It’s taken me more than two weeks to scrape together the energy to write about Fan Expo Vancouver – mostly because my time on the convention floor was thoroughly exhausting.
But now that I’ve rested my tired feet, mourned my depleted bank account, and taken some time to reflect on this year’s convention – which ran April 3-5 and shone a spotlight on sci-fi, fantasy, anime, manga, gaming, and comic book culture – the word I keep coming back to (besides exhausting) is epic.
The number of people in attendance? Epic. I’ve attended every single edition of Fan Expo Vancouver to date, and I’ve seen agonizingly long lines and busy days, and the Saturday afternoon of the 2015 edition was by far the busiest I’ve ever encountered.
The caliber of celebrity guests? It doesn’t get much more epic than Kirk and Leia (that’s William Shatner of Star Trek fame, and Carrie Fisher from the Star Wars films, to those of you who manage to function completely outside of the realm of pop culture).
The cosplay game? Absolutely epic. Tons of people (from newborns to seniors) dressed up as their favourite genre characters, wearing costumes that they (or their parents) had ingeniously pieced together themselves. I didn’t dress up, and frankly, I felt left out. Note to self: cosplay as Rogue or Firestar next year.
There was a lot to buy (I loaded up on Marvel and Wonder Woman t-shirts), a lot to admire (like John Barrowman’s impromptu duet with a fan during his Q&A), and a lot to learn via panels and meet and greets with artists and geek culture creators.
But, as always, the main draw of Fan Expo, for this geek at least, were the tens of thousands of fans who converged under the sky-high ceiling of the Vancouver Convention Centre to celebrate their geeky passions. The strength of that passion was a sight to behold – and, oh yeah, the Force was strong with them (had to; sorry).
You’ll have to wait a few months longer than in previous years for the next installment of Fan Expo Vancouver; mark your calendars for November 11-13, 2016.
In the meantime, here are excerpts from my press junket interviews with Scott Wilson (Hershel on The Walking Dead), Lance Henriksen (Aliens; Millennium), and Jeremy Shada (the voice of Finn on Adventure Time).
SCOTT WILSON (Hershel on The Walking Dead)
Q: What did you enjoy most about Hershel?
SCOTT: It’s cool to see how he evolved over a period of his time on the show, and in that show, unlike a play, you don’t realize the full arc of a character in one evening. In this, you didn’t really know, so you try to have input on the direction that he’s taking, and watch it evolve. You have to be alert, and stay on your toes. It was fun. I enjoyed the process.
Q: What kind of challenges did you face during production?
SCOTT: Well, you’re shooting in Georgia in the summertime, and it’s pretty hot and humid. I grew up there, so I know. It really reminded me of my childhood.
Q: Tell me about your earliest beginnings as an actor.
SCOTT: I hitchhiked from Georgia to California when I was 19, and I got drunk one night and ended up in an acting class. At the end of the class, the teacher said, ‘I don’t know what your problem is, but don’t come back to my class drunk.’ So I went back the next week to apologize to him, and he gave me a monologue from a Eugene O’Neill one-act play called The Long Voyage Home, and for some reason, I went back and did that monologue the following week, and I said, ‘this is it, this is what I want to do.’
Q: What are your favourite types of characters to play?
SCOTT: I just like a well-written character, and a well-written piece, and I can say that about The Walking Dead. I read eight episodes before I went in to it, and I said, ‘this is good, it’s an interesting character.’ My first film was In The Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, which won four Academy Awards, and then I played a bad guy in In Cold Blood. I played a saint in something that Pope John Paul II wrote. So when I read it, I’ll know it.
Q: Did you take anything when you left The Walking Dead?
SCOTT: I always take some wardrobe. I always take a piece of wardrobe. They let you have that. It’s kind of a piece of you, in a way.
Q: When did you start appearing at Fan conventions?
SCOTT: A lot of the [Walking Dead] cast had been doing them for a couple of seasons, and they said, ‘why don’t you do it?’ And I said, ‘it’s not my thing.’ And then I went to one to see what they were doing, and I said, ‘this is kind of fun, because it really is a nice outreach to the fan base.’ In the old days, the actors would go to the provinces for openings of their shows or openings of grocery stores or car lots or whatever, and they intermingled with the fan base. Then with television, late night talk shows started, and they went to New York or LA and kind of abandoned what was between them. So these shows kind of take the celebrities and actors and put them back in contact with the fan base, and I think that’s an interesting way of looking at it.
LANCE HENRIKSEN (Millennium/Aliens)
Q: You’ve spent some time in Vancouver before, correct?
LANCE: Oh, yeah. Three years doing Millennium. [The city’s] completely changed. The whole waterfront looks like Hong Kong now. Everything’s vertical. Everybody wants to see that harbour. But it’s a cool city, and a very kind place.
