Planet Babylon - Convention report part 1
I so wanted to keep posting all kinds of random tidbits throughout the day today but in the end decided to go with one at least closely coherent post rather than several posts during the day that are in random order. If my adventures in Paris and Planet Babylon convention interest you, click the cut. *g*
Warning: This is a loooooooooooooooooong post. And there are a lot of pictures. I’m thinking this is the longest one I’m going to do of the convention. Somehow so much happened during the first days that the report got a bit long. The report includes practically everything that went on but if you are just interested in the parts with Randy, feel free to skip the rest. No hard feelings. *g*
There are plenty of photos in the text. They are all clickable for larger. Also this report is all shareable as are the pics of the guests. However, I'd appreciate a heads up if you take parts of the report or the pics.
Let’s get the boring parts out first. Since the convention was starting early on Saturday morning I decided to travel to Paris already on Friday so that I could be there right from the beginning. After pretty useless morning at work I headed for the airport and got on the plane. The flight was quite uneventful and boring. I just kept on fretting and hoping that I would find my way to the hotel since I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going and how I was getting there. I had also heard that there were some strikes going on that might affect the flow of traffic.
When I got to the airport in Paris I was in for a surprise since I’ve never been at CDG Terminal 1 before. The place was seriously like a space station. Felt really weird. There were these long conveyer belts you had to use. I followed behind the other passengers and tried to find my way to the train station. It took me a while to find out that there was no train station at Terminal 1 but I had to use special train they had to travel between terminals to get to Terminal three where I could get to the train going into town.
After some searching I found the train station and even managed to buy a ticket that I hoped would get me the whole way to the hotel. There was a train standing on the station so I thought I was in a hurry and ran to the closest door. I wasn’t the only one running. The train was already filled almost to capacity but I managed to squeeze in. Soon it became apparent that the train wasn’t going anywhere soon. And the whole time there were more people coming. Soon it really started feeling quite tight in the train and I was very happy I don’t suffer from claustrofobia. Finally after I had spent around 25 minutes in the train without it moving, it finally left. My feet were killing me already at that point and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to handle the trip. I kept hoping that other people would leave the train on the stops so that I could get a seat. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Quite the opposite, actually. Just more and more people kept squeezing into the train. I had to make quite an effort to keep enough room for myself so that I could keep on breathing and not getting totally trampled. Part of the time I only had space to keep one foot down so I was standing on one leg. Really didn’t help my already sore legs.
Getting out of the train when we finally reached the stop I was getting off on, was an interesting experience too since some of the idiotic people who were waiting for the train tried to get inside at the same time as people were getting out. Not very productive. Still managed to get myself and my luggage out of the train. My next problem was to find the next train I had to change to. The signs on the station were slightly confusing but finally I managed to find to the right platform. With that train I only traveled for a few stops before having to change again. Luckily in that third train I got a seat since I wasn’t entirely sure if my legs were going to carry me anymore. Although, sitting down had the downside of tiredness getting hold of me. I had quite a few stops to go. While in the train I tried to see from the map which way I should head from the metro stop when I finally got there, to reach the hotel.
When I finally got to the station I wanted I just picked one of the exits and hoped I didn’t end up anywhere really far. With the help of my map I reached the hotel and walked inside. I was sharing a room with evy_9_seconds but I knew she hadn’t gotten to the hotel yet, so I sat down to wait. After a while the guy at the reception asked me if I wanted a coffee, which a gladly accepted. I can’t remember when coffee tasted that good the last time. I was feeling really tired and just hoped the people I was sharing with, would come soon, so that I could get to finally take my shoes off and take it easy. Also hunger started to be an issue since I hadn’t really eaten much all day.
I had waited for a while before the guy at the reception asked if I was certain I was at the right hotel since there was another hotel nearby with the same name. I did tell him that I was pretty sure but then started to doubt. I sent evy_9_seconds a text asking for the address of the hotel. After a while she replied to me and I found out that I indeed was at the wrong hotel. Felt really embarrassed about that when I had to admit to the hotel staff that I was in the wrong place. They were really good about it and helpfully pointed me into the right direction. I collected my stuff and started walking again.
Luckily quite soon I reached the right hotel and again sat down to wait. I didn’t have to wait for long before I saw evy_9_seconds walking into the hotel. I was introduced to her friend, Alessandra, who was also sharing with us and we got our key. When we reached the room we noticed that it was a very small one and with us three standing there with our luggages there wasn’t much spare room.
evy_9_seconds knew that there was someone else she knew staying at the hotel as well and we knew their room number. We went to see if those people were in the room. A lot of squeeing was followed when they opened the door. After the biggest squeeing was over I was introduced to g_m_h_3 and her friend ryana82. We talked with them for a while and agreed to go to get some dinner in a while.
Back in our room we were making plans and at the same time keeping the door open to our room. After a few minutes a girl came to talk with us and asked if we were heading for the Planet Babylon convention as well. She introduced herself as ancaangie and we invited her to join us for dinner as well.
A while later we all met outside the hotel and our group was still joined by Carla, another girl that evy_9_seconds knew from before. Together we headed for the nearby square in search for food. I was very hungry at that point since I hadn’t really eaten anything all day. After some discussion we picked KFC as our dinner place. It was sort of my choice since we don’t have that in Finland. The dinner went nicely while talking and getting to know all these new people.
At this point it was already quite late so we headed straight back to the hotel. We knew that the next day was going to be a long and exciting one so bed called quite soon.
Saturday 30.10.2010
Didn’t sleep too well for some reason, but that’s quite usual for me in strange places, and then I also woke up pretty early because I wanted to be at the convention place as soon as they opened. There wasn’t anything with Randy on until afternoon but I had agreed with g_m_h_3, ryana82 and ancaangie that we were going to be there early anyway. I tried to be really quiet since I didn’t want to disturb my roommates too much. I met the other girls in the lobby and we headed towards the convention center. On our way there we went to a store to get some snacks and drinks for the day since we weren’t entirely sure how the day was going to go.
At the convention center we found quite a few other people already waiting. We joined the sort of end of the queue, if you could call it that. It was just a big group of people loitering around. No sign of the sophisticated queuing culture I’m used to from conventions in the UK. *g* When the doors were opened everybody rushed in and the registration began. They were yelling something but since it was in French we didn’t really catch any of it. Finally I got near to the table and handed my letter. They gave it a one look and said that I needed to be in the other queue since that queue was just for people who had one day ticket. Great communication for us non-French speakers…So I pushed myself into the other queue and got my wrist band we weren’t supposed to take off until the end of the con. Mine was put so loosely on my wrist that it came off without problems. Made it easier to shower and dress without it. But at the same time it made me fear that I'd lose it.
Next we joined the queue for the hall. There were two queues since there were two doors. We had no idea which one to pick so we just went to the closer one. Finally we were let into the hall. ancaangie, the lucky bastard, had one of the VIP tickets so she went to join the other VIPs in the first row and we took seats from further back. Still I thought, they were decent seats. And the first talk was with a L-Word guest so the seats didn’t matter as much.
Then the convention actually started. There was some music from QaF and some other tracks. They started with a dance the organizers had done. It was good but I was already impatiently waiting for things to get on their way. After the dance finished we still had to wait for a while before the presenters came on stage and started. At first there was just French and I had no idea what they were saying. I kept hoping they would at some point say something in English too, or otherwise I would be in trouble. Finally one of the presenters asked if there were any English speakers present that don’t speak French. I raised my hand and she explained at least some things also in English. It did sound quite a lot shorter than the French version but I guess we got the main points.
The first guest on stage was Rachel Shelley (Helena) from L-Word. They started with an interview they had obviously done at some point earlier. She was asked several questions and those questions were shown on screen, in French, before her answers were played. Since I didn’t understand the questions it was occasionally hard to grasp her answers. I wonder why they couldn’t put the questions also in English on the screen.
After that video interview Rachel came on stage and they had a Q&A with her. The questions were asked in French and then translated to English and then Rachel answered it and the answer was translated to French. Very time consuming but I guess they had to do it that way. Since I was at the con mainly for Randy I can’t remember much of the questions and answers. I do remember she was asked about how she got the part, what she thought of her character, how it was to come to the show a bit later than the others, what she thought about the storylines etc. I do remember some of her answers so in case you are interested, just ask. During the Q&A I noticed that we were sitting slightly too much to theleft side since the place where they did the Q&A was more on the right side of the stage. Made plans with my friends to get seats from that side for Randy’s Q&A.
When Rachel’s Q&A ended we actually moved to the seats on the right side of the hall. Just when we got to our seats Laurel Holloman, also from the L-Word got on stage to say a short hello to people.
They were announcing that they were starting with Rachel’s and Laurel’s photoshoots soon. Even if I wasn’t that interested in them, I was planning on getting photos with them both so after waiting for a while, I went to see what the queues looked like. On my way there I happened to notice some familiar faces. I think I almost bowled poor aschicca over when I ran to hug her. It was lovely seeing her again. Also met some other people who had only just arrived, among them masterglory and frodina. I exchanged a few words with them and then headed for the photo queues. I chose Laurel’s first since it was shorter. Pretty soon I was there and took my place beside her. She had her hands in the pockets of her jacket so that was quite a clear sign since didn’t want any contact with people. I said my "hello" and "thanks" and that was pretty much it.
