As I was unsure when others I was to be meeting up with would be arriving, I made the fairly insane plan to get the 630am train out of Norwich to London, and getting in Early Bird entry. Which was just about worth it with the 'virtual queuing' system they have there (Basically, you take a ticket for a person you want to meet and come back when your number is up. Doesn't sound too hard, but it did seem to cause confusion for quite a few people.)
But, after grabbing the tickets I realised I was on my own at the convention, so quickly went outside for a spell, couldn't take the almost radioactive levels of geekery on my own.
After everyone arrived we went to get everything signed. First up was Christopher Lloyd, who already had a huge 'virtual queue' number, but we were lucky enough to get in. He was a nice guy, but quite slow with the signing, which in the end meant a lot of people went away empty handed. But it was great to meet him and get my Back To The Future Blu Ray boxset signed.
After that we went to meet Tom Sizemore. Now, I wasn't 100% sure whether I wanted to meet him, but I decided to and opted to get my Heat DVD signed (which had already been signed by Val Kilmer back in 2005) and I was so glad I did. To say he was a character was an understatement!
My friend John took his 8 year old son Indiana up first, as Indy likes to meet the people from the films a lot too, and out of nowhere, Tom Sizemore lays down this bizarre rant on how to fight. It went a little something like this "This is how you fuck people up, BOOM! Just beat the shit out of them, fuck them up. Like the World Trade Centre. No one saw it coming, everyone died, BOOM!", as the cigarette he had behind his ear went flying. It was probably one of the most surreal moments of my life.
When he met me, he noticed Val Kilmer had signed the DVD, and he started going on about how Val was in a bad way, weighed over 300 pounds now, and how much of a close friend he was to him. It was strange days indeed, as the title of one of his films goes. Don't get me wrong though, he was the friendliest guy we met all day.
We also met Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who was in License To Kill, Pearl Harbour, Mortal Kombat, and others. I got him to sign Showdown In Little Tokyo, a personal favourite. He was a nice guy, and we were to run into him again later...
Meeting Robert Knepper was amazing. I'm currently immersed in the fourth season of Prison Break, so it was a very timely meeting. Took the opportunity to tell him how awesome, the show, his character and his appearance in Breakout Kings was. He told me I was in for a treat with the rest of Prison Break, I don't doubt him! He was a lovely guy, really was.
Corey Feldman was an odd one. I met him back in 2004, I think and he was really cool. Now it seems he is riding on the 'success' of the Lost Boys sequels a bit, and possibly appearing recently in a Katy Perry music video, as he was surrounded by an entourage and kept taking repeated breaks. So we took a wander instead and ran into a stall which had Richard Brooker sitting there! Richard, of course, played Jason in the third Friday The 13th film and as I had my Friday the 13th boxset for Corey to sign, I got him to sign it too! We commented on how we didn't know he was going to be there, his response was "Neither did I", nice guy though.
We finally returned to Corey and he was alright, even with 3 different items for 3 different people to sign. He's been cool when I've met him, but sometimes I guess you lose yourself in it all, I probably would!
John and I also bumped into Sean Clark, who worked on the epic Elm Street documentary 'Never Sleep Again', as well as other ones for Friday The 13th, Halloween and more (including an unreleased Texas Chainsaw Massacre one), and as we found out responsible for getting a lot of the guests over. One name in particular that he is trying to convince to come over would probably bankrupt me. He was a great guy though, hope to meet him again at a future one.
After John met Highlander star Christopher Lambert (£35 for a signature was a bit too much for me), my final meet of the day was Lea Thompson. Best known for her role as Marty McFlys Mum in Back To The Future, I opted to get the John Hughes classic 'Some Kind Of Wonderful' signed instead. She was really nice also, and got me the only posed photo of the day with her. It seems that Showmasters (who run these things) would rather you pay for a signature, pay for a photo session, pay for a talk...it's just a big money generating machine these days.
As we walked around again, we bumped into Cary Takawa again and had a chat with him about Showdown In Little Tokyo, and what Brandon Lee was like to work with. Cary is such a nice guy, and he posed for a photo with Indiana which was very cool of him.
Just before we left, we noticed Tom Sizemore was doing a (free) talk. After earlier, we had to check it out and we heard some great stories about what it was like working for Michael Bay, making Black Hawk Down, how he found the character of Scagnetti in Natural Born Killers and how he is enjoying his second chance at a career after his legal problems of the last few years. And then he let slip he will be in The Expendables 2. Great news to see him back on the big screen.
It was a great day all in all. I'm not a massive fan of the weirdos dressed up like Manga characters, or Kick Ass or Scott Pilgrim (one of which had a shirt on with a piece of paper taped to it, the words 'Scott Pilgrim' daubed on it in permanent marker, nice effort) but it's always a pleasure to meet the people you've seen on the big or small screen for years and tell them how much you dig their work.
I'm sure I'll be back in October to meet Alex Winter!
Here are some quick links to what I got signed...
Heat DVD signed by Tom Sizemore: http://bit.ly/n8ARe4
Back To The Future Blu Ray set signed by Christopher Lloyd: http://bit.ly/r2YNlw
Friday The 13th boxset signed by Richard Brooker and Corey Feldman: http://bit.ly/npyYIc
Some Kind Of Wonderful DVD signed by Lea Thompson: http://bit.ly/q8TXps
Prison Break boxset signed by Robert Knepper: http://bit.ly/qqQSLN
Showdown In Little Tokyo DVD signed by Cary-Hiroyuki Takawa: http://bit.ly/qlxF80
2 comments:
Sounds like an AWESOME experienc (though not *quite* up to NORCON standards!! lol) - great selection of pics too; though what the HELL is up with Corey Feldman's HAIR?!!! :-o
I know, was a bit weird. He was very different from our last meeting. And yep, NORCON is next haha!
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