James Marsters

Report is from Dragon*Con being held August 29- September 1, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia. http://www.dragoncon.org/

All credit for this con report goes to BadPenguin from the Buffy Cross & Stake http://www.voy.com/13746/18771.html

Date Posted: 16:20:57 08/29/03 Fri Author: BadPenguin Subject: Good afternoon, boardies! Here’s the first convention report.

From 1 to about 2:10 this afternoon there was a Q&A session with James Marsters & about 1,360 fans (40 seats per row, 34 rows full... I counted... I need to get less compulsive). The sound system was crappy so I couldn’t hear hardly any of the questions and could only guess what he was asked based on the answers he gave, which also often I couldn’t hear. In the Sunday & Monday sessions I’ll try to get closer to the front. :-) Anyway, here’s the best as I could tell:

In response to some mumbled question, he talked about his fitness regimen including lots of curls and situps, and ended with him stating emphatically, "And no, I will not take my shirt off!" which elicited much laughter, of course.

James told David their two characters have shared something that no human can appreciate, to which David agreed enthusiastically. Note: This was in regard to being vampires, not any slutty slashy thoughts that might be running through your minds! :-P

James’ favorite color is green.

Spike will spend at least four episodes being a real pain to Angel who will struggle to be patient with his snarkiness.

In reply to some question, James said he’s not concerned with the ’how’ of him coming back, the important thing was "you guys" (the fans) wanted him back.

To allow him to do some movie work, they will pre-film some of his scenes, in a story arc unrelated to everybody else so they can insert the scenes in later episodes without having to worry about integrating them with the main story line with any continuity.

Quote about him on Angel: "The shit they’re cooking up for me, oh my god!" (hee)

While filming "Smashed" he laughed about doing smoochy scenes, then going and taking a nap while Steve the stunt man got thrown through a wall, then going back for a close-up and then sending Steve back in to get beat up some more. :-D He had very high praise for Steve and said when one fight scene went wrong, they actually superglued his face back together and shot the scene four more times.

He says Spike is the best role he’s ever had because he’s been able to play so many different sides of him, but now that he’s on Angel, he’s just going to be a dick.

Said Joss did the best performance in the role of Hamlet that he’s ever, ever seen. Also that Joss is the best writer he’s ever met. He was asked about doing some writing of his own and whether he’d ever suggested anything and his reply was that Joss’ standard answer when approached about things like that was, "That’s great. And then there’s me!" (basically, telling the actors not to get above themselves, I guess?)

I think someone asked about some boxers on Ebay after Buffy wrapped supposed to have been worn by James. James claimed he never wore underwear while filming Buffy, the fan replied something, and James said something about, well he guessed it must be true, but he couldn’t recall wearing them. :-D

His brother and sister are "tickled" about him being on Buffy/Angel but his parents won’t watch the shows.

Someone asked how his knee was and he replied that he never did get the surgery but his knee seemed to be fine now. He mentioned that he’d just hurt his shoulder taking a fall, though.

He said Sarah did like to taunt him before a love scene. James does Method and has to get ’in the mood’ I guess, whereas Sarah can go from la-dee-dah to portraying passion on the snap of a finger. So while he was getting in the right frame of mind, she’d be striking poses and going "Ooooh, I’m a treeeee!" which would crack him up and ruin the whole mood, then he’d have to get into it again. (bad girl!) :-D

Similar to the last con reports we got, he still says in his opinion he screwed up portraying Spike in the Spuffy relationship and detracted from the whole arc as it was meant to play out.

He also repeated something he said previously about there’s a dirty part of Spike’s character he can’t delve into with anyone else but Juliette Landau.

On Buffy, James would be on three pages of a 49 page script. He says he has many more pages on Angel, so apparently we’ll be seeing a lot of him.

Someone asked if it was because Spike was so much Love’s Bitch that he got into the relationship with Harmony. He replied that he got with Harmony because she looked a bit like Buffy, would never hurt him, and would let him punch her and she’d just take it.

Someone congratulated him on quitting cigarettes and he confessed he’s been smoking again the last two days... something about being driven to it because he had to be naked. (Nekkid Spike on Angel I guess???)

