Con report: Farscape, Ben Browder and SG1
Nov. 22nd, 2005 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tenayaIt was a good con and I had a great time. It'd been a couple of years since I'd been to a Farscape con and it was delightful. Farscape really was a wonderful show. And it was always good to hear nice things about Michael Shanks and Chris Judge.
There was a Farscape Creation Convention in Burbank, CA over the weekend of Nov. 18 – 20, 2005. As usual, it was well run and all that was promised was delivered. This time, I merely bought the day pass for each day I attended and did not go to any of the special events. It was less exciting, but boy was it more relaxing! I got sleep for a change and more opportunity to chat with my out-of-town friend.
All the guests were wonderful and quite interesting to listen too. I even ended up buying a candle from Virginia Hey. Her products are available at www.whiteflowerlei.com. Orange Blossom Jasmine, and it really smells like those scents. Very, very nice.
Anyway, I’m not going to give a complete report; I’ll leave that task for the Scapers. Instead, since my main interest is SG-1 and Daniel in particular, I am doing direct quotes for some stuff, paraphrasing for other things, and summaries for the rest. Ben Browder has a tendency to repeat himself for emphasis, so sometimes I did not transcribe the repeats. Also, when telling a story, he does the voices for other people’s thoughts and such. You can follow what’s going on very easily but it’s a little daunting to transcribe all that. I suppose you might get a little confused at times, but, well, sorry about that. Imperfect and done beats perfect and months late. I got RL stuff to do (we’re doing the Turkey Day thing right now as I work the actual holiday.) The format is along the lines of bullet point summaries. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Francesca Bueller, wife of Ben Browder, is intelligent, friendly, perceptive and seems quite sensible. I liked her a lot. She talked on Sunday, just before Ben came out.
She said she modeled Minister Ahkna after Joanna Lumley -- on a bad day.
They did have 3 cats, 2 dogs, but 2 of the cats were eaten by coyotes. When asked if Ben is a cat or dog person, she stated Ben is a no-pet person. She mimed, pointing to the different imaginary pets around her, saying, “mistake, mistake, mistake…”
Prosthetics weren’t easy for her because she is claustrophobic. She said she was cleaning out a covered cat litter box and realized it was a lot like wearing prosthetics.
She doesn’t watch SG because she doesn’t think her kids are ready for it yet and they always come running when they hear the music.
Because TV series are precarious and she wants her kids to have a normal life, they maintain their home in Los Angeles, and Ben commutes down to see his family each weekend, leaving late on Friday or early on Saturday. She would go to www.ben-browder.com to remember who she was married to.
She ended her talk with a determined, spirited, “I don’t know about you but I’m going to go on Gateworld and say we don’t see enough of him!” That was met by cheers and more applause.
Ben Browder is very charming, exuberant, self-depreciating, humorous, somewhat evasive in answering questions and protects the details of his private life, his choices while acting and any spoilers.
He first played about with a mannequin that was dressed in his costume of leather pants, the red top with all those horizontal buckles, and the full length leather coat complete with pitting from the pyro burns from all the explosions during filming. The coat was auctioned for $10,000, as was the pants and shirt set. $20,000!! Wow! He made the stipulation before it was auctioned off later that whoever won it, would allow them to buy it back or rent it back for the film if ever it was made.
He posted photos of himself in the bath, driving to work. He tried the webcam thing then realized that was the net and some fan could possibly tap into it—and see him eating yet more cottage cheese and diet coke. What is difference between John Crichton and Cameron Mitchell? “He’s skinnier!”
The SG guys try to keep him from going too far left, whereas on Farscape, they were like, “Go left! Go left!”
They paused for a bit to play a vid called, “Johnny are you queer?” He loved it! It had Crichton doing all sorts of stuff with the male characters in the show. It was quite funny.
The next question was ‘how did you feel being on the SG panel at ComicCon?’ “I felt guilty, because there was a LOT of folks there.” He did the “Hell yeah!” shout, which was enthusiastically repeated by the audience. He said we did it better.
