SPN--SeaCon 2018--Day 2
Day 2 of SeaCon--again, details in the panels may not be in sequence...
Supernatural Seattle Con--Saturday 3/24/18
Welcome with Rich and Rob
Rich teased Rob about his Frobday shirt, then as they introduced Mark Pellegrino, Rich made fun of the coffee order he had heard Pellegrino give, mocking that Lucifer drinks a ‘half-caff soy mocha with whip’ and that definitely detracts from the devil’s reputation. Pellegrino chose to own it, saying he should write a book called ‘The Devil’s Drink’ and talk about how he could still be a badass and drink frouffy coffee…
Mark Pellegrino
Being perfectly honest, I did not particularly care about seeing this panel because, based on his twitter persona and his political views, I don’t like this actor.
However, when Pellegrino’s panel ended I had to acknowledge the integrity he has in playing the character of Lucifer, and the definite awareness of where his character fits in the Supernatural world. Just about all of the panelists were asked what their characters would be like in the alternate universe, and most of them treated it like a throw-away question and gave an off-the-top-of-their-head, usually humorous answer. Pellegrino, however, immediately clarified that the question pertained to Nick, Lucifer’s meatsuit. He then proceeded to discuss the possible futures Nick could have had and concluded that Nick would have died. At the audience’s disappointed groan, he defended his opinion by saying that he had taken one of those on-line quizzes ‘would you survive a zombie apocalypse’ and didn’t, so he took the quiz again and didn’t try to save anyone and that time he made it-and Nick was the kind of guy who would have run into danger to try to save his family and those kind of people don’t survive.
Part of why his panel was unexpectedly interesting was that he got mostly decent questions after the first three fans started out with ‘my mom/dad/school is Christian and thinks I’m a bad person for liking Lucifer…’ and he even turned those into musings on good vs evil. He repeatedly brought up that Lucifer is perceived as evil yet his upbringing-being abandoned by his father and then caged away for centuries-surely affected him. ‘People who are hurt build walls.’ The question is, could Lucifer let his walls down? The time of being nearly human and bonding with Sister Jo has affected Lucifer-and he doesn’t want it to. He asked the audience if we felt that even someone as bad as Lucifer could still be redeemed, and at the mostly ‘yes’ response seemed surprised and hopeful.
He defended Lucifer’s actions of pulling Mary into the rift by exclaiming ‘Context!- I WAS FALLING! I WAS GRABBING FOR SUPPORT! SHE FELL THROUGH! And maybe she shouldn't have punched me in the face WITH ENOCHIAN BRASS KNUCKLES!’ As for killing Gabriel, well, Gabriel had tried to kill him! Sam, who preaches forgiveness for everyone else, is really mean to Lucifer. Again, when the audience tried to point out how horribly Lucifer had treated Sam, Mark wanted to defend Lucifer by saying we needed to look at context.
Pellegrino was asked if he ever got a script where Lucifer did something and Mark reacted with ‘Damn, Luci, that’s cold’ at how bad it was…Mark looked at the questioner, paused, and then said, ‘Nope.’
Asked where he thought Nick’s soul went, he said that since Nick said yes to Lucifer to get revenge, Nick would be in Hell. Cas and Sam said yes in order to save the world, so that was different. Since his vessel now is a new and improved meatsuit without Nick, Lucifer could stay in it for sixteen seasons…
Does he want to find Jack to be a father or because he could use Jack’s power? Honestly, both.
He acknowledged being a Twitter addict and said he knows it’s pointless-he’s not going to change someone’s mind and they’re not going to change his.
If Mark could sit down with any philosophers he would talk with Aristotle, Newton, Jefferson, Einstein, and Lincoln.
He was asked about his dachshunds and got very gooey, insisting his dogs could talk and how ‘Frankie had been upset that Johnny wouldn’t play with him.’ And the panel ended up with what would Lucifer’s Starbucks coffee order be, and Pellegrino said the same as his, and because Rich came on at that point Rich assumed that’s all Pellegrino talked about for the entire time.
Kim Rhodes, Lisa Berry, Ruth Connell plus Alaina Huffman and Rachel Miner
Only Kim, Lisa, and Ruth were scheduled for the Saturday panel-but a few moments in, Alaina stepped out and then Rachel rode her scooter triumphantly up the ramp to join them!
Again this panel felt straight out of a female empowerment workshop, both among the women on stage about each other and to the fans. They particularly loved that out of the five of them, only Kim and Lisa had ever been in the same episode (the hunter Asa Fox’s funeral,) and they didn’t actually do a scene together! The SPN women have created their own support thread where they connect when they need help-Alaina mentioned they’ve helped her get through her divorce after seventeen years of marriage by reminding her she can make her own decisions.
Ruth took charge as official fan greeter: ‘What’s your name, where’r you from, what do you want?’ A couple times one of the other women would take over and give an amusing variation.
