craig-parker.net > Stage & Screen > Public Appearances > The Best of Both Worlds Sci Fi Convention > Review by Vanessa
By Vanessa
All the guests spoke on both days, and I'm not sure which day some things were said on, so I think what I'll do is just give you bits of the guests' talks on both days combined.
Sarah McLeod (Rosie Cotton)
Sarah is absolutely lovely. We met her at the cocktail party, and she spoke to the whole group of us for quite a while, particularly Mary who she was pleased to meet after having seen her website. Sarah is very warm in manner, very open; she smiles a lot, has a very animated face, and has a very "inclusive" way of speaking. Some of the highlights of her talk:
- She still keeps in touch with Sean Astin, as their daughters are so close in age - his youngest is ten days older than her youngest.
- Elijah was very generous. When they went out drinking, he'd do things like buy a bottle of Veuve Cliquot for every table, or put a hundred bucks on the tab at the bar for the whole LOTR bunch.
- She loved hanging around with the four hobbits.
- She absolutely loved her costumes - the bodices were embroidered with real silk, and she had a wonderful necklace to wear in the shape of a rose, which they'd made especially for Rosie.
- She's sure that Sean Astin is a very good dancer, but Sam is not :)
- Her most embarrassing moment on set was when she had to dance with Frodo, and she stepped on Elijah's hobbit foot and pulled back with part of his hobbit toe stuck to her hobbit foot :)
- They did a week of dance rehearsals, and there was a lot of dancing filmed which wasn't included in the movie. Apparently the bit after Frodo pushes Sam into Rosie's arms went on much longer and included a sequence in which Sam and Rosie do a dance in the centre of a circle of hobbits.
- It was no trouble at all for Sarah to imagine herself as a hobbit. She said that at one point she was standing in Rosie's garden, and it was filled with sunflowers, and carrots in her vegie patch, and there were bumblebees and butterflies flying around her face and they weren't fake, and it was that much easier to become Rosie.
- She was absolutely thrilled to be working with Peter Jackson again (she first worked with him in Forgotten Silver) and found the experience of being Rosie an absolute joy - and you can actually see the joy in her.
David Weatherley (Barliman Butterbur)
David is very much a performer. He obviously gets accents and voices down very easily, and he told many, many jokes. He said that the "four young lads" were an absolute delight to work with. The only one of them he recognised was "the little lad from the North Country... he was in that, ahhh, Hetty Wainwright? He was the little boy on the scooter." Heeeee :) He said Dom got the accent right straight away, whereas the others took longer. Billy was "such a gorgeously fresh, alive, nice person".
John Noble (Denethor)
Most of John's talk was a spoiler for ROTK, of course John is really odd to see in action - he has that lined, rather dour face, but an amazing smile that completely lights it up. Even his voice changes when he smiles.
Spoiler-free highlights of John's talk:
- His daughters, who were 17 and 21 at the time, got to be extras - Ladies of Gondor. His youngest daughter thought Elijah was the hottest thing she'd ever seen, and was also quite happy to find out that Bernard Hill was going to be there because she liked 'Titanic' - and had her dreams come true when John took her to an event at which Elijah sat on one side of her and Bernard on the other.
- Orlando Bloom took a shine to John's eldest daughter, but she turned him down because she had a boyfriend at the time. Viggo also took a shine to John's daughters when they went nightclubbing with him. John's daughters must be quite something - John describes them as "statuesque".
- He's stayed friends with many people on the production; in the past week he's been in email contact with three or four of them.
- His impressions of his co-stars: Billy Boyd is "so cute" and the nicest person you could ever meet (Everybody loves Billy! Everyone took special trouble to point out how great he is. Elijah is "just really gorgeous", Orlando is "a beautiful young man", Liv Tyler is very quiet, sweet and a little bit nervous.
- Ian McKellen decreed the Rings cast as "the finest group of character actors ever assembled".
- John was very enthusiastic about next year's BOBW with "Dommie and Billy". He said we're mad if we don't go, we'll all have the BEST time, and that he's thinking *he* might even come along. "They love a party, and they are a comic duo, and if you ever get a chance to see those two clowns in action, DO IT". Emphasis John's, not mine :)
- He believes ROTK will be the most successful film of all time, and will be the one which gives Peter Jackson his Oscar reward. Also said it has "lots of soppy stuff and teary stuff" in it :)
Ben Wootten (Cute Weta Guy)
Ben was lovely. He showed us a presentation of some of Weta's work and spoke very enthusiastically about it, about Richard Taylor, and about the films. On the first day he talked about the armour, and on the second about the creatures. He also showed some great slides, including an Uruk-hai manhandling a Weta tech, and one dressed in drag with a wig and make-up. He was a lovely, lovely guy.
