I am alive....
Jun. 16th, 2004 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lonelybritAh, so this weekend was all about Hyperion.
If you want a great summary of the weekend, I suggest you head over to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
esmerelda_t's LJ and read hers first. Priceless :)
Anyway, went to Hyperion with Ez,gingerpig, Akasha (from ASSB), and two other British mates who don't go online much.
Friday: New faces.
So, all of us bar GP and Aksaha met up at Heathrow, having used buses, tubes, and coaches to negotiate our way to outside of Little Chef. The remaining two were already waiting for us at the Thistle. Akasha I was meeting for the first time, and she turned out to be an absolute gem. Lovely to talk to, full of smiles, and, bless her, she even brought munchies.
The main even of the evening was the welcoming ceremony, where all the guests came out. If they were undaunted by 800 fans screaming, then they would smile and say something and then wave graciously and go away again.
If it was their first convention ever, e.g. Jenny Mollen (Nina), then they would smile in terror, laugh, and run away. Very quickly.
Later on I queued up to get autographs from Vincent, Jenny, Andy, Brody Hutzler (Landok, Lorne's Pylean cousin), Dayne Johnson (makeup).
Vincent was driving the stewards up the wall by being utterly insane, bouncing up and down, and doing mini-dances-of-joy when he was supposed to be signing. You gotta love that guy :) So,yes, it did cause quite a backlog, but it was very entertaining.
Jenny was charming, she said she literally had goosebumps on her arms when waiting to come out on stage that first time. It made her day when a man told her she looked absolutely wonderful. (She'd just gotten off a plane and was convinced she looked like death warmed up.) SHe did though. It's unfair ;)
Andy put out a general plea for eyedrops. Which, bizarrely, my friend actually had. We're thinking of auctioning off the bottle on eBay...
Brody was pretty, and Dayne had a blast posing with puppet Angel that someone had brought along.
The day ended with a party. And much drinking. And with the sleeziest guy in leather trousers plonking himself at our table and trying to sweettalk us. Other than that, very fun!
Saturday: Boxers or briefs?
The first day of talks and photoshoots.
I had my picture taken with Andy and Brody. When I got to the front of the queue I finally realised that this was going to be quite awkward and, sure enough, when I finally walked up to the two, I barely came up to their elbows.
I can't help it if I'm short.
My friend laughed. Andy suggested that maybe they could pick me up.
I firmly said no. Anyway, there are worse things in life than loomed over on either side by those two. I can live with the humiliation...
The first talk came from Brody Hutzler, who said the main thing he remembered from shooting Angel was pain. The glue stings, the mask digs into your neck, the contacts are huge, and one time he got something toxic in his ear that wound up giving him a burn.
He loved the guy who played Lorne's mother in the ep, said he vaguely knew the actor and was very impressed by him. He also was clearly very taken with Andy Hallet. Seems the Pyleans really are a friendly crowd.
And apparently, not many people realised that it was in fact Joss who was Numfar. The makeup is very concealing.
Next up was Jenny Mollen, a.k.a. Nina.
She is, as I have said, very sweet and charming. She was already a fan of the show when she went to read for the role of Eve. Which, obviously, she didn't get. But she was called back and asked to read for Nina instead. It was nice watching her, because she was
When asked how was it filming with a puppet, she laughed.
JM: It's the eyes. I was fine when his back was turned, but when you see the eyes... I'd just melt.
Also, the puppeteers used to have fun. Jenny would be saying her lines and all of a sudden this felt hand would be worming its way down her front...
DB also kidnapped her on her first day. Kind of.
The first scene she shot was the one where Angel drops Nina back at her house at the end of Unleashed. It was done at some hideously early hour in the morning. She turned up, climbed in the car, and then a fuming DB stormed out from his trailer, slammed into the driver's seat. And took off. Leaving camera crew and set far behind them as off they roared into the countryside.
Turned out they'd called him out early and he'd been sitting on set for hours whilst they got everything ready.
