All Hell Breaks Loose 5 - Supernatural Convention Report

*writer's note: I wrote this report for a multi-fandom site called capslockit which is run by a couple of pals of mine and is super awesome, so that's why it's a little bit more explainy than I would usually do for purely Supernatural fans. Make sure you check out capslockit, there are some great interviews on there with some Supernatural cast, amongst other fabulous stuff!

ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE 5 – SUPERNATURAL CONVENTION REPORT.

Guests: Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard, Richard Speight Jnr., Matt Cohen, Mitch Pileggi, Corin Nemec.

All Hell Breaks Loose is a convention dedicated to the TV show, Supernatural that takes place yearly in Australia at the end of May. The convention is over 1 weekend, but is split across 2 States with the Saturday taking place in Sydney and the Sunday in Melbourne.

I’ve attended the Sydney event each year...except the first year in 2010...which is the only year Jensen, and Jared attended and the only one I couldn’t get to! Of course! Curses! Which is why I now travel over the seas twice a year to attend the U.S. Supernatural conventions because seeing the Js is a MUST!

All Hell Breaks Loose is a pretty casual affair, being as it’s in Aussie and we are notoriously casual. The cast seem to have a great time and are pretty loose on stage…even more so than usual! The day consists of photos with the cast, panels and then autographs.

This year the convention took place over the weekend of May 31/June 1, though technically, it kicked off on the night of May 30 with the Sydney VIP cocktail party and the karaoke (which for some reason is called the “Sing-a-long, which is equal parts cringe-worthy and hilarious!). I had the VIP ticket, so I was having drinks with the cast!

The cocktail party was a seated event (the previous year it had been a mingle) with a maximum on 8 people per table including the guest. If anyone has been to the Creation Supernatural convention cocktail parties, it’s a similar thing…but with less people on the tables and more time with the guests. Where as Creation’s cocktail parties are like speed dating on, well, speed, with only 90 seconds per guest, at AHBL, we get about 15 to 20 minutes with the guest and with such a small group on the table, that’s a good amount of time to chat!

Mitch Pileggi.

I should say, I’ve been doing cons for so long now, that I’ve made a lot of friends and 5 of us out of the 7 on my table at the cocktail party know each other very well. We’ve all done multiple conventions together both in Australia and the U.S. and had met early for some pre-convention drinks and catch-up.

I should also say, we’re all big X-Files fans…

Mitch was the first guest to grace us with his presence. It was the first time any of us had met him. He sat opposite me (got to pick your seat, I find opposite the guest is the best) and we basically all just stared at him, because AGENT SKINNER WAS SITTING AT OUR TABLE! After a short, awkward silence one of us piped up, “I’m sorry we’re silent but we’re all huge X-Files fans so were a little freaked out”. This made Mitch very happy! I think he assumed that everyone there just knew him through Supernatural, but for me, The X-Files was my first big TV love. It turns out Mitch is a funny guy! He looked and me and said, “So you must be excited that David [Duchovny] is on twitter” and I said, “Mitch, to be honest, I was irrationally excited that day!” and Mitch goes, “It is irrational because he’s a dick! Just kidding, he’s a great guy.” Ooooo-kay! He said he doesn’t follow David on twitter because he followed him for 9 years! Mitch had a good sense of humour! He discussed how when he got the call for Supernatural, he said yes without hesitating because he wanted to work with the late director Kim Manners again and a lot of the original crew from The X-Files now worked on Supernatural. He feels blessed he got that chance to catch up with Kim before he passed. He also said that his first episode on Supernatural was one of the favourite jobs he’s had. He elaborated on this in his panel talking about how he really pushed the boundaries with Jensen in the scene where the Yellow Eyed Demon, who was possessing his character, Samuel Campbell, the Winchester brother's maternal grandfather, got real up close and personal with Dean Winchester. Mitch said he got pretty creepy with Jensen, sniffing him and the like and that he was so impressed with how Jensen just told him to go for it, and took it all in his stride.

Over drinks Mitch also talked about an episode of Criminal Minds he did, which randomly I’d just seen! The character of a man consumed with guilt who winds up murdering his family, is probably his favourite part ever. It was a very different role to anything he’d done before and he felt a lot of sympathy for the character he was portraying.

During Mitch’s panel the next day, he delved further into The Campbells and what he thought about their story in Supernatural during season 6. Basically, it confused him. He didn’t feel at the time he understood it well enough and feels that he let the part down by not asking enough questions. A fan had told him her theory about the Campbells at the cocktail party the night before, and he said he’d wished he’d had that information at the time of shooting because it would have made everything clearer! Mitch also discussed his role on Sons of Anarchy and talked about what a great bunch of guys the actors on that show are. Sons happens to be my favourite show after Supernatural so I was in my happy place!

I got a photo with Mitch, because seriously, how could I not and I also got a couple of autographs because I wanted him to sign my photo of us together but also, one of Agent Skinner! I have to say I was super impressed with Mitch. He was disarmingly charming and incredibly thoughtful with his answers and how he interacted with you personally. Like all cast members I’ve met from Supernatural, he was just downright lovely!

