Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Ok, these are some quick notes on the Pasadena Convention. I’ll write a fuller report later with all the details. Right now, here are the things I can remember. 1) JM did say that he will be on Angel next year. He doesn’t appear to know that Angel hasn’t been renewed. Someone asked and he said "Uh..." as in "I have no idea what you are talking about." He said that a few weeks ago he was looking into other projects when Joss told him he wanted him on Angel. JM agreed.

2) There was never, ever any discussion of a spin-off with JM as a lead. He pointed out he doesn’t want to be a lead, it’s too much work, and he likes playing the second banana. Two weeks ago, JW announced that there is no spin-off. JL said it, then NB and JM confirmed it. When asked James said "Yeah, it’s called Angel."

3)Buffy/Spike will end "dramatically, romantically, with pain, but it will be good." Later he said the Buffy/Spike relationship is extremely twisty. (Not in a bad way!!!!! ) and complex but in the *finale* "it’ll open up *pop*" he also strongly indicated that there will be no sex.

4)NB will be looking into sitcoms and is thinking about developing a sitcom with his wife.

5) NB said that Xandre and Anya will definitely not get back together.

6) I asked NB if a season 7 arc was ever planned for Xander. He basically said "no" and that the writers didn’t really have story plans for Xander—they kinda just used him when they needed him. I also learned that Kelly stood in for Nick during Intervention filming!

7) NB said that Spike is the coolest character on BtVS by far. I don’t have the exact quote, but it was something like "Kickass accent, kickass hair, and kickass clothes."

8) Spike and Faith mix it up.

9) Spike loved loved loved the Variety Ad. Seriously his entire face complete lit up when I asked him. You know how expressive he can be...it was one of the happiest expressions I had ever seen on a person. He said that he was thrilled and thankful, that everybody was congratulating him, and his publicist loved it. He told me that you jut can’t even buy publicity like that. He would have said more, but they bustled me out because it was during the autograph session.

10) Easily 200 people showed up for a picture with James and 300 for an autograph. It was amazing to see old people, young people, men, women, children, every age, all standing in line. I saw an older gentleman with a Cardboard Spike in the autograph line!

Anyway, those were the highlights. I will be posting more details tomorrow (Like how James hugged me close, and how I felt his whiskers on my forehead...*sigh*) Also met Danny Strong and James Leary—and James L and James M kissed on stage!

From forums.morethanspike.com, By Helcat :

OK I’m seriously warped but I had to write this out while it’s fresh so here’s my rather lengthy ramble concerning the con. Sorry for the length.

I will undoubtedly forget stuff and add further bits and pieces later on. However, seeing as I’ve just got back from the Creation Con in Pasadena, it seems a good time to try and capture my thoughts on paper (or in this case on my computer).

The day did not start well as I failed to meet up with the other ’morethanspike’ people which may well be because I screwed up the meeting place and/or failed to look suitably lonesome. It’s a shame but I did meet up with plenty of interesting fans in the various queuing activities which meant I was never really on my own. After failing to meet anyone I set out to investigate the area, starting with the annex which was an area off the main hall that looked for all the world like a covered car park.

I was really just looking about when I spotted Danny Strong which was something of a surprise as I’d not seen his name mentioned in any of the publicity. We had a nice little chat and at one point he asked me if I was looking forward to the convention and I said something about being a little nervous. He then smiled broadly and said, "Ah, so you’re going to meet James" and said it’d be fine.Now for all he knew I could have been there for Nicholas Brendan say, but I guess if he was going to make a guess James was the safer name to go with. At the next table to Danny was James Leary (Clem) and I spoke briefly to him too. He picked up on my accent

(English) and started talking about how much he was looking forward to going to England for the "Harvest" convention. I didn’t hang around chatting too long as crowds were starting to amass and so I just got some signed photos and continued on my way.