Mitchell is in the background in first half of season 9, does it get better? “It’s a writer thing. The fan base of SG is huge and vocal. There was concern and it’s been well handled.” He then praised the writing of Vala, and mentioned there were reasons Mitchell wasn’t so up front, what with the Vala stories and the return of Carter. He felt the writers had down an outstanding job.
No new projects in the immediate future as he wants to spend the holidays with his family as he has basically been away for eight months.
Would he portray a character morally reprehensible? “Crichton was morally reprehensible all the time.” You have to ask yourself, is the story worth telling, justified, will it entertain an audience and do you want to do it? And who are you working with? Farscape was the Henson Company and he was excited to be involved with them.
Someone asked something about the Society against Cruelty to Crichton. He joked that it was Society against Cruelty to Cameron. He worried about saying something that would end up on the internet…or a t-shirt.
Someone said SG has the reputation of being rabid when you replace one beloved character with another… “Is this the Richard Dean Anderson question?” She asked if he’d gotten any flak from fans?
“I haven’t gotten any flak from anybody in fandom. Everyone’s been lovely to me. I think the internet allows people to take radical positions and some people sitting in the privacy of their basement…while their parents are asleep…feel free to espouse on the internet what they wouldn’t say to your face. So, I think all that has to be taken with a grain of salt, the idea of a rabid fandom. I don’t think it’s that big an issue. I think it’s a greater issue with how do you tell the story of when you come in after losing a beloved character and the continuity of the show. The numbers say that as many people watching this year as last year”…”They’ve done a good job handling that transition. If it works, it’s a credit to the writers, and the directors and all those people who have been doing that show for so long. While I may have some qualms and worries about it going in, they’ve done a good job of belaying those worries for me and hopefully for the fans.” Someone vocally agreed. “And he’s not even in his basement!”
Question how did they refrain from doing Monty Python jokes during Avalon? “Oh, we got to do some Monty Python lines here! Where’s the vorple Rabbit? They looked at me like what’s a vorple rabbit?” He tried to bring in a vorple rabbit line. “I was going through that cave, “Do you think there are any rabbits around here?” “Ben, what are you doing?” “Nothing, I just…nevermind.”
He’s completely opposed to spoilers.
There was some question I couldn’t hear and he said, “Amanda’s lovely. Let’s talk! The SG cast and crew has been doing this for an amazingly long period of time. How do you play a character for eight years? It is not easy. It’s not easy even to play a character for four years. That’s a long time to maintain a character if you’re trying to do interesting work. And they are. Amanda and Chris and Michael, and RDA when he was on the show, did an amazing job of continuing the story and playing their characters, and they, at least to my eyes, seem to enjoy and love being there. And that’s an important part. They have a big family up there in SG. The producers, BW, RC and John Smith and all the people up there think of themselves as a big family. And that’s a great thing to have. They’re not as dysfunctional as we were on Farscape; they don’t have as many loony uncles in the attic. They’re a very, very good bunch of people and they obviously care about what it is they make and they’re proud of what they make. And that’s important. I’m the new kid in the house. I can’t take credit for anything, because they built the house. I’m the new kid finding the rules of the house, where to put the trash, where do my socks go. Not on the floor, honey? You’re not going to pick up my socks? No? God forbid. (laughs) You learn those rules as you go along, and when they’ve been doing it for eight years and I’ve just come in and done a year, I’m still learning the rules, the ropes, the limitations and all that other stuff, and it’s probably a good lesson for me to learn. Next?
“This question goes back to last year but I want to get your opinion: who’s the better kisser Claudia Black or Michael Shanks?” (I think this refers to someone asking Claudia who was a better kisser, Ben or Michael?)
“Beau Bridges! You know, now oddly enough I have kissed Beau, I have kissed Chris Judge. “Johnny are you…” he sings. But I haven’t kissed Michael and I think that…that might just be weird. Me kissing Michael Shanks…nope, I haven’t kissed him. But Beau Bridges is fine!