DB: I figured I'd make them wait for a bit.
That aside, she said DB was great to work with. Very sweet and always trying to put her at her ease.
Oh, and just FYI. The convulsions she did were based on 'An American Werewolf In London', which she watched the night before as part of her preparation :)
Vincent Kartheiser and Julie Benz were sweet. Although Vincent did keep going, 'Dude, I'm so sorry', after every dirty joke involving Darla/Julie to her husband, John Kassir, who was sitting in the audience. LOL!
Julie clearly thought very highly of DB. She said how often she would still be in tears after a particularly emotional scene, and he would be wonderful in helping to pick her up and get her ready to continue shooting.
There was also a point where the two were asked to sign a Get Well card for someone's wife. Whilst Vincent was crouched on the ground signing...
QUESTION: Sorry, but gotta ask. Boxers or briefs?
JULIE: One moment.
Julie nips over and pulls the the back of Vincent's trousers back.
JULIE: Boxers.
VINCENT: *stares*
AUDIENCE: *cheers*
Someone then shouted out if they could ask the same of Julie, to which her husband shouted out a most definite 'NO!'
Asked what their most embarassing moment was when shooting Angel, Julie said it was when she walked off set, thinking she was done, only to remember at the last moment after watching the continuing scene for five minutes, that she was meant to be saying the next line, and having to dash back on in a subtle way.
Vincent said it was when shooting the rescue of Sunny in 'Whole New World'. He was wearing leather trousers, and as he leapt over the car, the seam ripped from back to front, and *cough* 'Jimmy' came out for all to see.
As for ambitions for the future, Julie would like to set up her own knitting line, and to raise a family.
Finally, it was Amy Acker and Andy Hallet.
They spent most of the talk giggling and unable to speak. Which was nice but not particularly informative.
Be warned, however, it *is* always the quiet ones. Acker may have the face of an angel, but she showed herself to happily possess a mind as dirty as any decent slash fan on LJ-land :) After Andy had whispered in her ear for a while whilst she giggled, she finally interrupted him to tell the audience that his favourite slash fic involved Angel, Lorne, a shower, a bar of soap, and three fingers. Andy looked briefly horrified that she said it outloud. She just doubled up laughing.
Andy said that he was genuinely frightened of Acker when she was all done up in her makeup and costume. Apparently on-set they played it that Lorne was terrified of Illyria, although that never got specifically mentioned. He is clearly in awe of her, and he and the audience gave her a round of applause for the work she did this season.
Acker said that if there had been a Season 6, then the ending would have been slightly different.
Firstly, Wesley wouldn't have died. Then, it would have been like taking out the mafia. The Season would have ended with the taking out of the Black Thorn. Season 6 would have then been about the consequences of that. (i.e., no final stand in an alley.)
As for the future, she said she had heard talks of possibly movie of the week type deals. In which case, each movie would deal with each character's POV during the fight. It was unclear whether this meant the fight with the Black Thorn, or the fight that followed. Either way, it sounds like it could be fun.
*If* it's ever done.
Ooh. And Joss called her out for coffee and told her straight out whilst they were queuing: 'I've decided to kill off Fred.'
He then waited several minutes before informing her that she would still be on the show. That she would be a demon goddess.
This later resulted in her and Alexis trying out that final scene in 'Shell' in Joss' kitchen as they all tried to figure Illyria out. Joss made the lights all blue and at one point had her walking like a bug in an effort to help. Aww.
Other than that, not much to report.
The party had linedancing to the theme of Doctor Who, so no surprise that we wound up munching M&M's upstairs before too long. We did pop down later to see VK and his girlfriend dancing. Jenny was there too, and Brody could be spotted by the small mob of women that surrounded him.
Sunday: Miaow...
More photoshoots. This time with Julie Benz and Vincent Kartheiser. Julie looked impossibly beautiful considering it was 9am. And Vincent looked impossibly awake, and yes, good looking, for someone who had been up until 4am that morning.