Next stop was to look round for a decent photo to get signed by James (and also a decent Andy Hallett photo as I wanted an autograph by him for a friend of mine.) There were lots of Buffy photos with plenty of James to choose from. I was rather surprised to see one which was a screen cap of James sitting on the bed in his crypt from Gone seemingly completely nude. There were plenty of shirtless poses but that one seemed a little ’much’ as a photo to me, though admittedly he looked pretty hot. I selected a suitably tasteful shot of Spike fully dressed and still looking unimaginably hot.

The first proper Buffy event of the afternoon was a panel with Andy Hallett and James Leary. They started a little late which Andy took the blame for. He said he’d spent the morning trying to get a good friend of his out on bail after she’d been arrested in LA. He still hadn’t managed it and was waiting for a call from the bail bondsman. I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t joking but I don’t think he was. Pretty much as soon as Andy’d finished explaining that they introduced Danny Strong who joined them for the rest of their session. They mostly answered questions and I can’t remember what the questions all were. Andy Hallett wanted to know if we’d noticed Charisma was pregnant before it had been revealed on the show, and was answered by a hearty ’yes’ from the audience. He evidently thought they’d hidden it well but mentioned that for one bed scene, and I’m not sure if we’ve seen it yet or not, they had to carve out part of a mattress so she could lie down and not look pregnant. Danny then recounted a funny story about how one day on set Charisma Carpenter had called him Jonathan repeatedly on set before discovering he was called Danny and not Jonathan. Evidently when she found out she came over to him and hit him three times because he hadn’t corrected her when she’d first made the mistake. Danny seemed to find getting hit by Charisma something of a life highlight. When asked about favourite episodes both Danny and James Leary mentioned ’Hush’ which I thought was interesting though Danny did then mention "Superstar" which I think may have been his favourite to do. I think the whole panel managed to be free of all mentions of any other Buffy actors so no fun James Marsters anecdotes were to be had sadly.

The panel ended a little before 2pm. The next big thing on my agenda was James’ photo session that was scheduled for 2.50pm and Andy Hallett was also doing autographs. The queue for Andy was massive even when I got to it so I decided to prioritise and join the already commenced James photo line. Juliet Landau had her photo session at 2.15 so there were two separate lines formed to accommodate the rabid Spike fans. Juliet’s line quickly disappeared behind the black curtain into the photo area but after a while it became apparent there was a problem. Essentially Juliet hadn’t turned up and no one seemed to know when she would be there. In a move to try and make up for the inconvenience those fans who also had photo tickets for James were put at the front of the queue so I found myself pushed back to photo number 33. This was no bad thing though as they let us into the room before the photos started so I was there when James came in and then got to stare at him while the 32 people ahead of me had their pictures done. Seeing as opportunities to stare at JM in person are pretty rare in my life I was more than happy to wait my turn.

James was looking decidedly good. He was wearing a black tee shirt, blue jeans, sneakers and a short brown leather jacket. There were chairs set up for the photos but James seemed to decide to do the photos standing which was a great surprise for me as I’d been resigned to a more formal side by side seated shot. At least while I was in the room he greeted everyone with a handshake and/or hug and was happy to chat briefly before posing for the photographs which all seemed to feature arms wrapped around people. As my turn approached I found myself feeling ridiculously overwhelmed by the whole event. When it actually was my turn I managed to shake hands, tell him how thrilled I was to meet him, which earned me the most lovely smile and naturally then robbed me of any ability to talk coherently. I’m not exactly sure how the photo will look though he had both his arms around me and I do recall feeling his face up against mine but really I was too dazed to take it all in. I eagerly await seeing the photo once it gets sent out and I just dread the look on my face, I hoped to look at least dignified but I suspect I was well off that.

The photo session over and I swear if that had been it for the day I’d have left happy. One of the women in James’ entourage (manager? agent?) had announced at the start of the photo session that there were copies of the Ghost of the Robot CD on sale at the convention and so I headed out to finally pick one up. Then it was over to the still fairly lengthy Andy Hallett queue where I chatted with other fans about the general adorability of JM and moaned about the lack of decent Andy Hallett pictures around to get signed. (I’d only found one of him in full make-up which seemed a little sad seeing as he is so cute in person). I probably waited 30 minutes for Andy’s autograph and as others have remarked he was very enthusiastic about the whole process and despite having been signing for over an hour was still happily personalising all his signings.

