This week, Mark Gamtcheff got the chance to talk to some of the big stars who are in Adelaide for Oz Comic-Con, including Jewel Staite (Firefly, Serenity, and Stargate Atlantis), Corin Nemec (Stargate SG-1), and Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation). Read selected snippets from the interviews below and make sure you get along to the Con to meet these stars and attend their panels on Sunday April 1st.
Jewel Staite
Jewel Staite is loved by fans for her work on Firefly and Serenity as ship’s mechanic Kaylee, and as Dr. Jennifer Keller on Stargate Atlantis.
I asked her about the highlights of playing Kaylee and she told me, “The best part about playing a role like that is that you kind of get to take a piece of her home at the end of the day… When you’re playing someone that’s happy and positive and sweet all the time, it’s sort of nice to live that after you get home from work. Yeah, she was a lot of fun to play.”
I also asked Jewel Staite about Kaylee’s relationship with the Simon Tam character in Firefly (played by Sean Maher) and where that might in a sequel to Serenity.
“Sean Maher and I always say that if the show were to continue that we would want Simon and Kaylee to have a baby,” she said. They would need to cast a very good looking baby! On the subject of a Serenity sequel Jewel said she had no news to reveal but told me her policy, shared by the rest of the cast and Firefly creator Joss Whedon, is “never say never”.
Jewel Staite seemed so comfortable playing Chief of Medicine Dr. Jennifer Keller on Stargate Atlantis, I asked whether she could really do that job, but she had to admit “I’m no brain surgeon.”
Lately she’s more of a brain sucker than a brain surgeon, having played a hungry demon on Supernatural with a penchant for emptying human craniums. She’s was also in acclaimed short horror film The Pact, which screened at Sundance in 2011, and was then made into a feature with another actress in the lead as Jewel had other obligations. Another horror project that Jewel’s connected to is P5ych, an eighties-style slasher flick that’s looking for funding on Kickstarter.
Jewel Staite is currently in The L.A. Complex, a series about Canadian actors trying to make it in Hollywood. The show is set in Los Angeles but is shot in Toronto, Canada on a set which replicates a well-known apartment complex frequented by out-of-work actors. Jewel is ecstatic about the show. It had a short 6 episode season screened in Canada which is getting a release this April in the US, and shooting is about to start on a second 13-episode season.
Jewel Staite loves coming to conventions and meeting her fans and told me she always has three or four interesting stories to take away from each one she attends. Jewel told me about when she was in an elevator at a convention with a bunch of fans and a couple of friends:
“A guy in the elevator looked at me and said “has anyone ever told you that you look like Jewel Staite?” We all started laughing hysterically and everyone in the elevator was dying and he goes “No, no, no! It’s a compliment!” And I didn’t say a word, I just said thank you…”
Staite’s a keen foodie and lover of all wine styles, and she blogs regularly at HappyOpu.net. She’s enjoying the great food and wine that Adelaide and no doubt we’ll see glimpses of her Antipodean travels online soon.
I asked on Twitter if anyone had a question for me to ask @JewelStaite, and @jellyjellyfish replied “How are you so adorable?” The question obviously tickled Jewel Staite and she replied, “It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.”
Jewel Staite’s panel in the Internode Auditorium is at 2pm on Sunday 1st April, at Oz Comic-Con in Adelaide. She is also doing photos with fans from 11.30am – 12.30pm, and autographs 10 – 11am and 3 – 5pm. You can follow @JewelStaite on Twitter.
Corin Nemec
Corin Nemec, who has starred in over a dozen television movies and miniseries including as lead of the quirky TV series Parker Lewis Can’t Lose (1990–1993), was cast as Jonas Quinn for Stargate: SG-1’s season 5 and became a series regular in the sixth season.
I had a fascinating chat with Corin Nemec. While I was intending to talk about his acting career and conventions, he ended up telling me a lot about his interest in reading non-fiction, and some books that question the facts of history and how we interpret them.
When we got around to questions about his time on Stargate SG-1 he told me that his time on the show opened up his eyes to so much with respect to the fans and the international success of the show.
“I didn’t even know that you could travel the world, and go to these conventions, and have these amazing experiences, and get to meet people face to face that are fans of the show,” he said. “And be able to thank them for watching.”
Corin Nemec’s character Jonas Quinn was known for, of all things, eating on-screen. In one of the early episodes of season six Corin decided to eat a banana (probably the first ever eaten in deep space) during a scene. Some European Stargate fans started the OJB, the Order of Jonas’ Banana, and at one convention they all banded together to purchase a massive 10lb bag of bananas for Corin. Candy bananas.
