"tonight" was earlier than I thought it'd be
Dear LJ: WHERE THE FUCK IS ALL THE STUFF ON SF CON?
If it weren't for Twitter, I'd seriously think I was hallucinating it or something.
So they made a last-minute change in the schedule and put Aldis after Richard; I was actually very happy about it because I wanted to spend as little time there awkwardly as I possibly could and they were the only two I actually really wanted to see. (A little sad that I'm missing J2's panel and Richard's second panel tomorrow, and that I missed all the awesomeness that went on yesterday, but oh well.)
The fucking metro was late, so I got there just as RSJ's panel started (I was literally buying my admission at the registration table about ten yards away from the theatre as they were announcing the start of his panel) so I was really unsettled through the entire thing and I was in an awkward seat way in the back. Luckily, though, I warmed up a little after because Richard's a sweet guy and really funny. (My report will probably be jumbled up because I'm typing it up as I remember things; he told some stories before the Q&A started and I was decaffeinated enough that I don't remember where the stories end and where his answers to questions start.)
He opened with some thoughts about how he was really excited to be in SF and the Westin St. Francis (which is a beautiful hotel; I've only ever seen it from the employee's entrance, so I've never actually been in the hotel itself before...but I digress) and went around with the mic talking to international congoers and trying to get them to be a little more comfortable. First he asked around for first-timer international congoers and ended up talking to a girl from Switzerland (somewhere near Bern? I don't remember where she was from exactly), and another from Alberta (which prompted Richard to make a Canada joke about how it was almost out of the country, but not quite). He then asked around to try to find who came the furthest to go to SF Con and settled on a Japanese girl in the front who told him that they met before, in an elevator at ChiCon. (Much lulz to be had as Richard was like "Shhhhh. What happened in the elevator stays in the elevator.")
He also talked about his Twitter and how he was stranded in LAX. (He then tweeted a picture of his shoes, which appears to now have been deleted.) Everything after is kind of a blur.
During the Q&A, I couldn't get the nerve to ask him if he was coming back (they actually cut it short because they ran out of time) but from the way he was putting it, it sounds like he hasn't gotten called up for another episode yet or anything.
He talked a bit about his new movie, Three Blind Saints, which doesn't have a date yet, but they finished up filming in November. He told a story about how everyone working on the movie was kind of a fan of the show (that's how they found out about him in the first place), but it was a little awkward because a church had sponsored like half the movie and his Gabriel is not exactly church-friendly.
As for his role as Skip Muck in Band of Brothers, he said that the writers didn't actually know all that much about Muck and he didn't really want to ask the veterans involved in the project because Muck was KIA during the Battle of the Bulge, so he decided to do his own research by calling up Muck's family in Tonawanda. (He ended up finding that it was much easier said than done, because there were a hell of a lot more Mucks living in Tonawanda than he expected.) Eventually, he reached Muck's niece and they established a good grounding for Muck's character together with the niece's mother, Muck's sister, who was extremely close to him before he got shipped off to war. He gave a few more anecdotes about the experience then finished it off with the curious fact that Tonawanda is the hometown of both his character and the Niland brothers (of Saving Private Ryan fame) and that it was enough to warrant a monument in the city for fallen soldiers.
A few people asked him Pepsi ad questions and he confirmed that he isn't doing a commercial for the Super Bowl. He also expressed his amusement at how SPN fans basically gave Pepsi hell on the internet for flooding them with Gabriel-related comments. Apparently one of the ladies on-set was a fan herself and convinced him to do the Trickster snap in the commercial where Snoop Dogg has to magically appear. "I told her, 'People are going to make connections!' and she replied, 'Exactly.'"
When he was working with Mark Pelligrino, he was actually pretty intimidated by him ("Forget acting, I felt like he was going to actually kill me!")...all the stories he had about Mark were pretty funny, but I can't really express them well because the humour was found mostly in the way he delivered them, so I won't bother.
A funny story he told during the panel that I can delegate properly, on the other hand, is how he met Jeremy Carver. Apparently, after getting the script for Changing Channels, he was pretty intimidated by the Gabriel reveal and asked the producers to get him through to Carver after doing a crapload of lore research about Gabriel to try to get in-character.