That’s all I recall from the session and I’m sure I missed a lot because I could only hear part of it.

Anyway, wanted to get this out to you guys as soon as possible while it was fresh in my mind.

Tonight there’s a couple panels on fan fiction (one G-rated and one NC-17) and also a showing of "Buffy Horror Picture Show" using OMWF. Tomorrow there’s a bunch more panels, including Andy Hallett, James Leary, Danny Strong and Iyari Limon. Then a Ghost of the Robot concert at 10pm I may or may not attend. Next Q&A with James is Sunday afternoon. If I get something good worth repeating, I’ll post again tomorrow.

Penguin hugs & smoochies to everyone!

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From Fanforum.com :

James looks great. Totally bleached blond hair of course. Sleeveless tee-shirt. His arms looked fantastic.

Spike was bad, Buffy was good, Spike was a bad boyfriend, blah, blah, blah

He said he will be filming the movie in November. He is really, really excited about it. The plan is to do a separate story for Spike that doesn’t include the other characters so they can film it in advance. He might miss 1 or 2 episodes.

He mentioned that he hurt his shoulder falling 2 feet on concrete. Steve, his stunt double had to fall 6 feet on concrete.

Now the good part. Evenstar he loved the drawings. Fantastic, fantastic, thank you, thank you. Oh this is so fantastic. I have one of her pieces hanging in my home. She is fantastic. I love her work. (Then I showed him the collage of the band) Oh the guys are going to love this. Oh this is so fantastic.

*Note from Jana *For members who would like to see some of Evenstar’s gorgeous/wonderful/amazing artwork , please visit her website at the link below: http://www.erinallen.com/gallery.htm *

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I’m home now, but I don’t have much else to report. DragonCon is very, very different from the Vulkon cons. It is huge. I saw David Carradine and the guy that played Scotty on Star Trek just walking around. People are walking around in really neat costumes. There are storm troopers from Star Wars all over the place and there are some great costumes from Lord of the Rings. Of course, there are also the usual Spike and Dru costumes around.

I didn’t stay for all of James’ Q&A because I wanted to get in the autograph line so I could give him Evenstar’s drawings. During the part that I heard, he totally avoided spoilers. He was asked how he could come back since he was dead, will he be good or evil, etc and he just avoided the questions by making jokes.

He loves working with DB. He talked a lot about how much he respects DB and he said they are having a great time working together. He made it very clear that the show is "Angel" and that Spike is a secondary character.

He also said that he is currently working with Steven DeKnight for the first time (apparently on the episode they are filming now). He is loving working with DeKnight. He also talked about how much he loves working with Fury, Goddard and of course Joss.

Someone asked him how he manages to stay humble. He said that he is very aware that it takes about 500 people to make Spike look cool. He has the easy part. It’s the writers, set designers, directors, etc who have the hard job. He is the visible part of the character, but it is other people who really create Spike.

He said that there will be a lot of tension between Spike and Angel because of their previous relationships with Buffy. However, a few minutes later, he was saying that Joss doesn’t want to hear ideas for story direction from the actors. I think it’s clear that he has no idea what they will do about the triangle because he has said many times that the writers do not tell him the story lines in advance.

Tomorrow, he has a Q&A with the band, but I’m sure he won’t talk about Spike. Sunday he will do another regular Q&A. I didn’t see Andy Hallett today. James Leary, Iyari Limon and Danny Strong were in the autograph area, but Andy wasn’t there when I was. They will all be speaking tomorrow.

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Went to the Buffy Horror Picture Show last night and it rocked! Yesterday I said there were about 1,360 people at the Q&A with James Marsters. For some reason after that the con staff seriously underestimated the number of people who would show up for the Rocky Horror version of OMWF. They only scheduled one session and put it in a room that would only hold 130 people. There was near revolt as several hundred people showed up. They finally announced there would be at least three showings last night and the first got started at 10:30 instead of 10. Being a penguin, I was able to waddle in between people’s legs and get in the first show.