Will there be nose porn on SG? “Can you imagine going to the writer’s office and pitching that one? “Hey Brad, I got this thing I do for all my fans. I need some nose porn.” Seriously, nose porn…I’m picturing it’s a hard pitch to the writer’s office. Well you know…maybe.”
Someone thanked him for giving him a reason to watch SG as it was hard to do because he blamed SG for Farscape’s cancellation. “There’re a few issues here.”
Chris Judge and Anthony Simcoe actually fill a very similar function on the set. Anthony would come on set and be the loudest and rudest, crudest individual you could imagine...until you meet Chris Judge. I was talking to my mom and I started to go, “Mom, you should come up to Vancouver and…no. I’m not letting my mother anywhere near that set! When there’s children on set, “Chris! Hey, Judge! Warning. Children! Danger, Danger!” They actually fulfill similar function on the set, whether there’s certain archetypes they fulfill, which they do, within the science fiction convention, that’s not this kind of convention, but the conventions of science fiction there are certain similarities, but what startled me was the similarities in personality. I was just, wow! I guess Michael Dorn was the same way.”
A man said, “Good afternoon. Hmmm..you kissing Michael Shanks. How much Jack Daniels would it take to pull that one off?” “Heh heh…just put it in the script. I’m picturing Robert Cooper right now, “he wants to do what?” Joe Mallozzi will go over there “and what’s all this about you wanting to kiss Michael Shanks on the show?” I didn’t say that! They said that! “And you want Cameron Mitchell drinking Jack Daniels all the time! Keep him away from the writing room!”
The New York City story…he wouldn’t repeat it.
Speaking about Crichton, “if you wander around and have conversations in your head with imaginary friends and act on those conversations, you might be insane.”
What are the difference between Canadian set and Australian set? “The minute she asked that question, I thought, what’s the difference between you and Michael Shanks? I found out! Michael and I are identical except I wear a size 13 and he wears a size 9 shoe. That’s about it, other than that, it’s hard to tell us apart. The spookiest thing was how many times I’d be on the set and someone would go, “Michael, we need you on…oh. You’re the new guy.” And the minute I thought, okay, this is done and no one is going to confuse me with Michael Shanks, who is Canadian, and that’s the difference between Canadian sets and American sets is that Americans have size 13 shoes. I just offended the entire country of Canada!. Yeah, they do, but they won’t tell you about it. That’s the thing. First they apologize. “I’m sorry, but I’m offended.” Rob Cooper is up there right now getting a live transcript. “What’s all that about Canadians having small feet? How do you think we cut down all this wood with small feet? Cancel his visa! The man’s not allowed back in Vancouver.” So, anyway, I thought the Michael Shanks thing had finished until like the last week of shooting and one of the AD’s went, “Michael!” God, I’ve only been here for a year. We’re not that much alike” (said in a small pitiful whine.)
Canadian sets and Australian sets or American sets, every culture is different. We may speak some of the same words, language, but we’re different. Someone once described Australians as Canadians with attitude. I don’t know that I’d describe it that way, but we’ll leave that as an answer to your question. So, that would make Canadians, Australians without attitude. Wait til they read the transcript, Ben Browder at the Farscape con, “You said WHAT?” Oh merde…”I’ll get back to the set and Michael will be, “you got a problem with me?’”
No, Michael is great, by the way. He’s an incredibly smart actor, and I accidentally picked up his script and took it home. I was on set and said, “I can’t find my script” and someone handed it to me and I opened it up and whump! And it was like, naked pictures of Claudia Black! No, there weren’t. He prepares. Ten years in and man, that guy had dissected the lines, taken it all apart and he had obviously done the kind of preparation that you HOPE an actor does for a script and to do that, and be doing that nine years into a show requires a tremendous dedication and I have nothing but admiration for his abilities and for his preparation as an actor and truth be told, Michael and I get on fairly well. No, really well, except he does have a thing where when he’s on the set with me, he likes to put earplugs in so he can’t hear me talk. He did! I was on set one day, and he has this thing where he and Chris fight like an old married couple. They drive to work in the same car! It’s the odd couple! And he standing between us and Chris and I are like, yahyahyah. “I can’t put up with this! I’m going to start wearing earplugs!” The next day, I’m on set with him and I look in his ears and he’s got earplugs we use for gunfire in his ears, and he wore them the entire day! And I don’t blame him!”
