Tempted to go to NZ to watch the stars parade into the Embassy Theatre for the world premiere?…
Continue ReadingTempted to go to NZ to watch the stars parade into the Embassy Theatre for the world premiere? Those of you considering a tour of NZ guided by LOTR are reminded that you have until the end of September to book a Red Carpet tour that will take you to Wellington for the world premiere of ROTK. They’ll also show you Hobbiton, Edoras, Pelennor Fields, Fangorn, the Anduin and other memorable locations.
Bilbo’s Birthday is on September 22. Bay Area Ringers are invited to a dinner in his honour. [More]
Brad Dourif gave an hour-long talk at Dragon*Con 2003. Shadow and Marea transcribed the question and answer session. [More]
Shadow and Marea also got a chance to have a few words with Brad in private and get his thoughts on LoTR – both book and film. There’s two mirror sites for this interview – take your pick! [Mirror 1] [Mirror 2]
Brad Dourif gave an hour-long talk at Dragon*Con 2003. Shadow and Marea transcribed the question and answer session.
I’m Brad Dourif, I play Grima Wormtongue. (minimal audience reaction)
This IS Lord of the Rings… Right? (laughter)
Okay… so, I guess I’m supposed to say something up front. How many of you were here two years ago? (show of hands)
So you’ve heard this story… so bear with me… there’ll be more later.
I had only read “The Hobbit” when all of this was mentioned as a possibility. So I went and auditioned. And I was told I had to do an English accent, and I went, hired a coach, worked on an English accent and went in and did it, and then I got a call back and I did it for Peter and Fran and then I got another call back. And then kind of did it for them again, with additional notes. And then I was told that it looked good. And then… I didn’t get it. I did not get the part. They gave the part to somebody else who somewhere during the summer completely backed out. I think they weren’t getting paid enough. And… um… what a fool! (audience applause and laughter)
And so they called me up, and I went from Very Sad to Very Happy. And I got it and then was told that I could come a couple of weeks early, because the accent needed a little work. And I was really glad that I did, because Sir Ian’s were thicker than flies on the set and I was just Brad from West Virginia, ya know? So I really felt… and there was Christopher Lee… who scared the hell out of me my entire childhood. (laughter). I was so scared to death of him , and so I went to New Zealand and we altered the accent, my girlfriend, her daughter and myself. I worked very hard. And then finally on the day day I showed up and put on my stuff and away we went.
The really cool thing that I think they did that was really nice was that all of us had a writer’s meeting… anybody who spoke one word had a writers meeting, and they would rewrite and I think they were really trying to rewrite the characters or to fine tune the characters to the actor. Rather than having an idea of what Wormtongue should be they wanted MY Wormtongue. This was really true of everybody. And I think that’s one of the things that really brings the film to life is that they really cared so much about what we as actors could bring to it.
The other thing that I should say is that when you went on the set you were given a tour. And the thing that was extraordinary about the tour was how finely detailed every little thing was. I mean, it didn’t matter if there was any possibility that it would appear in the film, it was really, really done well… someone put their heart in it. I mean, the guy who did the armor was putting little rings together, first groups of five, and then more and more… and he had been doing that for years. Literally. I mean I thought he might be Enlightened. (laughter!). It’s an extraordinary job… but all the chain mail armor was made of a brand new material that could really take a sword full swing but was super light.
My dagger… um…I’ve killed quite a few people [in my movie career], but never with such a fine dagger! (laughter) Really, really a work of art. And of course my costume was pretty remarkable.
One more story. They called me back at one point to do Edoras. An actors’ life is not all it’s cracked up to be.. my call was 3:00 a.m. So I’m standing out there thinking… I wish I could remember what food was like… waiting for the van to arrive…and we go and it’s paved roads for a while.. and then it’s dirt roads… about an hour and a half of dirt roads. And I’m really starting to wish it was over… and we’re going up, and it’s just starting to get light. And we’re going up this hill, and down below is this valley, and it’s maybe 35 – 50 square miles, huge valley surrounded by snow peaked mountains. Flat… marsh over here, grasslands all around. But in the center is this weird…Middle Earth. That’s the only way I can describe it.
Gnarly…you know.. like it’s not quite straight.. kind of turns over this way, kind of goes up… and you can see there’s something really teeny tiny built on the top. It’s Edoras. And I go down this windy road that we built.. and which we had to completely destroy when we left.
And there’s nothing else there and I go up and there on the top of this mountain… and I’m in costume and everything… and there on the top of this mountain there’s this town… and its thatched roofs, and everywhere you turn it’s totally medieval, and with its stone, solid stone staircase… that was real stone… and all around these marshes, grasslands, people walking with robes, with swords and … I thought I was in heaven. The human eye when it looks at something it looks at a lot of things… I mean you only really focus this much and everything else is given to you by the brain.
There is no way you can experience … that it is possible for you who have seen the movie to experience how beautiful it was… and it’s gone. No one else will ever have that experience again. That was a piece of magic in my life that I will never forget. (loud clapping).
Do you all have any questions?
Question: Whose idea was the “eyebrow”? (i.e. that Wormtongue should have shaved eyebrows).
The eyebrows? That idea was Peter’s. My girlfriend REALLY loves him! Cause you see these used to be kind of bushy over here… well and they didn’t grow back. I remember that I would go, I would work, I would come home, I would look terrible and my eyebrows would grow back… and then she’d kind of remember that I was Brad. And then I’d go away again and come back….no eyebrows. And this happened three times. And then they called us back a year later… and she’d forgotten about that. So… I suddenly remembered “Uh oh… eyebrows… I better prepare her”. And I had to do the call.. darling… I kinda forgot about something. Eyebrows. Huge silence….Aaargh … I HATE them!” It was a really good idea… it was odd and nobody noticed them.. And I kinda knew they wouldn’t.
