Chicago Con Report – Matt Cohen Panel

 

Here is the first in a series of articles I will be doing on the Chicago con panel for actors who graced the stage this past weekend, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did attending them.  

 

What a weekend and what tremendous personalities I saw.  Matt Cohen, young John Winchester, was very delightful, funny, and very attentive to the fans and all their questions.   His was the first panel of the first day of my first SPN convention.  A lot of ‘firsts’ there and all of them left me with very good first impressions of all three.  

 

This was not Matt’s first convention however, and that was evident from the rapport he had with his fans, and his panels, both of them, were very well attended.  The questions were serious, funny, some very direct and gave an insight into Matt’s personality, his type of acting and his perception of it, how he first entered the business, his two movies, some of his favorite actors, and more.  Hope you enjoy.

 

 

  

I missed the first couple of questions but picked it up when Matt was asked what he likes to watch on TV. His response, Cake Boss, much to the amusement of the fans.  He went on the say his favorite flavor was Red Velvet with cream cheese and favorite pie was chocolate chip which he had just tried recently. (That reply earned him, on Saturday, a Red Velvet with cream cheese cupcake that a fan had saved for him from the Karaoke Party on Friday.)

 

A fan complimented Matt on his movie ‘Boogeyman 2”, to which he was very thankful.  He added that if we haven’t seen his latest movie Chain Letter, which came out last week in limited release, we should check it out.  He died really awesomely. Legendary kill scene in the movie, but didn’t want anyone to feel he was tooting his own horn.  â€œToot, Toot”, he continued, much to the delight of the fans.  

 

Next came a more serious question: How did you get into this business?

 

“Still asking myself the same question”, was the reply.  In college he took a theater class, and literally within 2 months they wouldn’t give him a higher grade then a “C”, so basically he flunked out of the class.  A month later he randomly (and it was REALLY randomly, he didn’t plan anything, it just happened by chance) ran into a talent manager, who is still his manager today, and she asked why he didn’t drop out of college and take a ‘one in a million chance’ at becoming an actor as Matt put it.  So he did.  

 

Same fan: How did your parents feel about that?

His dad was NOT happy.   Matt told his dad that he [Matt] just had to make a major decision.   He planned on taking a couple of months off , figuring himself out, coming up with a major he was really passionate about and then going back to school.  But he never did, and has been fortunate enough to have been working for the past 6 yrs.  Matt continued, “You find some things sometimes, and sometimes things find you, acting accidentally found me, [and] I’m head over heels in love with it.”  

 

The topic switched to SPN.  Question: What was it like to be possessed by an archangel!

 

Matt jokingly replied that his skin never felt the same again….it just felt stretched out, like some one else had been in it.  ?  On a more serious note, he liked that he was asked that question because he’s very method in his acting. He related a story about Jack Nicholson in the Shining where JN would, in between takes when he really started going psycho in the movie, he would stand in front of a  mirror and he would just look at himself and go ‘Kill, Kill, kill’.   Matt prepare similarly.  He looked at himself in the mirror trying to not see him, not see MC.  He would go through the thought process of where he [Michael] came from, how did Michael get here, how did he [Michael] even get to this world. In that frame of mind, he created this back story of a different person and he tried to feel that different person, what did he eat or does he eat at all.  He thought it was wonderful preparation, and I thought it didn’t sound like someone who had flunked out of acting.  🙂

 

Question: If you could have any role in any movie what would it be?

 

“That’s’ tough”, Matt replied.  He definitely would pick his favorite character of all time, which he could never recreate as well at the original actor himself had, that being Johnny Depp’s  Captain Jack.  He continued, saying he really liked all of Johnny Depp’s characters, especially Edward Scissorhands.  This character says one page of dialogue in the whole movie, but he has never cared as much about any character as he has Scissorhands.  â€œThat’s my dream”, Cohen continues.  â€œTo have the audience care about the character I’m portraying so much with doing so little.  Johnny Depp is a master at that.”  

 

Question: If you could work a scene with two other actors, either alive or dead, who would they be and why?

 

After some serious consideration, Matt concluded it would have to be James Dean and John Wayne.  â€œI mean the duke, but some of you guys might not know.”  After admitting he had just felt really old for a second, which brought a resounding round of applause from the fans, he continued. (See Matt, you’re not the only ‘old’ one at the convention. :-))  He also said he would like to do a movie with a 20-something Marlon Brando, a 23ish James Dean, and a mid twenty’s Matt Dillon.

 

Okay next a fan-girl question: Do you have or do you want any tattoos?

 

After jokingly asking for the next question, and JOKINGLY playing with the fans saying he had a playboy bunny as a tattoo, he conceded he did have one, but not a visible one.  He has a giant B&W piece that goes from his hip down to just above his knee containing various things including his father’s initials, and some very important events in his life.   “I drew it, I created it, and I plan on adding to it.  Every time I do a significant movie project or TV project in my life, it kind of inspires me to add something to it”, he said.  

 

 

 

Next up was a spoil-aholic blogger, whose editor was sitting in the second row I might add, looking for spoilers of course. Question: Is Young John Winchester coming back in season 6?

 

Without missing a beat he relied, “Boy I hope so”.  He can’t speak factually about it, but has heard rumors about the writers fitting a young John and Mary in somehow.  He honestly hasn’t heard anything yet, but when he came to play Michael they only told him a couple of weeks before, and didn’t send him a script until the week of. He was just told to get up to Vancouver and make it happen. So it can go either way, but he’s very hopeful that young John and Mary come back.