Later on, more talks.
Sarah Thompson and Jenny Mollen seemed to re-enact that scene from Hot Shots where everyone turns out to already know each other. In this case, turned out they went to the school or something, and they dated each other's best friends. But they never actually met until Hyperion.
New-wise, they didn't have much to impart, although they did give good talks. Talking about their favourite actresses, what their families thought, advice for people thinking of acting... etc.
Sarah did say that one of the hard things is being told 'Well, we've offered the part to Katie Holmes, but if she says no then you've got the part'. Happened to her on Mona Lisa Smile where she lost out to Stiles.
On the plus side, she was tickled pink when she went for an audition, and the director looked at her face, frowned, looked down at her CV...
DIRECTOR: OMG! You're EVE!! You're from Angel. I love that show!
Yep, he was a fan. And he was starstruck. She said it was kinda nice having it that way round this time :)
Jenny Mollen had a sort of similar experience when she took the kid of a friend to the set when they were shooting 'The Girl In Question'. She said it was hard trying to act all cool and not get all fangirly squee-y when introducing the kid to Darla and Dru so he could get autographs.
Particularly Darla, as that was her favourite character on the show. She loves the character and Julie Benz.
She also said that even though she never shot any scenes with him, she was on set a few times when Alexis Denisof was filming. And she said 'there was something special... just this feeling' when watching, and that she thought him 'just a brilliant actor'.
So. Quick announcement. I will not hear a word against Nina ever again. ;)
Vincent Kartheiser officially stole the show with his final talk. He came out looking utterly wreaked, clutching what could have been a cup of tea, smoking like a chimney, swearing like a... thing that swears a lot. He was wonderful!
Highlights included him being asked what was his favourite sexual position was. A question that would have floored some, but he just ran with.
VK: I'm a lazy fuck... Nah, I prefer cuddling. I like having my head massaged, my chest, my legs, my arms, my neck, my stomach... at the same time... WHich is why I'm dating an octopus... And he's lovely.
Another classic moment was when he divided the audience in two. One half had to do 'happy, pleased to see you' miaow's. THe other half had to 'pissed-off, where the hell have you been, feed me!' miaows. He then proceeded to conduct us in a rousing chorus of 'Yes, we are insane, deal with it'.
Finally, he gave us a perfect demonstration of the 'Come Hither' look that had every female in the audience starting to rise to their feet out of pure reflex. Seriously, if a guy can look at you like that, and then beckons you, your body responds waaaaay before your brain catches up!
Dayne Johnson made up a member of the audience to look just like Illyria, which was pretty damn impressive. Three hours and a bit of blue pain and airbrushing and sponging... and of course those evil contacts, and the Old One was among us. Originally the plan was to have Illyria simply blue, but Dayne decided to add the mottling and texture you can see on her. Which I am impressed by because that part, for me, was one of the best aspects of her makeup.
Andy Hallet, Dayne Johnson, Sparky (Props) and Brody Hutzler all came out for the last talk. They were very funny, Dayne being the perfect straight man whilst Andy bounced off the walls. There were lots of funny short stories and comments. All of which seemed to show that all the guys are very fond of Andy, and that Mark Lutz will scale the wall and climb up onto Andy's balcony when the doorbell isn't answered.
And that was it.
Truth be told, not much was learned from the talks, although some of them were highly entertaining. VK was brilliant and definitely the star of the show.
The hotel was grrrr.
The company was wonderful, and we all decided to meet up next year at Quor'toth. Yay :)
My God that's long and rambly. Urgh. Sorry about that. It's kinda late here, but if I can I'll try and edit that down a bit later!
If you want a great summary of the weekend, I suggest you head over to
esmerelda_t's LJ and read hers first. Priceless :)Anyway, went to Hyperion with Ez,
gingerpig, Akasha (from ASSB), and two other British mates who don't go online much.Friday: New faces.