They projected it on a big screen, had a decent sound system, and showed the long (51 minute) version, so that was all great. Costuming was minimal and most of the cast acting out the show next to the screen bore no resemblance to the regular actors with two notable exceptions. For some reason they had two actors playing some of the main characters, sometimes at the same time. For example, during "I’ll Never Tell", Xander was dancing with two Anyas! Anyway, one of the Buffy’s and one of the Spikes looked almost identical to Sarah and James. They may be an actual couple since during the last scene they did a pretty passionate smooch (more so than Sarah & James on screen!) Hee!

It looked like rehearsals had been minimal but lots and lots of enthusiasm by the whole cast. A couple of them sang with a live microphone, a few of them shouldn’t have. However, the gal who sang Tara’s bit and the second Buffy both sang at professional level and complemented if not improved on the original sound track.

The really cool part was everyone in the audience singing along with every song and doing quite nicely. We had 130 backup singers for each song. :-) The coolest of cool was during "I’ll Never Tell" when the women sang Anya’s lines and the guys sang Xander’s. At the end of each song there was wild crowd’s applause. As I said, the on-stage cast was very enthusiastic and ad-libbed some parts they evidently had not rehearsed. For example, when Giles was singing "You’re Not Ready" and chucked a knife at Buffy, one of the cast jumped in and played the part of the knife spinning at Buffy. Another later took the place of the punching bag. During Anya’s bunny riff, the cast member was windmilling her arms in a pretty good imitation of Emma. There was no audience shout-outs pre-planned or initiated by the cast. A few audience members tried to throw some out spontaneously, but most fell flat. (For example, when Spike sang "Life isn’t bliss, life is just this, liiivvviinnggg" somebody shouted out "Thank you, Dr. Phil!" The Buffy Horror Picture Show was very popular so I expect it to be done again next year, so there may be more then, but personally I think it’s better without them. The joy here wasn’t so much everyone shouting with the same snide comments as it was singing along to the songs with everyone else.

After the musical, I attended a panel on Buffy porn fic. The writers on the panel were HarmonyFB, Ginmar, Nyxie, Wisteria, and Annie Sewell-Jennings, from AllAboutSpike.com and Jessica Walker from ficbitch.com. Some of the other authors mentioned as being very good were Barb Cummings (especially her "Necessary Evil" story), AnnaS (particularly her "Season Noir"), Calima, Kita, and JennyO. Some of the other sites mentioned were fanfic.net and altfic.com.

They were asked if any subjects were taboo and they agreed underage sex was, Buffy/Dawn porn was, and bestiality, though they also said there was going to be some Gunn/Panther fic written now (nobody mentioned Scat fic... it’s either not taboo or nobody’s mind went there when asked the question).

I asked if anyone had written any good fic with Cordy/Conner and after the audience and panel went Ewwwww, one of the writer’s eyes lit up and she said she would have to write one now, based on the cringe factor. Hee! If you accidentally come across this fic now, I’m to blame. (I’m so evil sometimes!)

Anyway, more hugs to everyone and I’ll try to post again as soon as something interesting happens.

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First thing this morning was the costume parade in the area around the hotel. Big participation, including Klingons, rebels, Wing Commander pilots, Starship Troopers, and about a hundred Imperial Stormtroopers and even a couple big floats. Once I get back I’ll try to get some of the pictures up on a website.

I just got back from a panel with Andy Hallett & James C. Leary (JCL) and those guys are the funniest and just kept cracking each other up. The first hour and a half was these two guys and it was to be followed by an hour and a half with Danny Strong and Iyari Limon. I had originally intended to attend both sessions, but so many people showed up that only the first 190 were able to get in to the first session, with numbers 191 to 380 getting reserved for the second session, and everyone else getting turned away. I was #138 and got in with Andy & JCL.

Andy had finished a 13-hour day filming Angel episode 4 just 17 hours before this panel started and he still had green make-up under his fingernails and in his ears. JCL joked that Andy is constantly pulling green stuff out of all his holes, which got much laughter. Andy said this was his 181st time in the Lorne makeup, so he had 543 hours or more than 22 full days in the makeup chair. Andy said the next episode (#5) would be Lorne-centric.