When asked what his favorite scene was, he said, “I’d be loathed to cull anything from the herd and say that’s my favorite little cow. If you have a favorite little cow, you may be a redneck.”
He admits to not answering any questions that are ever asked.
He was asked if he’d like to write a SG episode. He is loathed to ask to write an episode; he is too busy learning the show. He did pitch an idea but he doesn’t want to write it. He gave them the idea if they wanted it. “I have an opinion. I know it’s an opinion, I’m not right, I’m not wrong, I just have an opinion. So when you’re getting pissed off because I’m giving you my opinion, just realize I know it’s an opinion and I don’t assume I’m right and often I am wrong. It’s hard for me to know when I’m right when I’m wrong so often. Right, Honey?” (said to his wife in the audience.) If he was on the side of creating a series, he’d want to write, but now he’s busy working all week and spending his weekends with his family. He’d prefer to leave the writing to writers.
His Richard Farnsworth story: When he was working with one of his first tv series, The Boys of Twilight, he “worked with Richard Farnsworth, a brave actor, stuntman from 1937—his first movie was Cecil B DeMille’s Marco Polo. He was Oscar nominated in his last performance before he died. He was in his 70s and he was sitting in his chair on the set. He never left the set. Young actors would leave the set…” to go to their trailers, to do stuff, use the phone, etc. “He would sleep in his chair on the set. He’s been in the business for 50 years. He stunt doubled Fonda, Cooper, Stewart, he knew anybody who was anything. John Wayne. First name basis with Ford. He was an amazing man, and he was a lovely actor. And I said, “Richard, you’re tired. Come back to the trailer for a nap.” And he turned to me and said, “Jimmy Stewart never left the set. If Jimmy Stewart can’t leave the set, who the hell would I think I am?” I thought that was a very important thing as an actor: you’re there to do a job -- stay there and do your job. And because I started practicing that, that simple piece of wisdom, I learned more about filmmaking, I learned more about storytelling by staying involved in the story. So that function of me, I don’t know that I’m a such good hard worker, I simply think I’m limited and I have to stay there so I’m not going to get left behind. That was Richard’s opinion and Richard was Oscar nominated.”
Someone asked about CJ leaving a rolled up brownie in BB’s trailer’s toilet. Yeah, that was classic. ‘Did you get him back?’ No, that was funny. Playing jokes is not his thing. “You see, I was on the set while he was rolling up a piece of brownie and turning it into a realistic doodoo and putting it in my toilet. For me to get Chris Judge back I’d have to be off set, rolling up a piece of brownie and putting it in his toilet. The first time I met Chris Judge, I sat in a production meeting because I had time before shooting and I was trying to learn the ropes. He walks in the meeting and he looks at me, “What the hell are you doing here? You already got the job, you kiss ass!” From that moment on, I knew we were going to get on like a house on fire!”
I couldn’t hear a question, but the answer was, “I am guilty. I read the internet once. I read a comment about Cameron Mitchell. “He had the worst Southern accent I’ve ever heard! I hate it when these Hollywood actors put on that Southern accent so bad.” I hang my head in shame, I can’t even do my native accent. What a nightmare.”
Someone thought it would be great if he played a villain. “You know I just want to be a villain that kills Brad Pitt. Let’s go back and to the Marathon Man, I’ll do Olivier part and we’ll get Tom Cruise and I’ll stick him.
“To be honest with you, the action hero role is the best role ever. I get to jump, I get to fall down, I get to shoot things. I get to do all the boy stuff that you always dream of. I’ll give you a SG spoiler. There was one day where I must have been covered in 40 pounds of mud. Cold, nasty mud. And I stood up dripping, and that was the most fun I had had in weeks. Now we’ll pretend that we’re civilized, and we’ll talk Shakespeare and we’ll take you out to dinner, but during the day we just want to be out there rolling around in the mud beating the hell out of each other!”