Speight: So, in the Bible, Gabriel is like this and that.
Carver: Yeah, we don't actually follow the Bible...
"Carver then sent me five episodes to watch so I didn't go in acting this episode completely blind. I watched them and was like 'Wow, you really don't follow the Bible."
Sometime after the episode was filmed and he went home, he got a call from Carver.
Carver: Do you live in a bright orange house on so-and-so Street?
Speight: Yes?
Carver: I see you taking out the trash every morning when I'm walking my dogs.
It turned out that Carver lives "around the corner" from Richard. Carver knew what he looked like, obviously, but Richard didn't, so they dealt with that pretty awkwardly. The two didn't actually meet each other in person until Richard startled awake one morning realising that he forgot to take out the trash and ran out in a robe and slippers to do so. Carver chose that day to actually say hello to him and lulz were to be had.
After his panel ended, I ended up pacing around the hall for a while, awkwardly wandering around until I got fed up with the lack of human interaction and called up polar_puchuu. My phone kept dying as I was talking to her, and after about the fifth time I ended up accidentally hanging up on her, I somehow ended up in front of the photo op room. Richard had just finished up, and there were about three other girls out there. One talked to a photographer, I think, to ask if she could say hi to him. I decided to stick around for the hell of it after he was like "Sure!" and called RSJ out to talk to us. He (and his bodyguard, lmao) had a brief conversation with all of us and I ended up befriending the girl who asked in the first place because she was as equally awkwardly alone as I was.
Richard's actually really sweet in person and I. Okay, I can't coherently express anything right now, so have a keysmash: alskdjlaksjdlkjasd
I am actually really regretting not asking him for a hug.
Um...I suppose that's all I can remember for the time being. I might edit later if other things come to me, but I'm rather tired. I'll make another post about Aldis's panel in a few hours. (I had really little sleep yesterday; enough that I almost ended up not going to SF Con in the end.) ETA: As it is, I cannot motivate myself to report on Aldis's panel. My experience on it was rather personal and I somehow feel like no one really wants to read that, lol.
Sadly, no pictures because I was rushing out of my house and didn't end up bringing a camera with me.
Cheers!
If it weren't for Twitter, I'd seriously think I was hallucinating it or something.
So they made a last-minute change in the schedule and put Aldis after Richard; I was actually very happy about it because I wanted to spend as little time there awkwardly as I possibly could and they were the only two I actually really wanted to see. (A little sad that I'm missing J2's panel and Richard's second panel tomorrow, and that I missed all the awesomeness that went on yesterday, but oh well.)
The fucking metro was late, so I got there just as RSJ's panel started (I was literally buying my admission at the registration table about ten yards away from the theatre as they were announcing the start of his panel) so I was really unsettled through the entire thing and I was in an awkward seat way in the back. Luckily, though, I warmed up a little after because Richard's a sweet guy and really funny. (My report will probably be jumbled up because I'm typing it up as I remember things; he told some stories before the Q&A started and I was decaffeinated enough that I don't remember where the stories end and where his answers to questions start.)
He opened with some thoughts about how he was really excited to be in SF and the Westin St. Francis (which is a beautiful hotel; I've only ever seen it from the employee's entrance, so I've never actually been in the hotel itself before...but I digress) and went around with the mic talking to international congoers and trying to get them to be a little more comfortable. First he asked around for first-timer international congoers and ended up talking to a girl from Switzerland (somewhere near Bern? I don't remember where she was from exactly), and another from Alberta (which prompted Richard to make a Canada joke about how it was almost out of the country, but not quite). He then asked around to try to find who came the furthest to go to SF Con and settled on a Japanese girl in the front who told him that they met before, in an elevator at ChiCon. (Much lulz to be had as Richard was like "Shhhhh. What happened in the elevator stays in the elevator.")
He also talked about his Twitter and how he was stranded in LAX. (He then tweeted a picture of his shoes, which appears to now have been deleted.) Everything after is kind of a blur.
During the Q&A, I couldn't get the nerve to ask him if he was coming back (they actually cut it short because they ran out of time) but from the way he was putting it, it sounds like he hasn't gotten called up for another episode yet or anything.