Questioner: You looked so creepy.
You don’t notice what it is that’s doing it… but it subliminally really, really works on you. But my girlfriend noticed it.
A question was asked which had no relationship to LOTR… a member in the audience had a small role in the movie “Sunny Boy” 16 years ago and reminded Brad Dourif of the fact.
More questions about other movies…
Question: There’s been a lot a speculation among fans about the significance of “the tear”. Would you care to explain?
Well, Fran’s a genius, ya know? I think it was something that really came organically out the direction that we were going. I kind of hooked into that probably when he was young he was picked on, and that he really was perfect bait for Saruman the White. And was someone who could really never have the things he needed the most.
So I think the idea was that this was somebody who fell into a dark hole and kind of wakes up in the middle looking at the “Triumph of the Will”. Which is really what he goes out and really looks at what Hitler saw when they did “Triumph of the Will”. This incredibly awesome horde that was about to be unleashed. Have you ever seen “Triumph of the Will”?
For those of you who didn’t.. you guys should see this… this is a movie of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Party, that did this festival every year in Nuremburg. This movie is a documentary, but it really gives you the power of this whole nation being consumed by this weird strength in each other’s numbers that was to unleash in this horrible war, and you can feel it in this movie. And the arrangement of the troops in “The Two Towers” was a purposeful rip off of this… because it was a defining moment just before WWII. And the documentary is called “Triumph of the Will” because it is the triumph of Adolph Hitler’s will.
Question: Could you tell us your favorite line or scene from TTT and could you say it in Wormtongue‘s voice?
In Wormtongue? (laughter) My favorite scene was with Eowyn, just because it was so poetic and because she’s a brilliant actress. When I first saw her coming in… when they introduced me and this was before I did anything, I took one look at the fire in that girl’s eyes and I knew that she was going to show up for work. And she sure did. First of all, when we shot that scene we were in a corrugated metal shed that had been converted into a studio and the wind was howling through there… and it lifts that corrugated metal up and shakes it, you know, like the metal that they use when you’re playing King Lear (laughter). Really.. it’s like thunder… it’s really, really loud. I can’t underplay that.
And I was talking about that to her like a year later and she looked at me and said. “What are you talking about? I don’t remember that!” I said, “I had to stop the scene three times because I couldn’t even hear you!” That’s the level of cognitive… and at one point I was talking to her, and she just burst into tears. And then she was okay. And I felt really like maybe I said the wrong thing! (laughter). And I was really feeling pretty bad and I kind of waited for five minutes for her to let me have it really or something and I said to her, “I don’t know what I said, but I hope I didn’t make you cry there!” And she said, “What are you talking about?” (laughter).
But that’s the level of concentration… it was pretty strong. You don’t often get to work with people that into it. It was like she was this river, and I danced on it.
Question: Can you give us any hint on the demise of Saruman?
Oh I wouldn’t do that… that would be MEAN!
Questioner: But you are mean!
Oh… she asked me if I could give a hint on the demise of Saruman. (big laughter). You might not make it out of here alive!
Question: I just wanted to ask you… you are such a well respected character actor, and you melt so much into every character that you play, but I think that everybody noticed that you seem to be in so many sci fi, horror, fantasy… you’re in a lot of this genre. Are you actively looking for those roles, or are you trying out for other types of parts… and what would be your dream role?
Well… I’m a whore. (laughter). A cheque and a script and I’m there, babe! You know… I’ve just been lucky. I’ve been really lucky. Right now I’m doing a series for HBO… I’m doing it with David Milch who did “NYPD Blue”. He’s a genius, and all that I can tell you is that I am lucky. The series is going to be called “Deadwood” and it’s a western…. about that town of Deadwood, and that’s where Wild Bill Hickok drew aces and eights. It’s a full out, for real western.
But to answer your questions about the sci fi… that’s just something that kind of happened. But I was like any other kid though… I loved Halloween when I was growing up probably more than anything. And I like the idea of scary things.
Question: Will there be a fight between Saruman and Grima?
I’m really not going to answer. It would RUIN it! Really….really (applause) Because I could be totally wrong with what I’m going to tell you… who knows what they could really come up with.
Some questions related to an incident at a con Dourif attended in New York where someone pulled a fire alarm at the hotel… and Dourif did NOT run out… instead he watched the cops pull up, looking bored, and felt that he was not in trouble.
Question: What was it like working with Christopher Lee?
Okay… let’s DO Christopher Lee, shall we? (applause).
When you meet Christopher Lee, he’s NOT shy, at all! (affecting a “veddy British” accent). And he’s a very ‘proper Englishman’ you know. He is talking about how he was in “the War” and how he is the best swordsman”, and he really tells a lot of stories and after a while you’re going “Can all of this be true?” (laughter)
And the best story of that actually didn’t happen to me, it happened to a friend of mine, David Carradine actually. And David you know is a martial artist and a stunt guy and Christopher was following him around talking about stuff like how he was the pre-eminent swordsman and , you know, that he was secret service and all this stuff. And David … he had to throw a knife, so he was practicing throwing the knife, and Christopher walks up to him and says “You know, I can hit anything with a sharp object.” (laughter).
And David’s had it, you know.. and says, “okay, fine… show me.” [And Christopher Lee says] “Yes… of course.” He walks back.. and he’s got a rusty ten-penny nail he’s found on the ground. There’s this dartboard, okay. He goes up to the dartboard, turns around and walks like twenty paces. Now, nobody can hit the bullseye of the dartboard, right? Pffftt….. bullseye! (laughter and applause). And David goes… “Oh! He DID win World War II!” (laughter)
So… that’s Christopher. You know, I spent one day with him. We were doing foreign press. And you know he’s read Tolkien and knew Tolkien and read the books once every year of his life. And he has a PhD in comparative religion and mythology. And languages… and that every single person who comes into the room, no matter what language they speak, he speaks that language! Um, excuse me, …. I have an opinion on this too!