Mark Sheppard.

First up. This was Mark’s 50^th birthday and he chose to spend that special day with his fans. We all sung happy birthday to him. I love Mark with a fiery passion. He’s such a fanboy and simply gets us and gets fandom. Every time I’ve seen one of his panels he impresses the hell out of me. Not just because he’s an incredibly articulate and witty man with a tonne of stories, but because of his genuine affection for fandom and how he perceives us a brave, because we wear out hearts on our sleeve. He has made me cry on more than one occasion!

When he sat at our table I took the chance to ask him about THAT speech his character Crowley gave to the apparently dead Dean, in the Supernatural season 9 finale. What did Crowley mean by it was important, “It’s fundamental” that Dean know that he was not lying to him about all the Mark of Cain stuff. Mark said, “I never said fundamental!” (I love how Mark uses “I” when he talks about his character), I said, “Yeah you did”, he said, “No I didn’t, I remember what I said.” Four of us said simultaneously, “Yeah. You did.” So Mark cracks into the speech and he gets to, “I never lied, Dean. That’s important. That’s…” and I go, “Fundamental!” It was a pretty fun moment! Regarding that speech, Mark said that the first half was Crowley eulogising a lost friend but the second half was very much about him laying ground work because he knew when Dean awoke as a demon, he was going to be powerful and Crowley was covering his ass!

Mark also made us question how Crowley was in the bunker. I said I assumed he walked in like every other supernatural creature seems to these days! He also asked us to think about why Crowley didn’t go when Sam summoned him, and I said I assumed that Crowley was able to decide whether he went or not when summoned, if it didn’t work in his favour, he didn’t go. Mark questioned that, saying that Crowley has got himself into devil’s traps when called upon, and that he even had to go during the massage scene. He said we need to consider how Crowley was actually there. Which made us say, “Are you saying he wasn’t actually there?" to which in typical Sheppard form he just smirked! (Misha had something to say about this!)

Where else do you get this kind of opportunity, to talk one on one with an actor you admire in a show you love about a character point! It was beyond fantastic.

During Mark’s panel the next day, he elaborated a little on the scene where Crowley was being massaged when Dean summoned him. He said that the actress playing the demon massaging him, never stopped massaging him in between takes! So for 2 hours, Mark got an awesome massage while the crew actively glared at him! He also talked about the scene during “Blade Runners” where Crowley had sex with another demon. He and the actress playing that role had to do ADR and drop in the sex noises in postproduction. He said he was horrified as he stood and watched this woman over a 20-minute period, fake making the most realistic noises he’d ever heard. He said it suddenly dawned on his how easy it is for women to do that! He also said, rather proudly, that when the episode went to censorship, the producers were told that Crowley’s sex noises were too big. In fact it was told to them as, Mark Sheppard’s sex is too big. Mark was most proud.

He also told a great story about what Jensen did in that final scene of the finale. It was the last scene for both of them for the season. After that, they were done and heading home for hiatus. He said jokingly, he thought maybe Jensen had been drinking! Mark was full into Crowley’s speech, as he said “Chewing up the scenery.” The crew were all engrossed as he went through the scene. It was absolutely silent. Mark got the First Blade out of his jacket pocket and moved towards Jensen, who was playing dead. Mark puts the Blade in Dean’s hand and closes Dean’s fingers around it. Just as he was moving Dean’s hand to press against Dean’s chest, Jensen suddenly sat up and screamed at Mark! Mark said he shat his pants he got such fright! I do so hope that’s on the gag reel! Mark said Jensen is a lot of fun.

Mark’s panel was full of saucy teasing (about torture and us meeting him in room 602) and laughter. He’s a wonderful storyteller and loves to have fun with us. Of course he finished with a speech about how important we all are to him in his life and how thankful he was for us because it was because of us that he was made a series regular for Supernatural season 10. And of course, I cried!

Misha Collins.

Misha came to our table and said, “What was Sheppard talking about?” so we told him and he said, “He’s f***ing with you.” Oh Misha, never change. For a lot of the conversation with Misha, we discussed GISHWHES. He was excited because when he got back to the States he was going to be meeting William Shatner for the first time! He’s as baffled as the rest of us by Mr Shatner’s attraction to Misha and the Supernatural fandom and why he wants to be involved with GISHWHES, but Misha is most obviously thrilled. We got the chance to chastise him for everything he does being at a shocking time for Australia, like the special TSA shorts screening he did at the Supernatural Washington DC Con, for which most of us at the table got up at 2am to watch! He made a note to himself…like literally, typed it into his phone…to make the GISHWHES start time as horrible as possible for Australia. Serves us right. Not like we don’t all know him.

I got to ask if he’d had a chance to talk to the writers at all about where they were going with his character, Castiel next season. He hadn’t and he said he had no f***ing idea what would be happening with Cas.

