Gatecon 2002

Day Three:

Guest Panels and The Banquet

Vancouver, B.C. Canada  September 12-15, 2002

Last Updated 02/16/2020

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Warning! From this point on, there will be Season 6 and even movie and/or Season 7 spoilers to be found in the guest talks. These reports were written during the convention, for the most part, although I have tweaked them here and there with comments, corrections and/or updates and the like for the web page.

There are over 100 pictures on this page, so even with most of them as thumbnails, the graphics may take a little time to load.

Friday was action-packed. I'm tired, sore, and my shoulders are already protesting a day of almost non-stop photography. But it was worth the pain. I can only cross my fingers that some of the fun photos I took turn out! (Boy, did they! 35 rolls worth!)

By the way, we met some great people waiting in line today, including a couple of gals who were attending Gatecon for the very first time. Cindy and Janet, it was great to meet you and I hope you enjoyed the rest of the day as much as the morning sessions! There do seem to be a large number of "newbies" at the con this year and I hope all of them are having a fun time.

The day began with Colin Cunningham joining us on stage. There has been very heavy guest security at the con this year. It's been kind of a laugh because, for instance, Alexis Cruz walked past the line of people waiting this morning twice without anyone really noticing him until he said hello and smiled and waved at all of us...then suddenly the third time he was surrounded by security people. JR came by a time or two before anyone noticed he was unescorted, as well. During one of JR’s passes, I hollered out “I love your hair!” and everyone who was at Sekh’s Party the night before snickered.

Colin Cunningham when he came on stage first thing, was making jokes about having been surrounded by security from the moment he arrived and being strip searched, etc. He talked about it quite a lot to the audience at various points and to JR Bourne and Alexis when they came on stage later. At one point, Colin said "Screw this! I'll come to you!" and he jumped off the stage and charged into the audience. The lights came up and huge beefy security guys went stampeding after him. Colin stopped and turned around whilst shaking people's hands and growled, half laughing, at the men to "STAY!" and then he told them to back off and leave him alone. He made some comments about how he didn't think there were any chainsaw murderers in attendance at the con. He actually came down into the audience several times after that to give hugs or for various other reasons.

I mean no disrespect to the security staff or the convention staff (all of whom have certainly been very pleasant and friendly in any dealings I've had with them), please be aware. They were just doing the job they had been asked to do, I'm sure, but I will tell you that by the afternoon, Colin no longer had any security whatsoever -- by his direct request. The last we saw him, he was happily chatting with fans in the lobby of the hotel.

Anyway, back to the panel. After the security staff recovered from their heart attacks and Colin gave lots of fans a quick thrill with a hand shake or a word, he went back on stage and talked to us. I've only made a few notes from the various panels throughout the day since my hands were mostly occupied with the camera rig, but I'll try to make sense of my jumbled notes for you.

One young lady in the audience stood up to ask a question and Colin recognized her as someone he had met earlier this week in Stanley Park! She had apparently recognized him and asked for his autograph. He told a funny anecdote about a Japanese family sitting nearby that had been ignoring him up until that point and they suddenly began looking at him and chattering in Japanese. Later in the session, someone from Japan stood up to convey their admiration to Colin and he asked them how the Japanese "fake" an English accent. He gave several examples of how English speaking people tend to "fake" Chinese or Japanese accents while speaking gibberish. He was told by someone else in the audience in no uncertain terms that most Asian people learn English so they don't have to "fake" English. Perhaps you had to be there. But Colin's babbling about the languages really was a hoot.

The stage

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Kailin-Mic runner #3

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The stage

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Colin arrives!

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Colin being Colin

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Colin being “rude”

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Someone asked him what he might know about Major Davis that we don't. (In other words, has he created a history for the character in his mind?) Colin blinked a moment and then said, "He wears pantyhose." He blinked again. "So does General Hammond. You know, sometimes they stop and share a look and that's what they're thinking about."


“Military Secrets”

Colin then seriously answered the question by saying that he conceived of Major Davis as a person who is very alone. Very dedicated to his career and at the end of the day he goes home and is alone. He also said later on that he thought Davis had a "thing" for Sam. He was warned in no uncertain terms about how dangerous that could be! (Witness Chance’s “Black Widow Tour” t-shirts on the previous web page!)

He commented (I can't remember if this was in answer to a question) that his favorite people in the world are Texans, Mexicans and the Irish. Since I'm a Texan, I was happy to hear this. ;-) He was of the opinion that Mexicans are just Irish people with a tan.