Favorite books: Kim-Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman; Ruth-To Kill a Mockingbird; Alaina-Khalil Gibran; Lisa-Rumi (?), Shadow Hunters, Jennifer Lawrence’s biography; Rachel-too many. Their character’s favorite book: Kim-Harlequin romances; Ruth-the Black Grimoire (hah!)-Abaddon-The Art of War, Lee Iacoco’s biography; Billie-Rumi; Meg-I don’t think she reads-but when the fans shouted ‘fanfic’ she went with that completely.
Favorite one-liner: Kim-Screw you, Winchester (said lovingly); Alaina-I’m gonna stump you to death and it will be swell; Ruth-Numbnuts; Rachel-Save your brother and my unicorn; Lisa-Hello, Dean.
Most difficult scene to film: Ruth said it was last night (Friday): after nine takes she told the director Phil Sigriccia ‘it looked like such a simple scene on paper.’ Except Jared and Jensen made it like herding cats. (Side note-Misha brought up the same experience, and this came into play during Jared’s meet and greet.) For Alaina it was her death scene-she enacted how the wires were attached and ‘three burly men behind a wall’ pulled on them to send her flying-very high tech-and she was so concerned about the maneuver she forgot to act. At one point the director asked ‘didn’t that hurt’ and she said ‘no, I’m fine’ and he said ‘I meant the getting stabbed’ and she was ‘oh.’ For Lisa it was her first scene because she had ‘put her voice in a box’ after years of not using it and wasn’t sure she would be able to sing. Rachel said in general everything she did when her disability was starting to affect her was hard, she was so conscious of trying to get her body to move the right way that when the scenes were over she could barely make it to her trailer.
All of the women praised Supernatural for writing strong female characters. Ruth was thrilled at how Rowena had saved herself-twice!-not needing someone to save her, and Meg saved Sam and Dean-they were the damsels in distress and she was the hero.
Asked about her relationships with other characters, Ruth said she loves all the different relationships on the show: ‘I want to kill all of them in different ways.’
Alaina talked about how being open when scared helps both her and the people who hear that it is okay to be scared. Rachel talked about feeling like she needed to keep her medical situation a secret, and then when she finally said something it was no big deal to the people around her on set, they asked what she needed and then supported her. She found it amazingly liberating to let go of the secret. Then Kim passionately interjected that it is also okay not to be open if you need to keep your secret to keep yourself feeling safe-that being open or not is your choice, it’s ‘fucking okay to be safe.’
Rachel referenced her thrill at seeing the ramp again and Kim took credit for getting it in place-she had seen the importance of having disability access on her recent trip to Haiti with Random Acts (where Osric accidently broke her hand-watch out for him!) and she mentioned it to Creation. And she said she learned something important-you don’t have to be confrontational to affect change-sometimes pointing something out quietly works better. She said the key thing to remember is that we’re all looking for solutions, and while in the past she would have said ‘What the fuck is wrong with you’ to someone whose mind she was trying to change, she was learning that ‘How about this?’ works better.
Between her two panels, Kim comes off as quite the impassioned motivational speaker and if her sincerity leaves you untouched you have a heart of stone…
Rob Benedict, Richard Speight Jr., and Matt Cohen
Rich started by saying that when Rob conducted the bus tour of Seattle on Thursday, everything Rob said was a question-‘This is the Space Needle?’ and the bus full of fans ended up giving Rob the tour.
The pranks question came up quickly, and Richard told about leaving his phone in the green room and Jared finding it. ‘Jared is not a good person.’ Jared took some ‘truly disturbing’ pictures of himself, Jensen, and Misha and made one of them the screenshot that comes up when Richard’s wife calls him, and then Jared texted Richard’s wife as if Richard was texting another woman: ‘last night was great, sorry can’t meet tonight, gotta eat with the family’…but Richard’s wife knew it was fake because ‘no other woman would have me.’ Richard thought that was it but Misha quietly told him to check his email signature before he sent any emails, and Jared had changed it to something really vile! Richard tried to call Jared on messing with his phone and Jared said ‘Dude, you left it in the green room!’ and Jensen nodded ‘Yeah, Rich, you did’ and Richard started to apologize for leaving it-and that is what a master Jared is, ‘he has you apologizing for what he did to you!’ Also Richard left the awful photo Jared set as his wife’s image to remind himself never to leave his phone where Jared can get it ever again.
They then gleefully recounted the time Misha got his hands on Jared’s phone and twitted about his ‘lack of size’ in the manly department…and how everyone in the cast saw the tweet and no one told Jared until finally Matt broke and texted Jared in the middle of the night ‘Look at your Twitter.’ Richard said that was the smartest insurance policy Matt could have bought-Matt agreed, imitated Jared calling him up and asking ‘bro, who should I get today?’