He ended his talk with: “I thank you for coming. I don’t do a lot of conventions, and the primary reason for doing this at all is to be able to thank you guys for giving me employment, for watching the stupid show and for being so lovely to be in mine. You guys are very generous, very intelligent, hard working, attractive people, and I just love you for it. It’s wonderful thing to be able to come up here to give back the affection that flows back and forth between the audience and the people who make the show. And so it’s my privilege and my honor to say thank you. Now, have fun now, alright?”
There was a Farscape Creation Convention in Burbank, CA over the weekend of Nov. 18 – 20, 2005. As usual, it was well run and all that was promised was delivered. This time, I merely bought the day pass for each day I attended and did not go to any of the special events. It was less exciting, but boy was it more relaxing! I got sleep for a change and more opportunity to chat with my out-of-town friend.
All the guests were wonderful and quite interesting to listen too. I even ended up buying a candle from Virginia Hey. Her products are available at www.whiteflowerlei.com. Orange Blossom Jasmine, and it really smells like those scents. Very, very nice.
Anyway, I’m not going to give a complete report; I’ll leave that task for the Scapers. Instead, since my main interest is SG-1 and Daniel in particular, I am doing direct quotes for some stuff, paraphrasing for other things, and summaries for the rest. Ben Browder has a tendency to repeat himself for emphasis, so sometimes I did not transcribe the repeats. Also, when telling a story, he does the voices for other people’s thoughts and such. You can follow what’s going on very easily but it’s a little daunting to transcribe all that. I suppose you might get a little confused at times, but, well, sorry about that. Imperfect and done beats perfect and months late. I got RL stuff to do (we’re doing the Turkey Day thing right now as I work the actual holiday.) The format is along the lines of bullet point summaries. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Francesca Bueller, wife of Ben Browder, is intelligent, friendly, perceptive and seems quite sensible. I liked her a lot. She talked on Sunday, just before Ben came out.
She said she modeled Minister Ahkna after Joanna Lumley -- on a bad day.
They did have 3 cats, 2 dogs, but 2 of the cats were eaten by coyotes. When asked if Ben is a cat or dog person, she stated Ben is a no-pet person. She mimed, pointing to the different imaginary pets around her, saying, “mistake, mistake, mistake…”
Prosthetics weren’t easy for her because she is claustrophobic. She said she was cleaning out a covered cat litter box and realized it was a lot like wearing prosthetics.
She doesn’t watch SG because she doesn’t think her kids are ready for it yet and they always come running when they hear the music.
Because TV series are precarious and she wants her kids to have a normal life, they maintain their home in Los Angeles, and Ben commutes down to see his family each weekend, leaving late on Friday or early on Saturday. She would go to www.ben-browder.com to remember who she was married to.
She ended her talk with a determined, spirited, “I don’t know about you but I’m going to go on Gateworld and say we don’t see enough of him!” That was met by cheers and more applause.
Ben Browder is very charming, exuberant, self-depreciating, humorous, somewhat evasive in answering questions and protects the details of his private life, his choices while acting and any spoilers.
He first played about with a mannequin that was dressed in his costume of leather pants, the red top with all those horizontal buckles, and the full length leather coat complete with pitting from the pyro burns from all the explosions during filming. The coat was auctioned for $10,000, as was the pants and shirt set. $20,000!! Wow! He made the stipulation before it was auctioned off later that whoever won it, would allow them to buy it back or rent it back for the film if ever it was made.
He posted photos of himself in the bath, driving to work. He tried the webcam thing then realized that was the net and some fan could possibly tap into it—and see him eating yet more cottage cheese and diet coke. What is difference between John Crichton and Cameron Mitchell? “He’s skinnier!”
The SG guys try to keep him from going too far left, whereas on Farscape, they were like, “Go left! Go left!”
