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Patti Report PaleyFest--10th Anniversary Celebration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer March 20, 2008 So! I was one of some 850 very privileged people to attend the PaleyFest event, The10th Anniversary Celebration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this past Thursday, and (to quote Xander Harris) Merciful Zeus! what a night! The line for those hoping to get in was almost as long as the line for those who held tickets. One fan had arrived at 7 PM the night before and had slept on the sidewalk, just hoping to get a ticket (he did!) and I know of another who came all the way down from San Francisco on the hopes of getting a ticket (she did, too). There was even one guy in the ‘hoping’ line with a slayer scythe…although interestingly, no one came in any obvious costumes (though there were the usual number of Goth-types). Needless to say, there are a lot of still-very-enthusiastic BtVS fans in the world! The venue was the main auditorium of the famous Arclight Cineramadome Theater on Sunset in Hollywood. Thanks to B (big smoochie kisses!), I got a fabulous seat in the first non-premium row, the 7th row back, and near-on dead center. Sigh! I had a perfect view of the stage, albeit some 40 feet back, and as it turned out, was situated directly in front of James! After a short video opening about the festival, we were greeting by the Paley Center’s director, who said each year one ticket was the “to get” ticket, tickets that sold out in a couple of hours, and that everyone wanted, and that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reunion ticket was it this year. Marti Noxon was asked to introduce the screening of Once More With Feeling, as Joss was held up filming an Internet musical he’s doing (Dr. Horrible’s…something very long) starring Patrick Neil Harris…and Marti. Marti said she and Joss had once snuck into the back row of one of the OMWF sing-alongs and was kinda…surprised by all the underwear thrown at the screen. LOL! It was fun to see OMWF again on a big screen, but I rather missed being able to blow bubbles, yell at Dawn and sing along… ;) The host for the event was Matt Roush of TV Guide Jeers and Cheers fame, who is a huge BtVS fan himself, and who was not afraid to show his geek side in an enthusiastic opening speech, after which he introduced the guests: David Greenwalt, Amber Benson, Seth Green, Charisma Carpenter, Marti Noxon, Michelle Trachtenberg, Emma Caulfield (in what has to be the evening’s most …interesting outfit!), James Marsters (YAY!), Nicholas Brendan, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Joss Whedon. What followed was a wild and crazy ride. I wish I could relate everything that was said, but frankly, it just went flying at breakneck speed. These guys know each other well, and are not afraid of a live audience to play around in front of! LOL! They did seem to get along quite well, and enjoyed each others’ company a lot…although I got the impression Charisma Carpenter was wondering why she was there, after a while. Some other observations and impressions: James looked totally smashing but exhausted—we were told he had literally just arrived that afternoon from wrapping on DragonBall and hadn’t even had time to go home and shower. His hair has grown out considerably since the PSILY premier and was very curly, making him look young and cherubic—despite the weariness in his eyes. I just wanted to run my fingers into all that luxurious curliness! Sigh. At times he almost looked pissed-off, but I think it was more that he was just so tired, he would go glassy-eyed occasionally. It was lovely to hear him laugh and speak out though, and he appeared to enjoy all the banter. He wore a regular men’s white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black pants, his usual white (or rather, not-so-white-anymore) sneakers, and both his neck and wrist chains and his watch. In general the women were all dressed up in sexy, strapless (or thin strapped) dresses, except Emma, who was in a one-piece, very short-shorts thing topped with a black coat, black fedora-like hat, and black, ankle-high boots—you’d have to see the outfit to believe it. Nick B had me chuckling—he wore some kind of necklaces (2 ropes) with large, round, wooden-looking beads (vaguely ‘70s Hawaiian) and slipper/shoes with no socks—which reminded me of the slippers he wore in the OMWF “I’ll Never Tell” song and dance number. He still looked very much like Xander, actually… LOL! And if Nicholas Brendan seemed to be like Xander, with the quips and one-liners and the twitchy/bouncy-ness, Seth Green was the mono-syllabic-Oz’s exact opposite! ROTFL! The guy never stops and about 95% of what comes out of his mouth is hilarious! BTW, Seth’s Robot Chicken gang were in attendance, as were many of the other BtVS writers (David Fury and Jane Espenson were two I recognized, but others