Well… that’s what it’s like working with Christopher Lee. (laughter and applause)
Question: I’d like to know your best memory of filming Lord of the Rings and a memory you’d just as soon forget.
Well I already did the best memory… the best memory is the set at Edoras. And then I guess the other would be the scene with Eowyn.
I don’t know… the worst memory? Getting my eyebrows shaved!
Question: Okay… may I just ask you then. You’ve described your favorite scene in the movie. Could you just bring it down to one line. Something that particularly resonates with you?
You know I can’t really… and I’ll tell you why. When you’re doing it… you don’t pay attention to yourself. I pay attention to her. And the better she got the better I got. And I guess there was some stuff that was particularly good that she did around the transition. [the scene described was the one at Theodred’s bedside]
She allowed me to kind of suck her in, and she got very soft and very vulnerable and then she turned around on me, and that was pretty much a cool thing for me to watch her do that. It really got to me. I felt like we really… you know…you connect in a way sometimes when you act and that felt really right on and good.
Dourif then asked what a particular noise in the room was… and was answered by shouts of “Rain!” Amid laughter he explained… “We don’t have that in LA!”
Question: I think you’re incredible, and you’re my favorite character in LOTR. My first question: who are your influences? That’s one question, and this is a weird question, when they threw you down those stone steps, and that wasn’t you, wasn’t that the hardest thing to watch a stuntman do?
Naa… I went to sleep man! I mean…. I was exhausted. I was up since 3 o’clock and I was in there saying ‘I’m sure he’s going to be GREAT! You know… I’ll watch it when you show it to me on the monitor.” And he was spectacular.
Question: So who were your influences?
I think for relationships it was the two killers in “In Cold Blood”, they had a very, very powerful effect on me. The kid in “400 Blows” by Truffaut had a powerful effect on me, and Gena Rowlands in, what’s that where she goes crazy? [Woman Under the Influence]
Well, that performance, ok. It was incredibly raw, and it’s just somebody going really crazy. I think that were the things that really…and my mom. I saw her do a rehearsal of Anastasia when I was young and Anastasia has this scene where she is talking about how she’s this actress, she’s not really Anastasia and she can make anybody believe anything that she does and she starts talking about this butterfly, and I don’t even remember what she said, but I saw the butterfly. Her imagination was that vivid and it was that real, and I went, “Ooo, I wanna do that”. I never DID, but…
Paraphrase: How do you approach your craft?
There’s always something in the center of everyone that says who they are. In most evil people it’s generally fear. That’s really what runs us, and if I can figure out what I’m supposed to be afraid of, now I have something real to fall back on, and then it’s just trying to stay as honest as I can, but I guess I sometimes creep over the top.
Paraphrase: What would your fear be?
That I could never have what I needed, and wanted…that I could never have it.
Question: Have you ever done any stage work? And what is the difference between stage and film for an actor?
The answer is yes I did a tremendous amount of theater when I was young. I worked with really incredible people. A director by the name of Marshall Mason and a playwright by the name of Lanford Wilson who were the big influences in my life. I had a great acting coach as well. The differences are that when you’re doing a play, you have what happened before feeding you into the next thing, and you understand rhythm really well.
You understand that this is thrown away, and this you hit. This you go fast, this you slow down, here you can stop. When you’re doing film, you’re only doing something there that day. Your tendency is to want to perform it all, but you can’t. You’ve got to throw it away, a lot of it. The film has to have rhythm and your performance has to have rhythm, and you better hope that the director understand that and you’re right about that as well. And beyond that they really are pretty identical.
Question: What was it like as a young actor to have so much attention early on in your career from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest“?
Pretty overwhelming. I actually had a little bit of difficulty handling that.
Paraphrase: What’s it like to move from B movies to A movies?
I have been moving in and out of A and B movies, and C and D (laughter)…a lot of F’s…(more laughter) pretty much my whole life and like I said I’m a whore, I’m just not gonna be snot about it. David Lynch, who I think is a genius, would hire me, but he would only hire me in these little roles, and I finally-basically I want to do it, I want to get up and I want to act and that’s really…
I have a lot of fun and I finally told him, I said, “Look man, if you want to hire me, you better give me a bigger part because I’m just not gonna sit around and watch other people act.” I won’t do that for anybody, you know? Maybe once or twice, sure, but I’m not going to do a career of that. I try not to think of that and somehow it’s worked. I know good directors every once in a while will still hire me, even though the studios hate it.
Paraphrase: How long did it take you to get your first big break in acting?
I started when I was 16 professionally, and I was 24, so it was 8 years.
Question: What souvenir did you take away from LOTR?
Teeth I didn’t use. I had these horrible teeth that they put in but I couldn’t…I was having enough trouble (imitates talking with teeth). So they gave those to me and I kept them.
Also I have a collection of mockups of the toys, which incidentally…I mean I could have 6 Oscars sitting up on my thing and they wouldn’t get anywhere near the amount of attention people coming into my house give to the action figures. (laughter) That is the pinnacle of my career, actually…having an action figure.
Paraphrase: What roles are you proudest of that you’ve portrayed?
You know one of them has to be Billy Bibbit. (applause) That just became larger than life and it’s just too hard for me to back away from. I did this thing in the desert where I told stories with James Earl Jones and it was called “Grim Prairie Tales” and I don’t know why but I just loved that. Just because I guess I was sort of normal in it. I didn’t think that was possible. Brad shared a story from Cuckoo’s nest.