If they could write/direct an episode of Supernatural-Rob would write a script dedicated to Matt Cohen’s chest and the direction would begin focused on a single hair and spend 42 minutes pulling out to end with his chest in full frame.
In an upcoming episode Richard had to direct himself-how hard was that? ‘Jared was a good sounding board for Jensen when he was directing himself, Jensen leaned on him. So I talked to both of them before I did it.
Rich and Rob were asked if their ‘welcome to the con’ bits every day were scripted and they said no, it is complete improve, they have no idea what they are going to say until it comes out of their mouths, and they find it exhilarating, never knowing if they are going to get laughs or bomb. They even find the bits that bomb are hilarious and they keep going until how bad it is gets the audience laughing anyway. Rich recalled one time the opening devolved into a bit about Rob having drugs up his b-hole and he proceeded to recreate some of that bit which mostly involved Rob protesting his innocence. (In all honesty, I didn’t find it as hilarious as they thought it was…)
Rich and Rob were asked, since Matt is on a soap opera, what soap opera would they want to be on? They want to be on Matt’s, and Richard would be his in-the-closet lover, so Rob immediately said he would be Matt’s ex-in-the-closet lover and they would have a pillow fight over Matt and somehow Matt’s shirt would come off…
Favorite Disney cartoon? Matt-Moana; Rob-Aladdin; Rich-Little Mermaid, and he started singing ‘Under the Sea,’ Matt and Rob joined in, and we got serenaded with a good portion of the song!
How did Rob feel doing the scene where Dean accuses God of abandoning him? Rob said Jensen asked if it would be okay to do Jensen’s coverage first so Rob could see where Jensen wanted to go with it. Jensen started the scene, and one tear rolled down his cheek, then ‘cut’ and Jensen asked if Rob would be okay with Jensen playing it like that. He did it again and ‘again a single tear’-Rob said a testament to just how much this show means to Jensen and Jared, to put that much into a scene in season 11-and ‘ I just fucking wanted to give him a hug, me personally!’
How would they feel if Chuck found out he had a grandson and Gabriel had a nephew? Chuck would want to do things with him, take him to a baseball game, set him on his knee-oh wait, Alex would crush him…Gabriel would want to teach Jack all kinds of stuff he shouldn’t do. Rob added that when he saw the scene with Lucifer sitting on the white throne in heaven he was ‘what the hell’ and really pissed!
After their last question, Rich said that they were going to auction something off for Random Acts, praising Misha for what he’s done: ‘Nobody has channeled his fame into doing more good that-if everybody used his platform like him, the world would be a better place. And we’re proud to have him as team leader to our charity work.’
He then explained that at karaoke people must have noticed there was a foot-wide barricade keeping the fans away from the edge of the stage-something that was instituted after an actor from another show *cough*Vampire Diaries*cough* got drunk and fell off the stage into the audience during karaoke. Rich said that empty space is called ‘Moose Knuckle Corridor’ because the first time it was implemented at a Supernatural con Matt wore a skin-tight red unitard to karaoke. Skin-tight. As in ‘nothing to the imagination’ for the fans on the other side of that gap right at ‘moose-knuckle’ eye level. So they were going to auction off Matt’s unitard. Matt went backstage as the bidding started and put it on (over his clothes) and then strutted around the audience, posing on chairs and hamming it up until the auction ended at $2500!
Photo Op Interlude
I had decided a few days before the con that I was going to surprise Adrienne with a Rich and Rob photo op:
I do think we all look adorable…
Misha Collins
Misha informed us that one of his old college roommates was in the audience, and proceeded to tell stories about crazy stuff he did while attending University of Chicago. After spending the first year in the dorm, he moved into an apartment with several other guys. One of them had an uncle who owned a fleabag motel and was getting rid of some unusable furniture. To them it was free and they didn’t care what condition it was. They ended up with a pile of rancid mattresses in the living room that they would wrestle on for the title of ‘King of the Rancid Mattresses!’
The university’s annual scavenger hunt was the template for Misha’s Giswish challenge. One year required teams to bring live sheep in as an item. Misha’s then-girlfriend, now wife, Vicki, asked to borrow Misha’s car-an old Volvo-because he was one of the few students who had a car. He said no but she borrowed the keys anyway, drove to Wisconsin, and brought back three sheep. His car was never the same…Another item was to bring a Hooter’s girl, and Vicki went to Hooter’s, got hired, got her uniform, and then brought herself to fulfill the hunt.
Misha then invited his friend on stage, and he bantered comfortably, and told the story of how Misha made his own bedframe with hand tools in his room of the apartment. Although Misha hadn’t known anything about woodworking, his friend said Misha has a fast learning curve, and the finished bed (which Misha still has) is a work of art. Misha commented that in retrospect it’s amazing that everyone put up with all the pounding he made during that project.
