Angel

Hi guys! I went to Dragon*Con this weekend in Atlanta and got a chance to see all the Buffy/Angel stars that were there, so I thought I’d give you guys a short recap.

The following actors were there: James Marsters (Spike), Andy Hallett (Lorne), Danny Strong (Jonathan), James Leary (Clem), and Iyari Limon (Kennedy). James M. had a solo panel on Friday during the day. This was one of two solo panels that he had; the other being on Sunday. He was VERY open and at ease with the audience. He talked a lot about his stage career. They mostly just took questions from the audience, but regarding his Spike character, he said that basically, Spike used to just be an asshole, then he got the soul and went all "puppy love" over Buffy and became a dork, and now on Angel he’ll just be a prick and cause trouble. He also said that his scenes on Buffy allowed him to pretty much shoot his scenes and go and not have to spend much time on set. But on Angel, his scenes involve more of the cast so that he has to spend more filming.

At the Sunday panel, some chick in the back yelled for him to take off his shirt. (Yes, offensive and stupid, but there’s gotta be at least one in every crowd, right?) Well, James asked who had said that and called her up on stage. So, he told her to take her shirt off. She fumbles around for a bit, just hoping he’s kidding, but he keeps insisting (trying to make a point), so she takes her shirt off. The crowd claps and she gestures that it’s his turn. He goes, "oh, no, you’re not finished." She fumbles around a LOT more, again hoping he’s kidding and eventually, the bra comes off too. He laughs and ends up hugging her and telling her she’s got balls, but he’s still not going to take his shirt off. At a later panel, he apologized for offending anyone and that he was trying to make a point about being objectified and taking off your clothes on demand, but obviously she obviously didn’t care.

On Sunday, they had, as they do every year, an Iron Artist competition. It’s like Iron Chef, but with artists. This year, it was Don Maitz (the IA from last year) and Bill Stout. Well, James Leary was one of the two hosts for this and he was extremely hilarious. I was actually suprised, ’cause I didn’t know what he looked like ahead of time. He’s actually a pretty young guy. He looked to be about 30 or so?

Monday’s final panel consisted of all the Buffy actors at the Con. James kinda dominated a bit. The actors kept making fun of the fact that he was so much more popular at the Con than they were. Danny and James L were hilarious. Andy kinda stumbled over his words a lot and had a hard time completing a thought. Iyari hardly said a word. Which was okay ’cause no one had any questions for Kennedy anyway! :-P

Other Buffy Stuff That I Missed:

The Buffy Horror Picture Show: They did OMWF in the style of RHPS. They’d done this last year in a really small room with lots of success. This year, the did it in a room twice the size, but they had about 5 times as many people in line as could fit in the room. They ended up doing two shows that night and turning most of the people away. So, I went home instead. :)

Ghost of the Robot: Evidently this year, to see anything, you had to skip everything two hours ahead of time so you could stand in line. I’d went to n 8:30 panel for Firefly (which is coming out on DVD this Christmas, if you didn’t know) and then went to see GOTR at 10pm. The line went from the HUGE room it was in, up the stairs to the next floor, out the door and ALL the way around the hotel. So we went home.

All the pictures I got were from far away and my camera SUCKS, but if I have any good ones when I get them off the camera, I’ll try to post them or post links to them.