Someone said that they were very sad Daniel had left the show but that if he had to go, Colin would have been their first choice as the new member of SG-1. Colin thanked them and said that, of course, no one could ever replace Daniel! Since there are a lot of Daniel fans in attendance, this was a popular answer, of course.

He was asked if he could play any other role on SG-1, who he would like to be. He immediately said "Major Carter so I could go to bed with myself every night." Ahem.

When asked what kind of role he would like to play that he hasn't done, he said he'd love to be in a slasher type movie. He waxed poetical about how much fun this would be for a while and ended with "I want to eat someone's eyeballs." Ooooookay, Colin.

About this time, JR Bourne and Alexis Cruz joined Colin on stage and mayhem truly did ensue. For anyone who doesn't know, I believe that JR and Colin are good friends and they were merciless to each other. JR held a charity luncheon yesterday and he told the story about how one of the auction winners didn't really know who he was, who he had played on the show and could have cared less about him. She leaned over to him and said "Do you know Colin? Do you think you could get him here?" A lot of ribbing back and forth began from there, including much discussion of the fact that Colin no longer owns a cell phone and his voice mail box was full so JR couldn't even leave him a message when he tried to call from the restaurant. Alexis began miming Colin calling himself and leaving messages and talking to himself on one phone, with JR joining in... it's really hard to describe but trust me it was outrageous. JR also kept ragging on Colin about seeing him out and about town in his convertible and about how Colin seemed to be having serious conversations with himself in his rearview mirror!


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JR tries to sneak a call to Colin

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Alexis demonstrates Colin’s phone technique

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Alexis, Colin & JR

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JR shows us Colin’s driving style

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More of JR mimicking Colin driving

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JR adjourned to sell and autograph copies of his sister's new children's book in the dealer's room (proceeds to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Society) and Colin left, as well, leaving the stage to Alexis. Alexis chatted with us for a few moments and said that he has gone back to school to study a double major of psychology and anthropology. He's also filmed more Touched by an Angel and he will be in an upcoming episode of Stargate. He thanked the fans for perhaps helping to bring him back as Skaara as he said he hadn't expected to ever be back on the show again. I'll print a spoiler down below for those of you who want to know a little more (although the information wasn't from Alexis' talk).

It wasn't long, however, before a voice came from backstage and Alexis happily smiled and said "Is that my Poppy?" Sure enough, it was Peter Williams (Apophis, father of Klorel, of course!), who then joined him on stage. Someone asked if they could touch Peter Williams' hair (which is growing out in little ringlets now -- if you've seen my Dragoncon photos, you know what it looks like). Alexis jumped out of his seat and ran over and began ruffling Peter's hair immediately! Peter didn’t really answer the lady’s question, by the way. He just said “Thanks for asking first because some don’t!” (Hence Alexis’ impromptu hair ruffling.)

I asked Alexis and Peter to please read the hieroglyphs on the wall of the stage because I was of the opinion that they were different this year from last (last year Alexis had told us they said "Don't Feed the Abydonians”). Alexis and Peter had a bit of fun making stuff up including "This way to the ladies room," "Do Not Litter," and the fact that Steven Spielberg was in the credits.

Alexis Cruz

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Poppy!

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Peter Williams

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Alexis likes Peter’s hairdo!

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Peter gets his “Dead Man Walking” t-shirt

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Since Alexis is back on SG-1, the question was asked if Apophis was coming back. Peter played coy and said "I don't know" and said to ask him on Sunday. (But if you've read my Dragoncon report, you know part of the answer.) He said he saw Anubis at breakfast this morning and thought "I could do that." I hollered out "Did you?" <g> He claimed no and said that the person in the costume was female, actually. The question was asked about Apophis' make-up after his face was disfigured and Peter told us that the disfiguration was lessened because of the extreme cost of doing the make-up and the length of time to apply it. He was inducted into the "Dead Guys Society" and given a certificate and a special t-shirt that said "Dead Man Walking" on the front and had photos of Apophis, Kawalsky and Martouf on the back. (See the Day Two web page to view a close-up of the t-shirt, front and back. I’ve been told that the Dead Guys Society and the t-shirts were actually produced by two totally unrelated groups. Great minds think alike!) He made a quip at one point that the memento he had kept from the show was Apophis' harem of women! A question was asked whether Chris Judge is more like Jack or Teal'c in real life? The final answer given by Peter boiled down to: a cross between Charlie Sheen and Ice Cube! He then went on to say that Chris was like Teal'c in some ways because he was at heart a very gentle, kind man.