Next I went to Rachel’s queue. While I was there I saw g_m_h_3 leaving the hall. She had all the stuff I had left there with her since they were closing the hall for lunch and we had to leave the building. I hadn’t known that. I had sort of hoped that we would get to keep the places we had managed to reserve for ourselves from the right side of the hall since the next official program was Randy’s Q&A. It meant that we would need to fight for those places after the lunch break. The girls were heading for lunch but I wasn’t feeling hungry so I said I’d remain behind and see them later. When it was my turn to go to a photo with Rachel I walked to her. She said hello in French but I replied in English. She shook my hand and then put her hand on my waist. I copied her and we got the picture taken. Got a lot better impression of her than from Laurel. After the picture I again said my thanks and left.
I tried to hang around inside the building but I was told that I had to go outside. I walked a small distance away from the place but then returned back to the building and went to stand in front of the doors. There was two people before me there. After a while other people started joining us. What surprised me was that they just walked past us to the doors with no consideration to the fact that there was an obvious queue forming. Close to two I was joined by some of my friends and as soon as the doors opened we tried to get inside. As luck would have it they only opened one of the doors and that was of course one of the ones that wasn’t close to me. We continued our way straight to the hall but there something was yelled at us. Since it was again in French I didn’t understand but people started to back away. I asked someone to explain to me what was happening and they said we weren’t allowed in the hall yet. I backed out of the hall as well but tactically so that I was pretty close to the door. As soon as we were let in I ran towards the row I had planned on and threw my bag on one of the chairs. I then continued running through the row and threw my jacket on a chair that was about ten places from the first chair. Some people tried to come to the row but I told them that the row was reserved. Finally I saw my friends arriving and they took places on the row. I took the seat next to the aisle myself since I knew that would have a good view of the stage and hopefully the chair where Randy would be sitting.
They again started with a dance show. After that they told us that we would be doing that dance routine for the guests on Monday. I decided there and then that I wasn’t going to be doing any dancing. Um, yeah. More about that later. *g* Before they actually let the actors on stage they showed some clip from the L-Word with Laurel in it. I sort of expected there to be a clip of Randy or from QaF too, but there wasn’t.
Finally the Q&A got started. It was shared between Randy and Laurel Holloman but I concentrated just on Randy. The floor was opened to questions from the audience. The actors were also given three "wildcards" that allowed them to pass questions if they so wished. There was no need to use those. Again more on that later.
Let’s start with a few pictures
You would think that with all the conventions I’ve done, I would have learned to take paper and pen with me. Although, if I had been writing I wouldn’t have had time to take pictures. Luckily for me aschicca was writing the questions and answers so I stole them from her report (with her permission). So the questions and answers below are from her report with some input from me when I remembered something. The questions were mainly in French and they were translated to Randy and Laurel and after they answered, their answers were again translated into French.
- After QaF, Randy didn't do much TV. Is he planning on doing some TV now? Randy said that after finishing QaF he wanted to be as far away from TV as possible, but now he'd like to be in a TV show. He's open to the possibility.
- What was the hardest scene to play? Randy said that the hardest part was that they made them suck on ice cubes when they shot outside during winter so their breath wouldn't show. He said his tongue always got numb and he had trouble speaking. He talked about a scene that was supposed to happen in LA during the summer at a pool and they all had to be without their shirts. He said that one was a hard one to do and that people kept getting sick because they needed to be in small clothes even if it was winter.
- He was asked about the break-up between Brian and Justin at the end of season 5 and he said that he doesn't think B and J broke up (*cue us jumping up and down*) because yes, Justin went away and all but that doesn't mean he broke up with Brian. He also said that Justin needed to go away to become his own person.
- Does he have new theatre projects? And did he see any of his former cast mates' performances in theatre? (This one was asked by me) Randy said he doesn't have projects lined up for now but mentioned the two projects he just finished which were in Berkshire and the Shakespeare theater project. To the other part of the question he said that he saw Gale in one play (we all thought he meant he'd seen Orpheus but it turns out he was talking about Suddenly Last Summer) and Peter in two plays. He never saw Scott but knew that he had done quite a lot of theater in LA.
- Why did he come back to the Paris Con this year, too? Randy's answer was: "Why wouldn't I?"
- How did he feel when he first read the script for QaF? Randy said he'd heard about the UK one and when he was given the script for the Showtime one he thought that, if they managed to portray it as they'd written it, it would be a big deal and would have lots of attention. He said he thought they wouldn't have the balls to go with it, though.
- B/J are the center of the show. How does he remember the first scene he had with Gale? Randy said that he remembers strongly the scene where Gale's pouring water all over himself and the kiss after that because the camera was moving around a lot and he kept thinking, "Where is that camera now??" He also said that he and Gale had met before and had talked about how they were going to shoot the sex scene. Then he added that at the beginning the writers didn't want B/J to be the center of the show. They wanted to put Brian and Michael in the spotlight. B/J came later.
- He was asked to do an impression of one of the characters in QaF and he made a Ted impression! So funny with the snorting up crystal and having a seizure!!! He actually mimicked the seizure *g*
Then he was asked to mimic a movie and he got up and hid behind his seat and did a Jaws impression with his hands while hiding behind a chair. Very amusing. I got it on video and you can find it below. Not the best quality but anyway.
Fans were also given the chance to play out a scene from either show if they so wished. One girl did get on the stage and he acted the reunion scene from 309 with Randy.
Right before the panel ended this guy decided that it would be a great idea to walk across the stage carrying a carbage bag. At first we thought it was a joke of some kind but the guy actually was an employee of the place and he needed to get to the other side of the stage for some reason and couldn’t care less that there was actually something going on on the stage. And he was in no hurry but walked across the stage veeeery slowly. The expressions on Randy’s, Laurel’s and the presenters’ faces were quite priceless. Don’t have pictures because I was laughing too hard and also with my mouth hanging open.
More pictures!!!
Seriously!!! Look at him! How can anyone be that gorgeous, let me ask you
I guess someone asked something difficult *g*
And another example of the gorgeousness that is Mr. Randy Harrison. So unfair!
After the Q&A ended it was time for me to go crazy. They told us that they still had one VIP pass to auction. They started the bidding at €250. I started bidding on it. First it looked good since there weren’t that many people bidding but soon it became evident that those that were, were quite determined. In the end it was just me and another girl. I totally went crazy and just kept on bidding. I went way past what I could actually afford. Gave up at €920 and the VIP pass went to the other girl with €950. So um yeah, maybe a good thing I gave up. *g* I really couldn’t have afford that. But I did feel disappointed since the VIP pass would have included a dinner with the guests. Next they started the bidding on coffee moments with the guests. So there I went again bidding for those. Ended up winning one of the spots at a coffee moment with Randy. Paid quite a lot for it but at that moment I didn’t really care since I knew I was going to have some more private time with Randy and that was all that mattered. They didn’t accept credit cards so I had to make a run to the ATM to get some more cash since I didn’t have the amount with me. Luckily there was an ATM quite close. I took care of paying for the coffee and was informed that it was going to happen a bit later and that I needed to be at a certain spot at a certain time.
About then they started photoshoots with Randy. Officially my number wasn’t going to be called that day but I decided to go and join the queue anyway since I wanted my first contact with Randy even if I knew I had the coffee coming up. Was feeling a bit nervous while I stood in the queue and I really hoped I wouldn’t end up doing anything stupid or making a fool of myself. There was also the fact that I knew I was going to have a heavy make up on in the evening and just in case I couldn’t get it all off, I wanted a pic with him without the danger of my face being all green in the picture.
When it was my turn I walked to Randy. He shook my hand and said hello, first in French but when I replied in English, he also said hello in English. I replied and then he placed his hand on my waist I put mine on his. It is possible I forgot to breathe for a while. After the picture was taken, I said my thanks and left. The whole thing took something like 15 seconds so not a very long meeting. *g* Felt slightly jittery. I walked to my friends and stood there watching while other people got their pictures taken. Did snap a few candid shots but they didn’t come out too well.
Then it was time for my coffee moment. Too bad Randy hadn’t been told that he was supposed to be there. We had to wait for him for quite a while. There were three other girls with me waiting for him. One of them said to me that she had seen pictures of me and Gale from earlier in the year when I went to see him in Orpheus Descending. While we waited we talked about random things and also kept hoping that our moment with Randy wasn’t going to be cut short due to him being late, or canceled altogether. One thing I remember we talked about was having more QaF guests at the con. We talked about how we knew that at least Scott and Thea had expressed interest in doing conventions in Europe but neither had obviously been asked. I ended up telling how friendly Scott was towards his fans and how he had a habit of personally answering if you messaged him through Twitter or Facebook.