Moving to fan questions, Misha was asked what is the first thing he thinks when he wakes up and the last thing when he goes to sleep? Waking up he said his thoughts go to where his kids are-they inevitably come into bed during the night and they like to snuggle but they also snore and kick in their sleep. West loves to announce the time on the digital clock at full volume when he wakes up…’Dad! It’s 6:01!’ He loves putting his kids to sleep and he is trying to cherish everything.
How does he feel about losing his anonymity? He said in everyday life he really isn’t recognized all that much, but coming to cons is a tremendous ego boost-then he goes home and gets peed on, which puts it in perspective.
What do Cas and Misha have in common? Cas came on as a big badass soldier and turned into a socially awkward dweeb, so basically the writers turned Cas into him…
A fan asked what he thought of Destiel. Rather than answering, Misha talked about the change he’s seen in fans’ attitude toward slash fanfic. He said that he stumbled across slash fiction quite accidentally, started reading a story and thought it read like one of the scripts, until ‘I never did that with Dean’s zipper!’ He brought the topic up at a con years ago and the reaction in the room was like’ mom finding your porn magazines.’ But now it’s okay to talk about, it’s not a big deal.
Would he have taken the role on Supernatural if he’d known about Jared’s torture in advance? Here Misha brought up the previous night’s filming. Jared and Jensen were screwing up every take, passing props in front of the camera every time someone tried to say their lines. Misha only had one line in the whole scene, and every time he walked toward the camera to say it, they messed around…One of the crew members asked if they didn’t realize Jared and Jensen were holding up their own weekend with everyone else’s! So finally Misha waited till they were looking around for something else to put in front of the camera and he charged in and got his line out. So knowing what he knows now…but, some of the fondling is nice…
Misha and Adam Fergus had joined the Seattle March for Our Lives earlier in the afternoon, and Misha finds hope in the activism of young people.
A fan asked what random acts of kindness could she do to make a difference. Misha suggested not just dropping some change or a dollar into a homeless person’s cup, but to engage with them, let them tell you their story, let them be heard. He and Maison had gone to a park in Bellingham WA (where he lives) where the homeless congregated, and heard how they had ended up there, and what they were trying to do, and what little things would make a difference, like a monthly bus pass, or a tent, which he and Maison made an effort to procure.
Saturday Night Special
The Saturday Night Concerts are one of my favorite parts of the con because of the fantastic energy everyone involved puts into having a blast while performing! I love how Rob has created a safe space for both those who have a background in singing but had moved that talent to the background and for those who would never dream of performing in front of people-his generosity in giving others the spotlight is such a beautiful thing to witness! Not to mention the sheer energy the man has, giving his all for nearly two hours-I can’t imagine how he is even functional the next day, much less up for more interaction with a thousand or so fans!
The highlight of the entire concert was Lisa Berry-if you haven’t watched the video clip of her performance, do it now! She came out beaming and said Rob had suggested ‘Proud Mary.’ She wanted something slow and easy, so she proposed doing the first verse easy and then stepping it up. Her version of ‘easy’ was freakin’ spectacular-and then the band powered up and she really cut loose and WOW!!! At the very end Kim, Ruth, and Alaina came out from behind the curtain and danced around like her backup dancers and Lisa deserved the standing ovation she got! (Side note-I’m so excited she’s coming to Chicago!)
Matt did a song I didn’t recognize; Alaina did Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’; Kim rocked out AC/DC’s ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’; Rich played bass on several songs and sang ‘Copperhead Road’ (interesting note, at the SNS Rich doesn’t talk-it’s Rob’s show and Rich steps back and let’s Rob run it.)
There was one other performance that struck me, Ruth sang a song called ‘Crush’ which is a disturbing song about all the things she would do to get love-‘I’d lie for you, I’d kill for you’ etc. with a haunting melody, performed acoustically. Usually Ruth sings something fairly short, she wrote in ‘Family Don’t End with Blood’ how terrifying singing is for her. But she didn’t just sing, she projected herself in the song to make me believe she was that desperate woman capable of what she was singing…It was another amazing performance in a totally different way than Lisa’s take-no-prisoners power. The song was pretty long, and I noticed how the entire band arranged themselves in a protective circle around her, leaning in to support her as she wove around the stage-they were clearly all doing everything they could to give Ruth what she needed.
If only the whole world could see that working together to help someone else succeed makes everyone win…
Of course there’s always the element of ‘is Jensen going to sing tonight’ at these concerts, but when Rob started ‘Whipping Post’ you know Jensen’s not appearing. However I love Rob’s version of that song just as much as Jensen’s, he really rips into it! We got ‘Fare Thee Well,’ ‘She Waits,’ and ‘Mama’s Jam,’ and then two encores-Louden Swain’s ‘Amazing’ and another song I didn’t know with the chorus ‘let love loose’ which had everyone back on stage singing. Another fantastic day!