So, those are some tidbits from the morning sessions. Here's the spoiler I promised... Alexis is filming Stargate right now and the episode is Full Circle, the last episode of the season (perhaps the series).

Continuing on from before, after the morning guest panels, the VIP ticket holders could, if they wished, have their photos taken with some of the guests. Leah and I decided to go ahead, so we joined the line when our numbers were called while some of our friends kindly waited for us so that we could all go to lunch afterwards.

First up, we had a picture of me and Leah with Jay Acovone and Peter Williams. Peter said "Oh! You guys again!" and was laughing when he saw us. Leah told him to behave or she'd cartoon him again. We had a wonderful fleeting moment squeezed between "Kawalsky" and "Apophis." When we walked away, Leah could hear Peter telling Jay about us and saying 'Those guys" but she said he was smiling when he said it. (Those who have read my Dragoncon reports will remember that Peter had asked Leah to autograph a copy of the Apophis cartoon she drew a while back. We later heard from a staff member that Colin wanted to know when Leah was going to cartoon him. <eg> Uh, see above, Colin.)

We next walked over to where Richard Pascoe was taking the pictures of people with Frida and Colin Cunningham. We told him what we wanted and he was very pleasant and agreeable to our requests. We both posed with Frida Betrani; she was a lovely pixiesh little woman who wanted to stop and know our names and just chat a moment. Very very sweet lady and so tiny that I wondered if she'd even show up in the picture sandwiched between me and Leah! After that, I wanted my photo of just me with Colin because I've really liked him since seeing him at the convention last year. He jumped up from his chair, ran up to me, threw his arms around me, drew me into a big bear hug and gave me a big, noisy, sloppy kiss on the cheek!!!! I was stunned. I stood there with my mouth hanging open while he cuddled me for a photo. Leah was standing to the side laughing her ass off. I talked to Colin for a few minutes about my photos. The head of his fan club had given some of them to him last year and used some on his official site and he had mailed me a personalized autograph as a thank you. (In fact, I donated one of these photos to the Sekh's Party charity raffle -- a very funny pose of JR and Colin when Colin had made his impromptu appearance at JR's panel last year. You can see it at: http://photos.ashtonpress.net/gatecon.htm

We finally left and I was still in a daze.

Cindy was waiting for us outside and told us that while we had been in line, at one point Colin came running out looking for the men's room and he begged the people in the room not to tell security where he had gone. Shortly after, the security people were flying down the hall after him! I guess they figured out where he'd gone...

Our merry little band of Daniel fans decided to sample the food at the Cronos restaurant across the street. I'd wanted to go there last year and never made it. Of course, we had to take a few pictures and we later joked that Cronos wasn't really dead but now working as a cook in a Greek restaurant! Who knows? Since Ron Halder later showed up at the convention…well, maybe Leah will be inspired to do another cartoon! The food was quite good, by the way, and I hope we get a chance to return. I had some chicken souvlaki that was nicely seasoned and very tender and I'd swear that the pita bread was homemade.

After lunch, it was time for the afternoon panels. Frida Betrani was first up and was warmly welcomed to Gatecon and Vancouver. She talked about the arduous hours of make-up required for her role as Lya and also some about how she had gotten the role. She said it was raining a lot when they were filming and she had to wear huge knee high rubber boots most of the time. She told a funny little anecdote about how she had been heavily coached on the proper pronunciation of "Goa'uld" and demonstrated how she had practiced it at length...and then she said RDA would come on and say "Goold" and just pronounce it any old way he wanted.

Frida Betrani

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Frida talks about Lya’s “big hair”

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JR Bourne joined her on stage by saying off-stage "There's an earthquake in New York." Apparently, they did a film together called "Aftershock" and this phrase had some meaning from the film.

JR and Frida began a bit of bantering and the fact that Martouf and even Lantash are dead came up, of course. Frida pointed out that the Nox have the power to bring people back to life so he'd better behave and be nice to her! He was quite taken aback. He told the story of how long it took Martouf to die and how they worked it out so he would fall slowly enough that Sam could get to him from across the room to have him die in her arms. He claims that everyone shot him, even the make-up lady Janet who came out and shot him because he just would not die.

He also talked about a movie he and Amanda Tapping have made together recently called "Stuck." He claimed a portion of his ass shows in the film. Oh my. He and Amanda's character apparently make love in an elevator that is stuck. There is going to be a special preview showing of the film for ten lucky fans who can bid on the seats during the charity auction Saturday night.

During a conversation about the pacifist philosophy of the Nox, JR asked Frida "Did you have any evil thoughts whatsoever?" She got a wicked look on her elfin face and said "Only about you."