They paused for a bit to play a vid called, “Johnny are you queer?” He loved it! It had Crichton doing all sorts of stuff with the male characters in the show. It was quite funny.
The next question was ‘how did you feel being on the SG panel at ComicCon?’ “I felt guilty, because there was a LOT of folks there.” He did the “Hell yeah!” shout, which was enthusiastically repeated by the audience. He said we did it better.
Mitchell is in the background in first half of season 9, does it get better? “It’s a writer thing. The fan base of SG is huge and vocal. There was concern and it’s been well handled.” He then praised the writing of Vala, and mentioned there were reasons Mitchell wasn’t so up front, what with the Vala stories and the return of Carter. He felt the writers had down an outstanding job.
No new projects in the immediate future as he wants to spend the holidays with his family as he has basically been away for eight months.
Would he portray a character morally reprehensible? “Crichton was morally reprehensible all the time.” You have to ask yourself, is the story worth telling, justified, will it entertain an audience and do you want to do it? And who are you working with? Farscape was the Henson Company and he was excited to be involved with them.
Someone asked something about the Society against Cruelty to Crichton. He joked that it was Society against Cruelty to Cameron. He worried about saying something that would end up on the internet…or a t-shirt.
Someone said SG has the reputation of being rabid when you replace one beloved character with another… “Is this the Richard Dean Anderson question?” She asked if he’d gotten any flak from fans?
“I haven’t gotten any flak from anybody in fandom. Everyone’s been lovely to me. I think the internet allows people to take radical positions and some people sitting in the privacy of their basement…while their parents are asleep…feel free to espouse on the internet what they wouldn’t say to your face. So, I think all that has to be taken with a grain of salt, the idea of a rabid fandom. I don’t think it’s that big an issue. I think it’s a greater issue with how do you tell the story of when you come in after losing a beloved character and the continuity of the show. The numbers say that as many people watching this year as last year”…”They’ve done a good job handling that transition. If it works, it’s a credit to the writers, and the directors and all those people who have been doing that show for so long. While I may have some qualms and worries about it going in, they’ve done a good job of belaying those worries for me and hopefully for the fans.” Someone vocally agreed. “And he’s not even in his basement!”
Question how did they refrain from doing Monty Python jokes during Avalon? “Oh, we got to do some Monty Python lines here! Where’s the vorple Rabbit? They looked at me like what’s a vorple rabbit?” He tried to bring in a vorple rabbit line. “I was going through that cave, “Do you think there are any rabbits around here?” “Ben, what are you doing?” “Nothing, I just…nevermind.”
He’s completely opposed to spoilers.
There was some question I couldn’t hear and he said, “Amanda’s lovely. Let’s talk! The SG cast and crew has been doing this for an amazingly long period of time. How do you play a character for eight years? It is not easy. It’s not easy even to play a character for four years. That’s a long time to maintain a character if you’re trying to do interesting work. And they are. Amanda and Chris and Michael, and RDA when he was on the show, did an amazing job of continuing the story and playing their characters, and they, at least to my eyes, seem to enjoy and love being there. And that’s an important part. They have a big family up there in SG. The producers, BW, RC and John Smith and all the people up there think of themselves as a big family. And that’s a great thing to have. They’re not as dysfunctional as we were on Farscape; they don’t have as many loony uncles in the attic. They’re a very, very good bunch of people and they obviously care about what it is they make and they’re proud of what they make. And that’s important. I’m the new kid in the house. I can’t take credit for anything, because they built the house. I’m the new kid finding the rules of the house, where to put the trash, where do my socks go. Not on the floor, honey? You’re not going to pick up my socks? No? God forbid. (laughs) You learn those rules as you go along, and when they’ve been doing it for eight years and I’ve just come in and done a year, I’m still learning the rules, the ropes, the limitations and all that other stuff, and it’s probably a good lesson for me to learn. Next?
“This question goes back to last year but I want to get your opinion: who’s the better kisser Claudia Black or Michael Shanks?” (I think this refers to someone asking Claudia who was a better kisser, Ben or Michael?)