Supernatural Seattle Con--Saturday 3/24/18
Welcome with Rich and Rob
Rich teased Rob about his Frobday shirt, then as they introduced Mark Pellegrino, Rich made fun of the coffee order he had heard Pellegrino give, mocking that Lucifer drinks a ‘half-caff soy mocha with whip’ and that definitely detracts from the devil’s reputation. Pellegrino chose to own it, saying he should write a book called ‘The Devil’s Drink’ and talk about how he could still be a badass and drink frouffy coffee…
Mark Pellegrino
Being perfectly honest, I did not particularly care about seeing this panel because, based on his twitter persona and his political views, I don’t like this actor.
However, when Pellegrino’s panel ended I had to acknowledge the integrity he has in playing the character of Lucifer, and the definite awareness of where his character fits in the Supernatural world. Just about all of the panelists were asked what their characters would be like in the alternate universe, and most of them treated it like a throw-away question and gave an off-the-top-of-their-head, usually humorous answer. Pellegrino, however, immediately clarified that the question pertained to Nick, Lucifer’s meatsuit. He then proceeded to discuss the possible futures Nick could have had and concluded that Nick would have died. At the audience’s disappointed groan, he defended his opinion by saying that he had taken one of those on-line quizzes ‘would you survive a zombie apocalypse’ and didn’t, so he took the quiz again and didn’t try to save anyone and that time he made it-and Nick was the kind of guy who would have run into danger to try to save his family and those kind of people don’t survive.
Part of why his panel was unexpectedly interesting was that he got mostly decent questions after the first three fans started out with ‘my mom/dad/school is Christian and thinks I’m a bad person for liking Lucifer…’ and he even turned those into musings on good vs evil. He repeatedly brought up that Lucifer is perceived as evil yet his upbringing-being abandoned by his father and then caged away for centuries-surely affected him. ‘People who are hurt build walls.’ The question is, could Lucifer let his walls down? The time of being nearly human and bonding with Sister Jo has affected Lucifer-and he doesn’t want it to. He asked the audience if we felt that even someone as bad as Lucifer could still be redeemed, and at the mostly ‘yes’ response seemed surprised and hopeful.
He defended Lucifer’s actions of pulling Mary into the rift by exclaiming ‘Context!- I WAS FALLING! I WAS GRABBING FOR SUPPORT! SHE FELL THROUGH! And maybe she shouldn't have punched me in the face WITH ENOCHIAN BRASS KNUCKLES!’ As for killing Gabriel, well, Gabriel had tried to kill him! Sam, who preaches forgiveness for everyone else, is really mean to Lucifer. Again, when the audience tried to point out how horribly Lucifer had treated Sam, Mark wanted to defend Lucifer by saying we needed to look at context.
Pellegrino was asked if he ever got a script where Lucifer did something and Mark reacted with ‘Damn, Luci, that’s cold’ at how bad it was…Mark looked at the questioner, paused, and then said, ‘Nope.’
Asked where he thought Nick’s soul went, he said that since Nick said yes to Lucifer to get revenge, Nick would be in Hell. Cas and Sam said yes in order to save the world, so that was different. Since his vessel now is a new and improved meatsuit without Nick, Lucifer could stay in it for sixteen seasons…
Does he want to find Jack to be a father or because he could use Jack’s power? Honestly, both.
He acknowledged being a Twitter addict and said he knows it’s pointless-he’s not going to change someone’s mind and they’re not going to change his.
If Mark could sit down with any philosophers he would talk with Aristotle, Newton, Jefferson, Einstein, and Lincoln.
He was asked about his dachshunds and got very gooey, insisting his dogs could talk and how ‘Frankie had been upset that Johnny wouldn’t play with him.’ And the panel ended up with what would Lucifer’s Starbucks coffee order be, and Pellegrino said the same as his, and because Rich came on at that point Rich assumed that’s all Pellegrino talked about for the entire time.
Kim Rhodes, Lisa Berry, Ruth Connell plus Alaina Huffman and Rachel Miner
Only Kim, Lisa, and Ruth were scheduled for the Saturday panel-but a few moments in, Alaina stepped out and then Rachel rode her scooter triumphantly up the ramp to join them!
Again this panel felt straight out of a female empowerment workshop, both among the women on stage about each other and to the fans. They particularly loved that out of the five of them, only Kim and Lisa had ever been in the same episode (the hunter Asa Fox’s funeral,) and they didn’t actually do a scene together! The SPN women have created their own support thread where they connect when they need help-Alaina mentioned they’ve helped her get through her divorce after seventeen years of marriage by reminding her she can make her own decisions.
Ruth took charge as official fan greeter: ‘What’s your name, where’r you from, what do you want?’ A couple times one of the other women would take over and give an amusing variation.
