But here’s some bits and pieces I remember – so much has happened since last weekend so I’ve forgotten a lot! I’m going off memory so some details may be slightly off.
Includes: Lucy Lawless, Robert Patrick, Rachel Luttrell, Paul McGillion, Timothy Omundson and Jed Brophy
Lucy Lawless
- Lucy said she doesn’t know anything about a Xena reprise. But she said they wished they would have said that Xena and Gabrielle were a couple – so she hopes that would be in the reprise, if they do one.
- She said she enjoyed working with her horse on Xena.
- She said that the most rewarding and touching thing is hearing so many stories about how Xena saved so many people’s lives. She first heard it and thought they were joking, but after hearing it so many times, she realised how many people the show touched.
- Lucy said she had a great time on The Simpsons. And she couldn’t believe that something like that could ever happen when she was just a young New Zealand actress.
Robert Patrick
- His favourite project he’s ever worked on was Cop Land.
Rachel Luttrel & Paul McGillion
- Paul sold some of his scripts for charity on the weekend. Every single one of them went for around $300 approx.
- Paul was thankful to the fans for bringing Dr Beckett back to Stargate Atlantis.
- Paul and Rachel both said that David Hewlett is just like Dr Rodney McKay.
- Paul said that a prank was pulled on Rachel, where he and Jason were throwing twigs into the crack of Rachel’s pants during SGA when she was up in a tree.
- Paul said that Joe Flanigan played a prank on him. Paul had to carry a big backpack of stuff – and Joe kept adding rocks to it during the scene. He then left the set to go home, and Paul was told to look in his backpack. Paul was just sweating because the backpack was so heavy.
- When Rachel was pregnant, the cast and crew of SGA made a scrapbook of well wishes for her on her baby. Paul put on Rachel’s wig, costume and her stunt doubles baby belly, and took a series of photos for the scrapbook – such as him with bottles with the caption ‘Mummy is drunk’. I can’t remember the others but there was one of him eating, lying down etc. So Rachel was going through the scrapbook and truly touched by all the messages, until she got to Paul’s page and was mortified.
- Paul said he had a lot of liens to learn. Jason Momoa would come in, go through the script and be done within a second, because of his lack of lines. Paul said he had trouble with the long monologues, but he would call his brother who has the Scottish accent and ask him how to say certain things in Scottish and to understand what he was meant to be talking about.
- Rachel said she wasn’t thrilled about the episode where she gets turned into a wraith because she was nursing at the time. So she would put different degrees of avocado on her face so her baby would get used to her in the costume. But when she was all made up, her baby just laughed at her, so it was fine. She said had an early make up call.
- Paul said he filmed his death episode out of order, so even though his character was dead he still had to finish some episodes.
Timothy Omundson
- He said filming the finale of Galavant in Morocco was such an interesting feat. Because it’s a film town and there’s different monuments all around the place. Someone would film there and just leave their props.
- He sung ‘Goodnight My Friend’ from Galavant – but asked us not to record it.
- He said that he had a lot of trouble with the dancing on Galavant. He said the singing was easier because they got to do many takes and perfect it. The dancing, they often didn’t have a lot of time on it.
- Timothy said he loved working with Jensen Ackles on Supernatural. He didn’t really have many scenes with Jared. But he hoped they’d bring him back to the show.
- Timothy said he gets bored easily and likes diversity, so he likes to follow up doing something light with something more heavy. The next thing he’s working on is an animation.
- He said his favourite place to film has been England.
- He said that his favourite guest star on Galavant was Ricky Gervais. He said how nervous he was, but his wife told him to act cool around him. So he did, but inside he was just dying inside because he was just so excited.
- He said he enjoyed working with Kylie Minogue and said she was lovely.
- He said they’ve been very fortunate to have so many celebrities enjoying the show. He said William Shatner is a big supporter and they’ve chatted on twitter. He mentioned how William is 79 (I think) yet he does the same hours as every one else and doesn’t complain. But a super nice guy who loves the craft.
- He said that on Galavant they were doing a pie gag. But they were stopping before hitting Vinnie Jones in the face with the pie. But one take, he didn’t hear the director say not to pie him. So he pied him. And Vinnie wasn’t too happy – but that’s the take you see in the television show.
- He said working on Xena was a great experience. He said he went in for the cast read and Lucy and Renee totally ignored him throughout the whole day. So he felt really rotten about being in New Zealand for the week to film the show. But then the two of them came into the room and laughed, and said they were told to act mean to him as a joke. He said during Lucy’s day off, she texted him and asked if he’d like a tour of New Zealand. He said it is quite uncommon for the star of a television series to do that when they’re working 6 hours day, but are nice enough to do that on their one day off. So he said it was nice to see her during this convention.
- I wish I could remember more about what he said about Tad Cooper, but I believe he said the lizard/dragon was played by Bruce, but there was also a fake plastic copy as well.
Jed Brophy
- Jed said the crew of The Hobbit knew he was cast as a dwarf before he did, because they had a photo of his face to do costume trials.
- Jed would like to be in a Western.
- Jed said that he started riding horses as a child.
- He said that he has never had to audition for Peter Jackson, except the first which was for Heavenly Creatures.
- He said he did his own stunts in Brain Dead, including falling down the stairs. He mentioned he’d had a lot of injuries in his career.
- He said that he got very nervous working with Cate Blanchett. He said that she came into his trailer and asked him for an autograph and he just couldn’t speak because he was so in awe of her. He also said she smokes. Who knew.
- He said a hard scene to film was in Braid Dead was getting an axe in the head. He had to do the scene backwards, so pull the axe out and walk backwards. He said it is very hard to walk backwards – because it looks strange when put the right way. So that was difficult.
- He said it is easier playing a bad guy because it’s much harder to play a straight character, before they have a format. Whereas, a bad guy, you decide the degree of how evil they are and they’re motives.
- He said he originally didn’t want to do the role in the Shannara Chronicles because of the heavy makeup. But when he saw the ideas they were thinking of for his character, he was very excited. He said it takes five hours to put all the layers on – and there are many layers on his face, so he doesn’t have to overact from one layered piece. He said that makes it easier.
- He also said the language in the Shannara Chronicles was made up by a linguist. Basically, a master of languages. He said he enjoys the challenges of speaking in the language.
TINSEL and TAP SHOES 