“Beau Bridges! You know, now oddly enough I have kissed Beau, I have kissed Chris Judge. “Johnny are you…” he sings. But I haven’t kissed Michael and I think that…that might just be weird. Me kissing Michael Shanks…nope, I haven’t kissed him. But Beau Bridges is fine!
Will there be nose porn on SG? “Can you imagine going to the writer’s office and pitching that one? “Hey Brad, I got this thing I do for all my fans. I need some nose porn.” Seriously, nose porn…I’m picturing it’s a hard pitch to the writer’s office. Well you know…maybe.”
Someone thanked him for giving him a reason to watch SG as it was hard to do because he blamed SG for Farscape’s cancellation. “There’re a few issues here.”
Chris Judge and Anthony Simcoe actually fill a very similar function on the set. Anthony would come on set and be the loudest and rudest, crudest individual you could imagine...until you meet Chris Judge. I was talking to my mom and I started to go, “Mom, you should come up to Vancouver and…no. I’m not letting my mother anywhere near that set! When there’s children on set, “Chris! Hey, Judge! Warning. Children! Danger, Danger!” They actually fulfill similar function on the set, whether there’s certain archetypes they fulfill, which they do, within the science fiction convention, that’s not this kind of convention, but the conventions of science fiction there are certain similarities, but what startled me was the similarities in personality. I was just, wow! I guess Michael Dorn was the same way.”
A man said, “Good afternoon. Hmmm..you kissing Michael Shanks. How much Jack Daniels would it take to pull that one off?” “Heh heh…just put it in the script. I’m picturing Robert Cooper right now, “he wants to do what?” Joe Mallozzi will go over there “and what’s all this about you wanting to kiss Michael Shanks on the show?” I didn’t say that! They said that! “And you want Cameron Mitchell drinking Jack Daniels all the time! Keep him away from the writing room!”
The New York City story…he wouldn’t repeat it.
Speaking about Crichton, “if you wander around and have conversations in your head with imaginary friends and act on those conversations, you might be insane.”
What are the difference between Canadian set and Australian set? “The minute she asked that question, I thought, what’s the difference between you and Michael Shanks? I found out! Michael and I are identical except I wear a size 13 and he wears a size 9 shoe. That’s about it, other than that, it’s hard to tell us apart. The spookiest thing was how many times I’d be on the set and someone would go, “Michael, we need you on…oh. You’re the new guy.” And the minute I thought, okay, this is done and no one is going to confuse me with Michael Shanks, who is Canadian, and that’s the difference between Canadian sets and American sets is that Americans have size 13 shoes. I just offended the entire country of Canada!. Yeah, they do, but they won’t tell you about it. That’s the thing. First they apologize. “I’m sorry, but I’m offended.” Rob Cooper is up there right now getting a live transcript. “What’s all that about Canadians having small feet? How do you think we cut down all this wood with small feet? Cancel his visa! The man’s not allowed back in Vancouver.” So, anyway, I thought the Michael Shanks thing had finished until like the last week of shooting and one of the AD’s went, “Michael!” God, I’ve only been here for a year. We’re not that much alike” (said in a small pitiful whine.)
Canadian sets and Australian sets or American sets, every culture is different. We may speak some of the same words, language, but we’re different. Someone once described Australians as Canadians with attitude. I don’t know that I’d describe it that way, but we’ll leave that as an answer to your question. So, that would make Canadians, Australians without attitude. Wait til they read the transcript, Ben Browder at the Farscape con, “You said WHAT?” Oh merde…”I’ll get back to the set and Michael will be, “you got a problem with me?’”
No, Michael is great, by the way. He’s an incredibly smart actor, and I accidentally picked up his script and took it home. I was on set and said, “I can’t find my script” and someone handed it to me and I opened it up and whump! And it was like, naked pictures of Claudia Black!
When asked what his favorite scene was, he said, “I’d be loathed to cull anything from the herd and say that’s my favorite little cow. If you have a favorite little cow, you may be a redneck.”