Finally Randy arrived and we went to this really small room with him. Seriously the room was maybe about three meters on every side. Very cozy. I did a tactical move and remained standing so that I was closest to Randy and when they finally brought us chairs I got to sit pretty close. Before the chairs were brought Randy shook all our hands and told us his name. I silently thought inside my head that “as if we don’t know who you are” but I guess his intention with that was for us to introduce ourselves, which we did. While we were still standing around and waiting for the chairs I commented about not speaking a word of French and how that makes it occasionally a bit difficult to keep up with what’s happening. That prompted him to ask us where we were from. I told I was from Finland. He asked me what it was like there and I said it’s quite cold in the winter and that we have quite a lot of snow. Couldn’t come up with anything more intelligent at that point. He also asked which part of Finland I was from and said that I live in Helsinki, even if that isn’t totally true since I live in the city next to Helsinki but the capital is usually known for people, while the smaller cities probably aren’t. Then Randy proceeded to ask the others where they were from. Two of the girls were from Paris and one girl was from Russia. The Russian girl gave Randy a bottle of Russian vodka as a present. At that point I regretted that I hadn’t gotten the bottle of special Finnish vodka for him, which I had thought about but never went through with. It was too late then. The girl from Russia did mention that she was actually living in France at the moment with student visa in the Bordeaux area. Randy mentioned that he had spent a month in Bordeaux learning French a few years ago and that he really liked it there.
So then Randy asked if we had some questions for him. Unfortunately I can’t remember everything that was talked but below are the subjects and answers I do remember. The order can be very wrong but I’m just writing them as I remember. We were also given small cups of coffee. There were some cookies on offer but no one touched those. Randy managed to spill half of his coffee on the floor but luckily he didn’t spill it on himself.
The ending of QaF Randy pretty much repeated what he had said on stage about him being happy about the way they ended the show and how he felt that Justin could have never really grown up if he had stayed with Brian. He needed to learn and take care of himself. He felt that Brian’s and Justin’s relatioship wasn’t equal at any point and that it was more like an older mentor and a young apprentice. He felt that Justin needed to stand on his own two feet. I mentioned something about maybe being able to accept the ending but how I thought it was wrong that Justin wasn’t there even for the reopening of Babylon and how I felt he should have been there.
Him working in general Randy also repeated some of what he had said on stage about his work situation at the moment. He said that he’s looking for interesting projects and that he actually did have the chance to audition for something but he didn’t go because he didn’t want anything conflicting with him attending the convention. I went all “aawwww” in my head at that point but luckily didn’t say anything. Randy did again talk about being ready to do TV again. He said that he suffers from ADD and that makes it hard for him to keep on doing the same thing for a long time and after QaF finished he couldn’t keep on doing TV anymore and just had to concentrate on something else.
Show's at Joe's Pub I asked him if he had any plans to make another show at Joe's Pub anytime soon. He did say that he did have some plans and maybe there was going to be another thing from him. I mentioned seeing the previous performances from YouTube. I did add it of course wasn't nearly the same thing but all I had access to. He did agree that YouTube maybe wasn't the best channel to see them.
Traveling We talked about how easy it was to travel around the EU countries but how difficult it could be to get visas from other countries. Randy asked me if Finland was part of EU and I said yes. Didn’t tell him that Finland has been part of EU for over 15 years now. *g* While we were at the subject of traveling I happened to mention that it was pretty easy for us to travel to US as well, or that we didn’t need visas for that. He then asked about work permits but to that I said that wasn’t easy for us and talked about how we did have permission to stay in the country for three months at a time. I happened to mention that I had visited the US for the first time last February and went to LA. Randy asked me what I had done there and someone else told him that I had gone to see Gale and I sat there with my face probably beet red. He then asked me what I had thought about the play and if I had liked it. I told him I had thought it was really great but that occasionally I did have some problems understanding the really southern accents they had in it since my English wasn’t that fluent. Randy immediately told me that he thought my English was very good. I probably blushed even more and stammered my thanks.
Drinking Don’t remember how this came up but there was talk about how it seemed that people who are from cold countries seem to drink more. I did mention that Finnish people are quite heavy drinkers. Randy continued to mention a few cities in the US that are famous for a lot of drinking. One of them was Minneapolis and I mentioned that I need to see if that’s true when I go there next February. Randy immediately told me that he knows that there is a really great theater group in Minneapolis and that I should definitely go see their production while I was there, if they had anything on. I told him that I need to check it out. I then continued to tell him that I was going to travel around a bit with a friend and mentioned all the cities we were going to visit. One of them was San Francisco and Randy said that he’s never been there but that he’s heard that it’s really beautiful there.
QaF in general Randy has never seen the finished fourth season of QaF and that he only saw season five only a while ago. There was talk about how many fans don’t like seasons four and five and especially the fact that Brian and Justin don’t end up together in the end. We again returned to the subject that Randy felt that Justin couldn’t really grow up if he stayed. I said something about people possibly wanting a happy ending and Randy commented something on the lines of, why can't Justin be happy when he's alone. Being single can be fun too. I did say something about being happy that I was single right now. (Oops! Oversharing much?) Then the cancer arc was mentioned from season four and I said how that was one of my favorite arcs. And also mentioned the scene where after Brian has thrown Justin out, he comes back, makes him chicken soup and tells him to "fuckin’ eat it". While we were discussing the whole series it came out that one of the girls hadn’t actually seen all of the series yet but was somewhere in the middle of season four. So we sort of totally spoiled her by accident, but she didn’t say anything beforehand so there was no way we could have known. Randy seemed genuiely sorry for that. After that people were a bit more careful what they said. Someone did mention that it seemed he wasn’t so enthusiastic about his part on seasons four and five and he claimed that wasn’t the case at all. Randy said that he did like his part until the end but just had to do something completely different after the series finished. Someone asked about him shaving his hair for the pink posse arc and he said that his hair was actually shaved right there and then when the scene was filmed. I guess they had to get the shot right on one shot. *g*
Gay rights It was discussed that the way Brian saves the day in season three felt a bit out of character for him. Randy started talking about how the creators did have a strong political agenda with the series (A/N: no kidding!!!) and how they wanted to address many of the things that gays face in the US even nowadays. From there the discussion continued to gay rights over all and how gays still have really hard time in many countries. Randy remembered hearing about people being arrested when they tried to organize a Pride parade in Russia. I told about this huge debate that is going on in Finland right now about gays’ right to marry. He seemed surprised that gays weren’t allowed to marry in Finland. I told him that there was this civil partnership thing but that it wasn’t the same thing as marriage since it didn’t give inheritance rights or automatically give the right to take the other’s name. I did mention we had elections coming up next spring and that how it seemed the gay rights were going to be one of the big questions there. Did talk about rewatching QaF just a while ago and how I had noticed the political influences there and how they fit quite well since a lot of discussion was going around in Finland too.
Internet Randy told us that he really doesn’t go and read what’s written about him in the Internet since he knows that stuff can upset. He said he did it in the beginning but stopped after he read some bad stuff. He also said that he had to be really careful what he said since things could return to haunt him at a later stage. From there it was jumped to the next subject.
Fanfiction This discussion wasn’t started by me but by someone else but I do admit that I took part in the discussion in some parts. Randy seemed surprised people were still interested in that and it was explained that people use it as sort of way to survive the disappointment that was the series finale and how quite a lot of the stuff is concentrated on the time after the finale. Randy asked if a lot of it is graphic. He was told that if he went searching and found fics that were marked NC-17 it probably was quite graphic. I started gringing when he was told how to find those fics if he so wished. I’m feeling I should lock all my fics now…Not that they really come up in any searches. And the gringing really started when RPS was brought up. I felt like yelling, haven’t you heard that you should NEVER EVER bring up RPS in front of the actors. Randy didn’t know what it meant and the term was explained to him. I remained carefully quiet. Randy seemed quite shocked when he found out what RPS is. He really was puzzled and said that people confuse him with his character and wondered how people could write things about him when they only knew him as Justin. He was told that sometimes people take stuff from interviews and things. I stared at the floor. To me it seemed that Randy felt quite uncomfortable by the idea that someone was actually writing fics about him as the person and not just his character.
Fat, middle aged fans From the RPS and taking stuff from interview we got to him making the comment in some interview about fat middle aged fangirls. I’ve just heard about that. I don’t think I’ve ever read the interview in question. At first Randy denied saying anything like that but when the subject was explored further he did seem to remember something. He repeated what he had said earlier about having to be really careful what he said in interviews since his saying could easily be taken out of context and cause problems. He suspected he had been annoyed by the rumours that someone had taken photos of him in the nude while he had been doing a play where he was completely naked. He was assured that it was quite probable those pictures didn’t exist since if they did, we would have seen them because everything spreads so quickly in the Net. He said something on the lines of being glad about that.
The video that shouldn’t have been public While we were in the subject of everything spreading quickly in the Net, a certain video was mentioned that was up on Vimeo and obviously meant as a private video. It was available only for about a day or two but during that time everyone and their brother saw it and it was shared all over. He seemed really confused about the video and didn’t even seem to know what we were talking about after the video was described to him and he was told who was in it with him. I don’t know if he was being dense on purpose or if he really had no recollection of making that video but we dropped that subject quite quickly. Someone from the group did say to Randy that we were sorry that we had seen the video and that we were also sorry in case any fans had ever upset him. He assured that he didn’t take things personally.