By this point I was in need of a sit down so headed back to the main auditorium to see what was happening there. As luck would have it as I got there the MC announced Juliet who had finally arrived. She did a fun Q and A session full of kind comments about how much fun it is to work with James and that yes he is in fact a very good kisser. She was asked about what it was like to play the first playing Dru and said they did try to make it not quite Dru to show it wasn’t real. She also said it wasn’t until they did those scenes that she realised quite how tactile she and James usually are in their scenes and how hard it was not to be able to touch. Someone asked her about why drowning was a suitable torture for a vampire as they didn’t breathe and she didn’t seem to see why it was an issue as they weren’t aiming to kill Spike and just torture him instead. She said there had been talk of another appearance for her this season but didn’t know if it was going to happen.

The next person up was Robert Hall from the special effects/monster makers for Buffy and Angel who ran through the various things he’d made for the show and was pretty entertaining though had only been allocated a short time.

We then moved on to Nicholas Brendan. He was funny and engaging and I won’t try to go over everything he said. He was asked about the best character on the show (other than Xander) and went for Spike on the basis of him being the coolest character with the best wardrobe. He said the move to dress Xander in baggy clothes was due to not wanting it to be apparent that he had been working out as that wasn’t viewed as in character for Xander. He chose Aly as the best kisser and joked that in the "European" version of Buffy Xander gets to have affairs with all the male characters too but that isn’t allowed in the US. (Being a sad fan I found myself wondering if he was aware of all the Xander/Spike slash that’s about on the net. I suspect not.) He said he didn’t think Xander could end up with Buffy because Buffy only really liked dead guys. When asked about which actors on the show he had learned the most from he mentioned Sarah, Tony Head and James. He said James was so experienced he was always great to work with and learn from. As for his future he talked about wanting to do a sitcom and more movies.

After Nicholas it was finally time for JM’s appearance. He was introduced with a very amusing ’pop up video’ style video with great emphasis on Spike and Buffy sex scenes. I can’t do it justice in words but it really was incredibly funny and then there was JM up on the stage, waving and grinning as the audience gave him an enthusiastic reception. I’d decided to try my luck with a question so saw the first half of his session down by the stage waiting for the microphone which was wonderful. Throughout James was charming and enthusiastic and the only down side was that the whole thing only lasted 45 minutes or so.

He did mention how he hoped to go back to the theatre and make the most of being ’one of those TV actors’ who get all the best stage roles even though he always used to hate such actors. He said that there are plans to move his character over to Angel next season and mentioned that he’d been having meetings about non-Buffy projects when Joss had contacted him to offer him a stint on Angel which I get the impression put everything else on hold.

He praised Sarah as a wonderful and hard working actress to work with saying he had a much lighter schedule than she did yet got all the kudos for being though of as cool. As for the future of Spuffy he didn’t give out any spoilers but talked about how he wasn’t sure that the characters should be together in view of the AR side of things. He reiterated how much he hated doing that scene and how he’d never taken on the role of a rapist as he had such issues with violence to women on screen and how he’d gone home from the set the day they filmed that scene in tears. He talked about how the scene had been based on the experiences of one of the female writers who’d tried to force herself on an ex to try and restart a relationship. He then commented that he didn’t think that the writers had fully thought through how much more charged the scenario becomes when it is a man being the aggressor which I thought was a really interesting comment.

He said that like Spike he is a romantic with a lot of anger but has learned to manage his anger in better ways than Spike has. He also said his anger isn’t as funny as Spikes and it is the combination of his anger and Spike’s funny lines that lead you to Spike.

