Bardicvoice’s VanCon Reports, Part 7: Richard Speight, Jr. & Matt Cohen, Jim Beaver & Misha Collins

I’ve chosen to consolidate the last two panels on Saturday because I didn’t get as many notes from them as from others. The Dick and Matt show was a lot of fun and included some tasty treats. The Jim and Misha panel was less rewarding to me personally because it had little substance, devolving instead into silliness. Not to say that silliness isn’t fun, but it’s not something I can take notes on and recap without losing its essence!

These panels – and the two Marks panel as well – demonstrated that our guest actors have learned a new trick convention goers should prepare for:  when thrown questions they weren’t prepared to answer, they turned the question back on the asker, putting them on the spot to provide their answer, and even pulling them up on stage to face the audience while doing so to make a point about how hard it is to provide such off-the-cuff answers and be entertaining in the process. So all those questions about “What would you do if …” or “How do you think this should happen” or “Describe [certain people on the show] in three words or less” are now fair game as things whoever asks them might have to answer, instead of getting answers from the guests. Beware!

There was also a really funny trend that started being called out by the two Marks in their panel and continued through the following ones, which boiled down to the guest pointing out whenever questions addressed to the guests were really questions about Jared and Jensen. As Sheppard put it, the typical such question ran, “I think you’re wonderful, but what was it like working with Jared and Jensen?” They were funny about it and they all clearly do love the guys, but what made them light up were questions about their own acting, past or current projects, and topics of interest to them. Choose wisely, if you choose to ask!

Richard Speight, Jr. and Matt Cohen

After having hosted the karaoke party on Friday in hilarious disco-era duds, Dick and Matt brought the same hilarious energy to their panel. They shared stories and jokes about their shopping trip for the disco clothes that had me laughing too hard to take notes! I think you had to be there … Sorry about that!

But on to the questions! The first fan up asked both of them which of the multiple characters they had played did they prefer?
 
MC:  Michael. Young John is fantastic, sweet and naïve, but he’s not Michael. Michael’s a different monster to play. He has no rules.
DS:  I enjoy Trickster. I really like Gabriel, but I go with Trickster.

If you were a superhero or a supervillain, which one would you be?  

DS:  [no hesitation at all!]  I’d be Aquaman. What? You don’t think so? Aquaman, water guy! 
MC:  They think I should be Superman because I look like Superman, but think outside the box. I would make a good Wonder Woman, according to this one here [flicking thumb at DS].  I’ve always been a Batman guy, the darkness of Batman. But maybe this Bane guy. I think it’s important to know how your supervillain looks with and without a shirt, don’t you?

Asked the perennial question about whether they’d ever been pranked or pulled pranks themselves while on the show, they both said no.

MC:  Myself, Richard, and Jared had dinner last night … I think Jared has one coming. I want to come up with the grandest prank. If you’ve got ideas, let us know! We screw around a lot more now that we’re not shooting the show. There’s no time to plan or do anything during shooting – there’s too much work to do.

Asked about whether he’d like to play Lucifer, Matt immediately demurred.
MC:  What Johnny Depp is to Jack Sparrow, Mark Pellegrino is to Lucifer. I wouldn’t want to follow that!

Asked who on the show is most like and most unlike their characters, Richard took the lead.

DS:  Misha is most unlike Cas. It’s a testament to his acting that he does Castiel so well. Crowley is slightly nicer than Mark Sheppard. “No” is his favorite word! [something we all saw Mark demonstrate at the karaoke party when he resisted all attempts and blandishments to get him to sing!]
Richard then proceeded to turn the question back on the fan, who responded that she thought Julian was most unlike Death, and that Richard shared traits with the Trickster.  

Asserting that he wasn’t the only one with Trickster traits, Richard said that he’d made the horrible mistake of leaving his phone in the green room at the New Jersey con for 5 minutes.

DS:  Jared and Misha took liberties with my phone, with things like photos and the signature on email. It took a while for me to find everything they’d done! When I complained, their answer was, “Dude, you left your phone! What were we supposed to do?”  Truth is, I’d have done the same thing!

Asked about his work in the Pepsi Max commercials, Richard said he’d worked with the director of the commercials on a different project before, and the director had conceived an idea that just fit him perfectly. Originally, there was supposed to have been just one commercial, but it really clicked, so now there’s a whole series of them, and there will be more.

I can’t recall precisely how the subject of Sebastian Roché (Balthazar) came up, but the guys’ take on it was hilarious! 

DS:  Never ask ‘What Would Sebastian Do?’  
MC:  Make your own worst possible decision and it will still be better than what Sebastian would do!

In response to questions about past and upcoming projects, Richard said that he’d gotten word his next movie,Three Blind Saints, was going to be coming out on DVD very soon. He also shared a long story about working on Band Of Brothers and how he’d wound up establishing a connection with the family of the man he portrayed in the miniseries. He said the experience taught him a lot, especially when he realized his first contact with the family – which ended with the family member hanging up the phone on him – had been incredibly insensitive because he’d come into the conversation as an actor looking for pointers on what the man had been like just in order to build his performance of the guy as a character, not for his own sake or to share him with his family. He’d started the conversation on the basis of what was in the script, accepting it as real, but it turned out that the script was wrong, referring to the man having been in Florida when it should have said New York. He said he was ashamed when he realized what he’d done, and then set out genuinely to learn about the man himself, resulting in both a rich and continuing relationship with the veteran’s family and a character portrayal that made a personal impact on him. And during the shooting, he pointed out the factual error in the script and asked if he could change that line to make it right, and the director agreed. So when you’re watching Band Of Brothers and North Tonawanda in New York mentioned, know that was Richard himself setting the record straight!

Creation started trying to wrap up the panel to get ready for the next one, telling all the fans still standing in line to return to their seats, but Richard and Matt instead ran down the lines with their own microphones in an attempt to do a speed Q&A so everyone in line would still have a chance to ask and get answered. It was fast, wild, and mostly silly, and I only have a record of one exchange: 
When you first got Supernatural, what were your first impressions of the script and the actors?

MC:  Love the script, love the actors, want them to bring me back!
DS:   Loved the script, thought I was a janitor, guys are too tall.

Jim Beaver & Misha Collins

You’re all going to be disappointed in me on this one, because I took almost no notes during the Jim and Misha show. Most of the questions were silly, many got turned back on their askers, and there wasn’t much substance on display, although Jim and Misha had fun scoring points against each other when it came down to some of the Q&A. To give you a flavor, I’ll share the few notes I do have.

What would you do if you were a woman for a day?  
MC:  Probably start by playing with my breasts. 
JB:  Would you invite me over? I have some expertise in that area. I think.
MC:  You win.

Describe Castiel’s relationship with Balthazar before you met Dean?  
JB:  She thinks we write this stuff.  
MC:  Or that we remember who Balthazar was. Balthazar was Castiel’s housekeeper. He wore a little frock, no pants, as Balthazar is wont to do when played by Sebastian Roché.  

In the show, who would you want to be closer to and why?  
JB:  Sheriff Mills.  
MC:  Touché, you won that round.

Out of all the seasons, what was your favorite scene?  
JB:  In terms of enjoying the work at the moment, the scene where Bobby says goodbye to his zombie wife. It wasn’t enjoyable as such, but rewarding to shoot. I’ve got 54 episodes under my belt, and I still look thin.   
MC:  54 episodes and no really good scenes … [snark]

And that, I think, gives you a reasonable sense of what their Q&A was like! I’m sure the best bits probably made it on Twitter.

Next up, the main event: Jared and Jensen!

Here’s several more great photos taken by sweetondean at both panels.  None of these guys take a bad picture, do they?