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Best of Both Worlds Day Two |
Sydney, Australia
January 10-12, 2003
Last Updated 02/28/2003
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What
a day we've had! Oh, my! I have to say that short of Michael and Chris both having
been here, this is definitely one of the best days I've had at a convention in
a long time...and, believe me, I've been to some fun conventions in over twenty
years of congoing and running conventions and so on...
Things
started off with a bang with all of the guests up on stage to say hello.
Everyone looked great, although I believe it was Lani who was a little late
getting there. Colin was looking marvelous, as ever and YES!!!! nothing
covering up his beautiful hair. Some of these photos are taken without flash,
by the way. Flash photography was limited to the first few moments of a talk.
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Regarding
the fate of Farscape in the future, by the way, the Farscape guests were asked
point blank if anyone was picking them up and they said a definitive "NO."
They said that they were hoping for a movie to wrap things up. They also
mentioned something about wanting to do a few wrap up episodes or something.
Although they also said that they were somewhat happy it *wasn't* wrapped up
because that always leaves the door open for future possibilities *and* it also
just leaves things open ended in the imagination of the audience, even if
nothing ever gets made. There were comments that made it sound like they all
get killed...or they don't. I don't know if they were teasing us, if they meant
it just *seems* they all get killed or what... Sorry. They all seemed to love
the show and the fans and having worked on the show, but they didn't seem to
think anything would be happening anytime soon. They didn't sound the least bit
bitter towards Stargate and they *were* asked. They said it all came down to
ratings, they knew that, and Farscape wasn't pulling in good ratings even
though they felt SciFi had given it a good time slot and promotion.
The
first guest to talk was Anthony Simcoe (D'argo from Farscape). Anthony had
brought along a friend of his who worked as one of the lighting crew on
Farscape named Steve. I'm afraid I didn't note his last name. In any case, Steve
and Anthony play in a band together and they did a little impromptu acoustic
session for us. They don't normally play acoustic guitars but they did a
fantastic job. They had everyone gather around close and sang to us. All of the
songs were composed by Anthony and they were just marvelous. They had only a
few remaining copies of a demo CD that their band did and I managed to snag one
and have it autographed at the end of the day!
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After
the music session, Anthony showed us a short film that he made a couple of
years ago. Steve and many of his other friends from Farscape had worked on the film.
It even listed Claudia Black as one of the caterers! Gigi Edgely and Jonathan
Hardy (both of Farscape) starred in it. It's called A Garden's Tale and is a
charming little story written by Anthony about a sort of garden gnome who helps
people in distress. It's incredibly hard to describe since so much happens in a
short period of time. It was about a young girl who is doing drugs with her
boyfriend and he overdoses and dies. Later that night, she is cleaning up the
broken glass in the house and when she takes it outside, a voice in her
backyard tells her to plant the glass and it will grow. She thinks she’s nuts,
of course, or being harassed or haunted or something…but eventually she goes
back and plants the glass. It grows into a beautiful crystal flower. There is a
creature with huge ears who talks to her and tells her he will teach her to
grow her garden and make her ears grow. The story then continues throughout her
life as she grows older, gets married, has children…and throughout it all, she
is working on her garden with the help if this mysterious gnomish creature. As
she gets older and the garden becomes more strange and beautiful, her ears do
indeed grow and she becomes very much at peace with her life. Until the end of
the piece when the gnome tells her that he must now go and attend to his own
neglected garden and she suddenly hears someone fighting next door and realizes
that it is her turn to go and help someone else. Lovely cinematography and
make-up work throughout.
Throughout
the morning, Daniel had joined us at the convention and turned into quite a
"star." I have an incredibly detailed handmade Daniel bear and I had
taken it along today in order to have a photo made with Colin, me and the bear
(yes, it's silly but all in fun). Everyone, it seems, wanted to meet Daniel
bear. There was lots of photo taking and Adele gave him his own VIP passes
(which he's still wearing). He was even in a photo with Anthony Simcoe. Anthony
later signed the photo saying "Love the bear" (Hey! He didn't love
*me*?!? <g>) He had his own seat in the convention room for awhile and
watched some Stargate episodes. Ahem.
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Moving
right along, I missed most of David Franklin's talk since it came right after
lunch and I was so tired I was hanging around the room a little overtime. When
I came in, he was apparently acting out a scene from Farscape with two
volunteers from the audience. There was a lot of laughter over the fact that
one of the fans had a piece of paper stuck on his head that identified him as a
“Loser.” A lot of the giggling was also over the fact that David Franklin had
misspelled “loser” as “Looser.”
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Lani
Tupu and Jonathan Hardy came along next and they showed some tape from the very
last episode of Farscape (eps 22 of Season 4) to demonstrate how they do the
voices for Pilot and Rigel and what the tape is like when they get it. The
voices of the characters on the tape were actually the puppeteers reading the
lines. There was quite a lot of technical talk and explanation and it was all
very fascinating. There was a very bizarre scene that we kept getting glimpses
of, btw, of Crichton and Scorpius (?) in big pink bunny suits having a fight or
something. Huh?