The next day, Richard Speight Jnr. brought Misha into the auditorium early for his panel, which was the last panel of the day. Richard was auctioning a t-shirt for children’s charities that he’d drawn on, and felt a bit of Misha DNA would push up the price. So he went and got Misha and didn’t tell him why, until he was on stage, when he told Misha to put the t-shirt down his pants! Misha borked at this at first (why I don’t know, I’ve seen him do worse), but eventually acquiesced putting the t-shirt down the front of his pants and masterly pulling it back out the back of his pants! Now that’s DNA (and a bit gross!)

During Misha’s panel, he wore a flower crown throughout the pretty much the whole thing. A girl gave it to him about 10 minutes into the panel and he wore it without flinching. Typically, Misha said very little during his panel. He’s an expert at not answering questions and at teasing people who try to ask questions! I wish I could remember more but I was laughing too hard! Misha’s such a wonderfully weirdo and one of my favourite human beings. He did come down into the crowd to do a selfie with us, which I JUST got in to!

Richard Speight Jnr.

Another one of my favourite human beings!

Three of us at my table had been to Supernatural Vegas convention in March and all had done Richard’s meet and greet. Richard knows each of us by name. So he sat down and said, “Really? Ladies?”

Like most of the cast at AHBL Richard had just come from the Rome convention, Jus In Belo. And he did so, via LA. Why on earth! So he was in the air for 28 hours. That’s in the air! Not including transfers! He did 4 flights! We all just stared at him with our jaws hanging! He was travelling with Matt Cohen and Matt’s wife Mandy. Matt had something to say about his later!

I got a chance to ask Richard about his character, the Archangel Gabriel, making a reappearance in season 9 after being killed off in season 5. Did he see Gabriel as being real or a construct of the angel Metatron for whom Gabriel appeared to be working and how did that inform how he played Gabriel’s return. Richard said he played Gabriel as real. He’d had 2 meetings with the writer of that particular episode, Robbie Thompson, and Robbie had definitely wanted Gabriel to be portrayed as real. He put in two actions to reinforce this. One was Gabriel’s apparent control over his environment with the finger clicking and the other was his trademark eyebrow waggle. So as far as Richard’s concerned, Gabriel is alive. He doesn’t know why or how or if that means there’s room for him to return again, but he’s alive and out there somewhere. Yippee!

He asked us if we were surprised when he popped up on screen, as he had no credit in the opening titles, and we all said, well yes and no. Richard had been photographed in Vancouver with the crew. At that time, he was actually shadowing an episode director as he did his prep, but Supernatural fans have been tricked by cast members creating fake scenarios before, so we weren’t sure if Richard was actually shadowing the director of if he was using that as a cover in case he was spotted in Vancouver. In actual fact, he was shadowing the director. I asked if that meant he was going to get a chance to direct an episode and he said, who knows, maybe in season 11(!!), but he was just taking the opportunity to learn because the crew on Supernatural are all his friends.

I adore Richard; he’s a real Southern gentleman, a sassy gentleman, but a gentleman all the same.

Richard did his panel with Matt Cohen. Matt and Richard have become great friends and travel the world doing the Supernatural convention circuit together. They host the karaoke, both in Australia and at the Creation run conventions in North America, where they have turned karaoke into an event not to miss!

Matt Cohen.

When Matt sat at our table, he had a specific question he wanted to ask us; what did with think of the Supernatural spinoff pilot “Bloodlines” which was not picked up. He’d been asking fans ever since the pilot aired and wanted to know what we thought. FYI, I work in TV, so I came at that pilot from a slightly different angle than a lot of the fans and I looked at it in the big picture of not only the Supernatural Universe and how it did or didn’t affect that, but also from a Network branding and demographic attraction approach! So I gave Matt my opinion on it and he listened silently and then said he’d not heard my view from any other fan and was pretty interested in how I saw what it was and why they went that direction. He then asked us what we thought would make a good spinoff, ensuring that we understood he wasn’t asking for anything about his character, Young John Winchester. We all agreed that the show could do a great spinoff around the Men of Letters origins, which would add to the mythology of the current show, without cannibalising its story or cast. It was a fabulous conversation! Also, Matt is stupid pretty. It has to be said. 

And as I mentioned, he did talk about that 28 hour flying business and was not at all impressed with how Richard organised their flights from Italy to Australia! He won’t be letting him do it again!

The next day, during Matt and Richard’s panel, Matt told another fantastic story about flying which took place during the previous year’s visit to Australia. Richard, Rob Benedict (who attended the convention in 2013), and Misha were on the flight and not many others. Matt decided to sit next to Rob, because Richard is terrified of flying and Rob is pretty calm. Matt isn’t a keen flyer either, so he was hoping that Rob’s calm would rub off on him. Unfortunately, the flight hit an air pocket and dropped a substantial amount. Calm Rob freaked out! Matt freaked out and then freaked out that Rob was freaking out who was not supposed to be freaking out! Meanwhile Richard, who was supposed to freak out slept through the whole thing, and Misha, who was in the bathroom at the time, came back to his seat covered in his own pee, as hitting an air pocket whilst your midstream does that! It was way funnier than it sounds. Matt and Richard set the chairs up on stage like they were on a plane and Matt acted the whole thing out while Richard pretended to sleep!