were there also, I just didn’t get all the names that fast), though why they weren’t on stage too, I don’t know (unless it was due to lack of room). James jumped up and cheered for them when they were pointed out. Sarah Michelle Gellar has either gotten some perspective over the last 5 years or she is good at making it look that way. She seemed sincere and to genuinely have fond memories of the show. She even said that though the show got no awards, that the fans of the show were better than any awards. Poor Charisma, as I’ve said, she seemed kind of out of place there, though she of course did 3 years of BtVS. She kind of sat there looking bored or slightly annoyed most of the time. Michelle T has really grown up. She’s very poised and held her own quite handily with the flying commentary! Seth Green was ready to put her into his Top 5 phone list…. LOL! Did I mention there was a lot of flirting going on by Seth? Too funny! A few things I noted down: James said his best memory of doing the show was having the courage to do such a great, controversial show at all. James said something along the lines of the writers write truth and that’s scary to act out. SMG said Hush was the hardest episode to do for her, but that 6th season was overall the toughest for her, because she looked at Buffy as a hero too, and in all the darkness, she’d gotten to the point where she’d lost her, and told Joss she needed to find the hero in Buffy again. When asked ‘why all the misery’, David G said there are many things to hate about Joss LOL! But essentially, he said it was really great to take all the pain and misery one experiences in life (as writers tend to do) and shove it all into good-looking people’s mouths. LOL! SMG screen-tested for the role of Buffy 11 times, trying to convince Joss to give her the roll. She was just happy to get it after all the screen testing. But, she said that all her friends were saying wow, though she was lucky to get chosen for a show her first time out at pilot season, they commiserated with her on the show she got—one that was based on a more-or-less failed movie and that was a mid-season replacement…etc, and that next year she’d get one that would actually last. LOL! Joss said he and David often referred to SMG as their Jimmy Stewart, though I didn’t quite get why. Sarah seemed both taken aback by and pleased with the comparison. James did one of those fist-pumping-the-air- “YEAH!” things he does, when Sarah told him they were voted the #1 hottest sex scene in TV Guide, which he’d obviously not heard before. Heh. The episode The Body was discussed, and Michelle T told how there was dialogue written for Buffy’s reveal to Dawn, and they acted it out, but then the choice to show it silently from the classroom POV made it even more poignant, which she really loved. The shot of Buffy finding her mother was all done in one long shot. The idea of no music was taken partially from Hitchcock’s The Birds but also came out of the organic process itself, realizing it didn’t need music, indeed was better not having it, making the writing and acting the stand-outs. Emma made comments about doing Anya in this episode, as well, one of the few times she said anything. Joss also said he was most influenced by Christophe Beck’s music, overall. The only question asked of Charisma directly was if she thought moving to Angel was a good move and she said, “Yes!” And that was mostly it. James then said her going was a good move for him too, because then he got to come on and take her place as the wacky neighbor character. LOL! Of course, my favorite question was for SMG. “Final verdict: Angel or Spike?" "He's sitting right here on stage," and she looks at James! Nick piped up with "Well, given the comic book, I think Willow." And a whole thing about Joss’s season 8 comic series ensued, and then the inevitable question…is a movie still possible? Joss basically said it would take a lot to align, but if someone aligned it all, he’d be willing, that it would be cool, and if, hypothetically, they didn’t want to follow the comic book series, he wouldn’t have a problem with that. He also said something about Ripper, and SMG made a joke about her doing it (or something like that) and he told her it was Tony’s character, and she just laughed and said, yeah, she knew that, she did get that much out of the show. The floor was opened to fans, and sadly we got mostly fan questions like “What is your favorite movie and what is on your iPod right now.” I did make note of them all, but it took about 15 minutes to get all the answers out of 11 actors (along with all the Seth commentary ON those answers, LOL), and between that and gushers, it left almost no time for any good questions to emerge. Here’s that list (movie -- iPod) for anyone interested: Joss: The Matrix -- Sondheim, Sondheim Sondheim SMG: South Park: Bigger, Badder and Uncut (!) (Or whatever it’s called) -- soundtrack of