At some point Randy felt a bit sorry for the French girls since they were pretty much sitting there quiet since their English wasn’t that good and me and the other girl were pretty much dominating the conversation. He did talk in French with them for a while. About what, I have no idea, since I don’t understand French, as has probably already been established. *g*
I have no idea how long we actually ended up having with him but it seemed like time flew and way too soon we were told that the session had ended. Randy thanked us all and said that he was going to see us all later in the photoshoots as well as autographs. I took the opportunity to show my nails (with rainbows in them) to him and he said he had noticed them and liked them. He asked me if I had done them myself but I told him that a friend of mine had done them for me. Someone also asked him if he was going to be at the party that night and he said that probably not since he was feeling quite jetlagged. I did say to him that I hoped he would get some nice theater project and that maybe I could then get to see him on stage whey I go to NY next February.
Generally I felt that the coffee with him was a nice chance for us to talk with him. It was more like normal conversation than a Q&A since we could express our own thoughts too. All in all, I thought it was money well spent. Will worry about the credit card bill later…
I walked out of the area where the coffee had been held and almost immediately saw some of my friends. Of course I had to go to them to tell them all about my moments with Randy. Was feeling all jittery.
A while later Randy started doing autographs. After some consideration I decided to join the queue to get the free autograph that came with my ticket. I knew I would have two other days as well to get his autograph but I knew myself and guessed I was probably going to buy extra ones any way so decided to get one that day. I wanted to maximize my time with Randy. *g* At first there were quite a few of us in the queue but in the end it was just me and ancaangie who queued until the end and got autographs. All others decided to get them some other day. While we queued again tried to snap a few pictures even if you weren’t actually allowed to do that. There was this security guy who kept yelling "no pictures" at us.
I was surprised to see that you were actually allowed some peace and quiet while you got your autograph. The queue was formed so that the head of it was about two meters from the table where Randy was sitting and everyone got to walk to the table on their turn to have their moment with him. Even if I had just had the coffee with him, I still felt nervous. When my turn came I walked to the table and said hi. He said something on the lines “hello again”. I had written my name on a piece of paper just in case and placed that so that he could see it. Said something about my name being short and easy. For some reason I decided to share him what I was going to be dressed as in the party that night, i.e. Elfaba from Wicked. I did add I was going to do that if I got it to work out. He said that he was sure I would do great. I did ask him the one question I had forgotten to ask during the coffee about how it would be best to keep up with his work and what he’s up to. He didn’t really have an answer for that. I then asked him if I should just keep my eyes and ears open and he said that it was probably the best. He then joked that sometimes it felt like the fans knew what he was up to before he himself did. The whole time I was there he kept looking at me and that made me stammer a little. I got him to sign a shot from the episode 510 where Brian and Justin are standing in front of an ambulance (the ILU-scene *g*) and told him that it was one of my favorite scenes too. He said that it was a meaningful scene but that he hadn’t wanted to talk about it at our coffee moment because that one girl hadn’t seen those episodes yet. He wrote "Pia, my Finnish fan. All the best. Randy" (Scanned below) on the picture. After that I thanked him again for the coffee moment as well as for the auto and left. I hung around and waited while ancaangie got her autograph and her moment with Randy. When she was done we headed out of the building since there wasn’t anything else on before the party that night. We knew we had quite a lot of preparations to do and we also needed to get something to eat.
While we had been standing at the autograph queue we had seen the others standing outside but when we got there, they were gone. We guessed they were heading for the hotel and headed that way too. At the hotel I texted aschicca to see where she was since I was supposed to share with her from then on. It came out that she was only just coming to the hotel. I went to ancaangie’s room to wait. When I got a text that she was at the hotel, I went to pick up my stuff from the room where I had spent the first night and dragged them into the new room. Found out that it was a bit spacier than the other room,which was good. After a small discussion we agreed that we were going to see each other at the party later since they had plans to go somewhere further away for dinner and I didn’t want to travel in the metro while being green. *g*
Ended up at McDonald’s for dinner with ancaangie so nothing special. We just had some quick salad there before heading back to the hotel to get ready. I knew it was going to take me a while to get all the needed make up on. Luckily ancaangie had promised to help me. It did take me a while to get the make up done. I was quite happy with the result. Of course if I had had more time, I could have done a more careful job. Then we made our way down to the lobby where we met up with g_m_h_3 and ryana82. They were quite surprised by my look, as were the hotel staff. Also got some looks during our walk back to the convention place. One guy asked us where we were going and obviously would have liked to join us.
The party hadn’t really started yet when we got there so we just hung around. A while later they announced the beginning of the competition of the Queen/King of the party and told the people who wanted to take part to make themselves known. Another crazy moment for me when I walked there and said that I wanted to take part. I had no idea what I had just gotten myself into. I was told that I needed two people to help me and managed to talk ancaangie and ryana82 into it. Only then it was revealed that there was going to be dance routines that we’d need to do. I was so certain we were going to be out of the competition immediately. I’m so bad with dancing and remembering stuff. Anyway, I did decide to try my luck. They first showed the routine to us so that there were a few people dancing in front of us for the whole song. Next we had to do it without help. I was totally out of it but at the end we were told that no one was disqualified on that round. There was another song we had to do and after that a few of the teams were thrown out. I was surprised when we were told that we were still in the game.
My costume
Next it was announced that we got a small break to cool down. I had noticed that the wig I was wearing was very hot so I was glad about the break. It was also announced that Randy was going to join the party after all very soon and he did make an appearance. We were told not to haras him with photos. I was sort of curious to know if he was going to remember me after I had told him about my costume and situated myself quite close to where he was standing. He did look towards me, gave me a smile and told me that I looked wonderful. I was glad about the green make up since my blush couldn’t be seen through that. *g*
Soon the break was over and the competition continued. They kept calling me the "Wicked Witch of the West" for the whole night, which was sort of right since that was who I was. They did ask for my name at some point too but I guess they forgot it. *g*
There were some more dance routines and they kept dropping people. Every single time I was surprised that we were still allowed to continue since I knew I was messing up the routines and my teammates also told me that they weren’t doing that well either. I did suspect we got some pity votes. *g* Finally there were just three teams left and they came up with something different. All the competitors got their turn to pull on socks to one leg and the competition was judged based on how many socks you were able to put on your foot in two minutes. I intentionally wanted to be the last one so that I would have some idea how far I should get to stay in the competition. The first person managed to put 17 socks on. The next one got 13 so I set my goal at 18. When my time started I did try to count but very quickly lost count. I could hear ancaangie yelling numbers at me indicating how many socks I still needed to put on. At some point she started just yelling "one more" over and over again. And I did. Finally the time ran out and it was time to count the socks. I was pretty sure I had reached the required amount but wasn’t completely certain of it. When the socks were counted, it came out that I had 22 socks on, so I won that round. We were told that there was one more round left and for that round we needed to come up with a dance routine of our own for a song they played to us. The song was totally foreign to me and quite weird too. I had a pretty bad feeling about the whole thing.
We were given around 10 or 15 minutes to rehearse our routines. We went outside to practice and cool down a little. Pretty quickly we came up with a quite simple routine that still had quite a few moves in it and it was easy to be repeated time and time again. I had no idea if it was a good one or not. I also had trouble remembering what came after what. We did have nice memory rules. Us saying aloud “hip, hip, ass, ass, turn” got some looks from passersby. Or maybe it was just the fact that we were making dance moves outside the building, without any music. g_m_h_3 worked as our choreographer. When our practice time was over we returned inside and did the routine. I had no time to pay attention to the other team so I had no idea how we were doing compared to them. I did try to remember our routine but ended up messing quite a few times. When the song ended it was time for the audience to vote for the winner. The voting was made by people clapping to the team they thought deserved the win. First they wanted to votes for the other team. I was quite surprised when they really didn’t get much votes. When they asked people to clap to us, it was quite clear that we had won since the clapping was thundering. I was very surprised. The both finalists were told to get up on this small podium and we were given our prizes. The girl who came second was given a silver crown and I was given a gold one as well as this huge lollipop. Then there were a lot of photos taken. Maybe half of the people still left at the party wanted to take a photo of us or me. I guess my photo is now in quite a few places. I was just sad that Randy had already left the party at that point. It would have been nice if he had been the one to hand out the prizes. I would have been a very happy girl then. *g*
My wonderful team that helped me to win!
Me with my crown and "scepter"
After that the party was practically over. We got our jackets and started to walk back to the hotel. I really hoped aschicca wasn’t going to kill me since they had headed for the hotel already a while ago. I sent her a message telling her that I was on my way and she told me that she was well awake still. Again got some weird glances during our walk. I guess it’s not normal for people with green faces to walk the streets of Paris…
At the hotel I was supposed to start the process of getting all the make up off but I was so hyped up about the party as well as from my earlier coffee with Randy, that I just kept on talking to aschicca and evy_9_seconds. At some point I decided that I just had to let them sleep finally and went to take the green make up off. However, noticed that you really had to scrub the stuff off so ended up needing help since I couldn’t reach my back. Luckily my lovely roommate helped me. It did take quite a while before my skin started to look normal again. Still I wouldn’t be surprised even if I still would find green spots somewhere. The most important was to get the color off my face and neck since those were the areas which would show the most and since I had plans to get a photo with Randy the next day too, I didn’t want to have any green anywhere.
I still continued talking for a while before finally shutting up and letting the others sleep. I just kept on coming up with details I remembered about my coffee moment with Randy or from some other situations. Luckily I did end up falling asleep quite quickly after the lights were shut off and I put my head to the pillow.