Matt is also fascinated by how Australian’s say tumblr, as in tumblahhhh (see photo). I will never hear tumblr any other way.

Corin Nemec.

Corin was the last guest to our table at the cocktail party and stayed to chat long after the event was called to a close and he was told he could leave. It was great to see Corin, who played the Winchester brother's cousin, Christian Campbell. He was supposed to have attended last year but had a horrific accident and nearly lost not only his leg, but also his life. I had seen Corin at the Supernatural convention in Dallas in September 2013 and he was walking with a cane and quite a bad limp. When I saw him again in Vegas in March of this year, the cane and the limp were gone, though there were still traces of the injury in his walk. Come Sydney in May, he seemed even better. To see his progress as he healed has been amazing. Corin is a sunny guy. Happy, friendly, smiley. 

He’d spent the day doing a mural in Bondi – he’s a street artist and had been commissioned to do a piece while in town. We basically talked about his art. He showed us a photo of the piece he’d done that day. We talked about other murals he’d done around the world. We randomly chatted about Corey Feldman, who it turns out Corin knows – both being teen stars of the same era. My friend Shelley and I had met Corey at a convention last October and Corin told us was a great guy he is. He also said Corey had parties at his house where he showed his own movies on a big screen! So also a bit of a character it seems. We basically just shot the breeze with Corin, we talked about Australia and food, I discussed Venice Beach, L.A. with him, as it turns out it was a favourite spot of both of ours. Eventually and long after everyone else had gone – except Mark Sheppard who stayed around for most of the evening – Corin excused himself because he was shattered from jetlag. He’s such an interesting and nice guy.

During his panel the next day, Corin told a hilarious story about a Star Trek convention he went to. He was booked for the convention and he wasn’t sure why as he’d never been on Star Trek, he was on Stargate! But he went along anyway. It was his first.

When he was making his way back to his room after a day of panels and whatnot, he ran into a very drunk, very large Klingon who wanted to play wrestle him. There was nothing at all Corin could do about it. The guy was twice his size and basically attacked him! He ended up on the ground with this drunk Klingon on top of him mashing his face into hotel carpet – which seemed to disturb Corin more than the wrestling bit, because hotel carpet…ewww! He said, people were walking past and just kind of glancing at them like it was the most normal thing to see a giant Klingon wrestling a skinny guy from Stargate! He finally got free and raced off to the lifts to escape! He decided to write off going back to his room. He said he made his way downstairs, trying to find somewhere to chill and hangout and he came across a bunch of Klingons in a hot tub, drinking blood wine and being serenaded by the original Flash Gordon, Sam Jones! This was Corin’s introduction to conventions and fandom. I’m glad he decided to give it another shot!

The karaoke on the Friday night was a little smaller than usual, but Rich and Matt held the fort and made it a lot of fun. Mark hung around for a while – he got birthday cupcakes given to him! Corin and Mitch hung around for a bit too, later we found out Mitch’s room was directly above the karaoke room, so even though he went to bed, he still heard the whole thing!

The next day, prior to the panels, I had photos with all the cast members…I wasn’t going to, but in the end I couldn’t resist! I also got an “angel sandwich” with Rich and Misha…because it’s Rich and Misha! They squeezed the bejebus out of me as usual.

Last part of the day was autographs, where I discovered Misha also knows my name! I have met him about 10 times I guess, and he did come to my work once to do a morning TV show and I surprised him in the studio for which I got a hug and a kiss…so maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

As usual, every guest was warm and gracious and a lot of fun…as were all the fans.

And then it was finished, and we all went back to real life...which is nowhere near as fun as convention life!

I attend a lot of conventions, three Supernatural ones per year as well as a few multi-fandom cons, and one of the best things is getting to hangout with all the friends you’ve made at various conventions and getting to meet and make new friends.

That was All Hell Breaks Loose for another year. No date has been announced for next year as of yet, but when it does, you know I will be there!

For more from All Hell Breaks Loose 5 - listen to me and Jules from the Supernatural Wiki, who attended the Melbourne day, chatting about all the shennanigans in the Women of Letters Podcast - click here to listen and download.

Thanks for reading!

-sweetondean

Supernatural - ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE IV Convention Report

On the first weekend in June I attended the Sydney leg of the All Hell Breaks Loose 4 convention.
 
Our special guests were Misha, Richard, Matt, Rob, Mark Sheppard and Sebastian. You might as well have called it The Bad Boys of “Supernatural” tour!

 
The lads had all arrived on various days. Sebastian had been in Sydney for about a week, as his girlfriend is a Sydney girl and he was catching up with family. Rob, Rich, Matt and Misha all arrived on Thursday and caught some of the sights around town and Mr Sheppard arrived Friday…missing his birthday all together, when he crossed the international date line, his birthday simply disappeared!
 