same Nick: Kojak the Movie -- lots of stuff (I think the movie was a joke, he seemed to answer virtually everything with a joke!) James: Apocalypse Now , but not the Redux because the original was perfect and scary as is -- he’d just erased his Mac and is working to refill his iPod, so he puts in albums of stuff when he thinks of someone he doesn’t have, like Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones. (!) Emma: Pulp Fiction and Silence of the Lambs, and she’d like to see one of BattleStar Galactica -- Radiohead Michelle T: She said (after a lot of banter about Emma’s choices) “They never let me talk when I was 14 either!” LOL! Hers were Labyrinth and Rainman -- Everything from Madonna to Green Day to Abba to a 1985 mix… Marti: Poltergeist, Goodfellows and Out of Sight -- Weeds soundtrack (her brother wrote it) CC: Anchorman (!) -- The Killas Seth: Raising Arizona and There Will Be Blood -- he has 25,000 songs in his iPod! Albert Hammond and Beck were some of the listed ones. >>Matt Roush did his only real faux pas here—he tried to cut off the line of insanity going on by stopping this question here and moving on to a BtVS-related question—which, yeah, you can understand, BUT, really! The audience and the rest of the cast let him know how rude it would be to the last two! Amber: Sullivan’s Travels -- Steve Earl, many others DavidG: Godfather and Serenity (much cheering) -- “What the heck is an iPod?!” LOL! What do they miss most, not being on the show?: DavidG: working with SMG… “she’s a machine!” Amber and Seth: both agreed it was the jokes. SMG: misses the ‘family’ atmosphere, not just the cast, but the crew too. (yup, shocked me too!) Joss: playing Hackey Sack… Nick: misses watching Joss play Hackey Sack. And his rocking chair, SMG said. Yes, and his rocking chair. (Huh? LOL!) Seth: DavidB “pooping” in the trailer every morning before Seth got in, without fail, and being proud of the ensuing smell he left behind for Seth to ‘enjoy’ ROTFL! Joss: misses writers’ room…and so does Michelle T, being allowed to hang out there. Michelle T: also misses “petting SMG shoes”. LOL! Emma: the scrabble games. Seth then touted a newer SuperScrabble, and I’m not sure but that they didn’t make a date to get together to play! LOL! When asked if RoboBuffy was easier or harder to play, SMG just said she had fun doing it, but it was actually harder to play it. The last real question was an update on what they were all doing now: Joss: Wrapping on Dr Horrible’s… his musical. SMG: Has a movie in post, and has been in Africa working for Care, her charity of choice. Nick: Working writing. Acting. James: Just wrapped DragonBall and mentioned Smallville and extolled the radical joys of Torchwood. LOL! And he mentioned his album. Emma: Also back from Africa, also working for a charity. She’s married and has two movies in post. MichelleT: just wrapped 17 Again and Peace America and will be on an episode of Gossip Girl. Marti: Doing Dr Horrible… with Joss. With underwear, so she’s moving up in the world. Charisma and Seth: they made a joke about doing an exercise video together that was part tae bo and part Mexican karate (or something like that), part kung fu, part violence, designed to take off maternity weight, and see how good it worked for CC?! It was a humorous riff. Amber: Writing a series of books that is being published later this year. Sadly she didn’t give a name, or I didn’t hear it. David G: “After a series of nervous breakdowns put me out of the business” he’s enjoying his leisure...but he’d come back for Joss’. LOL! The moment the session was brought to a close the crowd rushed the stage. All the guests signed autographs and posed for pictures for varying lengths of time, but I noticed that James was virtually the first to jump in, and literally the last to leave, despite his obvious exhaustion and, I think, Steve Himber’s annoyance! I also noticed both men slip off the back edge of the poorly-lit and weirdly-designed stage—hopefully neither of them was hurt. It was a fabulous night for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan like me, and I am still floating from the joy of being in such company. OK, that…and the fact that James waved at me from stage! He really did! I looked up from my camera to find him looking right at me, and as soon as he caught my eye, he smiled a tiny but genuine smile and waved at me! I never noticed him do it again to anyone else, though granted, I didn’t spend the ENTIRE time watching him, believe it or not! LOL! All in all, though, I’m one very happy, happy Patti! The evening was amazing and entertaining and joyous in ways I cannot put into words. I know, I know, hyperbole much? But really, it is beyond my capacity to express how much fun and pleasure seeing these old friends together again brought me and the 849 others that were lucky enough get the ticket of the year. Peace Patti :) Thank you very much to you Patty |