Somehow they got on the subject of drinking and Andy revealed that when he got drunk he had a bad habit of giving away his shoes and then wondering where they are the next morning. He said he once had to run to a panel at a convention in his socks.

The ladies in the audience kept making Andy blush and say "Oh my God" a lot. Once was when someone asked how they dealt with the constant rejections of working as an actor, to which they both reacted with the saddest of sad, sad faces ever (just needed the sad Buffy music to go with them) then they said you just don’t let it bug you and it’s never personal. Anyway, JCL joked about being unemployed & working as a waiter. One of the ladies offered to take him home and put him to work, which caused one of the Andy blush moments. (hee!)

JCL is not currently scheduled to do anything on Angel but he encouraged fans to write in and request it, saying the powers that be paid a lot of attention to such things. They handed out postcards to send in from www.dont-tread-on-Spike.com with addresses for ME, the WB and Fox to send them to, taken from www.btvs-tabularasa.net/spoilerzone/campaign.html. The postcards had JLC’s picture on them and read, "Ready, willing and totally capable of being corrupted by an evil law firm. James C. Leary on A:tS".

JCL mentioned he wasn’t supposed to stick around as long as he has and at first didn’t even have a name, referred to simply as the "loose-skinned demon". He also said he never thought of Clem as a loose-skinned demon but rather as a Foreskin Demon, which led someone to make the joke that, "Do you mean he’s never been cir-clem-cised?" (groan)

JCL was at the con with a buddy he’s known since he was 13 and the hotel put them in a room with just one bed, so many jokes were made regarding this, especially instigated by Andy, who tried to convince the audience that JCL had a hickey.

One of the ladies asked JCL how it effected him, getting into extreme latex all the time, and Andy somehow turned this into a sexual joke, too (it was originally meant to refer to latex makeup, of course)

In answer to a question, Andy said he didn’t know if Charisma would be coming back to Angel.

Andy told a story from the episode where Lorne is supposed to sneak a note to Angel. He’d only read his lines and didn’t realize W&H had cameras and bugs in the hotel, so he just walked up, handed the note to Angel and said, "Here you go." With no attempt at being sneaky. Alexis popped up, of course, and announced to everyone that "It looks like someone apparently hasn’t read the entire script!" Naturally they had to reshoot that scene.

Someone asked Andy how Lorne would react to getting Spike. Andy just responded with a stunned face and everyone cracked up. They rephrased it to ask how Lorne reacted to Spike joining the group, but Andy said he hadn’t worked with Spike much yet.

However, this did inspire Andy to ask the crowd to explain the difference between fanfic and slash. He was very hesitant about it as if it was a dirty little secret most wouldn’t know about, but of course everyone knew all about it. Apparently he’d come across some and been shocked. JCL also said he’d gone on the net once and found a Clem story and started reading, only to find out too late that it was a Spike/Clem slash story and he totally freaked out.

Apparently a friend of Andy’s had sent him a manipulated pic that involved Angel, Lorne, a shower, a bar of soap and three fingers. Andy still seemed pretty rattled by it.

Asked about Lorne opening Caritas or another club again, he said he didn’t think it would happen, but said Amy & Alexis have been encouraging him to open a new one and even had T-shirts made up that said, "Welcome to the Grand Reopening of Lorne’s Glory Hole. Enter around back."

Wanted to pop in and do this update. Right now the Star Wars Costume Contest is starting up and so is a panel discussing Ghost of the Robot, so I’m missing those, but I may duck out and try to catch the tail end of them if the crowd’s aren’t too bad (though they’ve typically been pretty horrible. James coming to this convention seems to have boosted attendance above the normal 20,000 and the convention doesn’t seem to have been prepared for an additional 1,000 Spike fans so most everything Buffy related is still scheduled in small rooms.) I am going to try to attend the contest for Buffy fanfic and fan-made music videos in a couple of hours.

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This report covers the final panel, which was at 1 pm Monday and included (from left to right) Andy Hallett, James C. Leary, Danny Strong, Iyari Limon, and James Marsters.

