My icky feeling is where I ask the actors about a character. As much as I love Hardison? I do not want to see Aldis and ask him about a character he plays. I don't care if he knows the answer. When I see actors, I don't want to see their characters. In a longish conversation we might talk about motivations or how they play something but there needs to be a seriously neon, flashing and clear line between actor and character for me.
They can be the repository of information for their character and I think that is actually really awesome. I just don't know that I can ever talk about it with actors.
I grew up in University with people who acted first and wrote second, and it was my job to talk to them about what they did onscreen and why and help with their next bout of improv.
So conversations about backgrounds of women that only lived five minutes and the decisions they made were perfectly normal. Got paid for it. As they branched off to do other things, there were still conversations about roles they took or characters they wrote or personas they used for standup. It was my default angle of conversation, although I don't do that anymore.
So conversations about backgrounds of women that only lived five minutes and the decisions they made were perfectly normal. Got paid for it. As they branched off to do other things, there were still conversations about roles they took or characters they wrote or personas they used for standup. It was my default angle of conversation, although I don't do that anymore.
Oh this is totally different than my squick. If it is someone I know and we're talking about it, that's cool.
But a character that I like -- in their pretend lives apart from the writer and the actor -- I can't be fannish around said actors (or writers) without feeling weird. I can tell them I adore their fictional characters, but I can't deal beyond that.
I love Sam and Dean. But that is hugely apart from JP, JA and the peeps that write it. The fictional characters have to live in a fictional place in my head. I can pretend it is because I need to let the writers and actors go in my head but I am not certain it's even that.
If it is someone I know and we're talking about it, that's cool.
See, it would become people I knew less and less, you just drift backstage with your friends after a play and they all know the leads well, so you're only kinda talking with them about their character and their effort, etc, and then there's the continuum where you walk up to a complete stranger to talk to them about their character.
Which I may or may not ever have done absolutely ever. Not every actor. Some you can tell it's about selling the lines and hitting hr marks and doing the bare minimum. But I love to know what internal life the person most affected by the shenanigans puts together over time, and what they overlook.
But I love to know what internal life the person most affected by the shenanigans puts together over time, and what they overlook.
This fascinates me. I just can't ask as a fan. If there is any other way in to the conversation, I can do it. And, wow, do I want to poke into the brains of the people who make the people I like come alive. But I can't do it as just a fan. I don't know why.
I love the chibis, especially "OH ME".
Those chibis were delightful!
It's a term that migrated over from anime fandoms, I think. It means the figures are drawn in a cutesy-cartoony style.
I love the chibis, especially "OH ME".
This was my very favorite part!
I'm realizing at the core of my actor discomfort is my investment in their characters, I have an emotional connection to them. The actor is a stranger and like any other stranger I have to find things to connect on and for some that might be the character but for most it's not going to be. My own emotional connection to their character complicates this interaction.
Assuming I encountered the SPN actors on a plane and I didn't leave them alone to sleep or read:
Jensen is one I would love to talk to about acting and the process of filming. He seems to have a passion for it and his stories on the subject are almost always interesting. That said, he's not obsessed like his fans are with his character and it's always awkward when fans ask a Dean question and he has no idea what to do with it. I find it adorable in cons when both Jensen and Jared have to ask the audience the title of an episode.
Jared, I know from con reports, would go to great lengths to make me feel comfortable. Even so, I think I would be completely tongue tied. I have zero idea of what we'd talk about and that right there is a formula for disaster for me.
I'm fairly convinced that Jim and Misha are people I'd want to invite home for dinner. This I've gleaned from other people's encounters. The key here being I think both would be equally [eta: well perhaps not equally] interested in me. Their curiosity and interest in fans as fellow humans always comes through.
Back quickly on the con subject. I'm formulating some theory around fan works generating community which in turn generates an interest in cons. The continued success of cons for shows like Farscape, Firefly, Stargate, etc. seems to be having a strong online community. They create fiction, videos, meta, art and more. So is it possibly about the show leaving pockets in the verse that fan works can fill? Supernatural has been especially successful at that. Further the real life stories of the family-like set and good natured cast and crew seem to contribute to con interest.
I can't help wishing Criminal Minds held a con. I love the pockets in that show, my emotional connection to the characters, and I love the camaraderie of the actors. It would be fun to see what they do with that. Is Leverage the first sort-of procedural to hold a con?