Officially the convention was Friday night and all day Saturday, but my convention started a little bit earlier…
 
It was Thursday night and I was just crawling into bed to watch a bit of “Supernatural” (what else) when Sebastian Roche tweeted….

 
Well crikey. Let’s just say, I laughed out loud, a lot. You see this show is produced where I work! Talk about brilliant!
 


So I headed off to sleep knowing that the next day there’d be a pretty good chance of having a pretty good day! I was already excited for the convention, now I was excited to be going to work! Who ever heard of such a thing.
 


Friday morning came and I got to work a bit early, slipped up to the studio at about 9 to accost someone to find out when the lads would be on and walked straight into Ginger Spice! Literally. Geri Halliwell was on the show too. I found out the guys were going to be on just after 10, just Misha and Seb, so I proceed to try and busy myself while I waited…concentration levels were at an all time low!
 


About 15 minutes before they were due on the show I headed up to the studio with a couple of colleagues, both of whom I’d introduced to “Supernatural”. We slipped into the studio and I could see that Misha and Sebastian were already in there getting mic’d up. I must have been feeling pretty brave, being on home turf and all, so I went straight over to where they were standing. When Seb was by himself I went up and said hi. He shook my hand, said it was nice to see me and then I said how I’d seen him tweeting last night and said, “Are you shitting me? I work there!” He went, “You work here? That’s amazing, are you coming to the convention?” and I told him, yep, I’d be there tonight in fact for cocktails and he said lovely, we could have a drink later. Then someone came and spoke to him so I backed away and turned to face Misha.
 


Now as most of you know, I’ve been to a few conventions. Misha has got to the point where he recognises me at those events and teases me (for some reason), so I was expecting him to probably recognise me a little…but… he looks up and sees me, looks completely taken by surprise and goes… “Hey…Hi! What are you doing here?” Lunges for me, wraps me in a big hug and plants a massive smooch on my cheek! I smooched his in return! O.M.G. Flail! Weirdly, I stayed collected…on the outside…and said, “I came to see you!” and he said “You came here to see us?” and I said…”Well yeah, up the stairs, I work here!” and Misha goes, “You’re shitting me!” I said, “I am not shitting you and that’s exactly what I just said to Sebastian!” Anyway we stood there for a few minutes chatting, I introduced him to both of my friends and he shook their hands and apologised on my behalf that I’d introduced them to “Supernatural”. He said, “Let me apologise for her, I’m so sorry she did that to you.” Idiot! Then we grabbed a couple of photos and the guys went on set.
 


I stood in the studio and watched as they did their segment. There were quite a few people in the studio who had come up specifically to see the guys. When they came off set, I said goodbye and they both said they’d see me that night, and then they got grabbed by all the other people wanting pics with them. Which was AWESOME! I stood there watching, as they were absorbed into the small crowd of TV professionals who’d come in specifically to see the hotties from “Supernatural”! I felt super proud. I then went back to work, sort of…after about an hour of running around and gushing to anyone who would listen!
 


So that’s how my con weekend started!
 


Later that afternoon, I left work a bit early to head into the city. I was staying in town (even though I live in Sydney), as it’s just easier. I was meeting my convention pals at the hotel and we were going to have some drinks before the evening cocktail function. There ended up being about 12 of us all catching up! It was great to see everyone and I met a couple of new friends too. The friends you meet through conventions really is the best bit!
 


At 7pm the Platinum/VIP cocktail party kicked off. How the parties work here is very different to the Creation parties. This year there wasn’t even any sitting at tables, we just stood or sat on lounge chairs in a small function room. My friends and I all managed to snag a high table and propped ourselves up. The guests come and chat to you, but it’s not timed or anything. They hang out and then move on, sometimes you get a couple of people at once, or they crash each other’s chats, so it’s super laid back and easy, even more so this year.
 


We got to chat to everyone. Obviously Misha and Seb recognised me from the morning. Misha said to me he was surprised how many people had come up to the studio to see them and get photos with them. Bless. He seemed pretty chuffed. It turns out Seb was staying just around the corner from the studios as his girlfriend’s family is from that area, so he could have walked there that morning, but of course a car came and got him. Mark Sheppard was seriously jetlagged as he’d just arrived but he chatted to us about the show a little bit and about the finale. I asked him his thoughts on the script, specifically the Tet Offensive/Girls speech. He said he loved it and that’s what’s so great about the show, that they can do that kind of thing. Everyone sung him happy birthday at some point. Richard and I chatted about Vegascon and how next year, with it being 4 days, we’re going to have to go into training. Rob remembered he’d seen me recently and I said it was Vegas and he said, “Oh yeah, of course.” We chatted about that and how great it was having the band on stage and how he’s excited to do it all again. Matt told us how terribly jetlagged he was, so much so he felt drunk and so was avoiding alcohol! He said he body was really angry with him! Australia is the end of their tour. These guys had gone from New Jersey to Rome to Birmingham to Germany to Sydney (via LA)! I was surprised any of them were even standing!
 