Starting out, James apolgized for daring the girl to take her top off yesterday. He said he thought she’d chicken out, but again emphasized how much he admired her courage. By the way, it’s worth noting that James brought her up on stage, James convinced her to take her top off, and James praised her and James initiated the hug. Very different from the trak director who only heard about it second hand and groused before the panel about someone throwing off their top, jumping on stage and molesting James. I saw it and that’s not how it happened, though she got all the blame. After his apology, James addressed any children who might have seen it and told them, "Those don’t exist in real life." Later, after one of the times he got vulgar, he did another aside to the children, assuring them that wasn’t a real word, either. (hee!)

Andy was wearing a snazzy blue & white shirt that he’d gotten from a fan yesterday. He saw the girl wearing it, told her he liked it, and she swapped with him. He told this story at the panel and found the girl who he’d gotten the shirt from and asked her if she’d worn his shirt, yet, but she hadn’t. :-D

Unlike the other panels, no wait to get into this one, but still the room, which seats about 1,080, was nearly full. We did have to wait for the last actor to show up before they’d bring any of them out and during this time they showed a few short clips on the projection screens above the stage. One advertised a technical institute for training Imperial Stormtroopers, with courses like "Missing the Hero", "Shooting the Wall", "Falling into Pits", and "Dying en masse". (hee!) They also had clips for "Stormtroopers Gone Wild" and "Droids: Too Hot for TV". There was also a repossessed starship sale advertised, (Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!) showing ships from cancelled series, including Space: 1999, Battlestar Galactica, and Farscape.

There was also a clip for the Red Cross Blood Drive with James Marsters (evidently as Spike) threatening, "Give blood, or I’ll take it from you!" (double hee!)

Somehow we opened up with James doing a Paul Lynde impersonation (very well). (By the way, about midway through the hour, Andy also dropped into a credible and funny Paul Lynde impersonation.) Iyari also quipped that the women in the audience must be so jealous of her, sitting between James and Danny, to which there was much agreement. JCL managed to dump his water cup all over the table and Danny noted he was cute, but awkward. From then on, whenever Charlene would refill the water pitcher, everyone at the table would pretend to draw back as if expecting JCL to dump it again.

They lost power for the sound and video systems briefly, but covered well and got them back fairly soon. When the sound went out, James adopted a stage voice and projected all the way to the back of the room "Now, we must prove we are ac-tors!" By the way, much as you would expect, he projected well and was probably even more audible than when using the microphone.

James was describing the suite he had in the hotel, which is apparently quite large, with a bedroom-sized bathroom, living room, etc. and mentioned "I’ve got a baby grand in there!" (meaning a piano in his room, but everyone took it as an innuendo... this is one of many times James just dropped his face to the table and covered it with both arms in embarrassment.) Andy then announced that he, "Had an upright, baby!" Much laughter again, followed by JCL announcing proudly, "I’ve got the whole orchestra!" After more laughing, Danny chimed in with, "I’ve got a kazoo." Which totally cracked everyone up even more.

James commented that JCL was much sexier than he was and on the set had all the women crawling over him. He jokingly attributed it to him having big ears.

In response to a question, Danny talked about how everybody in Hollywood expected Buffy to fail when it started out. James added that most people like to be touched the same way all the time (in regard to truly original shows not having much chance for success and why there’s so much formulaic TV). He said they (the actors) were all there because we (the audience) were all brave and didn’t mind them coming into our homes and touching us in places we’ve never been touched before. This, of course, was taken as another innuendo with the audience cracking up and James, who had been making a serious point, blushed and hid his face again. By the way, Andy, JCL and Danny were merciless in just being up there to joke and have fun, (which I’m not complaining about) while James tried to seriously talk about acting (which was way cool, as he has a lot of intelligent, insightful, and articulate things to say about it, but he would get dragged into being funny by the others and he excelled at that, too.)

James made a point of saying the four people with him at the panel were the nicest people he’d ever worked with.