So, all of us bar GP and Aksaha met up at Heathrow, having used buses, tubes, and coaches to negotiate our way to outside of Little Chef. The remaining two were already waiting for us at the Thistle. Akasha I was meeting for the first time, and she turned out to be an absolute gem. Lovely to talk to, full of smiles, and, bless her, she even brought munchies.
The main even of the evening was the welcoming ceremony, where all the guests came out. If they were undaunted by 800 fans screaming, then they would smile and say something and then wave graciously and go away again.
If it was their first convention ever, e.g. Jenny Mollen (Nina), then they would smile in terror, laugh, and run away. Very quickly.
Later on I queued up to get autographs from Vincent, Jenny, Andy, Brody Hutzler (Landok, Lorne's Pylean cousin), Dayne Johnson (makeup).
Vincent was driving the stewards up the wall by being utterly insane, bouncing up and down, and doing mini-dances-of-joy when he was supposed to be signing. You gotta love that guy :) So,yes, it did cause quite a backlog, but it was very entertaining.
Jenny was charming, she said she literally had goosebumps on her arms when waiting to come out on stage that first time. It made her day when a man told her she looked absolutely wonderful. (She'd just gotten off a plane and was convinced she looked like death warmed up.) SHe did though. It's unfair ;)
Andy put out a general plea for eyedrops. Which, bizarrely, my friend actually had. We're thinking of auctioning off the bottle on eBay...
Brody was pretty, and Dayne had a blast posing with puppet Angel that someone had brought along.
The day ended with a party. And much drinking. And with the sleeziest guy in leather trousers plonking himself at our table and trying to sweettalk us. Other than that, very fun!
Saturday: Boxers or briefs?
The first day of talks and photoshoots.
I had my picture taken with Andy and Brody. When I got to the front of the queue I finally realised that this was going to be quite awkward and, sure enough, when I finally walked up to the two, I barely came up to their elbows.
I can't help it if I'm short.
My friend laughed. Andy suggested that maybe they could pick me up.
I firmly said no. Anyway, there are worse things in life than loomed over on either side by those two. I can live with the humiliation...
The first talk came from Brody Hutzler, who said the main thing he remembered from shooting Angel was pain. The glue stings, the mask digs into your neck, the contacts are huge, and one time he got something toxic in his ear that wound up giving him a burn.
He loved the guy who played Lorne's mother in the ep, said he vaguely knew the actor and was very impressed by him. He also was clearly very taken with Andy Hallet. Seems the Pyleans really are a friendly crowd.
And apparently, not many people realised that it was in fact Joss who was Numfar. The makeup is very concealing.
Next up was Jenny Mollen, a.k.a. Nina.
She is, as I have said, very sweet and charming. She was already a fan of the show when she went to read for the role of Eve. Which, obviously, she didn't get. But she was called back and asked to read for Nina instead. It was nice watching her, because she was
When asked how was it filming with a puppet, she laughed.
JM: It's the eyes. I was fine when his back was turned, but when you see the eyes... I'd just melt.
Also, the puppeteers used to have fun. Jenny would be saying her lines and all of a sudden this felt hand would be worming its way down her front...
DB also kidnapped her on her first day. Kind of.
The first scene she shot was the one where Angel drops Nina back at her house at the end of Unleashed. It was done at some hideously early hour in the morning. She turned up, climbed in the car, and then a fuming DB stormed out from his trailer, slammed into the driver's seat. And took off. Leaving camera crew and set far behind them as off they roared into the countryside.
Turned out they'd called him out early and he'd been sitting on set for hours whilst they got everything ready.
DB: I figured I'd make them wait for a bit.
That aside, she said DB was great to work with. Very sweet and always trying to put her at her ease.
Oh, and just FYI. The convulsions she did were based on 'An American Werewolf In London', which she watched the night before as part of her preparation :)
Vincent Kartheiser and Julie Benz were sweet. Although Vincent did keep going, 'Dude, I'm so sorry', after every dirty joke involving Darla/Julie to her husband, John Kassir, who was sitting in the audience. LOL!