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Then,
Colin Cunningham! Today I actually took notes since I'd gotten quite a lot of
photos over the weekend. I did snap photos today, as well, of course, just not
quite so many as yesterday.
Okay,
I forgot to mention who "showed up" right before Colin came back on
stage! A phone call from Peter Williams! Peter apologized for not being at the
con and said he'd actually had his bags packed and one foot out the door when
he got a role on Twilight Zone. He was so sorry to miss the convention but we
can all look forward to seeing him in Twilight Zone soon. He said that he was
in the upcoming Stargate episode of Changeling, written by Chris Judge and we
all yelled into the phone that we were looking forward to seeing it. He
mentioned that Apophis is truly dead but it is science fiction and anything can
happen! He also asked that people stop sending him Jaffa Cakes. LOL!
Colin
ran out and had a few words with Peter and Peter told him that he might have
gotten to come to Australia but it looked like he was missing out on lots of
good auditions for parts. A little bit of actor one upmanship going on there, I
suspect.
So,
then we had Colin's panel. Colin said that as everyone else had tried to do
something so different for their panels today and he figured everyone was bored
with the same old questions, he wanted people to just come right out and ask
him anything they wanted to know about anyone. He started it off by saying he
wanted to tell the story about Gatecon and security there and what had really
happened since there are so many rumors on the internet. He said that when he
arrived at the con, he was literally surrounded by security. This continued and
he finally asked what the heck was going on. He was told that the convention
staff had been warned that he had a "stalker." He said that he felt
like he'd "arrived" if he was a big enough star to have a stalker.
Later on, he ran into an old friend of his and was giving her a big kiss and a
hug. As she walked away, one of the security people whispered to him that
*that* was the stalker. He was flabbergasted and told them in no uncertain
terms that the girl was an old friend of his, a fan that he knows. He said quite
bluntly that he later learned that someone who worked with him had been behind
the attempt to smear this girl's reputation and that the person no longer works
with him or for him. The gal in question, Michelle, was in attendance at BOBW,
by the way, and Colin was calling her his "favorite stalker" all
weekend.
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So,
then Colin opened up the floor for further questions. He was asked about
working with Michael Shanks on 48 Hours and to "dish the dirt" on
Michael. Colin told us that it was great getting to work so closely with
Michael on 48 Hours. He said that Michael was feeling very unappreciated on the
show by that point and feeling like perhaps he should just leave. Colin said he
thought that Michael leaving was perhaps the best thing he could have done
because the end result has been that they literally had to "back up a
truckload of cash" to bring him back on as a guest star for a few
episodes. He said that the backlash also made the show realize that Michael was
certainly appreciated by the fans and they had to finally recognize his worth
to the show. He said it was wonderful that Michael was coming back full time in
Season 7 and that hopefully it meant Michael now understood he was appreciated
by the fans and that he was happy to be coming back. He said to the fans
"good on you for getting him back and congratulations."
He
was next asked about Peter deLuise and he told a funny story about Peter making
the actors run up and down corridors, back and forth, over and over again until
the actors finally realized that PDL had stopped rolling film a long time
before and was just playing a joke on them. He also talked about an incident
where Colin had screwed something up and he heard PDL yelling at him "Who
did you have to screw to get this job?!?!" LOL. Colin said it was a lucky
thing that he had a lot of self-confidence when the director said something
like that to him!
When asked
about Gatecon, Colin told a story about some fan who had asked him to come and
have a look at their photos. He went to the room where they had asked to meet
him and no one was there. He was coming back down the hallway and they were
coming towards him, obviously from the bar. They were agitated and muttering
lots of obscenities. They stopped to talk to Colin and he told them he'd see
them in the morning and they said "Yeah, like you fucking care! Fuck
you!!" and as he exited down the hallway, they were yelling after him the
whole way. I wish I could convey in words the amusing manner that Colin acted
this whole thing out... he went on to say that obviously that was someone who
was in need of their medication (LOL!) but that the vast majorities of the fans
are just great. He had loads of fun at Gatecon and even came back to the con on
days he wasn't scheduled, to do more autographs and photos.
He
was asked about working with John de Lancie. He said the man was really cool
and it turned out they have mutual friends.
Gene
Hackman is his favorite actor and he loves every film Hackman has done.
His
favorite episode of Stargate is one that "really featured Shanks quite
heavily -- Absolute Power." His comment verbatim was "Man, that was
really cool." He loved the fact that the episode was more based in acting
instead of heavy special effects. He had to be reminded that he’d actually
appeared himself in that episode, as well!