For the first year, we had Karaoke! It was Rich and Matt’s idea…or rather their insistence. I think they told the organisers rather than asked! So after the drinks, we headed in to the other room to join the rest of the crowd. I bumped into Sebastian’s girlfriend in the doorway (Alicia) and she said hi because she recognised me from the morning and we got chatting. She happened to go to the same high school as my best friend! She knew her name, which was a bit odd. Small city, man. A few of us chatted to her for a while. She’s totally got Seb’s number by the way, she was pretty hilarious how she spoke about him and when he came over at one point she just teased the crap out of him! Super nice gal…of course, because she’s from Sydney!
 


Karaoke, as usual, was a blast. The funny thing was, the guys didn’t know half the songs because there were a lot of Aussie songs being sung. But in their usual style, they bounced around with astonishingly high levels of energy! Sebastian, Matt, Richard and Rob put on a great show. Mark hung out in the audience for a while, Misha stayed in the other room chatting to the Platinum and VIP ticket holders, we could drift in and out. The night wrapped up around 10.30 (very early) with a rousing rendition of Carry on Wayward Son. We all said our goodnights and headed off to try and get some sleep before the big day of panels.

The Aussie “Supernatural” con schedules the panels day a bit different to how other conventions work. We get all our photos done in the morning, then all the panels run back to back and then we do all the autographs. The venues are small – less than 500 this year – and in Sydney we were in an auditorium at a University.
 


Originally Corin Nemec was supposed to act as M.C., but he was unable to attend as he’s still recovering from the injuries caused by his horrific accident. Rob Benedict was a last minute replacement for Corin. So Rob was our host!




While we were all up and down getting various photos and photo combinations, Rob entertained us with Q&A, live commentary on “The Real Ghostbusters” and a couple of Louden Swain songs. Thankfully, he brought his guitar! It was all fantastic! The live commentary was particularly fun! Rob talked about how brilliant he thinks the Js are, that after 8 seasons you can still see them giving everything to every scene where as, in his experience, on other long running shows the stars are phoning it in by that stage. He also talked about how the direction for Emily whilst Chuck was destroying the ghost and Becky was looking at him longingly, was that she “felt hot inside”. It was hilarious watching that scene with Rob. He said it was wonderful to be onset watching Emily do that and knowing it was all for him!
 


I got photos with all the cast, plus a Misha/Richard double, a Richard/Rob double, which I named the bromance double…yes I said that to them – in their matching blazers. They were wearing nearly identical blazers. Richard said he was a trend-setter and Rob a trend-follower! God love their adorableness. I also got a photo with all the guests, which I shared with 3 of my friends.
 


I had an epic fail with Sebastian. I totally forgot I shoved his photo ticket down my bra before I had my photo with Richard. Richard had held on to me after the photo and had a bit of a chat. I walked away all buzzing and totally forgot to get the ticket out of my underwear and suddenly I’m in front of Seb and…yeah…the con volunteer asked for my ticket and…OH CRAP! So I said, “One moment please” and stuck my hand down my top. Sebastian goes, “What are you doing, darling?” and I pulled the ticket out and handed it to the girl and said, “Where else was I going to put it?” and he said, “Oh darling, I can think of plenty of other places to…put it.” By now he has his arms wrapped around me and I’m trying to get my face in order for the camera…but me being me I had to say, “Hmmm, yes, I bet you can” to which he replied, “Oh you naughty, naughty girl!” As I walked away he said, “Thank you darling, you naughty girl.” I was laughing so damn hard I could barely collect myself! Of all people to have that happen in front of!





Anyway, the first panel up was Sebastian and he was his normal, chaotic self. Rob stayed just off to the side of the stage the whole time, shaking his head in amazement, bewilderment and possibly shame! Sebastian answered a few questions (I was quite impressed), but mostly danced, funny walked, told random stories, had us fake orgasm as a crowd, broke out into random French sentences, made his penis talk…I don’t even know. It doesn’t matter how many times I see Seb do his thing, I’m always gleefully astonished by the audacity of him! He had us all in tears with his shenanigans! At one point he called Rob onto stage and said, “Come to daddy” and then grabbed Rob in a hug and preceded to dry-hump him! Rob pulled away going…in that squeaky Rob/Chuck voice…“That is not the relationship I have with my father! I’m going to need therapy!” Funny stuff.

Up next was Mark Sheppard. I adore Mark. He’s a fan boy at heart and he simply gets us. I love how he asks the next person in line for their question. In that cockney brogue of his he goes, “Go on you”. I freakin’ love that! He teased the life out of the people in the audience who hadn’t seen the finale, going back to them every so often and saying, “You really should watch the show.” He said that the scene between Crowley and Sam took 3 days to shoot and was exhausting. There was a lot more of Crowley speaking and changing than we saw. The scene was trimmed purely for timings and hopefully we’ll get to see more of the scene on the DVD because it was all really good.