JR told us that his dog, Scooby, has a slipped disk and because he has hardwood floors in his apartment, the poor dog couldn't walk properly and was sliding all over. Since he didn't want to pay to carpet his entire apartment (the dog will apparently recover, btw), he went and got the blue foam padding that goes under carpet and laid it down all over his apartment. He waxed poetical about how much he loves the way it squishes under his feet now.

JR joins Frida

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“Only about you…”

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Jay Acovone was next on the agenda and he was as silly and wonderful as ever. He really seems to adore his wife and is always making little quips about her (but with great affection). He pointed out that the shoes he was wearing were designed for racing cars (a hobby he apparently sometimes pursues) and were, therefore, fireproof. He said that as he was leaving for the con, his wife handed them to him and told him to wear them in case the plane crashed. Words can't really describe his wonderful expressions but he pointed out that although he would be burned to a crisp, his feet would still look great...and he said he smiled at her and simply said "Thank you, honey."

He's got a part in the new Terminator 3 and said "Yes, I die, along with everyone else in the movie except for Arnold." The first film he ever made was "Cruising" with Al Pacino in 1979 (which was rather appropriate, I think, since he had earlier said that the people who had inspired him to get into acting were Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, The Three Stooges, and Jackie Gleason).

He's worked in a few projects, including Independence Day, for Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, and he said that the duo have now parted ways, wanting to do their own things right now, but they are still great friends. Emmerich is doing a new project called "Day After Tomorrow" and Jay might be in it. Leah asked if it was SciFi and Jay rather hesitated and said it was more of a "what if" type story.

He told an interesting story about how he got the part of Kawalsky in the pilot. He said that they originally wanted John Diehl (from Miami Vice) who had played Kawalsky in the film, Apparently it was going to be a regular or recurring role. Diehl didn't want to sign for the series, though. MGM came back and offered to write it so that Kawalsky gets killed off early on and under those conditions, Diehl agreed to do it. When it came time to actually sign for the role, however, Diehl changed his mind and backed out. (Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if it was because Dean Devlin was so adamantly opposed to the series? I believe I remember Devlin mentioning that Diehl was a friend.) Anyway, Jay got the role at that point and he said he'd love to be part of the series ongoing and asked if they would consider changing it so that Kawalsky lived. Unfortunately, he was told that all of the scripts were already approved by MGM, yadda yadda yadda and so Kawalsky died.

Jay Acovone

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Frida sneaks up on Jay

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Jay has a visitor on stage

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Jay’s visitor is laughing at him!

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So, the end of a long day of fun and photos and we only had a couple of hours until it was time for the banquet.

On the way back to our rooms, we passed Peter Williams in the hallway (surrounded by security). We said hello as we walked past and he hollered out "Hello, Leah! I love that necklace you're wearing!" Well, we knew were infamous but we didn't realize it was because of our jewelry! (First Tracy Scoggins at Dragoncon and now Peter Williams...) Somehow it seems appropriate that “Apophis” would be interested in antique Egyptian jewelry.

There's not too much to tell you about the banquet. We ate. The food was good. The company was great. We were joined at our table by a couple from Belgium and a couple from right in the Vancouver area (Burnaby). After dinner, there was a costume contest with some wacky costumes and some beautiful costumes. A trio of "Jaffa priestesses" were the winners. Sarah Douglas had arrived and was one of the judges and Peter Williams made the winning announcements with quite a funny quip or two. There was also a very nice Anubis which I think came in in second place, “Young Sam” came in third because Peter said she looked so much like Amanda Tapping, and there was an honorable mention for a fellow who was dressed up in an Air Force Uniform with a print of General Hammond's face as a mask (he was Hammond, of course). He was hilarious! We were pretty far in the back of the room, so I apologize that I couldn’t get better close-ups of the costumes.

Peter Williams as MC

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The costume contest

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General Hammond

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Anubis

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Young Sam

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Kendra

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Jaffa Priestesses

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Last year’s winner

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Dana Jeanne

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Rowan

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DJ takes her life in her hands…

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Annie, Leah, Dana Jeanne and Cindy

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Rene, Leah, Dana Jeanne and Cindy

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Signing off for now...

Day Four – Guest Panels

Or

Return Home

Gatecon 2001

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!

Wolfcon SG-4

Featuring pictures of Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, Tom McBeath
and Lexa Doig (from Andromeda)

Check out the Ashton Press home page for more artwork, zines, links to photos from Highlander conventions, pictures from Blakes 7 conventions, pictures of soap opera stars, fan fiction and much more!

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