He admits to not answering any questions that are ever asked.
He was asked if he’d like to write a SG episode. He is loathed to ask to write an episode; he is too busy learning the show. He did pitch an idea but he doesn’t want to write it. He gave them the idea if they wanted it. “I have an opinion. I know it’s an opinion, I’m not right, I’m not wrong, I just have an opinion. So when you’re getting pissed off because I’m giving you my opinion, just realize I know it’s an opinion and I don’t assume I’m right and often I am wrong. It’s hard for me to know when I’m right when I’m wrong so often. Right, Honey?” (said to his wife in the audience.)
His Richard Farnsworth story: When he was working with one of his first tv series, The Boys of Twilight, he “worked with Richard Farnsworth, a brave actor, stuntman from 1937—his first movie was Cecil B DeMille’s Marco Polo. He was Oscar nominated in his last performance before he died. He was in his 70s and he was sitting in his chair on the set. He never left the set. Young actors would leave the set…” to go to their trailers, to do stuff, use the phone, etc. “He would sleep in his chair on the set. He’s been in the business for 50 years. He stunt doubled Fonda, Cooper, Stewart, he knew anybody who was anything. John Wayne. First name basis with Ford. He was an amazing man, and he was a lovely actor. And I said, “Richard, you’re tired. Come back to the trailer for a nap.” And he turned to me and said, “Jimmy Stewart never left the set. If Jimmy Stewart can’t leave the set, who the hell would I think I am?” I thought that was a very important thing as an actor: you’re there to do a job -- stay there and do your job. And because I started practicing that, that simple piece of wisdom, I learned more about filmmaking, I learned more about storytelling by staying involved in the story. So that function of me, I don’t know that I’m a such good hard worker, I simply think I’m limited and I have to stay there so I’m not going to get left behind. That was Richard’s opinion and Richard was Oscar nominated.”
Someone asked about CJ leaving a rolled up brownie in BB’s trailer’s toilet. Yeah, that was classic. ‘Did you get him back?’ No, that was funny. Playing jokes is not his thing. “You see, I was on the set while he was rolling up a piece of brownie and turning it into a realistic doodoo and putting it in my toilet. For me to get Chris Judge back I’d have to be off set, rolling up a piece of brownie and putting it in his toilet. The first time I met Chris Judge, I sat in a production meeting because I had time before shooting and I was trying to learn the ropes. He walks in the meeting and he looks at me, “What the hell are you doing here? You already got the job, you kiss ass!” From that moment on, I knew we were going to get on like a house on fire!”
I couldn’t hear a question, but the answer was, “I am guilty. I read the internet once. I read a comment about Cameron Mitchell. “He had the worst Southern accent I’ve ever heard! I hate it when these Hollywood actors put on that Southern accent so bad.” I hang my head in shame, I can’t even do my native accent. What a nightmare.”
Someone thought it would be great if he played a villain. “You know I just want to be a villain that kills Brad Pitt. Let’s go back and to the Marathon Man, I’ll do Olivier part and we’ll get Tom Cruise and I’ll stick him.
“To be honest with you, the action hero role is the best role ever. I get to jump, I get to fall down, I get to shoot things. I get to do all the boy stuff that you always dream of. I’ll give you a SG spoiler. There was one day where I must have been covered in 40 pounds of mud. Cold, nasty mud. And I stood up dripping, and that was the most fun I had had in weeks. Now we’ll pretend that we’re civilized, and we’ll talk Shakespeare and we’ll take you out to dinner, but during the day we just want to be out there rolling around in the mud beating the hell out of each other!”
He ended his talk with: “I thank you for coming. I don’t do a lot of conventions, and the primary reason for doing this at all is to be able to thank you guys for giving me employment, for watching the stupid show and for being so lovely to be in mine. You guys are very generous, very intelligent, hard working, attractive people, and I just love you for it. It’s wonderful thing to be able to come up here to give back the affection that flows back and forth between the audience and the people who make the show. And so it’s my privilege and my honor to say thank you. Now, have fun now, alright?”
