Angel

I’m really tired and I tried to do this last night when I got in from Brighton whilst everything was fresh in my mind but Voy ate my post. So tonight I’m just pulling my write up of David’s panel at The David Boreanaz European Event from my journal. I will be posting a write up of the whole event at some point soon, but I wanted to share this panel ’cos I suspect there are a few people around here who’ll be interested *g*

So to cover the shallow stuff that isn’t actually in this part of my journal, David was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt (the kind that isn’t too tight but isn’t too loose either). To my mind it looked like his hair has grown a little longer again. Maybe it’s the way he’s dressed on screen or maybe it’s the thing about the camera adding weight, but he looked a little more toned in real life too. He’s a fine looking man :)

Right, shallow stuff over, here’s the meat of his Q&A as far as I can remember. I took a lot of notes!

Another announcement; David has completed his photo session and will be going directly onto the stage. He comes in through the side door this time, all smiles and waving. He’s got a very sweet manner and seems genuinely humbled by his reception as he thanks everyone for the gifts he’s been given.

Immediately the technical problems start. David’s microphone fails. He’s handed a spare whilst the techies try to fix the problem. Throughout this hold-up, he’s humming the music from Jeopardy. Once the stage microphones are fixed the audience microphone fails, leaving a rather embarrassed young girl of about 12 standing in front of the stage unable to do anything. Whilst the techies run around some more, David takes matters into his own hands and beckons the girl onto the stage to sit next to him on the couch. She looks thrilled and asks him about appearing in the Dido video. He tells her that he’s never done a music video before so it was a new experience for him, but Dido asked for him and he was happy to oblige. With the microphone still not fixed, he continued to invite questioners to join him on the couch until the problem was solved. Again came the inevitable favourite episode question and David currently has two. He loves Are You Now or Have You Ever Been and Home. In the case of the former he particularly likes the way it evokes the 1950s whilst in the case of the latter it sets up season 5. David seems particularly enthusiastic about season 5 and says he thinks it’s going to be "amazing". He was tight lipped about specifics though!

It is at this point that a tiny little girl somehow manages to make her way to the edge of the stage. She can’t be older than about 2, if that, and she crawls up the steps onto the stage. David gently encourages the toddler up but she seems to be a bit overawed by all the people so he walks across to her and crouches down saying "hey, you wanna get on the couch?" Then her mum comes over and scoops her up saying, " Say hello to David," which seems to have the net effect of triggering tears! And David’s reaction is to try to comfort the little one and he kisses her on the head. He obviously adores children and he’s so natural with them. It’s lovely to watch. It comes across again when he’s talking about working with the triplets that played baby Connor, describing how wonderful and amazing babies are and how when he worked with them he was always particularly focussed.

It seems to follow from there that he’s asked if he has anything of a father/son relationship with Vincent Kartheiser. He smiles and says yes, that in fact Vincent has "a playpen and a sandbox on the set." Joking aside, he says that it’s really more a case of everybody getting along really well and that a lot of pranks get played on set. Apparently they particularly enjoy "razzing Andy [Hallett]."

Getting away from the subject of Angel and onto movies, David confirms that he did meet people regarding Superman, but that it is pretty much impossible to fit that kind of project into a hiatus schedule. However, one thing he doesn’t believe is that the role itself is in any way jinxed. Though some terrible things have happened to people attached to the franchise in the past, he thinks it’s more to do with fate.

On the subject of direction, David says that Joss Whedon is very specific about what he wants to achieve but they work with lots of different directors who all have different approaches. They are usually given a lot of directorial freedom to play the roles the way they want to on Angel and have now reached a point where they rarely require more than two or three takes to shoot a scene. Having said that, he loves the character of Angel himself and wouldn’t want to change anything about him, as he is always new and challenging to play. He still likes to think that Angel might become human some day but suspects that Angel himself isn’t too sure where he’s going right now with all the changes afoot in his life.

