For those who didn't know...

[mcalex22]

Mr Benedict Cumberbatch is currently in Australia and has been appearing at some conventions and Q&A.

I saw him yesterday with derry667 and another friend. This was her first foray into anything fandom-y.

Comments

[missyvortexdv]

Lucky you! :)

[mcalex22]

LOL I'm very surprised that he agreed to do a con-type Q&A but I could tell that he was very unused to it. His minder gave a long list of "can't do" things before the con so we were all forewarned. I read somewhere that apparently at some of the other meets before Sydney, he was given dubious pics and stories which made him uncomfortable.

I saw Tom Hiddleston some months ago when he decided to go to Kinokuniya bookstore to promote Thor2 and he was hilarious. Benedict is more serious but I can kinda see why; I gather that some of the Sherlock fangirls can be a bit scary and hence he had quite a long list of demands. But overall he was very grateful for people for taking the time to see him.

[missyvortexdv]

Sad, but not unexpected, to hear he'd had some uncomfortable experiences. I guess that's the importance of having a minder, to try and minimise it. Nice that he hadn't been put off from doing that style of event entirely.

[mcalex22]

There will always be people who just don't think! And some people probably assume that just because another actor is comfortable with something doesn't mean that he is. He did mention in his panel about people misquoting him, taking things out of context and even manipulating his face on others' bodies. I don't think that it makes him comfortable so I'm glad that his minder took care of it.

[mirabile_dictu]

Thank you for writing this up! Wow. Iibnf was also there and also mentioned how long the queues were.

I'm glad the crowd behaved itself. I've read some disturbing stories about fangirl misbehavior, and not just for BC. I gather Tom Hiddleston had a bad time while doing Coriolanus.

I'm a fangirl so I resent them giving me a bad name, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, thank you! And lucky you to have actually spoken with him!

[mcalex22]

I had a look at her lj and she was there on Sunday. He did two days; Sat and Sunday and I attended the Sat session. The queues were long but I didn't wait long; mostly because we were put in lecture theatres at the uni and sat down a lot. They only called us (row by row) when it was time to queue and I spent probably 10 mins max queuing. Also, one of my friends is an alumna of the university and knew her way around. We actually took our time to explore the surrounding suburb & going outside the uni for lunch etc

[mirabile_dictu]

I also saw the recorded version of Coriolanus in a theatre; it was, as you say, electric. I read a long description of what happened at the theatre and although of course I wasn't there, it sounded true. And awful. I worry that Cumberbatch's Hamlet production will be hounded by the same fans. I don't know why some fans feel so entitled, so I was really glad to read that things were more under control at the con you attended and it wasn't marred by bad behavior.

[eviljr]

Thank you for sharing this. *happy sigh*

[mcalex22]

Pleasure! I don't do many cons anymore and sometimes if I hear that someone I like is appearing somewhere, I try to go and see them. I don't actually have much interest in talking to celebs though as I am happy with just being a fan from far :)