Second coffee session..I went back to the same seat – I decided it was as good as any and James was going to be in the same place as his coffee stayed put! The others were coming in and I can’t remember everyone who was there this time – Jean, Jessie, Charity and Margaret are the only ones I can recall right now in addition to Iesha, Magie and me, Iesha moved up so she was sat on James’s right and Jean sat on his left. Greeting all the newcomers, James called “Welcome to our coffee patch!”
As we were getting settled and people were getting drinks (James refused a refill!) he mentioned that he had a day off the next day and then he was going back to finish up. That was nearly lost amongst the chatter so I had to ask “Finish up what?” and James replied reading the Harry Dresden’s! (So these are the ones that are coming out in April I assume!)
James said he had really wanted to get into voiceover work as it meant he wouldn’t have to shave – which had us all rolling about laughing! But he admitted it was much harder than you would think – it was like being in close-up on camera for 9 hours at a time as all the attention was on him constantly. We asked him to do Toot-Toots voice again and he obliged, saying (like he does when asked to do Spikes voice) “no – I don’t do that unless I’m getting paid” - in Toot Toots voice…!
I told him how much I enjoyed his reading as he did all the voices for the characters – a lot of readers on audio books are very flat, not bringing the characters to life. James looked very pleased and said he did have trouble with the word ‘little’ which seems to appear on practically every page of the books. More so at the end of the day - he demonstrated him trying to annunciate ‘little’ when he was tired – which is impossible for me to write down – you had to be there!!
I said that the only problem I had with Jim Butchers writing was that he seemed to use the word “said” all the time, when he could use ‘replied’ or ‘interrupted’ or dozens of different words. It really showed with James’s reading and wasn’t needed most of the time as you could tell who it was speaking by the voice he was doing!
There was a bit of talk about the fact they had brought the books out in a strange order and some people said they were waiting for the middle ones before they could listen to the later ones. I admitted that I didn’t care and had listened to them all! James thought the books would make great movies, but said he wasn’t tall enough to play Harry when asked, though he would love too – but they could cut the doors much smaller to make him look taller!
Jean asked if James read the books in advance of recording them – he said to start with he didn’t, as he wanted to be as surprised as the listener – doing it like that gave a genuine first reaction. But it made for very long days for him and the crew – James demonstrated the frustrated producer – “Just
read the damn book!” - and so now he does read them in advance. The newest one out which is Death Masks has the very hot sex scene in it and James said he always just wants to start giggling when he has to read them. The way that even if Harry is on fire, he always seems to get distracted by a beautiful woman and starts waxing lyrical about them, even as he is burning up – “Frustrated much, Jim??”
(I’ve just listened to that scene in the last couple of days and James doesn’t sound giggly at all - and believe me – It’s very hot with him reading it!!) Margaret told James that she had discovered him through Torchwood and then had watched Buffy because of him. She liked Spike straight away and then when Spike turned around towards Drusilla and his vamp face faded into his human face she said her reaction was “Oh. My. God!” which had us all laughing as we all knew exactly what she meant!
James said that was on his second day of filming and it was a very weird day. Joss approached him and said “You actors with your pretty faces and great hair – you get all the chicks and we writers get nothing!” James had just arrived in LA and was a bit taken aback “But boss, I’m wearing all this cool stuff and saying all these cool lines that were supplied and written by you!” and Joss apparently snarled back “yeah, but you’ve got those
cheekbones!!”
James said he didn’t think Joss had a very high opinion of actors – he seemed to think they were shallow and brainless. When someone pointed out that James did have a brain, he replied that he didn’t think Joss wasn’t at all comfortable with that, as James didn’t fit in with his views of actors generally.
Talk got onto Caprica and how the trailer featuring James had been put on the net and the hits on YouTube had shot up to over 10,000 in a couple of days. We talked about the future of James’s character in it – he said he was blown up in the last episode, but it wasn’t shown, so he thinks he’s not dead. He explained about his character having a minion that was with him a lot and
he was definitely dead! The way the crew acted after the last scenes – completely different with him, like it was most certainly his last day, but with James, not a bit clear cut! So he hoped he was ‘doing a Spike’ on it again and not dying.
