Something you may or may not know about me is that I am kind of a geek. My one regret from my time in California and the US is that I never had the opportunity to go to ComicCon in San Diego. I did however take the boys to Comic Con in Tucson, AZ in 2010. I worked really hard on sewing myself a She-Ra costume, which is now somewhere lost in one of my in-laws many storage facilities. When we heard about the Comic and Sci-Fi event coming to Bath we were ready to get our cosplay on! Maddox went as Darth Vader, Ronan as Indiana Jones, and I went as Kaylee from Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
The big event we did not want to miss during the weekend’s festivities was the Star Wars panel. My father did not have any sons and I grew up loving to watch Star Wars with him. Plus I have never been to see a panel before so we were all really excited. Included in this line up was Femi Taylor who played Oola, the Twi’lek dancer in Jabba the Hutt’s court, and Rusty Goffe who played various characters in a New Hope, including a Jawa and a gonk droid. Rusty was also in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Willow, and several of the Harry Potter films. He is really charismatic and my boys remarked how he was so funny.
Not a whole lot of questions were asked from the audience so it meant a lot that Ronan spoke up and asked them for their ‘most embarrassing’ memory in their career. I asked them if they had experienced a ‘pinch yourself moment’. Femi answered about getting a call back in 97 to film more scenes to reprise her role in the special edition release of the original film from the 80s. If you remember her costume is basically mostly body paint so it was incredible to see that she still has her dancer body even today. She was friendly and nice and I really liked getting to talk with her afterwards. Rusty talked about being on the set of Harry Potter in the scene where Helena Bonham Carter as Belatrix is pretending to be Hermione. Rusty talked about what an incredible actress Helena is and how everyone on set kept forgetting it was Helena/Belatrix because she just embodied Emma/Hermione so well.
Another panelist who I got to talk to extensively afterwards was John Chapman. John played an X-Wing pilot in the original Star Wars and now has created a really awesome comic book series for children about a character named Jonnie Rocket. I really recommend them if you have children and you find out more about them at http://www.jonnierocket.com/
At the end Ronan participated in the costume contest and he was really proud to get a lot of compliments from the adults on his authentic elements like his hat, jacket, and whip. We met quite a few cosplayers and pretty much the experience exceeded our expectations. I told Ryan before we got there that if one person knew who I was cosplaying as, I would be happy. Sure enough the guy who came cosplaying from my favourite video game, Mass Effect, told me he like my Kaylee costume. Score.
Q: Do you like comics or sci-fi? Ever been to a comic con?
*Photography by Bonnie Rose Photography © 2007 – 2013 All Rights Reserved | www.bonnie-rose.co.uk