He
was asked if he'd always been a big scifi fan. He said he was a fan of anything
"good," and he especially loved westerns and Star Trek as a kid, but
just anything with good acting in it. He loved the latest Star Wars installment
and thought it blew away the previous one.
When
asked what drew him into acting, he said "If I wasn't acting, I don't
think I'd be here." He said that he felt he had to leave LA early on or
something bad might happen to him. He dropped out of high school when he was
sixteen because he was bored and “got his education in Europe.”
He
was asked who he thought the sexiest female on Stargate was? He misunderstood
the question, though, and thought they said anyone other than the regulars. He
answered the female Russian soldier from The Tomb. He then told an amusing
story about how he’d been told the actress who played her doesn’t like him…but
he still thinks she’s awfully sexy.
He
has no tattoos (although he'd like one) and had his ear pierced when he was 13.
I
asked him for some dirt on Major Davis but he only told us what we already
know: Major Davis wears pantyhose. Don S. Davis also wears pantyhose. LOL. He
was asked if he was ever caught doing the "Puff and Ruffle" and he
admitted he'd been guilty a couple of times.
Someone
asked why RDA is called "Maharishi Rick". Colin didn't know but he
said that RDA's trailer is 5000 feet long and if you walk in there you need a
map.
Asked
if he had made any CDs yet, he said no, but he's bought a church organ. He then
commented: "I've got the largest organ in my building. I'm in there
playing with it all the time..." It degenerated from there...
Colin
then helped auction off some stuff for the Guide Dogs, including one of our own
cartoon calendars that featured the cartoon of Major Davis. Colin did quite a
lot of mugging around with the cartoon and seemed fascinated by the other
cartoons in the calendar, flipping through it and reading them. It sold for
$270.00, some photos donated by the SDJ (sold for $100), one of my Michael
Shanks photo calendars ($110) and Leah's cartoon of Jack and Daniel fishing in
Australia ($300 -- Colin did read out the cartoon for everyone). Colin seemed
quite “taken” with one of my Michael Shanks photos from last year’s Wolfcon
when Colin said Michael was trying to look like “Elvis.” LOL.
During
the closing ceremonies, all of the guests helped to auction off quite a number
of donated items for the charity, as well. (See below)
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Throughout
yesterday and today, SDJ had a table in the dealer's room and we had preprinted
post cards of all varieties ready for people to fill out to thank MGM, SciFi
and Bridge for bringing back Daniel. We had a great response and the con was
nice enough to announce it several times to remind people to come and fill out
the cards. We also had postcards of Sydney for people to fill out and send a
message to Michael Shanks. Those, along with a stuffed dog purchased from the
Guide Dog people for Michael's daughter, were sent to Michael recently at the
studio. The response was just terrific and when I left, people were still down
there filling out the cards and handing them in.
Colin
autographed my Stargate Gatecon calendar for me, btw, and since he isn't in
that one, I asked him to sign on RDA's page. He put a little thought balloon
over RDA's head saying "I wish I were Major Davis!"
What a goofball! <g>
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Nothing
monumental to report about the wrap party. It was very laid back and lots of
fun with the champagne and melon balls flowing, so to speak and lots of finger
food. It was great fun to finally have a few spare moments to just sit around
and talk and meet some of the Australian fans. The weekend flew by in such a
whirlwind! By the way, I didn't get to say goodbye to Colin at the wrap party,
because I left pretty early in the evening, relatively speaking. The next
morning, he was in the lobby with Adele and Michelle dragged me over to him and
demanded that he say goodbye to me. I got lots of hugs and kisses and pats on
the arm from him (and from Adele, too). I felt like a favorite pet or
something, but what a lovely goodbye!
Don’t
forget to check out the touring pages for some wildlife photos, some pretty
scenery and, best of all, you can see where Thor and the Asguard have been
hanging out lately and see the blackmail photos I took at DJ’s
birthday party, including some pictures of that Big Round Thing (the Stargate)
immortalized as a cake! (Well, for a few moments before we ate it…)
Day One – Farscape and Stargate Guests
Featuring pictures of Brad Wright,
Alexis Cruz, Virginia Hey (from Farscape), Jay Acovone, Jay Brazeau, Tony
Amendola, Erick Avari, Gary Jones, Teryl Rothery, Don S. Davis, Dan Shea, Amanda
Tapping, Colin Cunningham, JR Bourne and more!
Featuring pictures of Brad Wright,
Alexis Cruz, Jay Acovone, Tony Amendola, Erick Avari, Gary Jones, Teryl
Rothery, Don S. Davis, Dan Shea, Amanda Tapping, Colin Cunningham, JR Bourne,
Corin Nemec, Frida Bertrain, Sueann Braun, Wil deVry and more!
Featuring pictures of Michael Shanks,
Amanda Tapping, Tom McBeath
and Lexa Doig (from Andromeda)
Come visit a Stargate Forum by and for
the fans of “Classic” Stargate: Our Stargate!
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