I don't know what anyone has heard about the 1st Annual ATX TV Festival, besides that it was awesome - which is absolutely true - but here's my first hand experience...
Day Two
Day two,
Saturday, was the first official day of screenings and panels and we had three
things on our agenda: Friday Night Lights panel, One Tree Hill panel, and the
Friday Night Lights outdoor screening event. And of course, because we were
expecting rabid fan girls, we had a plan of action.
Our first panel,
FNL, was at 11:30, so we made sure we secured parking, coffee and breakfast
before making our way to the Stephen F. Austin hotel – at 9 am. Yes, we were that
early. Again. But like I said, we are both so used to the over-enthused ‘it’s
cool we like the same thing but I will shank you if you dare cut in line’ fan
girl mentality, that we couldn’t figure out why there was no one else was already there
and lined up. I mean, it’s the FNL cast. In Austin. The line should’ve been
wrapped around the building. But I digress.
So we get there,
sit in “line” (aka – by ourselves) for two hours before other fans start
showing up. The cast line up was meant to be – Matt Lauria (Luke Cafferty),
Scott Porter (Jason Street), Gaius Charles (Brian “Smash” Williams), Michael B.
Jordan (Vince Howard), Alicia Witt (Cheryl – Becky’s mom), Louanne Stevens
(Grandma Saracen), Jesse Plemmons (Landry Clark) and Brad Leland (Buddy
Garrity). Unfortunately, Brad and Jesse didn’t make it. However, the rest of
the cast was great. They all talked about their audition process, how the way
that FNL is shot is unlike any other film or serialized show they’ve ever
worked on.
Some notable
anectdotes from the panel:
- Gaius Charles –
who is a night and day difference from Smash – had to study phonetics and how
to twist vowels (his words, not mine), in order to sound like Smash. Dude is a
total brainiac. A nerd in the best sense of the term.
- When Matt Lauria
read for Luke, Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins) read for Becky, and was dressed in
boots, a wig and a short skirt.
- Louanne Stevens
told her audition story and how she pretended she was really from a little
shack in Texas where she had “nothing left but the sunsets”. I was pretty sure
Scott was going to fall off the stage he was laughing so hard.
- Gaius and Matt
hadn’t met until 15 minutes before the panel started and I think Matt was a
little starstruck.
Afterwards, all
of the guys and Louanne stuck around to take pictures and sign autographs.
Louanne, bless her heart, was just pleased as pie to be there and actually
printed out what had to be at least a hundred 4x6 pictures of her and Zach
Gilford and of the whole cast and was passing them around to fans – to keep.
She was precious.
Scott Porter,
who we’d already met and taken pictures with, came up to us as we were staking
our claim in the One Tree Hill line (two and a half hours early, mind you) and just started a conversation. And he’s so easy going and friendly.
He asked what we were waiting for next, what actors were in the panel, and then
asked if we knew whether Austin Nichols was going to be there or not. Talking
OTH with one of our FNL guys? Definitely going down in the book as one of the
coolest moments ever. After we chatted, Scott asked if he’d see us tonight at
the screening, gave us a beautiful goodbye smile, and left. He’s perfect, you
guys.
Much like for
FNL, we were first in line for OTH, and after watching Lindsey, James, Eve and
Mark walk by, we grabbed front and center seats. Now, after talking to the ATX
people via twitter, I knew there would be some kind of behind the scenes type
screening, so I’d prepared myself – and Emily – for the buckets of tears I
might have cried. Fortunately, it was just the extra piece from season 8, so I
only teared up a little. The moderator was Jordan Levin, who was the CEO of the
WB when One Tree Hill first aired. And, while it was nice to have a moderator
who was genuinely interested and invested in the topic, he did dominate the
panel a little more than I would have liked. But, to be honest, I would’ve been,
and was, quite content to just sit there and look at James for 45 minutes. Not
a bad way to spend one’s time.