Bruce Hopkins (Gamling)
Bruce was... a phenomenon. No other word for him :) He started off with a fashion show of various T-shirts that he'd been given or had made, including Minas Tirith High School, Isengard Swim Club, Rohan Riding Academy and one he'd made for the people he worked most closely with, which had a Rohan horse inside a ring which read "Gambling Department" with the 'b' crossed out. Apparently one of the assistant directors (or unit directors, or something) had always referred to Gamling as 'Gambling' :)
Highlights of Bruce's talk:
- Elijah sent him a card he'd had made, with a fifties-style bloke on it throwing two huge dice and "Gambling? You bet your ass I do" written on it, and inside Elijah had written what a shame it was they hadn't really got to work together. So Bruce then got a Gambling Department T-shirt made up for Elijah as well :)
- Viggo sat down straight after a night of shooting at Helm's Deep, and hand-wrote individual thank-you notes to about 150 extras, thanking them for making the experience so great and telling them he thought they were making a truly incredible picture.
- Once Orlando flew off a horse with Brett, Gimli's size double, strapped to him :)
- When asked if he'd ever worked with Karl Urban, Bruce said "Karl and I got our willies out on stage once" :)
Bruce was absolutely fantastic - really interesting, really REALLY funny. Good value :)
Craig Parker (Haldir)
Craig was bouncing all over the place like a very bouncy rubber ball running on pure adrenalin :) He gave us ironing tips and told us that the people who make all the LOTR wigs also make Nicole's wigs. Other handy hints given by Craig: if you ever need to look as if you're wearing a G-string, just tuck your undies up and it looks like a G-string when it's not, which is what he did for the Rocky Horror Show :)
Also told us that he'd thought, "I don't need money! I'll live on the pure joy of acting!", but "that was before I discovered shoes".
A lot of both Craig's and Bruce's talks were you-had-to-be-there kind of stuff :)
Question: "Do you get many letters from women? Fan letters?"
Craig: "They're all from my mother. 'Craig, what is with
the hair? Blonde doesn't suit you - what's wrong with the hair
colour I gave you? And you've gone off to battle again, what did
I tell you, you'll only get killed, I told you so...'"
Also, during the scene on the flets that's in the extended FOTR, the camera was looking over Craig's shoulder in one shot and he wasn't tall enough. Craig suggested they strap something to his feet to make him taller. He ended up with polystyrene blocks strapped to his feet with lots of silver duct tape, so the look was "Elf, elf, elf..." (indicates feet) "...KISS" :)
And Craig is extremely easy on the eye, although I'm sure you all knew that already :)
We got to have our photos taken with a guest of our choice. On the first day I got mine taken with Craig, who is compact and warm and smells nice :) On the second day I got it taken with Bruce, who was so taken with my T-shirt (it had a caricature of Aragorn and Legolas on it acting out a scene from the Very Secret Diaries) that he's pointing to it in the photo, and he yelled 'Craig, Craig, come and check this out!" Craig admired my shirt again at lunchtime and told me he's going to read the Very Secret Diaries when he gets home.
The banquet on Saturday night was fun, although the food was pretty indifferent (I was not impressed with the hotel at all, to tell the truth, and neither were the BOBW people). There was dancing. Bruce and Sarah and John all boogied on down with us, and Bruce led the Nutbush :)
Sunday was a bit more laid-back and relaxed. There were many amusing moments during the auction when an Arwen costume was auctioned off, and Craig and Ben dressed the Legolas standee in Arwen's costume and carried it around the room :) None of the auction items were terribly exciting, although the LOTR Fan Club magazine with Merry on the cover, and which Craig autographed because it also had a Haldir article in it, went for over $300. The Arwen costume was bought by John Noble :) They also drew the raffle they'd been running for the Guide Dogs, and then Craig rang up the person who'd won, who had only been there on the first day, and pretended to be a radio DJ telling her she'd won the prize. He then asked her who was her favourite Elf in the movie and acted devastated when she said "Legolas", and then declared that he was going to sign Orlando's name on the next item they auctioned. Heeee! Sarah drew the door prize and I won! Wheee! (A set of ROTK spoiler postcards and two sets of cards for the card game)
At the wrap party last night, John dressed up in the Arwen costume and danced with Craig while David Weatherley sang. So Denethor, dressed as Arwen, danced with Haldir while Butterbur sang. Bruce also got into the Arwen dress and was sitting on men's laps and smooching them :)
When we left the wrap party, I said goodbye to Adele, the organizer, who was teasing me about next year. "I hear you don't like Dominic! I don't think you should be let near Dominic next year. I don't think you should be allowed to come because you don't like Dominic enough!" Then I thanked Sarah, who was sitting with Craig, for drawing me as the door prize, and Craig got up and asked if I was going and hugged me and said "Take care" and smooched me on the cheek, causing me to dance out of the room. Sarah ran after us and asked "Are you going?" and hugged us all too. And Ben hugged us as well. He's a sweetheart :)
And then we collapsed.
It was wonderful, and there are so many people who made it wonderful - the BOBW organisers, the guests, the Melbourne Taters, the people I met while I was there.