Q: At what point did you realize that you wanted to be an actor?
LANCE: I was born in New York, and in New York, the only nature in New York is people. The rest is all cement. We had Broadway, and we had off-Broadway, and there was a river of theatre all around us, and I was always attracted to it because everybody involved in the arts, having to do with movies or acting or theatre or just meeting people, is a great allure, because they were very bright people. They weren’t tantrum-ing, or anything like that. They were always very bright, kind people, so I was very attracted to it. I didn’t like school. I hated school, so I wouldn’t go. I got my education, slowly but surely, because of acting. I’m literate now. I must have read 10,000 scripts already in my life. That’s what attracted me. I wanted an education, but I didn’t want the kind that they were shoving at people back in those days. I hated school. I only went to the third grade, and then I said, I’m done. I started shining shoes in New York.
Q: Is this a business or career path that you would recommend to your kids?
LANCE: I would recommend any of the arts to anyone, because I think it’s no accident that they exist. The arts can make you really a more fulfilled person. Isn’t that what it’s all about? It’s not about money, although there is money involved, lots of it. But to have a life, to have lived a life, in music, or whatever it is, the arts – yes, I would say yes. If you have a talent of any kind, express it. Life isn’t easy, either. We get into routines. If you’ve got a normal job – they call it a normal job – you’re into a routine that’s comforting, but the stuff we really remember is the stuff where we took a chance. That’s what helps build us up.
Q: I’m sure you’re getting asked a lot about Neill Blomkamp’s Alien reboot. What are your thoughts on his project?
LANCE: I love his movies. I just think, right now, I don’t even think they have the script yet. They’re probably doing outlines to figure out where they’re going to go with this, but he’s going to make a hell of a movie, I know about that.
Q: Are you interested in being involved in some way, if they could figure out a way to bring you back?
LANCE: I’d love to have a conversation with him, which could lead to more, but I don’t know. I’d love to talk to him, though. I think he’s brave for trying it, for wanting to do it. But I think he’s a brave guy. You see his movies? They’re very brave.
Q: You’re here in Vancouver for Fan Expo. What do fans want to talk to you about when they come up for autographs?
LANCE: They’re mostly curious about how does stuff happen. There’s a great deal of luck involved in the acting thing. Are you at the right place at the right time? Are you at the right place in yourself at the right time? We all go through moods. It’s a lot of luck. They’re mostly interested in that, in how does this all happen? And the answer is complicated.
JEREMY SHADA (Finn on Adventure Time)
Q: What kind of challenges do you face as a voice actor, and how do you overcome them?
JEREMY: For me, the most challenging thing is when you’re auditioning for something new and you have to create a voice unique for a specific character. Once you have the job and you’re in the swing of it, you’re just doing it. You’re just being that character. Especially for something like Finn [on Adventure Time], it’s not completely my normal voice, but it’s close, kind of my higher register, so I can have a lot of free range to make weird random sounds and noises, and say crazy, weird things.
Q: What do you think fans would be surprised to know about recording a show like Adventure Time?
JEREMY: I think they’d be surprised by how much actually goes on behind the scenes. They might just think, ‘oh, you’re that voice from it,’ but there’s so much. We usually have the whole cast recording together. We do the front of the script, the back of the script. Some shows do it differently, but us, we do the whole cast, which is awesome, because you get to play off of each other. For us, they animate to our voices, which means we record first and then they animate to it, so we can throw in a lot of weird stuff and improv a little bit, too, and change around lines so we’re not so locked in to what is down on the page, which is really nice.
A lot of voice acting is acting with your hands tied behind your back, because you have to put everything through just what you’re saying, and the sounds that you’re making. You don’t have the full range of physical emotion to show off, so you have to put everything into the voice.
Q: Have you been surprised by how well the show has been received?
JEREMY: For me, whenever you’re doing a new project, you never really know if it’s going to be little or huge, so you can’t have expectations. I don’t think it really dawned on me or hit me that it’s this big phenomenon that it’s become until the first time I went to San Diego Comic Con back in 2011. I walked out and saw the whole crowd, this sea of people with Finn hats, and I’m like, ‘okay, this is a thing, people actually like this show!’ I never really expect anything to be big. If it is, I’m super stoked, but I never expect it to be massive.
Q: We’re at a fan convention. Is there anything that you’re a fan of?
JEREMY: There are lots of things. I usually say it’s part of my job to watch other shows and just be aware of everything, but the truth is I love watching other shows anyways. It’s an awesome time, especially for TV. I love anything comic book, like Arrow and Flash. The Walking Dead, I love that show.