Favorite books: Kim-Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman; Ruth-To Kill a Mockingbird; Alaina-Khalil Gibran; Lisa-Rumi (?), Shadow Hunters, Jennifer Lawrence’s biography; Rachel-too many. Their character’s favorite book: Kim-Harlequin romances; Ruth-the Black Grimoire (hah!)-Abaddon-The Art of War, Lee Iacoco’s biography; Billie-Rumi; Meg-I don’t think she reads-but when the fans shouted ‘fanfic’ she went with that completely.
Favorite one-liner: Kim-Screw you, Winchester (said lovingly); Alaina-I’m gonna stump you to death and it will be swell; Ruth-Numbnuts; Rachel-Save your brother and my unicorn; Lisa-Hello, Dean.
Most difficult scene to film: Ruth said it was last night (Friday): after nine takes she told the director Phil Sigriccia ‘it looked like such a simple scene on paper.’ Except Jared and Jensen made it like herding cats. (Side note-Misha brought up the same experience, and this came into play during Jared’s meet and greet.) For Alaina it was her death scene-she enacted how the wires were attached and ‘three burly men behind a wall’ pulled on them to send her flying-very high tech-and she was so concerned about the maneuver she forgot to act. At one point the director asked ‘didn’t that hurt’ and she said ‘no, I’m fine’ and he said ‘I meant the getting stabbed’ and she was ‘oh.’ For Lisa it was her first scene because she had ‘put her voice in a box’ after years of not using it and wasn’t sure she would be able to sing. Rachel said in general everything she did when her disability was starting to affect her was hard, she was so conscious of trying to get her body to move the right way that when the scenes were over she could barely make it to her trailer.
All of the women praised Supernatural for writing strong female characters. Ruth was thrilled at how Rowena had saved herself-twice!-not needing someone to save her, and Meg saved Sam and Dean-they were the damsels in distress and she was the hero.
Asked about her relationships with other characters, Ruth said she loves all the different relationships on the show: ‘I want to kill all of them in different ways.’
Alaina talked about how being open when scared helps both her and the people who hear that it is okay to be scared. Rachel talked about feeling like she needed to keep her medical situation a secret, and then when she finally said something it was no big deal to the people around her on set, they asked what she needed and then supported her. She found it amazingly liberating to let go of the secret. Then Kim passionately interjected that it is also okay not to be open if you need to keep your secret to keep yourself feeling safe-that being open or not is your choice, it’s ‘fucking okay to be safe.’
Rachel referenced her thrill at seeing the ramp again and Kim took credit for getting it in place-she had seen the importance of having disability access on her recent trip to Haiti with Random Acts (where Osric accidently broke her hand-watch out for him!) and she mentioned it to Creation. And she said she learned something important-you don’t have to be confrontational to affect change-sometimes pointing something out quietly works better. She said the key thing to remember is that we’re all looking for solutions, and while in the past she would have said ‘What the fuck is wrong with you’ to someone whose mind she was trying to change, she was learning that ‘How about this?’ works better.
Between her two panels, Kim comes off as quite the impassioned motivational speaker and if her sincerity leaves you untouched you have a heart of stone…
Rob Benedict, Richard Speight Jr., and Matt Cohen
Rich started by saying that when Rob conducted the bus tour of Seattle on Thursday, everything Rob said was a question-‘This is the Space Needle?’ and the bus full of fans ended up giving Rob the tour.
The pranks question came up quickly, and Richard told about leaving his phone in the green room and Jared finding it. ‘Jared is not a good person.’ Jared took some ‘truly disturbing’ pictures of himself, Jensen, and Misha and made one of them the screenshot that comes up when Richard’s wife calls him, and then Jared texted Richard’s wife as if Richard was texting another woman: ‘last night was great, sorry can’t meet tonight, gotta eat with the family’…but Richard’s wife knew it was fake because ‘no other woman would have me.’ Richard thought that was it but Misha quietly told him to check his email signature before he sent any emails, and Jared had changed it to something really vile! Richard tried to call Jared on messing with his phone and Jared said ‘Dude, you left it in the green room!’ and Jensen nodded ‘Yeah, Rich, you did’ and Richard started to apologize for leaving it-and that is what a master Jared is, ‘he has you apologizing for what he did to you!’ Also Richard left the awful photo Jared set as his wife’s image to remind himself never to leave his phone where Jared can get it ever again.
They then gleefully recounted the time Misha got his hands on Jared’s phone and twitted about his ‘lack of size’ in the manly department…and how everyone in the cast saw the tweet and no one told Jared until finally Matt broke and texted Jared in the middle of the night ‘Look at your Twitter.’ Richard said that was the smartest insurance policy Matt could have bought-Matt agreed, imitated Jared calling him up and asking ‘bro, who should I get today?’
