quote to the whole room.
The quote is this:
"In novels, stream of consciousness goes inside the hero's head and you can read what he's thinking. You don't have that in television and so I thought that if I took a perfect person and divided him into three parts, I could have the administrative, courageous part that would be the Captain; the logical part who is the Science Officer and the humanistic part with the Doctor. Then when something comes up, the Captain could say, 'I don't know, fellas. We must do it,' and Spock would say 'However, the logical thing is...', and the doctor would say, 'Yes, but the humanity of it,' and I could have them talking about it without having stream of consciousness, and it worked."
He did pretty good at reading my writing and only stumbled over a few words. At the end he said to the room that it is a brilliant quote and then he told me to give him five.
Now the whole while he had been reading out the quote I could literally feel my heart pounding in my chest. So he puts his hand out towards me, parallel to the ground and palm up. This is more in tune with a ‘bit of skin’ than a ‘five’. So I go for a bit of a skin instead. He then informs the whole room that I gave him a bit of skin and got it wrong. My nerves disappear and my natural cheeky nature takes hold again. I wasn’t going to stand for that and I told him he got it wrong and you do it this way and put my hand up for a ‘high five’, so we ‘high five’. That is obviously not right to him and he again informs the crowd it was wrong. He then does the Vulcan greeting, I match him and we 'high five', Vulcan Style, much to the rest of the rooms amusement.
Then it was time to sit back in my seat and quietly freak out in my head over what had just occurred.
Karl was asked who were his three major influences in acting when he was first starting out. I can’t remember the first name he said, but there was early DeNiro and then he tried to remember the name of the French actor in an awesome movie.
He stumbled a little bit over the possible name and came close when someone in the crowd prompted him with Queen Margot and then he remembered it was Daniel Autreil once he had the film in his head. Told us all to watch it as it is an excellent film. So if you haven't seen it, go watch Queen Margot. Karl approves.
A question was asked if he could go back and replace DeForrest on any episode in TOS which one would it have been. Karl would not do it as he said you can not top anything DeForrest did.
A guy in a superman t-shirt started to ask a question, Karl interrupts with a "hey superman, where you been?" Quick as a wink Supes' replies, "there are no phone booths".
The next guy after him starts to ask a question about Chronicles of Riddick. The first part was what was it like to manhandle Vin Deisel and the second part was what were you thinking during the kissing scene? Karl was a little perplexed by this question. He pointed out that there was no 'manhandling' of Vin and he wanted to know what movie the guy was watching because if he meant kissing Vin then what movie was he really watching?
It was confirmed that the guy meant the kiss with Thandie. Karl responds with, "what would you do if you were in my shoes?" So the guy asking the question starts to answer. Karl heads him off with a, "you don't have to answer that, it's a rhetorical question!" What Karl learned from that scene was that tongue is good. :D
While taking a sip of red bull he decided to enlighten us as to a certain ingredient in the drink.
Taurine is apparently made from Bull’s testicles. At the combined “eeew” from the audience, Karl then smiled and took a long drink before smacking his lips and putting the can back down on the table.
I did a little googling later and it’s a nice urban (hee!) myth and it gave us another good Karl expression so we will let him go on that one.
For some strange reason my mind is blank when trying to remember what question he was answering here.
It must have been good as it was followed up by this.
I realised at the time with a quick glance that I had captured the moment when he put his tongue out and no wonder I completely had no idea what else was happening on around me.
It might have been when he was asked, "Pirates, Ninja's or Zombies?" His fairly quick answer was Pirates and he gave us a good pirate growl.
k_haldane's niece, another VIP, asked a question of Karl where she started off by saying "As a New Zealander..." At this stage Karl got up out of the chair headed straight over to her to celebrate being a Kiwi together. Then she revealed that she wasn't a Kiwi it was part of the question to him. I think his face says everything. Not a happy Karl!
As part of his response to her question he used the wrong word within the context. I can't remember exactly what it was but obviously my face gave away that I knew it was wrong as it prompted his response of, "it's a word. It's in the dictionary. Look it up!" at me. I knew it was an actual word, I was tempted to tell him that he might need a thesaurus but I figured I had done enough insulting of him for a while. It happened twice in the whole Q&A that he used that little saying about a word. Only once on me though.
For most of this Q&A it seemed that people were very good at asking him not ONE question but two when it was their turn. One example of this was the guy who asked what it was like being Nicole Kidman's brother in law. Now Karl has been very attentive and listened to any and all questions. This question got this response.
Then this, as he looked at the crowd as if to say is that question for real?
and the response from Karl that it is probably the same as being Keith Urban's brother. We think the guy meant it to be funny as he then asked a serious question.