James said the pilot episode of Caprica had really freaked him out – he had to stop watching it and go to it back later – so therefore that was good
. He was really affected by the virtual reality arcade in it that all the teenagers went to – shooting people in a very real setting – although it wasn’t real, it was emotionally real – and it made him think about the games he plays. He just thought he was relaxing by shooting things on a games console, but how emotionally scarred was he by doing it?
There was then talk about Battlestar Galactica and James was talking to Jean about what happened at the end of it and I interrupted, saying “Don’t tell me!! I’m still watching it – Im only up the end of season 3!!” and James grinned at me and ended up just alluding to the end, (Margaret whispered to me to put my fingers in my ears and go “La la la – I’m not listening!”) though he admitted he hadn’t watched BSG – he was a Star Trek fan when the original came out. Though he knew about some of it – he liked about how Capt Adama had lied to the entire fleet about knowing the whereabouts of Earth, to give them hope.
We then got into a discussion about technology and how everyone feels the need to be connected but not interacting – Jean citing the cases of people who text someone across the room rather than talking to them. James said he hated texting – it was just one more thing to check – the email, the phone. Steve interrupted “yeah, James – I wish you would answer your phone…!”
Someone then said they really wished he would go on Twitter - that would be the best. I can remember the grin that appeared on James’s face as he shook his head and affirmed “Never gonna happen.
Never gonna happen!”
This led onto how useful caller ID was and that James thought the answer phone was great – though he did once lose a relationship because of it! He screens all his calls and would let it go to the answer phone before picking up, but she would never leave a message so he thought she never called.
There was a natural lull in the conversation at this point and I was making signals at Iesha as she had said she would ask the question we all wanted her too so she said “I’ve been asked to ask you this – now please don’t think of me as the tongue lady – but some people would like you to demonstrate the tongue drill” (that would be me and Magie!!)
James said “What – this?” and then did a very quick bit of tongue drill (impossible for me to describe – you have to see it to believe it. When James is demonstrating it right in front of you, all rational thought just stops..!)
Someone said “How do you do that?” (so
someone was still coherent!) and James shrugged and replied “Juilliard was good for something!”
Iesha apologised again for asking and said “I always get elected for this crap!”
“You’re very brave” replied James, as I pointed out “You offered!!”
“Yeah” Iesha retorted “But that was when I was full of Jack Daniels!!” The entire table collapsed laughing!!
The last part of the conversation was about Julliard – James said you can learn lots of stuff there – none of which you’ll ever need! He didn’t want to get kicked out because he thought it would be what he needed, but later worked with a director that employed actors who had been kicked out of Juilliard – he thought that anyone who graduated from there can’t have fun onstage. James told the story of the play at Julliard and how wrong he got it and from then on every day they seemed to be telling him he was stupid, lazy and had no talent. Jean was trying to convince him that ‘forced out’ was more like it, rather than kicked, but its one subject I don’t think anyone will change his views on.
Steve was then saying time was up, but no one moved. Think James said something about ignoring him, but Steve was being firm and starting to shoo us out, saying we could continue the discussion in the Q and A that was next. We all called thank you to James as we stared to get up to leave and of course James got up and started hugging people!
I was going to hang on for a hug, but decided that it would be a bit of a wait as I was on the far side, and Steve might well take James away before I could get to him – so instead I went straight to the Q and A room as I knew seats would be taken for this one, as people would have been let in already. I was right – there wasn’t even a single on the first or second rows but I got on the aisle of the third row, so that was fine – it’s not like I was far away even there! I had a few moments to jot down notes about the coffee sessions before Steve was up the front and introducing James again!
This time, there wasn’t anyone policing the questions – they just left it up to James to pick the questioners, and of course there was no shortage of them. I very rarely ask questions at Q and A’s and this was no exception – I’m more of a conversationalist than a questioner. James was moving up and down again and occasionally perching on the edge of the table, being his normal animated self. And as I was busy taking lovely photos of the deeply pretty man (It was those curls again!! They were having their own party – and a couple were definitely making a break for freedom! Argh! So
very tempting!!) I didn’t concentrate on the questions much. I do know there was a nice cross section of everything, as again there was a nice mix of newbies, the curious and the usual suspects in the audience! There was quite a bit of politics and I do remember James saying to the room “Is everyone okay that I’m a bleeding-heart liberal??” (resounding clapping and whooping!) before going on to talk about a book he had been reading. And there was a lot of Macbeth too, which is always interesting as James gets so passionate about it.