If they could write/direct an episode of Supernatural-Rob would write a script dedicated to Matt Cohen’s chest and the direction would begin focused on a single hair and spend 42 minutes pulling out to end with his chest in full frame.
In an upcoming episode Richard had to direct himself-how hard was that? ‘Jared was a good sounding board for Jensen when he was directing himself, Jensen leaned on him. So I talked to both of them before I did it.
Rich and Rob were asked if their ‘welcome to the con’ bits every day were scripted and they said no, it is complete improve, they have no idea what they are going to say until it comes out of their mouths, and they find it exhilarating, never knowing if they are going to get laughs or bomb. They even find the bits that bomb are hilarious and they keep going until how bad it is gets the audience laughing anyway. Rich recalled one time the opening devolved into a bit about Rob having drugs up his b-hole and he proceeded to recreate some of that bit which mostly involved Rob protesting his innocence. (In all honesty, I didn’t find it as hilarious as they thought it was…)
Rich and Rob were asked, since Matt is on a soap opera, what soap opera would they want to be on? They want to be on Matt’s, and Richard would be his in-the-closet lover, so Rob immediately said he would be Matt’s ex-in-the-closet lover and they would have a pillow fight over Matt and somehow Matt’s shirt would come off…
Favorite Disney cartoon? Matt-Moana; Rob-Aladdin; Rich-Little Mermaid, and he started singing ‘Under the Sea,’ Matt and Rob joined in, and we got serenaded with a good portion of the song!
How did Rob feel doing the scene where Dean accuses God of abandoning him? Rob said Jensen asked if it would be okay to do Jensen’s coverage first so Rob could see where Jensen wanted to go with it. Jensen started the scene, and one tear rolled down his cheek, then ‘cut’ and Jensen asked if Rob would be okay with Jensen playing it like that. He did it again and ‘again a single tear’-Rob said a testament to just how much this show means to Jensen and Jared, to put that much into a scene in season 11-and ‘ I just fucking wanted to give him a hug, me personally!’
How would they feel if Chuck found out he had a grandson and Gabriel had a nephew? Chuck would want to do things with him, take him to a baseball game, set him on his knee-oh wait, Alex would crush him…Gabriel would want to teach Jack all kinds of stuff he shouldn’t do. Rob added that when he saw the scene with Lucifer sitting on the white throne in heaven he was ‘what the hell’ and really pissed!
After their last question, Rich said that they were going to auction something off for Random Acts, praising Misha for what he’s done: ‘Nobody has channeled his fame into doing more good that-if everybody used his platform like him, the world would be a better place. And we’re proud to have him as team leader to our charity work.’
He then explained that at karaoke people must have noticed there was a foot-wide barricade keeping the fans away from the edge of the stage-something that was instituted after an actor from another show *cough*Vampire Diaries*cough* got drunk and fell off the stage into the audience during karaoke. Rich said that empty space is called ‘Moose Knuckle Corridor’ because the first time it was implemented at a Supernatural con Matt wore a skin-tight red unitard to karaoke. Skin-tight. As in ‘nothing to the imagination’ for the fans on the other side of that gap right at ‘moose-knuckle’ eye level. So they were going to auction off Matt’s unitard. Matt went backstage as the bidding started and put it on (over his clothes) and then strutted around the audience, posing on chairs and hamming it up until the auction ended at $2500!
Photo Op Interlude
I had decided a few days before the con that I was going to surprise Adrienne with a Rich and Rob photo op:
I do think we all look adorable…
Misha Collins
Misha informed us that one of his old college roommates was in the audience, and proceeded to tell stories about crazy stuff he did while attending University of Chicago. After spending the first year in the dorm, he moved into an apartment with several other guys. One of them had an uncle who owned a fleabag motel and was getting rid of some unusable furniture. To them it was free and they didn’t care what condition it was. They ended up with a pile of rancid mattresses in the living room that they would wrestle on for the title of ‘King of the Rancid Mattresses!’
The university’s annual scavenger hunt was the template for Misha’s Giswish challenge. One year required teams to bring live sheep in as an item. Misha’s then-girlfriend, now wife, Vicki, asked to borrow Misha’s car-an old Volvo-because he was one of the few students who had a car. He said no but she borrowed the keys anyway, drove to Wisconsin, and brought back three sheep. His car was never the same…Another item was to bring a Hooter’s girl, and Vicki went to Hooter’s, got hired, got her uniform, and then brought herself to fulfill the hunt.
Misha then invited his friend on stage, and he bantered comfortably, and told the story of how Misha made his own bedframe with hand tools in his room of the apartment. Although Misha hadn’t known anything about woodworking, his friend said Misha has a fast learning curve, and the finished bed (which Misha still has) is a work of art. Misha commented that in retrospect it’s amazing that everyone put up with all the pounding he made during that project.