Another questioner pointed out that he talked about pranks on the set of Star Trek but were there any that happened on Lord of the Rings that he could tell us about. This made him stop and think and assure us that there were pranks that occurred but it was a while ago. He did struggle for this but then remembered that for one take where the Riders of Rohan circle around Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn that he and Viggo did the entire scene as horses. Neighing their way through the lines. He did a couple of the lines to much mirth.
A reaction at one stage was in his best sheep voice, "are you my daahaadee?" He then started to tell the kids in the audience to ask their parents about it, which he quickly amended to "no, don't ask them". This was then followed up by him pointing out that there are more sheep in australia. Well yes, we are bigger and plus the kiwi's all scared them our way for protection.
He pointed out that one of his favourite shows is Doctor Who and that he had heard great things about Matt Smith. He said that he would do ANYTHING to be on Doctor Who. He thinks being the new Master would be very cool. He is going to get his people to see what they can do. Karl on DW would be insanely good news.
A very important question about what his weapons of choice would be for a Zombie Apocalypse. He didn't even have to think on this one and rattled off the list of weapons he required.
A shotgun for starters, then a sniper rifle, followed by a machete for the close up work and finally a pistol in his back pocket for, it was here that he raised his hand up and made the gun signal at his head and did a "boom" moment. Then he remembered the children and put his hand further away, started with the boom and went into a little bit of beat box to cover the moment.
When someone again asked two questions in one, they got this.
He was indicating that it was two questions not one... probably.
An interesting question was if there any jobs that he regrets taking. He gave a bit of a long answer to this one.
He said he won't mention the film but there was one where the Director took cuts from other scenes and spliced them into different scenes. Why he has no idea, could be because he hadn't taken enough reaction shots, but it did annoy him a little. To get around issues like this he recommended working with only the best people where possible. He also talked about how Doom was not the movie he had signed onto. Three weeks before filming, the Director was fired and a new one brought on board. That Director made a completely different movie from what had originally been pitched to them all.
A fan wanted to know if he had to take any courses in Russian prior to filming on Bourne. He said that Russian's can do things with their tongues he didn't know was possible. I think he meant that slightly without the innuendo we were all thinking. The hardest part was when Krill gets into the back seat of the car and has the long speech to deliver. They completely changed it on him the night before. He was trying to learn it furiously but by the time filming came around his solution was that he had written it all out phonetically and he pasted the paper on the back of the car seat. So as he moves his head from side to side while delivering it, he remembered the start of it for us at this point, his eyes would take in some of the speech so he could keep talking. He told us all to go back and watch his eye line.
He was asked again what souveniers he has from any of his roles. He repeats again about the ring and badge from Star Trek, adds in that he has Krill's leather coat and while thinking this reminds him about the first time he put on the Star Trek blue uniform. He would really have loved to have taken the pants, they have pleats (you have to see him describe this as no amount of words can cover what he did). He then talked about how he wasn't originally given boots like the others and he put his foot down so they went and found a pair of boots for him. Hissy fit Karl would have been amusing to see. He then stood up from the chair and demonstrated what happened the first time he put on the costume.
Imagine you are a little kid getting something you have always, always wanted in your life. Think about the little jump up and down and arm waving you would do. That was Karl.
A standard question was asked about what it was like filming on Xena. He talked about how much he learned from Lucy, about how she would keep up moral on the set and he took that on board and tries to do the same. He then told us about the scene in one of his early Caesar roles where Xena is crawling along the bed towards him. He started to demonstrate the crawl.
He decided that Caesar would be quite intent in his perusal back.
As she got closer one of the worst things happened. His contact fell out of his eye and he pulled the most hilarious face, as he was no longer able to see, but tried to keep acting in the scene. It didn't work.
The dolls were mentioned again, he again only mentioned the 6 and 10 inch sizes. I got warned by him that there were children present when I piped up with the number 12. It was a playful warning. There really are 12 inch dolls. If he is going to play with himself it is nice to have a few sizes to pick from, I say.
There was a lot more questions but for the life of me this is all I remember so far. I am sure that others will pop up later into my mind that I have forgotten about at the moment.
At the end of the panel I did the same trick I did for Saturday, put out my foot and took a photo to show how close I really was. I have short legs so you have a pretty good idea about how close I was in reality.
I then decided to be quite silly and take a picture of the hand that high fived Vulcan style with Karl.
anntarot then told me to go and sit in the seat. I was a little, um can I do that? I asked Chris, the MC, if I could and he said yes, so I sat on it and anntarot took the picture. Chris decided he needed to get in on the act as well.
The seat was a little warm still and possibly slightly sweaty. I left clarrisani and the others after this silliness to go back and stand in the line to wait for my final Karl photo.