Julie clearly thought very highly of DB. She said how often she would still be in tears after a particularly emotional scene, and he would be wonderful in helping to pick her up and get her ready to continue shooting.
There was also a point where the two were asked to sign a Get Well card for someone's wife. Whilst Vincent was crouched on the ground signing...
QUESTION: Sorry, but gotta ask. Boxers or briefs?
JULIE: One moment.
Julie nips over and pulls the the back of Vincent's trousers back.
JULIE: Boxers.
VINCENT: *stares*
AUDIENCE: *cheers*
Someone then shouted out if they could ask the same of Julie, to which her husband shouted out a most definite 'NO!'
Asked what their most embarassing moment was when shooting Angel, Julie said it was when she walked off set, thinking she was done, only to remember at the last moment after watching the continuing scene for five minutes, that she was meant to be saying the next line, and having to dash back on in a subtle way.
Vincent said it was when shooting the rescue of Sunny in 'Whole New World'. He was wearing leather trousers, and as he leapt over the car, the seam ripped from back to front, and *cough* 'Jimmy' came out for all to see.
As for ambitions for the future, Julie would like to set up her own knitting line, and to raise a family.
Finally, it was Amy Acker and Andy Hallet.
They spent most of the talk giggling and unable to speak. Which was nice but not particularly informative.
Be warned, however, it *is* always the quiet ones. Acker may have the face of an angel, but she showed herself to happily possess a mind as dirty as any decent slash fan on LJ-land :) After Andy had whispered in her ear for a while whilst she giggled, she finally interrupted him to tell the audience that his favourite slash fic involved Angel, Lorne, a shower, a bar of soap, and three fingers. Andy looked briefly horrified that she said it outloud. She just doubled up laughing.
Andy said that he was genuinely frightened of Acker when she was all done up in her makeup and costume. Apparently on-set they played it that Lorne was terrified of Illyria, although that never got specifically mentioned. He is clearly in awe of her, and he and the audience gave her a round of applause for the work she did this season.
Acker said that if there had been a Season 6, then the ending would have been slightly different.
Firstly, Wesley wouldn't have died. Then, it would have been like taking out the mafia. The Season would have ended with the taking out of the Black Thorn. Season 6 would have then been about the consequences of that. (i.e., no final stand in an alley.)
As for the future, she said she had heard talks of possibly movie of the week type deals. In which case, each movie would deal with each character's POV during the fight. It was unclear whether this meant the fight with the Black Thorn, or the fight that followed. Either way, it sounds like it could be fun.
*If* it's ever done.
Ooh. And Joss called her out for coffee and told her straight out whilst they were queuing: 'I've decided to kill off Fred.'
He then waited several minutes before informing her that she would still be on the show. That she would be a demon goddess.
This later resulted in her and Alexis trying out that final scene in 'Shell' in Joss' kitchen as they all tried to figure Illyria out. Joss made the lights all blue and at one point had her walking like a bug in an effort to help. Aww.
Other than that, not much to report.
The party had linedancing to the theme of Doctor Who, so no surprise that we wound up munching M&M's upstairs before too long. We did pop down later to see VK and his girlfriend dancing. Jenny was there too, and Brody could be spotted by the small mob of women that surrounded him.
Sunday: Miaow...
More photoshoots. This time with Julie Benz and Vincent Kartheiser. Julie looked impossibly beautiful considering it was 9am. And Vincent looked impossibly awake, and yes, good looking, for someone who had been up until 4am that morning.
Later on, more talks.
Sarah Thompson and Jenny Mollen seemed to re-enact that scene from Hot Shots where everyone turns out to already know each other. In this case, turned out they went to the school or something, and they dated each other's best friends. But they never actually met until Hyperion.
New-wise, they didn't have much to impart, although they did give good talks. Talking about their favourite actresses, what their families thought, advice for people thinking of acting... etc.