He talked a bit about his new movie, Three Blind Saints, which doesn't have a date yet, but they finished up filming in November. He told a story about how everyone working on the movie was kind of a fan of the show (that's how they found out about him in the first place), but it was a little awkward because a church had sponsored like half the movie and his Gabriel is not exactly church-friendly.
As for his role as Skip Muck in Band of Brothers, he said that the writers didn't actually know all that much about Muck and he didn't really want to ask the veterans involved in the project because Muck was KIA during the Battle of the Bulge, so he decided to do his own research by calling up Muck's family in Tonawanda. (He ended up finding that it was much easier said than done, because there were a hell of a lot more Mucks living in Tonawanda than he expected.) Eventually, he reached Muck's niece and they established a good grounding for Muck's character together with the niece's mother, Muck's sister, who was extremely close to him before he got shipped off to war. He gave a few more anecdotes about the experience then finished it off with the curious fact that Tonawanda is the hometown of both his character and the Niland brothers (of Saving Private Ryan fame) and that it was enough to warrant a monument in the city for fallen soldiers.
A few people asked him Pepsi ad questions and he confirmed that he isn't doing a commercial for the Super Bowl. He also expressed his amusement at how SPN fans basically gave Pepsi hell on the internet for flooding them with Gabriel-related comments. Apparently one of the ladies on-set was a fan herself and convinced him to do the Trickster snap in the commercial where Snoop Dogg has to magically appear. "I told her, 'People are going to make connections!' and she replied, 'Exactly.'"
When he was working with Mark Pelligrino, he was actually pretty intimidated by him ("Forget acting, I felt like he was going to actually kill me!")...all the stories he had about Mark were pretty funny, but I can't really express them well because the humour was found mostly in the way he delivered them, so I won't bother.
A funny story he told during the panel that I can delegate properly, on the other hand, is how he met Jeremy Carver. Apparently, after getting the script for Changing Channels, he was pretty intimidated by the Gabriel reveal and asked the producers to get him through to Carver after doing a crapload of lore research about Gabriel to try to get in-character.
Speight: So, in the Bible, Gabriel is like this and that.
Carver: Yeah, we don't actually follow the Bible...
"Carver then sent me five episodes to watch so I didn't go in acting this episode completely blind. I watched them and was like 'Wow, you really don't follow the Bible."
Sometime after the episode was filmed and he went home, he got a call from Carver.
Carver: Do you live in a bright orange house on so-and-so Street?
Speight: Yes?
Carver: I see you taking out the trash every morning when I'm walking my dogs.
It turned out that Carver lives "around the corner" from Richard. Carver knew what he looked like, obviously, but Richard didn't, so they dealt with that pretty awkwardly. The two didn't actually meet each other in person until Richard startled awake one morning realising that he forgot to take out the trash and ran out in a robe and slippers to do so. Carver chose that day to actually say hello to him and lulz were to be had.
After his panel ended, I ended up pacing around the hall for a while, awkwardly wandering around until I got fed up with the lack of human interaction and called up polar_puchuu. My phone kept dying as I was talking to her, and after about the fifth time I ended up accidentally hanging up on her, I somehow ended up in front of the photo op room. Richard had just finished up, and there were about three other girls out there. One talked to a photographer, I think, to ask if she could say hi to him. I decided to stick around for the hell of it after he was like "Sure!" and called RSJ out to talk to us. He (and his bodyguard, lmao) had a brief conversation with all of us and I ended up befriending the girl who asked in the first place because she was as equally awkwardly alone as I was.
Richard's actually really sweet in person and I. Okay, I can't coherently express anything right now, so have a keysmash: alskdjlaksjdlkjasd
I am actually really regretting not asking him for a hug.
Um...I suppose that's all I can remember for the time being. I might edit later if other things come to me, but I'm rather tired. I'll make another post about Aldis's panel in a few hours. (I had really little sleep yesterday; enough that I almost ended up not going to SF Con in the end.) ETA: As it is, I cannot motivate myself to report on Aldis's panel. My experience on it was rather personal and I somehow feel like no one really wants to read that, lol.
Sadly, no pictures because I was rushing out of my house and didn't end up bringing a camera with me.
Cheers!