Seriously kudos to anyone who managed to read all that...You deserve a medal :D
Warning: This is a loooooooooooooooooong post. And there are a lot of pictures. I’m thinking this is the longest one I’m going to do of the convention. Somehow so much happened during the first days that the report got a bit long. The report includes practically everything that went on but if you are just interested in the parts with Randy, feel free to skip the rest. No hard feelings. *g*
There are plenty of photos in the text. They are all clickable for larger. Also this report is all shareable as are the pics of the guests. However, I'd appreciate a heads up if you take parts of the report or the pics.
Let’s get the boring parts out first. Since the convention was starting early on Saturday morning I decided to travel to Paris already on Friday so that I could be there right from the beginning. After pretty useless morning at work I headed for the airport and got on the plane. The flight was quite uneventful and boring. I just kept on fretting and hoping that I would find my way to the hotel since I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going and how I was getting there. I had also heard that there were some strikes going on that might affect the flow of traffic.
When I got to the airport in Paris I was in for a surprise since I’ve never been at CDG Terminal 1 before. The place was seriously like a space station. Felt really weird. There were these long conveyer belts you had to use. I followed behind the other passengers and tried to find my way to the train station. It took me a while to find out that there was no train station at Terminal 1 but I had to use special train they had to travel between terminals to get to Terminal three where I could get to the train going into town.
After some searching I found the train station and even managed to buy a ticket that I hoped would get me the whole way to the hotel. There was a train standing on the station so I thought I was in a hurry and ran to the closest door. I wasn’t the only one running. The train was already filled almost to capacity but I managed to squeeze in. Soon it became apparent that the train wasn’t going anywhere soon. And the whole time there were more people coming. Soon it really started feeling quite tight in the train and I was very happy I don’t suffer from claustrofobia. Finally after I had spent around 25 minutes in the train without it moving, it finally left. My feet were killing me already at that point and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to handle the trip. I kept hoping that other people would leave the train on the stops so that I could get a seat. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Quite the opposite, actually. Just more and more people kept squeezing into the train. I had to make quite an effort to keep enough room for myself so that I could keep on breathing and not getting totally trampled. Part of the time I only had space to keep one foot down so I was standing on one leg. Really didn’t help my already sore legs.
Getting out of the train when we finally reached the stop I was getting off on, was an interesting experience too since some of the idiotic people who were waiting for the train tried to get inside at the same time as people were getting out. Not very productive. Still managed to get myself and my luggage out of the train. My next problem was to find the next train I had to change to. The signs on the station were slightly confusing but finally I managed to find to the right platform. With that train I only traveled for a few stops before having to change again. Luckily in that third train I got a seat since I wasn’t entirely sure if my legs were going to carry me anymore. Although, sitting down had the downside of tiredness getting hold of me. I had quite a few stops to go. While in the train I tried to see from the map which way I should head from the metro stop when I finally got there, to reach the hotel.
When I finally got to the station I wanted I just picked one of the exits and hoped I didn’t end up anywhere really far. With the help of my map I reached the hotel and walked inside. I was sharing a room with evy_9_seconds but I knew she hadn’t gotten to the hotel yet, so I sat down to wait. After a while the guy at the reception asked me if I wanted a coffee, which a gladly accepted. I can’t remember when coffee tasted that good the last time. I was feeling really tired and just hoped the people I was sharing with, would come soon, so that I could get to finally take my shoes off and take it easy. Also hunger started to be an issue since I hadn’t really eaten much all day.
I had waited for a while before the guy at the reception asked if I was certain I was at the right hotel since there was another hotel nearby with the same name. I did tell him that I was pretty sure but then started to doubt. I sent evy_9_seconds a text asking for the address of the hotel. After a while she replied to me and I found out that I indeed was at the wrong hotel. Felt really embarrassed about that when I had to admit to the hotel staff that I was in the wrong place. They were really good about it and helpfully pointed me into the right direction. I collected my stuff and started walking again.
Luckily quite soon I reached the right hotel and again sat down to wait. I didn’t have to wait for long before I saw evy_9_seconds walking into the hotel. I was introduced to her friend, Alessandra, who was also sharing with us and we got our key. When we reached the room we noticed that it was a very small one and with us three standing there with our luggages there wasn’t much spare room.
evy_9_seconds knew that there was someone else she knew staying at the hotel as well and we knew their room number. We went to see if those people were in the room. A lot of squeeing was followed when they opened the door. After the biggest squeeing was over I was introduced to g_m_h_3 and her friend ryana82. We talked with them for a while and agreed to go to get some dinner in a while.
Back in our room we were making plans and at the same time keeping the door open to our room. After a few minutes a girl came to talk with us and asked if we were heading for the Planet Babylon convention as well. She introduced herself as ancaangie and we invited her to join us for dinner as well.
A while later we all met outside the hotel and our group was still joined by Carla, another girl that evy_9_seconds knew from before. Together we headed for the nearby square in search for food. I was very hungry at that point since I hadn’t really eaten anything all day. After some discussion we picked KFC as our dinner place. It was sort of my choice since we don’t have that in Finland. The dinner went nicely while talking and getting to know all these new people.
At this point it was already quite late so we headed straight back to the hotel. We knew that the next day was going to be a long and exciting one so bed called quite soon.
Saturday 30.10.2010
Didn’t sleep too well for some reason, but that’s quite usual for me in strange places, and then I also woke up pretty early because I wanted to be at the convention place as soon as they opened. There wasn’t anything with Randy on until afternoon but I had agreed with g_m_h_3, ryana82 and ancaangie that we were going to be there early anyway. I tried to be really quiet since I didn’t want to disturb my roommates too much. I met the other girls in the lobby and we headed towards the convention center. On our way there we went to a store to get some snacks and drinks for the day since we weren’t entirely sure how the day was going to go.
At the convention center we found quite a few other people already waiting. We joined the sort of end of the queue, if you could call it that. It was just a big group of people loitering around. No sign of the sophisticated queuing culture I’m used to from conventions in the UK. *g* When the doors were opened everybody rushed in and the registration began. They were yelling something but since it was in French we didn’t really catch any of it. Finally I got near to the table and handed my letter. They gave it a one look and said that I needed to be in the other queue since that queue was just for people who had one day ticket. Great communication for us non-French speakers…So I pushed myself into the other queue and got my wrist band we weren’t supposed to take off until the end of the con. Mine was put so loosely on my wrist that it came off without problems. Made it easier to shower and dress without it. But at the same time it made me fear that I'd lose it.
Next we joined the queue for the hall. There were two queues since there were two doors. We had no idea which one to pick so we just went to the closer one. Finally we were let into the hall. ancaangie, the lucky bastard, had one of the VIP tickets so she went to join the other VIPs in the first row and we took seats from further back. Still I thought, they were decent seats. And the first talk was with a L-Word guest so the seats didn’t matter as much.
Then the convention actually started. There was some music from QaF and some other tracks. They started with a dance the organizers had done. It was good but I was already impatiently waiting for things to get on their way. After the dance finished we still had to wait for a while before the presenters came on stage and started. At first there was just French and I had no idea what they were saying. I kept hoping they would at some point say something in English too, or otherwise I would be in trouble. Finally one of the presenters asked if there were any English speakers present that don’t speak French. I raised my hand and she explained at least some things also in English. It did sound quite a lot shorter than the French version but I guess we got the main points.
The first guest on stage was Rachel Shelley (Helena) from L-Word. They started with an interview they had obviously done at some point earlier. She was asked several questions and those questions were shown on screen, in French, before her answers were played. Since I didn’t understand the questions it was occasionally hard to grasp her answers. I wonder why they couldn’t put the questions also in English on the screen.
After that video interview Rachel came on stage and they had a Q&A with her. The questions were asked in French and then translated to English and then Rachel answered it and the answer was translated to French. Very time consuming but I guess they had to do it that way. Since I was at the con mainly for Randy I can’t remember much of the questions and answers. I do remember she was asked about how she got the part, what she thought of her character, how it was to come to the show a bit later than the others, what she thought about the storylines etc. I do remember some of her answers so in case you are interested, just ask. During the Q&A I noticed that we were sitting slightly too much to theleft side since the place where they did the Q&A was more on the right side of the stage. Made plans with my friends to get seats from that side for Randy’s Q&A.
When Rachel’s Q&A ended we actually moved to the seats on the right side of the hall. Just when we got to our seats Laurel Holloman, also from the L-Word got on stage to say a short hello to people.
They were announcing that they were starting with Rachel’s and Laurel’s photoshoots soon. Even if I wasn’t that interested in them, I was planning on getting photos with them both so after waiting for a while, I went to see what the queues looked like. On my way there I happened to notice some familiar faces. I think I almost bowled poor aschicca over when I ran to hug her. It was lovely seeing her again. Also met some other people who had only just arrived, among them masterglory and frodina. I exchanged a few words with them and then headed for the photo queues. I chose Laurel’s first since it was shorter. Pretty soon I was there and took my place beside her. She had her hands in the pockets of her jacket so that was quite a clear sign since didn’t want any contact with people. I said my "hello" and "thanks" and that was pretty much it.