One attendee is about to celebrate his 21st birthday and asks David what his memories of his 21st are. He replies that he was at college at the time and he remembers being woken by a knock on his door at about 7am by a guy delivering a giant cookie. His dad, who was well aware that he would have been out drinking the night before, had ordered it for him and had had it delivered early for precisely that reason! He also recalls that the weather was dreary that day.

Now comes an unexpected "treat". One of the girls in the gowns steps up to the microphone. David immediately compliments her dress and draws the attention of the audience to it. She thanks him and then asks her question; could he please sing a few bars of Mandy for us? The DJ, who has been keeping things going between panels and running the karaoke all day fiddles about and plays back the recording of Mandy from the show. David cringes and laughs and jams his fingers in his ears at first but finally does sing a few bars Angel-style, taking particular care to murder the chorus before laughing and saying "That’s so bad!" and wondering what Simon Cowell would make of it on American Idol... But the audience loves it!

He’s asked how to correctly pronounce his last name and he says it’s Bo-re-ah-naz but that it has been mispronounced many, many ways. He runs through a selection of mispronunciations, my favourite of which is "Boring-anus"!

The questions start to come back to Angel again and the Cordelia/Angel relationship. When asked if they’ll ever get together, David’s answer is, "Well, Cordelia’s in a coma. Angel’s dead, but he’s not that freaky! And Angel’s true love is Buffy." However, he describes the relationship between Cordelia and Connor as "kinda spooky".

Then someone raises the issue of David’s fear of chickens. He explains that it’s not just chickens but all birds, but that he’s working to get over it. He thinks that the origin of the phobia was seeing a cockfight on TV as a child and that it stayed with him and developed into the phobia. He goes on to say that this kind of thing is a reminder to cherish and love our children and to take time out to enhance their minds. It’s obvious that the issue of children’s welfare is something very close to David’s heart. The next person to question David admits that she too has a bird phobia and is terrified of geese. He sympathises, agreeing that geese are horrible with their hissing and their long necks and that they fly like B52s. But the question is about theatre and David admits that it’s something he’d love to do more of. He’d also like to try romantic comedy although he’s greatly enjoyed filming the latest Crow movie in which he got to be "really sarcastic."

The question that seems to give David the most difficulty comes next when he’s asked which historical figure he’d like to be. His initial answer is that he would love to be Dean Martin, but he then tries to think of a more historical figure. Suddenly a low, rhythmic thumping emanates from the PA system; he’s hitting himself on the head with the microphone as he tries to think of someone. Eventually he decides that he’d like to be Leonardo Da Vinci as he invented the helicopter, which is "pretty cool". Leonardo Da Vinci for an hour, or maybe Marilyn Monroe... As an aside, he mentions that one of Nick Brendon’s favourite films is Some Like It Hot and that it got him to thinking that he and Spike getting into drag would be a really funny episode.

Which brings us to the return of Spike. David thinks that Spike is a fantastic character and that Spike and Angel are great together. He has described Spike’s return as "amazing" although he was giving nothing away other than to say that Harmony’s back. He seems really excited about season 5 and says that he’s not comfortable at the moment, he’s edgy and that’s a good thing.

The last question he has time for is regarding Jaden’s baby milestones. He’s asked if there are any that he’s particularly looking forward to. He says that it’s all been great, watching him go from crawling to walking and that he now runs to you and hugs you and he’s starting to put words together. David is obviously a very proud daddy whose family life means everything to him.

Then his time on stage is up and he thanks the audience before being whisked away once more - this time to his helicopter and back to London.

I have to admit, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect because sometimes DB comes across a little bit oddly in transcripts but I thought he was really likeable and pretty unaffected. And he seemed to be very aware that it’s the fans that keep shows like AtS going.

At some point I really must finish writing up the chaos that was Mark Lutz, Nick Brendon and Kelly Donovan onstage together with Kristine Sutherland...