Denver Comic Con 2017 Day 2
The Main Events!
Today was amazing. I was able to cycle through three aweosme main event panels. This was all I focused on today. If you want to see what else happend at the rest of the convention today check out our other DCC 2017 articles. with out further delay let us talk about some of the awesome people in the main events area today!
Famke Janssen
The panel stared off with our wonderful host Garrett Wang, best known as Star Trek Voyager’s Harry Kim, getting us all excited for our favorite X-Woman. Famke was a delightful guest and started of talknig about how her experinces on Star Trek, working with Patrick Steward. She said he was a good mentor and taught her to only look at one eye when you are looking at someone during a shoot. I never would have thought that was important but now I will be able to tell when a film has bad acting! The topics covered were quite broad, ranging from Hemlock Grove and Nip/Tuck, to GoldenEye and Lords of Illusion. But by far the most popular topic was that of her X-Men role as Jean Grey. Many of the questions about this roll revoled around what it was like for her to work with her co-stars in the films. She had nothing but glowing things to say about them which is always a refreshing thing to hear.
Along side these X-Men centric questions a topic evolved, Women in Hollywood. Famke said she was proud of Brian Singer, the director od the X-Men films, and people she has worked with in the past who made a concerted effort to put more females in lead roles. She also mentioned where we are today is great progress from where we came from. This was elaborated by Garrett with an antecdote from his Star Trek days. He menioed after the first episode of Voyager had aired the answering machines were filled with people calling who hated that the show had put a female in the capitain’s chair. He even said that people were threatneting to burn the studio down and kill actors. I am glad to see that people within the industry are comfirming that we are making such forward progress esepcially in light of Garretts tale of fear. As the panel ended we all said our goodbyes and clapped our faces off. I was ecstatic that I got ot see a panel with one of my favorite actresses
James Marsters
I am a HUGE fan of James Marsters. Back in the day my parents used to let us watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer with them and Spike was always a very intersting character. Not only this but I am a huge Dresden Files fan boy. The panel did not talk much about Dresden though, much to my chagrin. Dispite this, it was still an amazing time. Mr. Masters has such a way with the crowd it was like you were just chatting with a friend. He talked about how much he loves Buffy, Joss Whedon, and the whole gang that used to be on the show with him. Someone asked him what other character he would have liked to be in that universe if given the opportunity and he said “I would rather cut off [my] right hand”, then followed up explaining that Spike was him and he was Spike, he wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Spike was a punk rock vampire and Marsters is a punk rock actor.
It fits right into Marsters mentallity about acting. He believes actors to be the waiters that deliver the chef’s (writer/director) meal. A good actor is someone who realizes there is no need to cover up the truth by not being themself. You have to be okay being stared at even if that is usually a stimulus of uncomfortable feelings. That being said James mentioned that asking actors to sing (ala. Once More with FeelingSeason 6 episode 7 of Buffy) was one of hte most challenging things he has had to deal with. He mentioned that acting and sing are very different and just becuae you can do one, does not mean you can do the other. He was very proud of the entire cast for getting through the episode becuase it was such a challange. James was a very down to earth individual. If you ever have a chance to go see a panel with him, I highly suggest it.
Greg Grunberg
I have recently been delving into the world of the new extended cannon of Star Wars. Say what you will about it, but I enjoy anything that gives me more of my favorite sci-fi world. Seeing new and old characters working together is great! Heck even seeing kids of famous character is fun. This is why I got excited about Greg Grunberg, as he played Tenmin “Snap” Wexley in The Force Awakens, the adult version of a characer in the Star Wars Aftermath series. Greg was a great sport and fielded all kind of questions, had amazing stories, and was just generally geeking out about everything. He told a few stories about times on the set of The Force Awakens where he was taking pictures of the new Falcon when he was no supposed to and when he was so excited about working with Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford that they had to go through multiple takes due to his inability to stop starting at the actors during a shoot.
Greg was like the uncle you get to see every so often, who always has a new story to tell you. And rightfully so, as he has touched so many different televison series it amazes me. His fame in the television world also lead to another intersting story. His son has epilepsy and Greg, like any good father, is a champion for the awareness and cure. He is also musically inclined and has jamed out with Hugh Laurie and a few other actors from teleivision. These things collided when TV Guide asked him to play a show for one of their big events. In the end he got them to donate $175,000 to epilepsy causes and started a band called Band from TV. At the end of his panel he made it a point to say, if you ever see someone starting to experience an epileptic seizure the most important thing is to not let them fall. So give them a free hug and help them to the ground! Check out more about Greg’s causes here.
Todays main events were great and I hope tomorrows are just as awesome. See you at DCC!
-Kyle