“The spongy candy bananas are really light cause they’re mostly air, so in order to get 10lbs… you need a bag the size of a trash bag. It was probably 10,000 candy bananas!”
I asked Corin Nemec how many of the 10,000 he ate. The answer: “Half of one.”
We talked about how he used eating as one way to show how Jonas Quinn, as a newcomer on the SGC team and to Earth (he was a very humanoid alien) was discovering everything about his new surroundings. The use of unscripted props was finally finally vetoed when Corin Nemec chose to peel an orange in the background of an important scene in the middle of season six.
Corin Nemec pitched several episode plots to the producers of Stargate SG-1 and they chose one which became the seventh episode of season seven, his final one on the show. He’s also been writing more recently, working on the web series Star-ving on Sony’s Crackle.com with his friend David Faustino of “Married with Children”. And right now he’s developing an animated series with Afro-American comedian Paul Mooney, who’ll play the President of the United States.
We spoke on Thursday, two days before Oz Comic-Con, and Corin was looking forward to the event.
“I think Adelaide is probably the best choice for it,” he said, “because of the excitement it generates locally here, because it’s unexpected. So I think that was a really smart choice to bring it here, and to expand from Adelaide outwards.”
Corin Nemec’s panel in the Internode Auditorium is at 12 noon on Sunday 1st April. He is also doing photos with fans from 10.30am – 12 noon, photos alongside Ben Browder and Gigi Edgley 11 – 11.30am, and autographs 10 – 11am and 2 – 5pm.
Jonathan Frakes
Best known as Commander William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jonathan Frakes is a talented director too. He helmed eight TNG and several Deep Space Nine and Voyager episodes and directed Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection. His career is going strong, having directed episodes of many current television series.
This is Jonathan Frakes’ first time in Adelaide, he said he’d enjoyed his visit immensely.. he’d only arrived two hours earlier and flew in with @SeanAstin of Lord of the Rings fame! On a more serious note, he said he was looking forward to the weekend of Oz Comic-Con.
“I gather this is the maiden voyage of Oz Comin-Con. The first ever. And I’m glad to be part of it.” he said.
Jonathan Frakes’ introduction to comic conventions came in the 1970′s when he worked for Marvel as Captain America. Years later, it’s his time as Commander Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation which has made him a sought-after convention guest, and he’s done over 100 in the last 25 years.
I asked about the evolution of the Commander Riker character which Jonathan Frakes played for seven seasons.
“In the beginning Gene Roddenberry has a vision for Riker that was a little different who Jonathan Frakes was,” he said. “In time he let Frakes influence who Riker was. That helped.”
“On our show there was a writer named Maurice Hurley who took us all to lunch individually and asked us what we’d like to do,” Frakes said, “And that’s where the trombone thing came from.”
Playing jazz trombone became a trademark of Riker’s, drawing on Frakes’ childhood experience with the instrument, and it was such personal touches that made the show more interesting. The use of the holodeck was also way to disrupt the show and remove it from the confines of the ship, without going planet-side. An example is the episode Hollow Pursuits where Frakes played a shorter holographic version of himself called Musketeer Number One.
Jonathan Frakes directed many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and now has a successful directorial career that was also built on the success of Star Trek: First Contact, his first movie as a director, widely regarded as one of the best of the Star Trek franchise.
I asked about his directorial style and Jonathan Frakes pointed out, “Your responsibilty is to shoot the show in the style that made it successful. I do NCIS: LA, I do Leverage, Burn Notice and Castle and these shows all have styles that are specific… that’s the challenge.”
Jonathan Frakes’ panel in the Internode Auditorium is at 11am on Sunday 1st April. He is also doing photos with fans from 9.30 – 11am and autographs 1 – 3pm and 3.30 – 5pm. Follow @jonathansfrakes on Twitter and find him on Facebook.
Adelaide’s first installment of Australia’s top fan event is this weekend, Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April at the Goyder Pavillion, Wayville Showgrounds… a feast of pop-culture in the spirit of other Comic-Con events around the world.
Tickets are available for purchase on the door, and
adult tickets come with free entry for one child under 12.
For more information on Oz Comic-Con in Adelaide and Melbourne in 2012 see www.ozcomicon.com. Follow @OzComicCon on Twitter.
You can find schedules for Adelaide’s events, including
panels and autograph and photograph sessions here.
Also see our other posts about Oz-Comic-Con in Adelaide:
Great guests for Oz Comic-Con in Adelaide
Gigi Edgley says “Adelaide, watch out!” Oz Comic-Con’s coming
Matt Doran’s bringing The Force to Adelaide for Oz Comic-Con
Stewart McKenny’s drawing on experience