Next I went to Rachel’s queue. While I was there I saw g_m_h_3 leaving the hall. She had all the stuff I had left there with her since they were closing the hall for lunch and we had to leave the building. I hadn’t known that. I had sort of hoped that we would get to keep the places we had managed to reserve for ourselves from the right side of the hall since the next official program was Randy’s Q&A. It meant that we would need to fight for those places after the lunch break. The girls were heading for lunch but I wasn’t feeling hungry so I said I’d remain behind and see them later. When it was my turn to go to a photo with Rachel I walked to her. She said hello in French but I replied in English. She shook my hand and then put her hand on my waist. I copied her and we got the picture taken. Got a lot better impression of her than from Laurel. After the picture I again said my thanks and left.
I tried to hang around inside the building but I was told that I had to go outside. I walked a small distance away from the place but then returned back to the building and went to stand in front of the doors. There was two people before me there. After a while other people started joining us. What surprised me was that they just walked past us to the doors with no consideration to the fact that there was an obvious queue forming. Close to two I was joined by some of my friends and as soon as the doors opened we tried to get inside. As luck would have it they only opened one of the doors and that was of course one of the ones that wasn’t close to me. We continued our way straight to the hall but there something was yelled at us. Since it was again in French I didn’t understand but people started to back away. I asked someone to explain to me what was happening and they said we weren’t allowed in the hall yet. I backed out of the hall as well but tactically so that I was pretty close to the door. As soon as we were let in I ran towards the row I had planned on and threw my bag on one of the chairs. I then continued running through the row and threw my jacket on a chair that was about ten places from the first chair. Some people tried to come to the row but I told them that the row was reserved. Finally I saw my friends arriving and they took places on the row. I took the seat next to the aisle myself since I knew that would have a good view of the stage and hopefully the chair where Randy would be sitting.
They again started with a dance show. After that they told us that we would be doing that dance routine for the guests on Monday. I decided there and then that I wasn’t going to be doing any dancing. Um, yeah. More about that later. *g* Before they actually let the actors on stage they showed some clip from the L-Word with Laurel in it. I sort of expected there to be a clip of Randy or from QaF too, but there wasn’t.
Finally the Q&A got started. It was shared between Randy and Laurel Holloman but I concentrated just on Randy. The floor was opened to questions from the audience. The actors were also given three "wildcards" that allowed them to pass questions if they so wished. There was no need to use those. Again more on that later.
Let’s start with a few pictures
You would think that with all the conventions I’ve done, I would have learned to take paper and pen with me. Although, if I had been writing I wouldn’t have had time to take pictures. Luckily for me aschicca was writing the questions and answers so I stole them from her report (with her permission). So the questions and answers below are from her report with some input from me when I remembered something. The questions were mainly in French and they were translated to Randy and Laurel and after they answered, their answers were again translated into French.
- After QaF, Randy didn't do much TV. Is he planning on doing some TV now? Randy said that after finishing QaF he wanted to be as far away from TV as possible, but now he'd like to be in a TV show. He's open to the possibility.
- What was the hardest scene to play? Randy said that the hardest part was that they made them suck on ice cubes when they shot outside during winter so their breath wouldn't show. He said his tongue always got numb and he had trouble speaking. He talked about a scene that was supposed to happen in LA during the summer at a pool and they all had to be without their shirts. He said that one was a hard one to do and that people kept getting sick because they needed to be in small clothes even if it was winter.
- He was asked about the break-up between Brian and Justin at the end of season 5 and he said that he doesn't think B and J broke up (*cue us jumping up and down*) because yes, Justin went away and all but that doesn't mean he broke up with Brian. He also said that Justin needed to go away to become his own person.
- Does he have new theatre projects? And did he see any of his former cast mates' performances in theatre? (This one was asked by me) Randy said he doesn't have projects lined up for now but mentioned the two projects he just finished which were in Berkshire and the Shakespeare theater project. To the other part of the question he said that he saw Gale in one play (we all thought he meant he'd seen Orpheus but it turns out he was talking about Suddenly Last Summer) and Peter in two plays. He never saw Scott but knew that he had done quite a lot of theater in LA.
- Why did he come back to the Paris Con this year, too? Randy's answer was: "Why wouldn't I?"
- How did he feel when he first read the script for QaF? Randy said he'd heard about the UK one and when he was given the script for the Showtime one he thought that, if they managed to portray it as they'd written it, it would be a big deal and would have lots of attention. He said he thought they wouldn't have the balls to go with it, though.
- B/J are the center of the show. How does he remember the first scene he had with Gale? Randy said that he remembers strongly the scene where Gale's pouring water all over himself and the kiss after that because the camera was moving around a lot and he kept thinking, "Where is that camera now??" He also said that he and Gale had met before and had talked about how they were going to shoot the sex scene. Then he added that at the beginning the writers didn't want B/J to be the center of the show. They wanted to put Brian and Michael in the spotlight. B/J came later.
- He was asked to do an impression of one of the characters in QaF and he made a Ted impression! So funny with the snorting up crystal and having a seizure!!! He actually mimicked the seizure *g*
Then he was asked to mimic a movie and he got up and hid behind his seat and did a Jaws impression with his hands while hiding behind a chair. Very amusing. I got it on video and you can find it below. Not the best quality but anyway.
Click to viewFans were also given the chance to play out a scene from either show if they so wished. One girl did get on the stage and he acted the reunion scene from 309 with Randy.
Right before the panel ended this guy decided that it would be a great idea to walk across the stage carrying a carbage bag. At first we thought it was a joke of some kind but the guy actually was an employee of the place and he needed to get to the other side of the stage for some reason and couldn’t care less that there was actually something going on on the stage. And he was in no hurry but walked across the stage veeeery slowly. The expressions on Randy’s, Laurel’s and the presenters’ faces were quite priceless. Don’t have pictures because I was laughing too hard and also with my mouth hanging open.
More pictures!!!
Seriously!!! Look at him! How can anyone be that gorgeous, let me ask you
I guess someone asked something difficult *g*
And another example of the gorgeousness that is Mr. Randy Harrison. So unfair!
After the Q&A ended it was time for me to go crazy. They told us that they still had one VIP pass to auction. They started the bidding at €250. I started bidding on it. First it looked good since there weren’t that many people bidding but soon it became evident that those that were, were quite determined. In the end it was just me and another girl. I totally went crazy and just kept on bidding. I went way past what I could actually afford. Gave up at €920 and the VIP pass went to the other girl with €950. So um yeah, maybe a good thing I gave up. *g* I really couldn’t have afford that. But I did feel disappointed since the VIP pass would have included a dinner with the guests. Next they started the bidding on coffee moments with the guests. So there I went again bidding for those. Ended up winning one of the spots at a coffee moment with Randy. Paid quite a lot for it but at that moment I didn’t really care since I knew I was going to have some more private time with Randy and that was all that mattered. They didn’t accept credit cards so I had to make a run to the ATM to get some more cash since I didn’t have the amount with me. Luckily there was an ATM quite close. I took care of paying for the coffee and was informed that it was going to happen a bit later and that I needed to be at a certain spot at a certain time.
About then they started photoshoots with Randy. Officially my number wasn’t going to be called that day but I decided to go and join the queue anyway since I wanted my first contact with Randy even if I knew I had the coffee coming up. Was feeling a bit nervous while I stood in the queue and I really hoped I wouldn’t end up doing anything stupid or making a fool of myself. There was also the fact that I knew I was going to have a heavy make up on in the evening and just in case I couldn’t get it all off, I wanted a pic with him without the danger of my face being all green in the picture.
When it was my turn I walked to Randy. He shook my hand and said hello, first in French but when I replied in English, he also said hello in English. I replied and then he placed his hand on my waist I put mine on his. It is possible I forgot to breathe for a while. After the picture was taken, I said my thanks and left. The whole thing took something like 15 seconds so not a very long meeting. *g* Felt slightly jittery. I walked to my friends and stood there watching while other people got their pictures taken. Did snap a few candid shots but they didn’t come out too well.
Then it was time for my coffee moment. Too bad Randy hadn’t been told that he was supposed to be there. We had to wait for him for quite a while. There were three other girls with me waiting for him. One of them said to me that she had seen pictures of me and Gale from earlier in the year when I went to see him in Orpheus Descending. While we waited we talked about random things and also kept hoping that our moment with Randy wasn’t going to be cut short due to him being late, or canceled altogether. One thing I remember we talked about was having more QaF guests at the con. We talked about how we knew that at least Scott and Thea had expressed interest in doing conventions in Europe but neither had obviously been asked. I ended up telling how friendly Scott was towards his fans and how he had a habit of personally answering if you messaged him through Twitter or Facebook.