He remarked that his knee is finally better and that this is a good thing seeing as he has a lot of fighting coming up. He also mentioned a couple of times that he had a 5am call to the set for Monday morning and commented that he’d be naked for it more likely than not. He said he was happy to have fewer naked scenes this season and at one point almost felt like begging the writers not to make him take his shirt off again. After several questioners commented on how beautiful he was and how much they loved seeing him naked on screen he laughed threw his arms out looked up at the ceiling and shouted "I’m a whore". I’m not sure if he was aware that the gesture also saw his tee shirt ride up so for much of the rest of the session he was flashing an enticing but of abdomen at us all. It seemed strangely appropriate.

He praised Juliet as fun to work with and commented on how much he’d enjoyed their scenes in the most recent episode and that he’d found the whole notion of William wanting to sire his mother hysterical. He thought that of all the abuse he’s taken this year the worst was being dragged around as there are always stones and gravel on the ground and it gets really painful after a while. He then discussed the Buffy beating from Dead Things as being the most physically demanding scene he’d done as for one reason or another they did it three times and that it really messed up the muscles in his neck trying to hold his head up and react to the punches properly while lying down. He says he still feels pain in those muscles when he’s working out and looks forward to having a break from it all. He said that his stunt double has lost an inch in height since starting on the series because of all the abuse he’s taken. He said he does more stunts than most actors and his stunt double does more than most stunt guys do and there’s a stunt coming up that his double did that just looks excruciating. He clearly has very high regard for stunt men. He also mentioned that when your character was suffering it was a sure sign that Joss liked you.

We’d been told not to ask for hugs and the like and when one fan did James looked very uncomfortable and refused saying he wasn’t allowed to do that. A little later a guy at the other mic to me asked if James could spare a kiss for an old friend. I couldn’t see who this was but James started to laugh and introduced James Leary who bounded up on stage and the two shared a most chaste looking kiss before James Leary disappeared off again. JM said that James Leary did a much better English accent than he did and was a great actor.

He plugged his CD saying he’d finally got organised enough to bring copies with him to the convention. He spoke enthusiastically about the band and the sense that they had found their own sound.

He joked that the show had wanted Sid Vicious and got Billy Idol which he thought was essentially because they didn’t like how he looked with dark hair and found the only look that worked was to

Someone asked about his role in Northern Exposure and he said that the bellhop role had been his first TV gig and even though he had minimal lines he could hardly see straight as he was so anxious about doing it. He spoke about his love of drama at school and that he’d just been inspired by the notion of acting being a group activity to produce a work of beauty. (He’s so passionate when he speaks about acting it really was a delight to see and listen to.) Sadly this time round he didn’t get asked to do any of Macbeth so we didn’t get to hear him quote any Shakespeare which was a shame.

There was more that I’m blanking on now and as this is already getting ridiculously long I’ll leave the Q and A here. Afterwards it was autograph time. This started around 6pm or so and by 7 JM was still working his way through the ’gold ticket’ people. Nicholas Brendan was signing at the same time and was done before James had even started on the standard photo tickets. One of JM’s people came out to ask people not to try and tell James long and involved stories as he had to leave by 9pm as he had to be up for 4am to get to work tomorrow and he didn’t want to disappoint anyone. As I queued up for my autograph one of the stewards came along the line asking if any one had ’the naked photo’. Evidently the shot had not been cleared for use by James’ management and they were none too pleased to discover it was being sold. The up shot being no one was to offer it to James to sign it and it was unlikely to be offered for sale again.

I finally made it to the head of the queue around 7.30pm and of course managed to make a fool of myself as for some reason I chose that moment to drop my ticket into my bag which meant I then had to step out of line to search through to find it again. Being somewhat pathetic I had wanted to give some sort of gift for James and having been generally uninspired I had opted for that great stand by, chocolates. So when I finally found my ticket and was let in to the queue again I shook hands with James, and then proferred the chocolates with a comment that I wanted to give him something to thank him for all the pleasure I’d got from his performance. (Amazingly I did find the ability to speak this time up which was a relief.) Anyway, James took the chocolates hugged the box to him grinned and said "I love you, I absolutely love you" then laughed that he’d get to eat them after the scene tomorrow morning. I have to say this provided me with the perfect end to my first convention and I think I floated out of the autograph area as much as walked.