Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Wolf Pegasus Four - The Journey Home

As this has taken a little longer than I'd anticipated to blog I'm sure some of the detail behind my notes have been mislaid in those parts of your brain that you don't really use....hopefully though I've retained the good stuff.

This years theme was both interesting and slightly somber...the decor of the main hall retained it's fabulous Atlantis glass window theme with full sized gate at one end of the stage and a screen with varying themed background throughout the weekend at the other....for the Saturday it was the balcony view of the planet, a hyperspace wormhole and then finally on the Sunday we arrived 'home' as the image of Earth from space could be seen. It was a nice touch, considering, as was the video which informed us 'passengers' our journey through hyperspace 'will cause a time dilation effect which would make it feel as though things were running late, but this was just an illusion' (ah how a year helps you to forget 'convention time')...also free food and other luxuries were to be made available by flight attendants for rows A through C...enter said 'flight attendant' with a board announcing we were in row D....all highly amusing.

I had wondered, since the series had been cancelled, if there would be much melancholy and/or a slightly somber atmosphere amongst guests and us attendees alike, this however was not the case...in fact the atmosphere throughout the weekend, especially the Saturday night party, was buzzing and was incredibly infectious.....but anyway, enough ramblings...to the guests...

In no particular order:

Christopher Heyerdahl
This was his very first convention and he soon seemed to warm up to us bunch of excitable ladies (and hand full of blokes)...he is also a complete goof, upon entering he seem overwhelmed by all the camera flashes but proceeded with pulling various model poses and cheesy grins. He was asked about Halling and what he though he was doing since we last saw him he concluded that he was sitting somewhere playing scrabble and trying to figure out what to use the letter 'x' in.
He talked about the difficulties of playing both Duritt in Sanctuary and Todd in SGA especially on one day when he was filming very late scenes for Sanctuary and had to pretty much go straight into make-up for Todd and film a full day on SGA....the make-up take several hours and he gave us the surreal image of the make-up guys playing punk rock at 4am whilst 'creating' Todd.

He talked about the make-up and the physical restrictions, the mask and teeth effect the way the 'Wraith' talk but then also the outfit and make-up help to create the character he's playing. Upon being asked his favourite episode Chris replied Common Ground, as it was the beginning (of the character arc) and after very little encouragement from the crowd he did the (in)famous line 'There's so many things you don't know about the Wraith John Sheppard' with the deliciously elongated drawl to the John and Sheppard. He was once asked by a director if he could speed up the delivery on a shoot which was running late...hehe.
He spoke about working with Anthony Michael Hall on the Dead Zone and meeting him at a set of traffic lights after filming.....AMH in his Porsche and Chris alongside, glancing over and realising who it was and just kind of staring, after a few moments AMH must have had the feeling of someone looking at him. He turned his head and Chris simply blew him a kiss and drove off as the lights turned green.

There was much conversation about the Todd/John Sheppard relationship, Chris was aware of the fandom and said he wasn't surprised as 'they'd spent time in prison together'...which produced much chuckling, as did the comment he made when asked how he tasted.....'delicious...and getting better every time'
In terms of Sanctuary discussion (it's a good show by the way so go watch it if you haven't already) Chris talked about the diversity of the Druitt character....intense psycho or the slightly nicer version in the latter half of the season, he liked the unpredictable nature of the character and was hoping for more of the same when the season returns (which should be the case since new episodes are being written but everyone's just waiting for the go...fingers crossed).
Ooo, and in other....ever-so-slightly TV scoopy nature....Chris announced he'd just finished filming two episodes of Supernatural...as Alastair (hell and damnation, torturer of Dean, Demon Alastair)...so personally quite excited about that...can just hear the 'there's so many thing you don't know about us Demons Dean Win-chest-terrrrr'

Chris was asked to describe his fellow SGA cast/characters in one word:

John Sheppard/Joe F - 'delicious'
McKay/David H - after some manic laughing....'phenomenal'
Teyla/Rachel L - 'Love'...due to the Halling/Teyla scenes he most frequently had
Ronan/ Jason M - 'Laddish and fun to stare down'
Beckett/Paul M - 'Dead sexy' in quite a convincing....if a little Fat Bastard from Austin Powers sounding....accent.
Keller/Jewel S - 'tough'
Lorne/Kavan S - didn't have many scenes with but toyed with Kavan as didn't recognise him without make-up
Woolsey/ Richard P - 'scaredy cat'
Weir/Tori H - 'Respect'
Chuck/...er...Chuck C - 'eyebrows'

So what else can I remember about Christopher Heyerdahl....

He is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft
Speaks Norwegian, French.....and a little English
His cousin was Thor Hygerson (adventurer)
Says there a great liberty which comes with being bald
Buys his underwear from Mark & Spencer....and they're boxer briefs.

I started this a little late so I'm going to have to leave it here, hopefully it's enough to whet your appetite....huh, I now have rumblys in my tumbly....so I'm off for a snack before bed.

10 comments:

Kimberly said...

This is going to sound horrible, but I didn't watch SGA and I have no idea who this guy is. BUT, I am so glad that you had a nice weekend!

Anonymous said...

I would love to repost your account w/credit over on: http://christopherheyerdahl.ning.com/

Emma said...

Kim - no worries, most of my friends have never seen it either...it's my complete geek side....i'd never been to a convention untila couple of years ago and it's safe to say I'm now hooked...it's incredibly fun and some of the time I don't always know who some of the guests are either.

Mary - sure...I will have a mooch around the site later too...Chris was an absolute sweetheart at the con and I have some more video to upload too, so be sure to comeback

Anonymous said...

Hi Emma,

Great report with lots of lovely details :-)

I have posted a link to this page on the link page of christopherheyerdahl.com

Anonymous said...

Thanks Emma!

Yours Truly,
Mary
http://christopherheyerdahl.ning.com

Firefly Mom said...

I've loved all his SGA/Sanctuary characters. And it's nice to FINALLY know who Jack the Ripper really is ;D I also love that the only way that you can recognize from one role to the other is his *fantastic* voice!

Glad to know he'll be on Supernatural soon. As a demon, no less. Hopefully they'll make him as funny as the Winchester boys. I like guys who are evil & funny ;)

Emma said...

He does indeed have a fantastic voice...Sanctuary is showing again on sci-fi here from the beginning so am watching it all again....he's Bigfoot too dontcha know...I realised from the voice.

Really looking forward to him being in Supernatural...lets hope the character sticks around for a while....I'll admit though it's going to be hard to see Chris Heyerdahl as evil...he's such a lovely goofy guy in real life ;-)

Firefly Mom said...

Yep, I knew he was bigfoot. Like you, it was the voice that gave him away.

My only concern (now that I know he's going to be evil) is that *spoiler alert* there a "beloved character" that is supposed to be getting offed this season. The only other regular character is Bobby, so I'm assuming it's him, and I'd hate Chris' character to be the one to axe him.

Emma said...

Ooo interesting....I've heard a few Supernatural rumours myself and read a recent interview in which a regular says he's not sure how much longer he'd stay with the show...oooer....we'll ahve to wait and see i guess

Anonymous said...

Emma, a couple people over on the community fansite notice a mistake in your facts:

The correction is:
His father's cousin was Thor Heyerdahl (adventurer)

http://christopherheyerdahl.ning.com/profiles/blogs/wolf-pegasus-four-the-journey