Sarah did say that one of the hard things is being told 'Well, we've offered the part to Katie Holmes, but if she says no then you've got the part'. Happened to her on Mona Lisa Smile where she lost out to Stiles.
On the plus side, she was tickled pink when she went for an audition, and the director looked at her face, frowned, looked down at her CV...
DIRECTOR: OMG! You're EVE!! You're from Angel. I love that show!
Yep, he was a fan. And he was starstruck. She said it was kinda nice having it that way round this time :)
Jenny Mollen had a sort of similar experience when she took the kid of a friend to the set when they were shooting 'The Girl In Question'. She said it was hard trying to act all cool and not get all fangirly squee-y when introducing the kid to Darla and Dru so he could get autographs.
Particularly Darla, as that was her favourite character on the show. She loves the character and Julie Benz.
She also said that even though she never shot any scenes with him, she was on set a few times when Alexis Denisof was filming. And she said 'there was something special... just this feeling' when watching, and that she thought him 'just a brilliant actor'.
So. Quick announcement. I will not hear a word against Nina ever again. ;)
Vincent Kartheiser officially stole the show with his final talk. He came out looking utterly wreaked, clutching what could have been a cup of tea, smoking like a chimney, swearing like a... thing that swears a lot. He was wonderful!
Highlights included him being asked what was his favourite sexual position was. A question that would have floored some, but he just ran with.
VK: I'm a lazy fuck... Nah, I prefer cuddling. I like having my head massaged, my chest, my legs, my arms, my neck, my stomach... at the same time... WHich is why I'm dating an octopus... And he's lovely.
Another classic moment was when he divided the audience in two. One half had to do 'happy, pleased to see you' miaow's. THe other half had to 'pissed-off, where the hell have you been, feed me!' miaows. He then proceeded to conduct us in a rousing chorus of 'Yes, we are insane, deal with it'.
Finally, he gave us a perfect demonstration of the 'Come Hither' look that had every female in the audience starting to rise to their feet out of pure reflex. Seriously, if a guy can look at you like that, and then beckons you, your body responds waaaaay before your brain catches up!
Dayne Johnson made up a member of the audience to look just like Illyria, which was pretty damn impressive. Three hours and a bit of blue pain and airbrushing and sponging... and of course those evil contacts, and the Old One was among us. Originally the plan was to have Illyria simply blue, but Dayne decided to add the mottling and texture you can see on her. Which I am impressed by because that part, for me, was one of the best aspects of her makeup.
Andy Hallet, Dayne Johnson, Sparky (Props) and Brody Hutzler all came out for the last talk. They were very funny, Dayne being the perfect straight man whilst Andy bounced off the walls. There were lots of funny short stories and comments. All of which seemed to show that all the guys are very fond of Andy, and that Mark Lutz will scale the wall and climb up onto Andy's balcony when the doorbell isn't answered.
And that was it.
Truth be told, not much was learned from the talks, although some of them were highly entertaining. VK was brilliant and definitely the star of the show.
The hotel was grrrr.
The company was wonderful, and we all decided to meet up next year at Quor'toth. Yay :)
My God that's long and rambly. Urgh. Sorry about that. It's kinda late here, but if I can I'll try and edit that down a bit later!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 01:51 am (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 02:50 am (UTC)You too huh? Saturday when we went back down is just a big gap for me, I remember footloose, I remember squeeing and dragging someone up when Brimful of Asha came on, and I remember being in the shower....... the rest is fuzzy, although Sunday morning's coming back, I now remember saying loudly at the front of the queue "Julie's boob's arent as big as I thought they'd be, not that I think about them much".
*head* *desk*
:)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 06:25 am (UTC)Saturday night... wasn't that the night we all swore we'd drink *nothing*?
Right. **blushes**
no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-16 06:22 am (UTC)Dude. Cool icon :)
LOL. Yep, I do have rather a lot of the achohol addled blanks when it comes to the evenings. Plus the fact that there's now a half-empty rum bottle sitting on the hall table. Hmm...