Paraphrase: Is ROTK gonna be the one? Is it going to win an Oscar? What’s the feeling? That’s what we all want to see. What’s your feeling? What’s the word?
What’s my feeling about it? First of all, I do not understand the Oscars at all. (applause) If you’re asking me if I have any kind of insight, they never nominate the people I vote for and the people who win I don’t even understand. Like everybody else I get really furious.
I had a junkie wife and I know what’s it’s like to be, to watch somebody really, really go crazy and I know what it feels like to be in that situation with children and so forth. But, ” A Beautiful Mind”…there’s nothing wrong with the actress’ performance but it infuriated me that she was nominated because that had nothing to do with anything of what it’s like to go through that kind of situation.
You don’t look pretty and you don’t feel pretty and that was just crap. (applause) How that happened…what this was about…what they were thinking…I just don’t get it.
Dustin Hoffman said this, and it’s always held true for me, no one really remembers who won the Oscar. It’s a shame we care. What you remember is the film. I think we’re gonna remember the extended versions of these, to tell you the truth. I think Viggo called that. (applause) Those are the real works of art. This one’s gonna come out, and maybe in a couple of years there’ll be theaters where you go and see the whole thing in all the extended versions on a big screen. Then we’ll get to see the Lord of the Rings. (applause)
And you know what, that’s what I care about. Forgive my French, but @#$# the Oscars! (cheers)
Question: Are you content?
Am I content? Never.
Several non-LOTR questions skipped.
Shadow had a booth at Dragon*Con 2003. Her report takes an inside look at the trials and tribulations of being an exhibitor, as well as revealing just how huge Dragon*Con is. [More]
Shadow had a booth at Dragon*Con 2003. Her report takes an inside look at the trials and tribulations of being an exhibitor, as well as revealing just how huge Dragon*Con is.
Hi! I’m Shadow, webmaster for West of the Moon, a Tolkien fanfiction archive, and I recently attended Dragon Con. My site, along with frodoandsam.net, teamed up as sponsors for The Gathering of the Fellowship and ran a fan table at Dragon Con to raise money for our sponsorship. My friend, Marea, was also running a fan table for The Gathering, and we both had responsibilities as reporters to our respective websites. The following is my tale of the weekend exploring just how much fun Dragon Con can be!
How do I even begin to describe Dragon Con? I was warned ahead of time by friends that had gone in past years that I would be overwhelmed, and that it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I listened, shook my head in agreement, and figured “yeah, yeah, a bunch of people in costumes, how amazing can that possibly be?” Let me be the first to admit that I was completely WRONG. Dragon Con is truly something that must be experienced in person. I will do my best in the following report to try to convey to you its vastness, its beauty, and the incredible experience that it is, but I know that I will not be able to do it justice-it’s just something that you must go and experience for yourself!
Thursday
After spending most of last week getting ready to go–t-shirt and art shipments, table paraphernalia, squeeing like a fangirl because I was going to a con-it was finally Thursday. I did the 6-hour drive from Chapel Hill to Atlanta by myself, and arrived at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis around 4 PM. I have stayed in many hotels in my time, but I’ve never seen anything like the Marriott Marquis. After spending a short eternity getting my car unloaded and parked, I was finally able to walk into the hotel. As you enter the Marriott on the lobby level, you are greeted by the vast expanse of its atrium. The hotel has 50 floors, and the atrium rises floor to ceiling in the center of the building; banks of elevators travel up through the center and interior hallways on every floor overlook the atrium. Mauve-colored banners drape gracefully through the atrium space from above, creating a flowing pattern that accents the architecture of this amazing centerpiece to the hotel. There are 4 business levels to the Marriott: a garden level with restaurants and lounges, the lobby level, the convention level where the fan tables, art show, and a dealers room were located, and the International Hall, which housed a second large dealers room, the Walk of Fame where autographing took place, and the comic artist room. Needless to say I was a little overwhelmed by the building, before the Con even began! But this was not the entire space for the Con, oh no. The main hotel for convention programming was the Hyatt Regency, which is across the street from the Marriott. The Hyatt also has four levels: the lobby level, which housed restaurants, bars, and lounge space; the ballroom level where all main programming for the Con and the band tables were located; the exhibit level which was dedicated to gaming, and the conference center level, where much of the track programming and the press room were located.
I met my online friend and fellow reporter, Marea, and we spent Thursday evening learning the layout of both the Marriott Marquis and the Hyatt Regency, and getting our press passes and registration squared away. Our main goal for the weekend was to land interviews with both John Rhys-Davies and Brad Dourif, so we did some inquiring as to the best way to accomplish this and were met with “well, you just have to run into them at their presentations or while autographing, and set it up yourselves”. Great, how do you run a fan table, get to see some programming, and run around chasing after convention guests who pay people to keep the likes of you at bay? Well, we determined that we would give it our best shot the next day to try and land an interview with JRD. Both hotels were relatively quiet that evening, seemingly in anticipation of the event to come, so we had a quiet dinner at Champions restaurant and spent the rest of the evening catching up with each other and doing last minute preparation for interviews and fan tables.
Friday
Friday morning, we awoke to a hotel transformed into a sci fi convention of epic proportions. I have never seen anything like it in all my life! There were more people in costume than not! Stormtroopers everywhere! Starfleet officers, Jedi nights, comic book heroes, Renaissance characters, belly dancers, and quite a few things I couldn’t even recognize all roamed the main floors of the Con as we made our way over to the Peachtree Center Mall to grab some breakfast. Everywhere I looked as we walked, I was gasping at the intricacy of costume work and the amazing variety of characters, and grinning from ear to ear at the level of energy and excitement that filled the hotels that morning as everyone geared up for the start of programming. We had breakfast in the mall sitting next to a group of amazingly realistic orcs. Let me just tell you, it’s quite a sight to watch four orcs order breakfast from the Orange Julius! (Later on I got a picture with said Orcs holding a bald to my throat!)