During the previous panel with Andy & JCL, the two of them kept score on how many people walked out while each of them were speaking and Andy lost badly. It seemed the only time people got up and left was when he was talking (which was very unfair, he was frikkin hilarious) and each time he’d pause and watch them leave sadly (and dramatically, so everyone would feel sorry for him.) Well, during today’s panel, he was answering some guy’s question and turned back to him and the guy was gone! Andy got all pouty-face again and made a deal of, "Hey! Where’d he go?" I think he was getting a complex about it. (hee!) Plus JCL keeping score didn’t help matters any. :-D

They were asked if there was any scary thing they’d like to do. James mentioned hang-gliding and Iyari got very excited, apparently she had done it recently and was still thrilled. She was like Tigger, she was so bouncy and energetic when talking about hang-gliding, though she was pretty quiet for most of the rest of the panel. For Danny it was running a marathon and he is going to be doing that soon, in the New Orleans marathon.

Someone told Andy that Green rules (apparently referring to Lorne) and Andy replied that he hates green now. He said he’d had a green truck and got rid of it. James laughed and asked what in the world he’d been doing with a green truck (and later told everyone Andy bought whatever caught his fancy and had a Viper for a car now.)

Everyone else had been in James shadow during the panel but quite good natured about it. Someone came up with a question for Danny who acted shocked, then pleased, then started out with, "Well, the first time I met James Marsters..." as if naturally it would be a question related to James. Broke the audience up. They asked when the movie he’s got going will be released. He said he didn’t know and most films that had him as the lead never got released. The person quipped that, "So it’ll be going straight to video, then?" which got a stunned pause, then much laughter, then joking about a trap door opening under the microphone and dropping the girl asking the question into a pit.

James made a comment at one point that "David is a real pro" (referring to his acting, but of course, again the serious comment was taken as an innuendo and Andy cracked up, which cracked up the audience. James, still trying to be serious, started to tell a story that started with, "When I first met David, he was doing Buffy..." and he didn’t even get to finish because everyone was laughing so hard. The poor guy was trying to be serious throughout, and noone seemed to accept it because their minds were strictly in the gutter and they wanted fluffy entertainment, not serious thoughts. It’s easy to see why he gets frustrated when people just stick him in a particular box and want to keep him there.

Someone challenged him on his statements that a guy who treats the world badly will treat his girl badly. They said the fans loved Spike because he was mean to the world but was willing to give it up for love. James replied that Spike could do that because all it took was a stroke of Joss’ pen but in real life it doesn’t work like that and if any woman sticks with a guy who treats people badly, thinking eventually she can turn him around by the power of love, she was wrong, people don’t really change like that and it’s a false and dangerous illusion to encourage because it will get them hurt. He also emphasized that any women out there looking for a man should pick a nice guy. He got very enthusiastic with, "Nice guys rock!... and we’re good at sex, too!"

Asked how they relax with their grueling work schedules, JCL popped up with, "Porn and beer!" while James said, "Drugs." Both were joking, then JCL said that the way he relaxes is with his very supportive family who he praised highly.

When asked, Iyari said she didn’t have any projects coming up, but she’s hoping to get called up for Angel. JCL plugged his indie movie, "Stunt Cocks"andDanny joked that, "Wasn’t it generous of me to let you use the story of my life for that?" Andy joked that his biggest aspiration at the moment was to get away from the rest of this group, but really that he wants to learn to play the piano. He joked a lot about having a player piano and pretending to play when people came over, but I didn’t quite catch if it was entirely a made-up joke or if he actually owned a player piano.

James said that he didn’t know the piano and was playing around with his baby grand last night (big laugh) and came up with some cool sounds, but now can’t find them again. He said he wrote a whole song and has no idea how to get it on his guitar. They joked again about James having such a huge suite and JCL couldn’t even get a room with two beds for him and his childhood buddy.

James laughed that he’d invited the other guys to come up to his room and party, but then he’d gone to sleep. Danny did a very funny bit about coming up and knocking on James’ door, not getting an answer and not having anywhere else to go, so sleeping on the floor outside James’room, waiting for the party to start and telling security, "It’s OK, I know this guy!" James joked that that was his life now.... "Rock on!...... Zzzzzzzz"

James said that Spike was made up of James’ anger and Joss’ humor. He said Spike was the part of him that, "If you fu@@ with me...." He said anyone who has worked for him in the theater groups he ran has had a run-in with Spike. He also singled out someone from the crowd and said something like, "You saw that on the plane, right?" So apparently something happened, but we never found out, despite Andy pleading and offering bribes.