They – being
Mark and Jordan, mostly, but also James when he felt compelled to speak –
talked mostly about how much One Tree Hill struggled and fought to get picked
up, and then to stay picked up for nine years. They referred to it time and
time again as a family, which just makes me all warm inside, because it was, we
were and are and always will be, the OTH family.
Some notable anecdotes
from the panel:
- Mark told the
TRL story (if you haven’t heard it, then you obviously live under a rock, but
I’ll summarize anyways – mid season 1, the core five made a visit to TRL, and
mark and the other producers/powers that be watched in the lobby of their
office – because they didn’t have cable – and when the limo with the cast
pulled up there was a mob of fans waiting and Mark says he didn’t know what
show people were watching. “That’s my show, but that’s not my show.”
Because the ratings were so low and everyone was so negative about it, they
were all surprised how popular they were.) Anyways, James starts talking about
how the limo with the five of them pulls up and they were confused by the crowd
of people and assumed there was a concert. When they realized the crowd was for
them, James – who was only 17 at the time – looked around at his castmates,
smirked that oh-so-loved smirk, and stood out of the moon roof and pumped his
fists in the air. Precious man tells precious stories.
Okay, I’m just
going to warn those light of J/L&N/H loving heart – this is going to make
you swoon. It might be best for you to find a secure seat before reading.
You’ve been advised.
- A fan asked Mark if he ever felt like they went too far with storylines in the
way of craziness – i.e dog eating hearts, psychos!galore, etc – and Mark said
he really felt like the crazy started in season one with Nathan and Haley’s
surprise marriage. The question was kind of handed over to James who said, and
I’m obviously paraphrasing here:
- “I was so young
at the time, I really didn’t have an opinion, I was just excited to be acting! I remember when we got the
scripts for that episode, Joy came up to me and was like ‘Did you see the script?!’
and I was like ‘Um, yeah.’ And she was like, ‘Isn’t it crazy?!’ and I was kind
of like, ‘Uh, I guess.’ (insert adorable James laugh after an all too perfect
Joy impersonation) I was just happy to be there! You want to marry me? Cool, I
won’t complain! (insert yet another perfect laugh).”
(Still breathing
after that breath of fresh adorableness? Hold on. There’s more.)
- After James says
this, Mark starts talking about how James was the youngest cast member and
tells a story about James and the 1.22 rain kiss scene:
- Mark: “James was so young, and in 1.22 I wrote in
the script for that scene ‘and now they kiss, preferably with tongue’ (yes, I
quoted along as he said it. He didn’t judge me and neither should you.) And
James walks up and says ‘Uh, it says here ‘with tongue’ so um, am I supposed to
do this?’ and of course, I was just screwing with him, but I said, ‘I don’t
know, go talk to Joy about it.’ And he did! So he goes up to Joy and is like,
‘So did you see the script? It says with tongue, so like, what –‘ and Joy just
looks at him, shrugs her shoulders and goes ‘Eh, whatever!’ And they did it!
And I was totally just screwing with them.”
- James: “Hey, it
worked!”
(I’ll give you a
few seconds to collect your thoughts, hearts and inhalers…)
After the panel,
fans all but flooded James, who so graciously lead them all to the lobby bar
for pictures and autographs. There is no sweeter man than James Martin
Lafferty. I’m sure of it.
While we were
waiting for James’ crowd to disperse, we hung back to talk to Mark (who’d told
me the night before he’d kick my ass if we didn’t come say hi at the panel) and
to take pictures with him. As we stood there with him, I asked him how they
managed to sneak Craig (Keith Scott) into 9x11 with, literally, no one knowing. He got a pretty good
laugh out of it (I guess when fans find out so many spoilers, it’s nice when
you pull the wool over their eyes, especially when it’s such a big surprise.)
He said Craig came in and only shot for one day and he kept a very low profile.
After grabbing a
group picture, autograph and another dozen thank you’s from James, we headed
back to our hotel to get ready for the FNL outdoor event.
And that, my friends, was only the first half of Day Two...