Our first mission was to secure our fan tables. Both my table for West of the Moon and frodoandsam.net and Marea’s table for The Gathering of the Fellowship had been waitlisted, so we were quite nervous about whether we would actually get a table, especially after the countless hours of work we put in preparing our tables for the Con. We were not supposed to check in for tables until Friday afternoon, but we went at 10 in the morning and found that we had already been assigned spaces! YAY!! We scurried back up to our room so Marea could gather her things to set up her table, and I made a sign to place on West of the Moon’s table to hold its place. I could not set up yet, as I had no staff yet and was missing quite a few things I needed that were coming with my partner Celeste, the webmaster for frodoandsam.net. I was worried about not setting up the table on Friday, as I didn’t want the fan table staff to give it away to anyone else while I had no one to staff it, but my fears were put to rest when I returned to the table and met Adrian, who was working the Sci Fi Summer Con table next to mine. Adrian is in charge of security for SFSC, and after talking to me for a few minutes he assured me that anyone who came near my table and was not with me would be promptly tossed into the fountain. Heh. Thank you Adrian, you’re such a sweetie!
Now that my table was safe, I was free to peruse the fan table level a bit before I had to make it over to the Hyatt for the opening of the Tolkien track. At this point in the day, the table that was drawing the busiest was TORN’s. They had begun setting up in the morning, and were now showing the final portion of the ROTK trailer from the DVD on a continuous loop, and were drawing a large crowd of onlookers every time the trailer began again. They were also giving out their “button of the day”, which for Friday was “TheOneRing.net is Hobbit forming”, and selling their legendary t-shirts from Comic Con, “Don’t make me get my Ring” and “I was…chased from my house, stabbed by a wraith, assaulted by a mutant octopus, speared by a troll, stalked by a creepy little man, drawn into a corpse-filled swamp, poisoned by a giant spider, rendered unconscious…I even lost my Ring, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”. Must have t-shirts…preciousss…so I bought myself the latter, and met Bill (Corvar), Larry (MrCere), and Chris (Calisuri) from TORN in the process. All three were warm and friendly, and I talked to Bill for quite some time about obtaining a press pass for the TORN Oscar Party and the other events taking place at Dragon Con that TORN was running. By then it was almost 1 PM, so I ran off to catch “Welcome to Middle Earth” over at the Hyatt.
The room that the Tolkien track was assigned for the Con was located on the Conference Level of the Hyatt, 3 floors down from the lobby level and otherwise referred to by myself and company as the “seventh level of hell” or “the dungeon” for the rest of the Con. Both the room and the level were nice, mind you, but when you’re far enough below ground that you lose your cell phone signal, you know you’re in the bowels of the earth. The room was designed to seat 80 people, and TORN’s opening presentation was standing room only. The staffers went over details of the Tolkien track, and at the end of the presentation raffled off copies of Tom Shippey’s latest as well as several of the LOTR art books. Everyone who filled out a survey for Houghton Mifflin got a free copy of FOTR with the Frodo cover. *grin* At the end of the presentation as I’m going up to claim my book, someone to my left says “Wow, West of the Moon” reading the logo off the back of my WOTM t-shirt. So I go over to her and ask if she reads the site. She responds, “yes, and I also have stories posted there”, at which point I respond, “who are you?” and find myself face to face with Bill the Pony. Bill introduced me to her online friend that she had come to meet, Beguiled, and the 3 of us chatted merrily about fanfiction for quite some time. Bill is a lovely woman, and was sweet enough to save me a seat for the upcoming John Rhys-Davies hour at 4 PM, while I ran off to fetch Marea and some lunch.
I learned that there are 3 things you don’t get to do at Dragon Con: eat, sleep, or visit the restroom. Lunch consisted of a Chick-Fil-a sandwich that I inhaled while walking back to the Hyatt with Marea to try and catch the end of the 2:30 Games Workshop presentation that preceded JRD. We caught the very end of the presentation, in enough time to get tickets for the raffle and not win anything, and so began our wait for JRD at 3 PM. I was seated between Bill and Beguiled in the first row center, and anticipation in the room was high as we were entertained for about an hour by Cliff (Quickbeam) and Jessica (Starlady) from TORN. You have not lived until you’ve heard Cliff’s rendition of “Where there’s a whip, there’s a way” from Bakshi. I have a feeling that he created himself a reputation with it, and it will be his new party gig. Marea and I were also lucky enough to be able to get up and tell the crowd about both of our fan tables. What a great advertising opportunity for both of us!
So, the clock ticked, and ticked, and we sang and chatted, and it got to be 4:15 and nothing was happening. The natives were growing restless as Jincey, director of the Tolkien track, made her way to the mic. She informed us rather grimly that JRD had cancelled his appearance for the weekend, they did not know why, and they had just gotten this information 5 minutes ago. #$%@! We were quite put out. There went not only our hour here with him, but also our chance to interview him for our websites. But, what can you do? The thing about con guests is, you never are sure they’re coming until they walk through the door, and we experienced this firsthand.