Finally Randy arrived and we went to this really small room with him. Seriously the room was maybe about three meters on every side. Very cozy. I did a tactical move and remained standing so that I was closest to Randy and when they finally brought us chairs I got to sit pretty close. Before the chairs were brought Randy shook all our hands and told us his name. I silently thought inside my head that “as if we don’t know who you are” but I guess his intention with that was for us to introduce ourselves, which we did. While we were still standing around and waiting for the chairs I commented about not speaking a word of French and how that makes it occasionally a bit difficult to keep up with what’s happening. That prompted him to ask us where we were from. I told I was from Finland. He asked me what it was like there and I said it’s quite cold in the winter and that we have quite a lot of snow. Couldn’t come up with anything more intelligent at that point. He also asked which part of Finland I was from and said that I live in Helsinki, even if that isn’t totally true since I live in the city next to Helsinki but the capital is usually known for people, while the smaller cities probably aren’t. Then Randy proceeded to ask the others where they were from. Two of the girls were from Paris and one girl was from Russia. The Russian girl gave Randy a bottle of Russian vodka as a present. At that point I regretted that I hadn’t gotten the bottle of special Finnish vodka for him, which I had thought about but never went through with. It was too late then. The girl from Russia did mention that she was actually living in France at the moment with student visa in the Bordeaux area. Randy mentioned that he had spent a month in Bordeaux learning French a few years ago and that he really liked it there.
So then Randy asked if we had some questions for him. Unfortunately I can’t remember everything that was talked but below are the subjects and answers I do remember. The order can be very wrong but I’m just writing them as I remember. We were also given small cups of coffee. There were some cookies on offer but no one touched those. Randy managed to spill half of his coffee on the floor but luckily he didn’t spill it on himself.
The ending of QaF Randy pretty much repeated what he had said on stage about him being happy about the way they ended the show and how he felt that Justin could have never really grown up if he had stayed with Brian. He needed to learn and take care of himself. He felt that Brian’s and Justin’s relatioship wasn’t equal at any point and that it was more like an older mentor and a young apprentice. He felt that Justin needed to stand on his own two feet. I mentioned something about maybe being able to accept the ending but how I thought it was wrong that Justin wasn’t there even for the reopening of Babylon and how I felt he should have been there.
Him working in general Randy also repeated some of what he had said on stage about his work situation at the moment. He said that he’s looking for interesting projects and that he actually did have the chance to audition for something but he didn’t go because he didn’t want anything conflicting with him attending the convention. I went all “aawwww” in my head at that point but luckily didn’t say anything. Randy did again talk about being ready to do TV again. He said that he suffers from ADD and that makes it hard for him to keep on doing the same thing for a long time and after QaF finished he couldn’t keep on doing TV anymore and just had to concentrate on something else.
Show's at Joe's Pub I asked him if he had any plans to make another show at Joe's Pub anytime soon. He did say that he did have some plans and maybe there was going to be another thing from him. I mentioned seeing the previous performances from YouTube. I did add it of course wasn't nearly the same thing but all I had access to. He did agree that YouTube maybe wasn't the best channel to see them.
Traveling We talked about how easy it was to travel around the EU countries but how difficult it could be to get visas from other countries. Randy asked me if Finland was part of EU and I said yes. Didn’t tell him that Finland has been part of EU for over 15 years now. *g* While we were at the subject of traveling I happened to mention that it was pretty easy for us to travel to US as well, or that we didn’t need visas for that. He then asked about work permits but to that I said that wasn’t easy for us and talked about how we did have permission to stay in the country for three months at a time. I happened to mention that I had visited the US for the first time last February and went to LA. Randy asked me what I had done there and someone else told him that I had gone to see Gale and I sat there with my face probably beet red. He then asked me what I had thought about the play and if I had liked it. I told him I had thought it was really great but that occasionally I did have some problems understanding the really southern accents they had in it since my English wasn’t that fluent. Randy immediately told me that he thought my English was very good. I probably blushed even more and stammered my thanks.
Drinking Don’t remember how this came up but there was talk about how it seemed that people who are from cold countries seem to drink more. I did mention that Finnish people are quite heavy drinkers. Randy continued to mention a few cities in the US that are famous for a lot of drinking. One of them was Minneapolis and I mentioned that I need to see if that’s true when I go there next February. Randy immediately told me that he knows that there is a really great theater group in Minneapolis and that I should definitely go see their production while I was there, if they had anything on. I told him that I need to check it out. I then continued to tell him that I was going to travel around a bit with a friend and mentioned all the cities we were going to visit. One of them was San Francisco and Randy said that he’s never been there but that he’s heard that it’s really beautiful there.
QaF in general Randy has never seen the finished fourth season of QaF and that he only saw season five only a while ago. There was talk about how many fans don’t like seasons four and five and especially the fact that Brian and Justin don’t end up together in the end. We again returned to the subject that Randy felt that Justin couldn’t really grow up if he stayed. I said something about people possibly wanting a happy ending and Randy commented something on the lines of, why can't Justin be happy when he's alone. Being single can be fun too. I did say something about being happy that I was single right now. (Oops! Oversharing much?) Then the cancer arc was mentioned from season four and I said how that was one of my favorite arcs. And also mentioned the scene where after Brian has thrown Justin out, he comes back, makes him chicken soup and tells him to "fuckin’ eat it". While we were discussing the whole series it came out that one of the girls hadn’t actually seen all of the series yet but was somewhere in the middle of season four. So we sort of totally spoiled her by accident, but she didn’t say anything beforehand so there was no way we could have known. Randy seemed genuiely sorry for that. After that people were a bit more careful what they said. Someone did mention that it seemed he wasn’t so enthusiastic about his part on seasons four and five and he claimed that wasn’t the case at all. Randy said that he did like his part until the end but just had to do something completely different after the series finished. Someone asked about him shaving his hair for the pink posse arc and he said that his hair was actually shaved right there and then when the scene was filmed. I guess they had to get the shot right on one shot. *g*
Gay rights It was discussed that the way Brian saves the day in season three felt a bit out of character for him. Randy started talking about how the creators did have a strong political agenda with the series (A/N: no kidding!!!) and how they wanted to address many of the things that gays face in the US even nowadays. From there the discussion continued to gay rights over all and how gays still have really hard time in many countries. Randy remembered hearing about people being arrested when they tried to organize a Pride parade in Russia. I told about this huge debate that is going on in Finland right now about gays’ right to marry. He seemed surprised that gays weren’t allowed to marry in Finland. I told him that there was this civil partnership thing but that it wasn’t the same thing as marriage since it didn’t give inheritance rights or automatically give the right to take the other’s name. I did mention we had elections coming up next spring and that how it seemed the gay rights were going to be one of the big questions there. Did talk about rewatching QaF just a while ago and how I had noticed the political influences there and how they fit quite well since a lot of discussion was going around in Finland too.
Internet Randy told us that he really doesn’t go and read what’s written about him in the Internet since he knows that stuff can upset. He said he did it in the beginning but stopped after he read some bad stuff. He also said that he had to be really careful what he said since things could return to haunt him at a later stage. From there it was jumped to the next subject.
Fanfiction This discussion wasn’t started by me but by someone else but I do admit that I took part in the discussion in some parts. Randy seemed surprised people were still interested in that and it was explained that people use it as sort of way to survive the disappointment that was the series finale and how quite a lot of the stuff is concentrated on the time after the finale. Randy asked if a lot of it is graphic. He was told that if he went searching and found fics that were marked NC-17 it probably was quite graphic. I started gringing when he was told how to find those fics if he so wished. I’m feeling I should lock all my fics now…Not that they really come up in any searches. And the gringing really started when RPS was brought up. I felt like yelling, haven’t you heard that you should NEVER EVER bring up RPS in front of the actors. Randy didn’t know what it meant and the term was explained to him. I remained carefully quiet. Randy seemed quite shocked when he found out what RPS is. He really was puzzled and said that people confuse him with his character and wondered how people could write things about him when they only knew him as Justin. He was told that sometimes people take stuff from interviews and things. I stared at the floor. To me it seemed that Randy felt quite uncomfortable by the idea that someone was actually writing fics about him as the person and not just his character.
Fat, middle aged fans From the RPS and taking stuff from interview we got to him making the comment in some interview about fat middle aged fangirls. I’ve just heard about that. I don’t think I’ve ever read the interview in question. At first Randy denied saying anything like that but when the subject was explored further he did seem to remember something. He repeated what he had said earlier about having to be really careful what he said in interviews since his saying could easily be taken out of context and cause problems. He suspected he had been annoyed by the rumours that someone had taken photos of him in the nude while he had been doing a play where he was completely naked. He was assured that it was quite probable those pictures didn’t exist since if they did, we would have seen them because everything spreads so quickly in the Net. He said something on the lines of being glad about that.
The video that shouldn’t have been public While we were in the subject of everything spreading quickly in the Net, a certain video was mentioned that was up on Vimeo and obviously meant as a private video. It was available only for about a day or two but during that time everyone and their brother saw it and it was shared all over. He seemed really confused about the video and didn’t even seem to know what we were talking about after the video was described to him and he was told who was in it with him. I don’t know if he was being dense on purpose or if he really had no recollection of making that video but we dropped that subject quite quickly. Someone from the group did say to Randy that we were sorry that we had seen the video and that we were also sorry in case any fans had ever upset him. He assured that he didn’t take things personally.
At some point Randy felt a bit sorry for the French girls since they were pretty much sitting there quiet since their English wasn’t that good and me and the other girl were pretty much dominating the conversation. He did talk in French with them for a while. About what, I have no idea, since I don’t understand French, as has probably already been established. *g*
I have no idea how long we actually ended up having with him but it seemed like time flew and way too soon we were told that the session had ended. Randy thanked us all and said that he was going to see us all later in the photoshoots as well as autographs. I took the opportunity to show my nails (with rainbows in them) to him and he said he had noticed them and liked them. He asked me if I had done them myself but I told him that a friend of mine had done them for me. Someone also asked him if he was going to be at the party that night and he said that probably not since he was feeling quite jetlagged. I did say to him that I hoped he would get some nice theater project and that maybe I could then get to see him on stage whey I go to NY next February.