Mark insisted that Crowley did not kill Sheriff Mills, however, he did skip out on the cheque! He said that we shouldn’t assume that Crowley is a demon just because of the Mrs Tran red eyes thing…you know how Mark loves to imply that Crowley could be something else. We’ve never seen Crowley’s eyes turn as Crowley, so Mark thinks we shouldn’t be so sure.
 


Someone asked to see the photo of him kissing Jim, which he still has on his phone, so he got it out and showed us a couple of the different versions. Rob was off to the side of the stage and he goes, “Wait, you kissed Beaver?” and Mark said, “Didn’t you know?” at which point Rob came on to stage to have a look and literally fell to the floor laughing! Literally. On the floor. It was a fantastic moment!
 


Mark ended with a speech about how doing the conventions is akin to the live theatre experience, in that we give back to him while he’s on stage. He told us how thankful he is that he has these opportunities with us and how we’ve enriched his life by being part of it. He told us that he loves us all. His eyes were all watery…mine were crying. I love Mark Sheppard to pieces. He gets us.

Next up were Rich and Matt…and Rob. This was the funniest of the panels. I laughed so hard at one point I had to massage my face because it was aching! These guys are all such good friends and it shows. They have such a wonderful time together. Matt and Rich gave Rob a “sandwich” or a mandwich. It was so cute!
 


They were all asked to show their dance moves, so Richard did a Cossack dance (he does it well…though he was joking that he may have dislocated a knee), Matt did…yes, the jerk and Rob did… well an eighties kind of thing shuffle thing. I don’t know. Then Rob and Matt danced together…it was all so energetic. Like this onstage frenzy!

I can barely remember what was going on during this panel because I was pretty much crying throughout. The funniest part was when a girl in the audience asked Rich and Matt if they had their own show, what would it be and she said, Rob could be a guest star. They preceded to improv a sitcom called “Damn You, Matt!” Basically everything that could go wrong was Matt’s fault and the catch phase yelled during the show would be, DAMN YOU, MATT! Matt pretended he was walking around half naked and rubbing oil over his body, Rob knocked on the fake door and came in (he was the hi-ho neighbour guy) and because of Matt’s oil habit, Rob slides all the way across the stage yelling, “DAMN YOU, MATT”. It was BRILLIANT! They improv’d a whole bunch of damn you, Matt scenarios…one of which Rob was dying because he was impaled on something, like a pole or something and no-one could work out why and they all started losing it on stage because it was so ridiculous. Oh gosh. They should have their own show. They really should.

Last but of course, in no way least was Mr Collins. He came on when the three guys were auctioning off t-shirts they’d decorated for charity. Misha did the auction. It was ridiculously disorganised! But somehow he managed to figure out who got which t-shirt. He then stayed on stage until one of the convention reps said they hadn’t played his intro tape and so he went, “Shit” and ran off the stage and hid while they played his intro, then he ran back on stage pretending he’d not already been there for 10 minutes!
 


I was in the front row and he looked down and saw me snapping away and kind of pulled this frowny face at me and then grinned like crazy (we can only take photos for the first 5 minutes) and so I pulled my camera away and gave him a cheesy grin back to which he said, “I’m just kidding, go on” and then totally struck a pose for me! Agh. I love Misha!

Somehow we ended up talking about the Easter bunny and Santa Claus with him. We yelled out about how we have the Easter Bilby (a small marsupial) and kangaroos pull our Santa’s sled and he thought we were teasing him so the audience gave him a quick rendition of an Aussie Christmas song called “Six White Boomers” (a boomer is a roo). He said it was one of the more bizarre conversations he’d had at a convention! I think we all felt proud!
 


By the way, a fan made Misha’s sock monkey tie. She gave it to him at AECON4 and then started seeing the photos of him wearing it at the Aussie con and was SO EXCITED!

Of course, one of the big things that came out of Misha’s panel was that Ben Edlund was not returning for season 9. It was a CLANGER! I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to tell us and I’m pretty sure the minute he did he regretted it because the gasp from the audience was shocking. He was standing almost in front of me when he told us and I gasped and put my hand on my heart. He saw me and then looked around at the rest of the audience, with their faces ashen and their jaws agape and said, “Oh shit, you didn’t know that? Oh shit.” To be honest, it took me a fair amount of time to regain my equilibrium. I nearly burst into tears! 

The panel got back on track (though I never quite did) and ended in the normal Misha wrongness style when he had to decorate a t-shirt and, well, let’s just say he drew a used feminine hygiene product on it…why? I do not know. Seb drew a naked effigy of himself…that made perfect sense!
 

Then the panels were over. After that it was autographs and our last chance to thank the guys for a totally great day.
 


The Aussie convention is an exhausting and frenetic affair, being all crammed into one day. After Sydney, the guys all got on a plane that night to head to Melbourne where they had to do the whole thing again on the Sunday. I have to say; I always love the Aussie con because in many ways, it’s so relaxed. That’s just kind of us though and the guests all role with it and seem to enjoy that laidback thing we have going on.
 