Disheartened but not defeated, we left the venue and ran into another WOTM author, Lullenny, in the hallway outside. Another nice fanfiction conversation ensued, and we exchanged contact info in hopes of seeing her again later in the weekend. We then went to meet our friend Trasmerg (Traz), who had just arrived, and helped her get settled at the Con. By then it was 6:30, and we had a choice to make: dinner before going to the Evening in Bree, or attending Walter Koenig’s hour on the Trek Trak. Decisions, decisions. Our stomachs won out, and we ate pizza in the room while we got our costumes ready for the evening. Marea wore this lovely female innkeeper’s outfit and went as “Barlimom Butterbeer” and I wore my blue velvet elven gown. Celeste, webmaster for frodoandsam.net, also came by with her friend Laura while we were getting ready for the Evening, and we got organized for the next day’s big fan table premiere.
The Evening at Bree was held in one of the Centennial ballrooms over in the Hyatt, which was a nice large room, and by the time we arrived was fairly filled with fans clapping and dancing to Emerald Rose, who were in the middle their first set up on stage. As soon as we made our entrance, Bill from TORN approached us and asked if one of us would judge the costume contest. Marea was planning to enter, so she couldn’t very well judge, so I said, “of course!”, and the next thing I knew I was meeting the other judges and Emerald Rose was finished with their set and the contest was ready to begin! The other judges for the contest were Julia, who was presenting the costume segment for the Tolkien track the next morning; Ginger (Elbren), a fellow TORCer and programming coordinator for the Gathering of the Fellowship; and Chris from TORN, who I had met earlier that day.
The judges were introduced, and the contest began with the Elf category. There were approximately 20 contestants, which included 2 male elves and a host of Arwens, Galadriels, and miscellaneous female elves, and it was quite difficult for us to choose three winners. In the end we chose a very authentic-looking Arwen (Kell Yarwood from Memphis) for first place, an elven archer (John “John-of-the-Night” Day from Orlando) for second honors, and another Arwen (Beth “Ladystar” Robinson from Michigan) for third.
While Emerald Rose played another set, Marea, Traz, and I mingled through the crowd admiring costumes, and watching the folk-style dancing of the many female elves on the floor. After the set it was time for the second costume contest, for everyone but the elves. This was a much more interesting event, for the sheer variety of the costumes was amazing. There were Valar, Frodos, Aragorns, men of Gondor, Rosie Cottons, Ringwraiths (including a twilight wraith), Gandalfs, Uruk-hai, and even a Balrog, complete with extending wings! It took us forever to judge this one. The crowd waited rather impatiently while we talked amongst ourselves and with Jincey, and finally agreed that there would be 3 winners and an honorable mention. For first place we chose an Aragorn and Frodo pair (Dion Rupa from New York and Heather Dunningham from Santa Cruz) dressed authentically in every detail, right down to exquisite hairy hobbit feet on Frodo. Second place went to the fighting Uruk-hai, complete with a series of nose rings (Beth “LOTR42” McCullers from Memphis). The amazing balrog (Gayle Klar from Savannah) took third, and the honorable mention went to a Rosie Cotton in a lovely blue dress who danced for the judges (Tracey “IridescentGrrly” Cook from Huntsville).
Emerald Rose started up again following the contest, and we sat and watched the performance and wandered about taking pictures of costumes until 11 PM. We were still quite ready to party at this point, and the Con was still hopping everywhere else, so I approached Bill (Corvar) and asked him what there was to do. The next thing I knew, we were on our way up to Champions with the TORN staff to do karaoke. Our friend Rosie-the-hobbit had a late flight in, and she joined us at karaoke when she arrived. Most of the staff was out that night, and we did a lovely rendition of “I’m a Man of Constant Sorrow” from “O Brother, Where Art Thou” as well as solo performances by Cliff (Quickbeam) and Michael Martinez. The TORN staff are an absolutely wonderful group to party with, and beer, Long Island Iced Teas, etc., and a good time was had by all. The post-party consisted of a rather heartfelt version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the hotel lobby at 2 AM that got us busted by the hotel staff, so we decided to call it a night. So ended my first full day at Dragon Con!
Saturday
Saturday began at 7 AM, as we hustled around to get everything ready to open our table by 10 AM. Celeste and Laura arrived to help, and we hauled everything down from the room and managed to be set up in time. Celeste brought a lovely 3-part black screen that we sat behind the table, and we hung Laura’s beautiful logo painting in the middle and displayed a t-shirt on either side. Willow-wode’s “Fellowship” illo sat on a large easel for display, and we laid Sting on the table along with two more t-shirts, our “Bring the Ringbearer to the Gathering” flyers, and my West of the Moon business cards. I worked the table for most of the early part of the day, selling t-shirts and chances for the raffle, and conversing with fans about LOTR. I was also treated to a performance of “If I had a million ducats” by the Brobdingnagian Bards, which was hysterical! Afterwards they came over and introduced themselves by kissing my hand in a most attentive manner, chatted with me, and gave me a copy of their new CD “Memories of Middle Earth”. What charming guys! Rosie showed up at 3 PM to man the table through Brad Dourif’s hour, and Marea, Traz and I ventured off to secure good seats for the presentation.
We stood in line until at least 3:30 as the previous presentation cleared out and they cleaned up the ballroom, but the wait was actually rather pleasant as the Bards were playing on the concourse to our right and we were surrounded by fellow Tolkien fans. While waiting in line, I met several women who go to WOTM regularly, and I was thrilled to hear how much they liked the site. (Thank you, ladies!) Finally, we got in. We were lucky enough to secure front row center seats again, so that when Brad finally took the stage and sat down we were about 10 feet away from him. I’m not going to summarize his hour here, as I will be posting the entire transcript on the site, but I want to impress on all of you how warm and friendly Brad was. He related a few memories and stories from LOTR, and then took questions from the crowd for the rest of the hour. He seemed to enjoy the hour as much as we did, and when it was over he posed for some pictures and talked with the fans. Marea approached him about setting up an interview, and he informed her that he would be signing autographs on the Walk of Fame on Sunday, and that we should approach him there. This discouraged us a bit, since he didn’t say what time he’d be there, and we couldn’t set up an appointment. But, we vowed to do the best we could on Sunday, and put our reporter hats away for the day and went in search of dinner.