Generally I felt that the coffee with him was a nice chance for us to talk with him. It was more like normal conversation than a Q&A since we could express our own thoughts too. All in all, I thought it was money well spent. Will worry about the credit card bill later…
I walked out of the area where the coffee had been held and almost immediately saw some of my friends. Of course I had to go to them to tell them all about my moments with Randy. Was feeling all jittery.
A while later Randy started doing autographs. After some consideration I decided to join the queue to get the free autograph that came with my ticket. I knew I would have two other days as well to get his autograph but I knew myself and guessed I was probably going to buy extra ones any way so decided to get one that day. I wanted to maximize my time with Randy. *g* At first there were quite a few of us in the queue but in the end it was just me and ancaangie who queued until the end and got autographs. All others decided to get them some other day. While we queued again tried to snap a few pictures even if you weren’t actually allowed to do that. There was this security guy who kept yelling "no pictures" at us.
I was surprised to see that you were actually allowed some peace and quiet while you got your autograph. The queue was formed so that the head of it was about two meters from the table where Randy was sitting and everyone got to walk to the table on their turn to have their moment with him. Even if I had just had the coffee with him, I still felt nervous. When my turn came I walked to the table and said hi. He said something on the lines “hello again”. I had written my name on a piece of paper just in case and placed that so that he could see it. Said something about my name being short and easy. For some reason I decided to share him what I was going to be dressed as in the party that night, i.e. Elfaba from Wicked. I did add I was going to do that if I got it to work out. He said that he was sure I would do great. I did ask him the one question I had forgotten to ask during the coffee about how it would be best to keep up with his work and what he’s up to. He didn’t really have an answer for that. I then asked him if I should just keep my eyes and ears open and he said that it was probably the best. He then joked that sometimes it felt like the fans knew what he was up to before he himself did. The whole time I was there he kept looking at me and that made me stammer a little. I got him to sign a shot from the episode 510 where Brian and Justin are standing in front of an ambulance (the ILU-scene *g*) and told him that it was one of my favorite scenes too. He said that it was a meaningful scene but that he hadn’t wanted to talk about it at our coffee moment because that one girl hadn’t seen those episodes yet. He wrote "Pia, my Finnish fan. All the best. Randy" (Scanned below) on the picture. After that I thanked him again for the coffee moment as well as for the auto and left. I hung around and waited while ancaangie got her autograph and her moment with Randy. When she was done we headed out of the building since there wasn’t anything else on before the party that night. We knew we had quite a lot of preparations to do and we also needed to get something to eat.
While we had been standing at the autograph queue we had seen the others standing outside but when we got there, they were gone. We guessed they were heading for the hotel and headed that way too. At the hotel I texted aschicca to see where she was since I was supposed to share with her from then on. It came out that she was only just coming to the hotel. I went to ancaangie’s room to wait. When I got a text that she was at the hotel, I went to pick up my stuff from the room where I had spent the first night and dragged them into the new room. Found out that it was a bit spacier than the other room,which was good. After a small discussion we agreed that we were going to see each other at the party later since they had plans to go somewhere further away for dinner and I didn’t want to travel in the metro while being green. *g*
Ended up at McDonald’s for dinner with ancaangie so nothing special. We just had some quick salad there before heading back to the hotel to get ready. I knew it was going to take me a while to get all the needed make up on. Luckily ancaangie had promised to help me. It did take me a while to get the make up done. I was quite happy with the result. Of course if I had had more time, I could have done a more careful job. Then we made our way down to the lobby where we met up with g_m_h_3 and ryana82. They were quite surprised by my look, as were the hotel staff. Also got some looks during our walk back to the convention place. One guy asked us where we were going and obviously would have liked to join us.
The party hadn’t really started yet when we got there so we just hung around. A while later they announced the beginning of the competition of the Queen/King of the party and told the people who wanted to take part to make themselves known. Another crazy moment for me when I walked there and said that I wanted to take part. I had no idea what I had just gotten myself into. I was told that I needed two people to help me and managed to talk ancaangie and ryana82 into it. Only then it was revealed that there was going to be dance routines that we’d need to do. I was so certain we were going to be out of the competition immediately. I’m so bad with dancing and remembering stuff. Anyway, I did decide to try my luck. They first showed the routine to us so that there were a few people dancing in front of us for the whole song. Next we had to do it without help. I was totally out of it but at the end we were told that no one was disqualified on that round. There was another song we had to do and after that a few of the teams were thrown out. I was surprised when we were told that we were still in the game.
My costume
Next it was announced that we got a small break to cool down. I had noticed that the wig I was wearing was very hot so I was glad about the break. It was also announced that Randy was going to join the party after all very soon and he did make an appearance. We were told not to haras him with photos. I was sort of curious to know if he was going to remember me after I had told him about my costume and situated myself quite close to where he was standing. He did look towards me, gave me a smile and told me that I looked wonderful. I was glad about the green make up since my blush couldn’t be seen through that. *g*
Soon the break was over and the competition continued. They kept calling me the "Wicked Witch of the West" for the whole night, which was sort of right since that was who I was. They did ask for my name at some point too but I guess they forgot it. *g*
There were some more dance routines and they kept dropping people. Every single time I was surprised that we were still allowed to continue since I knew I was messing up the routines and my teammates also told me that they weren’t doing that well either. I did suspect we got some pity votes. *g* Finally there were just three teams left and they came up with something different. All the competitors got their turn to pull on socks to one leg and the competition was judged based on how many socks you were able to put on your foot in two minutes. I intentionally wanted to be the last one so that I would have some idea how far I should get to stay in the competition. The first person managed to put 17 socks on. The next one got 13 so I set my goal at 18. When my time started I did try to count but very quickly lost count. I could hear ancaangie yelling numbers at me indicating how many socks I still needed to put on. At some point she started just yelling "one more" over and over again. And I did. Finally the time ran out and it was time to count the socks. I was pretty sure I had reached the required amount but wasn’t completely certain of it. When the socks were counted, it came out that I had 22 socks on, so I won that round. We were told that there was one more round left and for that round we needed to come up with a dance routine of our own for a song they played to us. The song was totally foreign to me and quite weird too. I had a pretty bad feeling about the whole thing.
We were given around 10 or 15 minutes to rehearse our routines. We went outside to practice and cool down a little. Pretty quickly we came up with a quite simple routine that still had quite a few moves in it and it was easy to be repeated time and time again. I had no idea if it was a good one or not. I also had trouble remembering what came after what. We did have nice memory rules. Us saying aloud “hip, hip, ass, ass, turn” got some looks from passersby. Or maybe it was just the fact that we were making dance moves outside the building, without any music. g_m_h_3 worked as our choreographer. When our practice time was over we returned inside and did the routine. I had no time to pay attention to the other team so I had no idea how we were doing compared to them. I did try to remember our routine but ended up messing quite a few times. When the song ended it was time for the audience to vote for the winner. The voting was made by people clapping to the team they thought deserved the win. First they wanted to votes for the other team. I was quite surprised when they really didn’t get much votes. When they asked people to clap to us, it was quite clear that we had won since the clapping was thundering. I was very surprised. The both finalists were told to get up on this small podium and we were given our prizes. The girl who came second was given a silver crown and I was given a gold one as well as this huge lollipop. Then there were a lot of photos taken. Maybe half of the people still left at the party wanted to take a photo of us or me. I guess my photo is now in quite a few places. I was just sad that Randy had already left the party at that point. It would have been nice if he had been the one to hand out the prizes. I would have been a very happy girl then. *g*
My wonderful team that helped me to win!
Me with my crown and "scepter"
After that the party was practically over. We got our jackets and started to walk back to the hotel. I really hoped aschicca wasn’t going to kill me since they had headed for the hotel already a while ago. I sent her a message telling her that I was on my way and she told me that she was well awake still. Again got some weird glances during our walk. I guess it’s not normal for people with green faces to walk the streets of Paris…
At the hotel I was supposed to start the process of getting all the make up off but I was so hyped up about the party as well as from my earlier coffee with Randy, that I just kept on talking to aschicca and evy_9_seconds. At some point I decided that I just had to let them sleep finally and went to take the green make up off. However, noticed that you really had to scrub the stuff off so ended up needing help since I couldn’t reach my back. Luckily my lovely roommate helped me. It did take quite a while before my skin started to look normal again. Still I wouldn’t be surprised even if I still would find green spots somewhere. The most important was to get the color off my face and neck since those were the areas which would show the most and since I had plans to get a photo with Randy the next day too, I didn’t want to have any green anywhere.
I still continued talking for a while before finally shutting up and letting the others sleep. I just kept on coming up with details I remembered about my coffee moment with Randy or from some other situations. Luckily I did end up falling asleep quite quickly after the lights were shut off and I put my head to the pillow.
Seriously kudos to anyone who managed to read all that...You deserve a medal :D