Moving to fan questions, Misha was asked what is the first thing he thinks when he wakes up and the last thing when he goes to sleep? Waking up he said his thoughts go to where his kids are-they inevitably come into bed during the night and they like to snuggle but they also snore and kick in their sleep. West loves to announce the time on the digital clock at full volume when he wakes up…’Dad! It’s 6:01!’ He loves putting his kids to sleep and he is trying to cherish everything.
How does he feel about losing his anonymity? He said in everyday life he really isn’t recognized all that much, but coming to cons is a tremendous ego boost-then he goes home and gets peed on, which puts it in perspective.
What do Cas and Misha have in common? Cas came on as a big badass soldier and turned into a socially awkward dweeb, so basically the writers turned Cas into him…
A fan asked what he thought of Destiel. Rather than answering, Misha talked about the change he’s seen in fans’ attitude toward slash fanfic. He said that he stumbled across slash fiction quite accidentally, started reading a story and thought it read like one of the scripts, until ‘I never did that with Dean’s zipper!’ He brought the topic up at a con years ago and the reaction in the room was like’ mom finding your porn magazines.’ But now it’s okay to talk about, it’s not a big deal.
Would he have taken the role on Supernatural if he’d known about Jared’s torture in advance? Here Misha brought up the previous night’s filming. Jared and Jensen were screwing up every take, passing props in front of the camera every time someone tried to say their lines. Misha only had one line in the whole scene, and every time he walked toward the camera to say it, they messed around…One of the crew members asked if they didn’t realize Jared and Jensen were holding up their own weekend with everyone else’s! So finally Misha waited till they were looking around for something else to put in front of the camera and he charged in and got his line out. So knowing what he knows now…but, some of the fondling is nice…
Misha and Adam Fergus had joined the Seattle March for Our Lives earlier in the afternoon, and Misha finds hope in the activism of young people.
A fan asked what random acts of kindness could she do to make a difference. Misha suggested not just dropping some change or a dollar into a homeless person’s cup, but to engage with them, let them tell you their story, let them be heard. He and Maison had gone to a park in Bellingham WA (where he lives) where the homeless congregated, and heard how they had ended up there, and what they were trying to do, and what little things would make a difference, like a monthly bus pass, or a tent, which he and Maison made an effort to procure.
Saturday Night Special
The Saturday Night Concerts are one of my favorite parts of the con because of the fantastic energy everyone involved puts into having a blast while performing! I love how Rob has created a safe space for both those who have a background in singing but had moved that talent to the background and for those who would never dream of performing in front of people-his generosity in giving others the spotlight is such a beautiful thing to witness! Not to mention the sheer energy the man has, giving his all for nearly two hours-I can’t imagine how he is even functional the next day, much less up for more interaction with a thousand or so fans!
The highlight of the entire concert was Lisa Berry-if you haven’t watched the video clip of her performance, do it now! She came out beaming and said Rob had suggested ‘Proud Mary.’ She wanted something slow and easy, so she proposed doing the first verse easy and then stepping it up. Her version of ‘easy’ was freakin’ spectacular-and then the band powered up and she really cut loose and WOW!!! At the very end Kim, Ruth, and Alaina came out from behind the curtain and danced around like her backup dancers and Lisa deserved the standing ovation she got! (Side note-I’m so excited she’s coming to Chicago!)
Matt did a song I didn’t recognize; Alaina did Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’; Kim rocked out AC/DC’s ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’; Rich played bass on several songs and sang ‘Copperhead Road’ (interesting note, at the SNS Rich doesn’t talk-it’s Rob’s show and Rich steps back and let’s Rob run it.)
There was one other performance that struck me, Ruth sang a song called ‘Crush’ which is a disturbing song about all the things she would do to get love-‘I’d lie for you, I’d kill for you’ etc. with a haunting melody, performed acoustically. Usually Ruth sings something fairly short, she wrote in ‘Family Don’t End with Blood’ how terrifying singing is for her. But she didn’t just sing, she projected herself in the song to make me believe she was that desperate woman capable of what she was singing…It was another amazing performance in a totally different way than Lisa’s take-no-prisoners power. The song was pretty long, and I noticed how the entire band arranged themselves in a protective circle around her, leaning in to support her as she wove around the stage-they were clearly all doing everything they could to give Ruth what she needed.
If only the whole world could see that working together to help someone else succeed makes everyone win…
Of course there’s always the element of ‘is Jensen going to sing tonight’ at these concerts, but when Rob started ‘Whipping Post’ you know Jensen’s not appearing. However I love Rob’s version of that song just as much as Jensen’s, he really rips into it! We got ‘Fare Thee Well,’ ‘She Waits,’ and ‘Mama’s Jam,’ and then two encores-Louden Swain’s ‘Amazing’ and another song I didn’t know with the chorus ‘let love loose’ which had everyone back on stage singing. Another fantastic day!