We were in the middle of dinner at the Hyatt’s buffet when Cliff called me to invite us to go out for Chinese with the TORN staffers. We declined, of course, since we were already eating, but Cliff told me that we had a date for karaoke again that evening, so we met them at Champions around 10 PM. Saturday night’s karaoke was much longer, and included group renditions of “A Man of Constant Sorrow” (again), “Bohemian Rhapsody” (this time we got to finish it), and “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats. Again it was beer and delightful conversation with Bill, Chris, Cliff, Carlene, Jincey, Lisa, Josh, Susan, Larry, and Jessica (apologies to whoever I missed) til 2 AM. Ah, convention life!
Sunday
Since the fan tables had been organized on Saturday, we actually slept til 8 AM on Sunday (YAY!) and then went down and set up the tables for 10 AM. Celeste and Laura had the early shift on Sunday, so I finally got some time to go look around the dealers rooms! The dealers room on the fan table level had mainly gaming booths in it, including a large LOTR display at Decipher. I browsed through and didn’t find much to my liking, so I headed down to the lower level to check out the larger room. The lower level was a mass of humanity, and any movement through the crowd took a lot of time. My first mission was to go back to the Walk of Fame and see if I could find out anything about when Brad Dourif would be signing. I talked to a nice security man who assured me there was no way for me to find out when he would be showing up, and that I should just check back throughout the day to look for him. Well, that’s certainly convenient! So I called Marea and we decided that we would both check back as often as we could, and I went back to shopping. The dealers room on the lower floor consisted of booths selling weaponry, t-shirts, publicity photos of stars (signed and otherwise), jewelry, action figures and toys, costumes, comic books, and I’m sure 50 other things I can’t remember at the moment. I picked up an embroidered “Frodo Lives” t-shirt, and a Celtic knot pendant and earrings to wear with my elven gown. By the time I accomplished all this, it was time to run to the Hyatt for the 11:30 presentation of Ringers: Lord of the Fans.
Like Saturday, the presentation was packed, but Rosie and Marea had saved me a seat near the front, anticipating my late arrival. The presentation was given by Cliff, Carlene and Josh, who make up the crew that is producing Ringers: Lord of the Fans, a documentary about Tolkien fans and the history of Tolkien fandom. The finished film is due to come out around the release of the extended ROTK DVD next year. They discussed the inception of their idea to do a documentary, and then gave an enlightening history of early Tolkien fandom. This included details of the dealings between Tolkien and his publisher, Allen and Unwin, as well as chronicling the birth of Tolkien fandom in the US, complete with a full showing of “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” by Leonard Nimoy and a display of those awful psychedelic book covers from Ballantine in the 60’s. The documentary looks like it’s going to be a wonderful look at the fandom, so keep your eyes peeled for more information about it!
Now it was time for me to work the table a while before the ROTK preview at 4 PM, so I headed off to the Marriott, grabbing lunch on the way to eat at the table when I got there. While there, the Bards came by again on their way to a performance at the art show, and decided to serenade me. They played a gorgeous sorrowful ballad for me on autoharp and recorder, standing right in front of the table, that just about brought me to tears. I must admit that that’s the most successful flirting technique I’ve ever seen. If these guys aren’t married, they won’t be on the market for long if they keep doing that to women! At 3:30, Traz came to relieve me from the table, and Marea and I decided to take a run down to the Walk of Fame to see if Brad was there. Let me just tell you, if you haven’t figured it out from the rest of this report, that Marea and I were having amazing luck this weekend. When we got down there, we found Brad seated at an autograph table, and not terribly busy. We approached, introduced ourselves, and inquired about an interview. He replied, “sure, would you like to do it right now?” and we began looking for a place to do the interview. The Walk of Fame was crowded and noisy, but in the back corner there was a hallway leading to the restricted portions of the building, and we were granted access to this area because we had a guest with us for the purposes of an interview. So, we ducked around the corner and found two chairs in the hallway, and Brad and I sat there while Marea sat Indian style on the floor, and we began the interview. Again, I will not cover the entire interview here, as I am posting the whole transcript separately on the site. I will just highlight what struck me most from our conversation.
Brad was dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, his brown hair, streaked a bit with silver, laying in curls to his shoulders. He has a moustache flowing down into a bit of a goatee, which he later told us is his look in his latest project, and his eyes are a steel grey-blue that is quite intense when he meets your gaze. His voice is gentle but sure, his hand firm and steady in a handshake. Brad is warm and personable, and puts you at ease with a wink and a smile as he answers your questions. He is a down-to-earth guy. We talked with Brad for about a half hour, alternating questions between Marea and I, and we discussed things like his definition of evil, who he thinks the hero of LOTR is, and his feelings about the comaraderie among the members of the cast during the filming of Lord of the Rings. His answers were sincere and heartfelt, and I had to resist the urge to break interview format and just start talking to him many times throughout our meeting. He has a deep respect for Peter, the cast, and all the crew that worked on the film, and it’s clearly readable in his voice and on his face as he discusses his experiences. We had a delightful interview with Brad, and afterward he posed with both of us for pictures, and we returned with him to the table to get a few autographs for ourselves and absent friends.