So, I said goodbye to all my friends on Sunday morning as we all headed off to various parts of Australia. Hilariously, my friends Shelley and Scott live only an hour flight away up north, but we were like…”Hey see you in a few months in Texas!” because our next stop is DallasCon!
 


If you’d like to listen to Jules from SuperWiki and I chat about All Hell Breaks Loose 4, it’s the subject of this week’s Women Of Letters Half Hour podcast. Jules attended the Melbourne day, so she has some extra stories to tell, like the Misha/Sasha switcheroo! The link is here.
 


Thanks for reading! I hope hellatus is being kind to you!


-sweetondean

sweetondean is Chief Editor and a writer for The Winchester Family Business
For all the latest Supernatural info and article links, follow The Winchester Family Business on Twitter at @WinFamBusiness

All photos (c) sweetondean 2013

I Heart Richard Speight Jr.

As Trish mentioned in her Wednesday post, she and I just attended the SALUTE TO SUPERNATURAL con in Nashville. Great time! And seeing the actors in person (all of whom were lovely to the fans) solidified my deep admiration for them--especially for my favorite guest star of all time, Richard Speight Jr. (aka The Trickster aka Gabriel). I didn't know this, but Nashville is actually his "hometown." Also, the people who put on this convention have already decided to come back to Nashville next year and Jensen/Jared are on board, so start making plans now!

We actually saw two panels with Richard--one on the first day, alongside Matt Cohen who plays John Winchester (and Michael!) in trips to the past, plus another on the second day, with Brock Kelly (young Dean in "After School Special") and Chad Lindberg (the awesome Ash, aka Dr. Badass.) You can tell Richard by the empty chairs in both sessions--because the man constantly moved, usually through the audience and paying particular attention to the back rows, where it was hardest to hear and see. I tried like crazy to snap pictures, but they're all a blur because the man is a bundle of nonstop energy! So the picture here is from Trish. I'm almost sorry we missed him as master of ceremonies for the Karaoke party the night before the con started!





Richard is a quick thinker, extremely funny, generous (he is soon to jump out of a plane in order to help raise money for a monument but all the guys there are active with different causes--Misha and Matt are about to go to Haiti to help build an orphanage!) Anyway, Richard is very personable and answered questions about everything from the recent Pepsi commercials (in which he got to snap and do some magic which got Pepsi fanmail) to guesting on Justified (he could not say enough good about Walton Goggins). But of course most questions were about Supernatural and he encouraged fans to write letters demanding his comeback :-D His pet theory is that Gabriel trapped an ACTUAL Trickster to model himself after. He wants to play the real Trickster escaped and his first prank should be to shrink Sam and Dean, especially Sam, and chase them around. Richard joked that the reason he doesn't stay on stage is so you can't see how short he is next to co-stars. Unfortunately, Richard is so nice that some fans took radical advantage--and began the nonstop HUG request, even requesting him to get Chad and Brock down off stage for "threesome" hugs. I was cringing like you wouldn't believe.

Chad was very laid-back about the whole thing (he actually DOES remind me of Ash, but without the mullet and he admits to not being very computer-saavy) but Brock seemed a little uncomfortable with the repeated manhandling (although once he'd started accepting hug requests, he never told anyone no. Seriously good sports). Okay, guys, if you've never been to a con, here are my two pieces of advice: Wear comfortable shoes and don't molest the guest celebrities kind enough to appear.

BTW, the guests got asked lots of miscellaneous questions, from the random "what's your favorite color?" "what would be your spirit animal?" to the vaguely inappropriate, which I won't be repeating here. Toward the end, Brock Kelly, looking slightly dazed by things, gave one of my favorite answers. He was asked what he would do if time travel turns out to be possible, and he said he'd like to see the future. "I'd go forward. I'd just go and go and go until there was nothing left. Then I'd back up a little bit."

These panels reminded me of a big reason I love Supernatural. Yes, Jared and Jensen are completely awesome, but they often find just the right guest stars, even for single appearances and supporting roles. It was suggested by one of the fans that sarcastic "party-angel" Balthazar was a replacement for Gabriel, leading to several jokes by Richard including "glad to hear he's dead...I want my damn job back."

So if YOU were going to write an episode where you brought back the Trickster, young John, young Dean or Ash, how would you do it?

SPNews

Spoiler TV has some non-spoilery on-set pictures from the start of season 6.

Zap2It has a fun, lightly-spoilerish article talking about the return of the YED, Jensen's directorial debut and Jim Beaver's rough shoot for Weekend at Bobby's.

ScreenRant has a full review of Batman: Under the Red Hood

The Daily Record said Matt Cohen (Young John Winchester) completely charmed fans at NJ's Salute to Supernatural convention.

Jared takes time out from filming season 6 to make a video plea for fans asking them to vote for the Dog's Life Rescue in the Chase Community Giving Contest.