liamar | Joe at Armageddon Expo (Auckland)

So I made it to Armageddon on Saturday, Yay!me. And it was great! I saw both Joe and Conner and both panels were really good, funny and interesting. I’ve done the Joe panel now; you guys tell me if you want to know what I remember from Conner’s and photos of him and I’ll put it up. I told

flotternz that I didn’t remember much of the panels but once I started writing stuff down I actually did so this is massive! And not dial-up friendly. also if you want bigger photos the link goes to my photobucket album.

NOTE: This is all paraphrasing coz I didn’t record it. Please don’t use anything I write to support any arguments. I know I didn’t get the words exactly right and this is all my interpretation of what Joe said. I would hate to have someone link back to me because what I said supports their view point.

Also this contains spoilers for episodes not aired yet so if you don’t want to be spoiled please be careful. I’ll put the pictures under a separate cut, ok.

Oh you want to talk about the show? (He cracks me up!)
The first question was about Epiphany. He had previously said that didn’t turn out like he hoped etc. so the fan wanted to know what direction he had wanted it to go. He didn’t really answer that but did mention that the reason that happened was because SG-1 had already done that particular plot line so they went in a different ‘direction’.

(IMO SG-1 has done pretty much every plot line, how was this different but hey it’s their show.)

He talked about ‘Outcast’ again. He said he had envisioned a particular back-story for Sheppard but the producers saw some of the elements differently. In the episode they show him coming from a wealthy background which Joe hadn’t thought of at all. Also I think Joe never thought about Sheppard having an ex-wife but one is in the episode (this is what I got from his statement ‘they also brought back my/his ex-wife who I had forgotten I/he had’. This is not the exact words but that was the gist of it. Please don’t hit me if you find somewhere else that Joe has mentioned Sheppard’s ex-wife before). Anyway he got into this stuff with the producers because he was protective of the character he felt he had created. He qualified that though by saying the writers also helped create the character and they had a different view of things and that you eventually adapt it in your head to fit what is.

Somebody did ask him to describe what his story for Sheppard actually was, something I thought was a very personal question for an actor and I was glad he declined. He just said that we were meant to form our own ideas of the character from the story.

He was also asked who stuffs up the most on the set. The answer is David but that’s of course because he has the most lines and says them faster than anyone Joe has ever seen before. (Hehe)

On Torri and Paul: (note this part especially is heavily paraphrased because its different comments made throughout the hour that I’ve connected. Please don’t take my words and twist them)

He misses Torri, he thought she was great and would love to have her back. He mentioned how often producers would kill a character because they (mistakenly) think that it would increase ratings, which it does but only a brief spike before it returns to normal. One fan mentioned how people are boycotting the show since she is gone and he said something to the effect that we should tell the producers how we feel about it, that we are doing it, because he wanted her back. It kind of worked for Paul who does come back this season for a couple of episodes.

Note: Apparently on the day Paul left the last scene was actually the funeral scene from Sunday (ouch!).

He talked about how he really cared about ‘his’ actors and he fought for them, would go into the producers and talk to them if he thought his actors were getting thrown around.
(You really get a sense that he is one of the leads of the show from this. Not that I doubted it but it really comes across, ‘my’ actors etc. Oh Joe! You are awesome!)

On Amanda: Loves working with her, great person etc. Apparently though, he always tries to throw her off but she never gets phased. She is used to the guys of SG-1 doing that kind of stuff and she has been doing it for ten (eleven now) years. He also said she finds Atlantis more balanced when it comes to females on set (I think he means the male/female dynamics, I'm not sure).

On his sports things: Apparently he grew up skiing. His parents used to drop him off on Saturday and Sunday with five dollars and pick him up when it got dark (his words). The skateboarding and surfing came after. Also he was at Byron’s beach (Australia) surfing on the weekend, the same place and time someone was attacked by a shark. (He kept bringing it up).

Production Stuff: a lot of the questions had to do with technical stuff about the show and shooting.

Not that we already didn’t know this but the Stargate is apparently HUGE! From the dimensions he showed us it’s massive! He says that whenever they have to do a walk through they have to quickly walk out of the shot (basically somebody yells at them ‘get out of the shot!’ hehe) and then jump back in when told to.

Apparently they shoot a lot differently to other American shows/films because anybody on set is allowed to call cut, not just the director. So if somebody trips etc. they yell cut and then the cast have to start all over again. He said him and David sometimes get frustrated with that because they have to get back into the performance, and sometimes people forget that it’s hard to do. This is especially a problem with the three camera set ups they do on the show which the use to technically get more work done but if one of them goes wrong (out of focus etc) they have to start again even though the other two cameras are fine.

He said that often after a scene is done the camera is left running and they improvise things. So if you see things at the end of a scene it might be improvised. He said that sometimes with ‘female girls’ (his words, yes I cracked up) this includes improvised kisses etc that don’t get put in. I think that’s kind of funny personally.

Weird Questions: this expo will be the place where he heard the weirdest question ever because some idiot who thought he was being funny asked what his favourite McDonalds burger was. He prefaced it with “I’ve never seen the show but...” which Joe thought was a smart way to introduce the question. The idiot then proceeded to joke that he thought it was about an intergalactic sheep herder and that shepherds in NZ face a lot of hardships etc. Seriously! What a lovely impression to make! Anyways Joe say he doesn’t eat any of that, he eats healthy etc (well obviously, have you seen him?) but enjoys the food down under because it’s so fresh (plug for NZ produce WOOT!).

On Rachel: According to a fan Rachel came down last year for the expo and she sang (Joe-“where are you going with this? NOT gonna happen!” Hehe) and he wondered if she had mentioned anything to them (the cast) about doing it. (IMO why would she? but that’s just me)
Joe said no but said that Rachel was a ham, ask her to perform and she would. Apparently she and her sisters used to perform for guests as kids (which Joe would hate to do because “you’re the hosts kid, of course they’re gonna say you’re good”) but Rachel was a talented performer and loved it.

Rachel recently had her baby boy which he thought was hilarious because Rachel unlike Teyla is very girly and dainty (this was accompanied by actions, Teyla represented by fight moves and Rachel by dancing on tiptoes and some other gestures hard to describe but hilarious). Apparently in one scene when they were supposed to be running for their lives through a forest (when do they not have to do that?) Rachel remarked on the fact that there were so many twigs on the ground. Lol.

Crazy Fans: There is a lady who truly believes he is an elf and even sent them a whole mythology on how and why this is true. I provide some other evidence with regards to this.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

There was talk about how people find McKay very annoying. (I think this was prefaced by a question if David was as annoying of his character but I can’t remember properly). Anyways he apparently had an experience at the NZ airport where the customs guy went into this whole rant about how annoying McKay is. Wow didn’t our country make the best first impression.

Acting Stuff:
He refused to talk about the projects he wanted to do but did mention ‘Shattered’ which will probably have a delayed start because of a rights fight (‘Shattered’ has been made before and nobody can decide who has the rights to it)

He would love to reprise his role in ‘Thought-crimes’ if he could because he thought it was a great character and a good premise.

Now for the gratuitous perving on Joe (click here for bigger)