Afterward, we hurried off to catch the end of the ROTK preview, and managed to arrive in time to see the ROTK footage pulled from the upcoming ROTK game from EA games, which did contain a few new images. I had made it through the interview with Brad completely calmly and in a professional manner, but at this point it was beginning to dawn on me that I had in fact just interviewed a member of the LOTR cast. Now it was time to be a squeeing fangirl for a little while. So, I wandered the Con like Alice in Wonderland, wondering exactly whose life I was living that I was able to report on these events, and be in this place, surrounded by fandom friends and sci fi and fantasy at its finest. Still high on life, we met up with the TORN crowd again for dinner at Steak and Ale, and then it was off to the Dragon Con masquerade at the Atlanta Civic Center.
The masquerade was lovely, and extremely long…or so it seemed after watching 20 child contestants and 70-some adult entries, each complete with a 3-minute voiceover and in some cases, intro music. The evening was hosted by Walter Koenig and George Takei from Star Trek, who provided quite a bit of entertainment all by themselves by butchering the names of the majority of the contestants and playing one-liners off one another. For the children’s contest, most of the entries were miniature princesses or action heroes, but the one that stood out most was a young Princess Amidala, about age 8, complete with 2 dolls as young Luke and Leia. Her voiceover stated that she had difficulty caring for the twins, so she decided to leave Luke with Owen, at which point the young princess tosses the Luke doll across the stage. Then on the cue that she leaves Leia with other family, she pushes her stroller across the stage, where it proceeds to hit a large speaker and dump the Leia doll to the floor. Oops, she didn’t quite mean for it to do that! Then the voiceover states that all is not lost and she went on to get a job at the Coruscant lounge (or some such), and in response she drops the shoulders on her costume and does a little shoulder dance which sends the crowd rolling, as if they didn’t laugh hard enough with the departure of her children! Needless to say, she won, likely on the basis of her inventive skit.
The adult entries were widely varied, from anime characters to Lara Croft to Pacman. A few words about the memorable ones:
Sully and Boo from Monsters Inc.: Sully is a large furry monster, blue with purple spots, large and quite well done. He comes out with Boo, who follows him around, picks up his tail and drops it, and says “Kitty”. Sully then covers his eyes and counts for hide and seek, Boo trips off her little girl’s dress to reveal black leather underneath, and says “Rowr…kitty” in a quite seductive voice as Sully scoops her off and carries her offstage. I hope this reads near as funny as it was to watch!
Pacman: Pacman was an ensemble cast consisting of a large cardboard yellow pacman, a girl wearing the pacman cherries, and 4 ghosts, pink, red, blue, and orange. Pacman was chased by ghosts until he “ate” the large dot (ball) on the stage, then the ghosts turned around to reveal their blue side as Pacman chased them. As the ghosts were “eaten”, each dropped their cardboard sides and held up sets of black and white eyes as they ran from the stage. Quite an inventive and well thought out performance!
Frankenstein and his bride did a rendition of Summer Nights from Grease, complete with ghoulie backup singers.
The most impressive thing by far was Max and company from “Where the Wild Things Are”. Those costumes were the most amazing things I’ve ever seen that weren’t produced professionally. Max announced ” Let the wild rumpus begin!” and his entourage of 4 wild things began to dance to the music, and then did a great unison dance. It was incredible, and everyone knew instantly that they had won!
There were several LOTR entries, including Nessa the Valar, and an ensemble with the twilight wraith from Friday night. Any entries that took too long with their performances were escorted from the stage by a pair of stormtroopers, as unfortunately happened to a few groups, but overall the contest was a great experience-and as predicted, the Wild Things won!
After the costume contest it was off for another evening of fun with the TORN staff, which concluded around 5 AM. Ahem.
Monday
A few scant hours of sleep later it was back to set the table up for 10 AM, to sell just a few more t-shirts and raffle tickets in the morning hours before the conclusion of the Con. After we dismantled the booth I grabbed lunch with Larry and Chris, and hung out at the TORN table for a while chatting until it was time to take one last look around the dealers room before heading home. Goodbyes with my newfound friends were joyful but bittersweet, and I vowed to see them all at the Oscar Party in February. Rosie and I did one final round of the downstairs, and each bought a Two Towers Frodo magnet, and debated over action figures and publicity stills. And then, it was over, and I was on my way home.
And here I sit, the day after the Con, writing this report and still living the fandom high of the weekend I surely must have borrowed from someone else’s life. I worked with my longtime friends Marea, Rosie, and Traz (who I met in person for the first time), finally met Celeste who I’ve been collaborating with for several months now on the Bring the Ringbearer to the Gathering project, made new friends, landed a major interview, was wooed, was flattered by the notoriety of my website, met several prominent authors in the world of fanfiction, and partied like a rock star every night of the Con. It doesn’t get any better than this!
I must include a special note here to the members of the TORN staff, especially Chris, Bill, Larry, Lisa, Cliff, Carlene, and Jincey: Thank you guys so much for a wonderful time! It was a Con I’ll never ever forget, and the most amazing weekend of my life!
As for the rest of you, I can’t say enough nice things about the TORN staff both personally and professionally, so go, support them!
Rosie and Traz, thank you so much for all your hard work this weekend, it would not have been possible without you!
Celeste, we met at last, and pulled off a miracle! Here’s to more success! And Laura, thank you for your work and your gorgeous sign!
And lastly, Marea, my staffer, fellow reporter, and partner in crime. Just look at what we did this time! I can’t wait to see what February will bring!
You can visit me at West of the Moon and Celeste at www.frodoandsam.net, and this link will take you to Bring the Ringbearer to the Gathering of the Fellowship were you can purchase raffle tickets for Sting or the illustration, Fellowship. You can buy “Happiness is a Warm Hobbit” or “Your gardner…don’t leave home without him!” t-shirts here.