Danny popped up with, "If you fu@@ with me, you’ll get Jonathon, so don’t cross me!" (big laugh) then JCL joined in with, "I’m a lover, not a fighter."

In answer to a question, James said that he was signed on for TWO SEASONS of Angel. He said he wants Angel to go on for ten more years and Andy got bug-eyed, went, "Wh...What?" and started guzzling the water as if it were booze. (All in relation to sentencing him to ten more years of make-up hell.)

James asked the audience how many people thought Clem should be made a regular on Angel and almost everyone raised their hand. James instructed everyone to write it down and send it to Joss Whedon. James raved about JCL as an actor, finishing up with, "He’s not just Clem..." at which Andy chimed in with, "... he’s foreskin!" (You had to be familiar with Andy & JCL’s panel the previous day to appreciate that.)

One guy asked why, everywhere he went, Danny & James followed him. Danny replied that it was because the guy was the best piece of ass he’d ever seen. He went into a whole bit about it and when the guy walked away from the microphone, Danny exclaimed, "Where are you going? Nobody touch that ass, it’s mine! Why not me? I can be taller!" (naturally, really huge laugh from the audience for all of this.)

One woman told the panel she had agoraphobia (sp?) and worked really hard for the last nine months in order to be able to travel 25 miles from her house to come see them. She said something about having a panic attack and her voice sounded like it would crack at any moment. The panel and audience applauded her tremendously. James told her that courage was not the absence of fear, rather it’s not letting it fu@@ your life up. He said that after reading Fahrenheit 451, he couldn’t leave his house for four months. Andy also made a point of being supportive, saying he had a friend that suffered from it. They asked the audience how many people there sometimes had a hard time leaving the house and I would estimate over a hundred people raised their hands. Everyone praised her for finding something to give her enough impetus to actually face her fear and get out of the house, and they encouraged her to keep doing that.

The next girl offered to trade shirts with James (referring to Andy swapping shirts with the fan the previous night) and James replied, "I ain’t wearing a bra."

Andy cracked up totally and brought the panel’s attention to a girl in the front row that had one of those frikkin huge paparazzi style 100 mm zoom lenses used to take pictures from a mile away, saying she was zoomed in on one of James eyelashes. JCL then joked that it was because James had the best pores in Hollywood and she had to examine each one. (hee!)

When the panel was asked the best way to prepare for an audition, Danny immediately spoke up with, "Kneepads!" (big laugh, then he looked around in a confused Jonathon-way and asked, "What’s the joke?") James’ advice for auditions was, "Be yourself. If they don’t like it, fu@@ them!" He then told a story that when he came to Hollywood, no one was interested in him, then when he auditioned for Buffy he was in a great relationship and was focused on the girl and didn’t care whether he got the part or not, and of course that’s when he was offered a job. In summary, he said the key to a successful audtion was "Apathy."

Danny responded with, "I went out with a girl once.... .... it was awesome!" (big laugh, then soon thereafter is when the staff called time and closed down the panel. They were signing autographs right after, but I had to get to the airport to catch my flight, so missed out on that.

I’d tried to find someone from the boards at the convention without luck. Everytime I checked Voltaire’s table looking for Vixen, she was gone. I carried a penguin all four days of the convention, but apparently nobody from the boards saw me. I even tried to see if there was anybody at the Buffy & the Internet panel, without success. Oh well, maybe I’ll have better luck next year.

That wraps up this final report from your action-penguin reporter. In the next couple weeks I hope to get my website up and running and put up my pictures from DragonCon. Actually, for Buffy related pictures from the con, I recommend a site I came across that has a bunch of pictures better than any I took, it is at http://www.alanna.net/dragoncon/ and has sections for Friday, Saturday & Sunday. Most of my good pictures are of costumes people were wearing at the con, though I do have one of the lady who James convinced to take her top off.

I’m posting this now as I just finished it. I’ve seen some requests from people who missed my previous reports and can’t find them in the archives, so tomorrow somewhere around the Good Morning Thread, I’ll combine all five reports together into one and repost it.