It was a long time in coming and the girls were doing the best they could. I can not speak highly enough of the job that they did and we chatted for a while about anything and everything. The reason it took a while was that Karl was over in the trading hall with his family purchasing up big time on DW memorabilia and toys. He finally came back and they snagged him for photos. When I went in I told him that 1972 was a good year and he was all, "oh, you too? What month?" After telling him December I asked if I could have a hug in the picture if that was possible. He said sure and the man does give good hugs, nice and firm. I said thank you and told him I hope he comes back and if he does then I will definitely make the trip from Adelaide again.
I headed off to find clarrisani and SoS. They were easy for me to find actually. Apparently they had sent lots of messages to my phone to say that they had got my James Marster's autograph in the Script book for Once More With Feeling that I bought earlier. That had given SoS an opportunity to meet James who admired her glasses a lot, so much that he said he would have liked them for himself. When then headed off to see if we could get a ticket for the Gareth after drinks for SoS.
While that was going on I headed back to the trading hall to get another 12" McCoy (are you all seeing a theme here?) that could play with the 12" Kirk that clarrisani had found for me yesterday.
I got one for $30 which I was very happy about and then wandered back past MissKikkiKat's stall to say bye and make her envious with my Karl reportage from the Q&A> She had told me to try and make her envious eralier. Seeing as when I told her that I had sat in the chair directly after Karl and that I possibly have his sweat on my arse, she proceeded to bend over and sniff my arse, after asking if she could of course. Heaven knows what people were thinking who were watching on. I didn't mind at all, it was just another silly thing I got up to. I was just surprised and so was her friend that she didn't lick it! I hugged her goodbye and headed out again.
Just at the exit, Tara and Liam were signing and I stopped to say bye and a thank you for the lovely chat we had with them last night. As my hair was up I looked a little different and Liam was a little taken aback. He told me I wasn't to tell him my name, he was going to see if he could remember it, and even though he is a voice actor and he doesn't have to remember lines anymore, he got it in one guess. They are so lovely and if you get a chance to see them I can say that you will enjoy their talks, even if you have never thought about 'voice' actors before.
Back outside again to meet with SoS to find out that we need to pay for the ticket via cash as the atm at the showgrounds has run out of money (surprise, surprise). I had over what I can and we get a ticket all paid for.
This gave us plenty of time to head back home, dump our little trolley of goodies, grab a bite to eat and catch the train back into town again for the drinks. We arrive fashionably late at the Chi Lounge in Chinatown which was the same venue for the Cocktail Party, so at least we knew where we were going. It is a lovely decorated room and there were groups in each area. So we sat and people watched. I have to say that whipping out your camera to take a photo of an actor as he pulls up his pants from the back view is not my idea of proper behaviour, but that's just me. He is being managed by James' manager now and the state of Gareth was probably not his ideal situation. When he came and sat next to us to say hi he was incredibly pissed by this stage.
Holding a conversation with a drunk guy while you are stone cold sober is always a challenge. I did ask what I thought was the most relevant question was though, how was he getting home as the flights to Europe are currently on hold. His reply, by boat hopefully. He got to practice his aussie a bit more and I made him repeat his g'day as he wasn't quite blending the g and the d together enough. He got it in the end. He said we were rude, but he loves it. I pointed out that we only insult people if we like them.
clarrisani twitters and emails regularly with James Moran, a writer on TW and other shows. I have had email chats with him too and he is a lovely man. He has caught up with a mutual friend of ours in LA a couple of times, so we know he is as lovely in real life as he appears to be over the internet. When he found out that we were coming here, he made her promise to send him a pic of us in costume. She had also told him about the previous night with Gareth and her walking stick. James had left a reply that he wanted brought to Gareth's attention. It was shown to him and he gave a suitable reply that I will leave up to clarrisani to report on. :)
There was also the spanking incident. Standing near us was a group of which Gareth is quite familiar it seems. He grabbed one of the girls, pulled her onto his lap and proceeded to spank her, before pushing her off and back to her girlfriend. The others in that group thought this was vastly amusing and told him that her boyfriend looked a little jealous. So Gareth grabs the boyfriend and does the same treatment to him. The boyfriend didn't look too impressed, but what can you do?
Not long after this he got up, was joined by Gemma, his fiancee, and with his manager, leaves the venue to stumble off somewhere.
We stayed for a little bit finishing off our drinks, then we get up and head off, our Supanova 2010 adventure all over.
I hope you all enjoyed reading and if anyone who was there remembers things in the talks that I forgot, have at it and remind me in the comments as I would love a record of the weekend for posterity. :D