It’s been a long time coming, but finally I got around to writing my FedCon report about Peter Jurasik’s panel. Thanks to Intex Digital Sound, who were responsible for the DVD production of the official FedCon DVD, I could bring back many details I didn’t even know I had forgotten *smile*

Dancing in the hotel lobby

Peter’s panel was the my last highlight at FedCon sunday, since I had to leave soon after to catch my flight back home, missing most of the triple-StarTrek panel and all of the closing ceremony. Well, leaving early had a funny consequence: I walked out of the Mainbridge (the huge room – seating about 2,000 people – where the panels took place) about 20 minutes after the Star Trek panel had started. After I had picked up my bags from the hotel storage room, I crossed the lobby, still on a high and somewhat lost in thought. When I came across someone else, I stepped to the side to pass the person – and as it has probably happened to all of you at some point as well, the other person chose the same direction to pass me. After repeating the procedure about three times, I finally got my act together, laughed, started to apologize – and froze. It was LeVar Burton standing opposite to me. My surprised expression must have reassured him that I was not some crazy fan, trying something weird. He had just left the stage, checked out and needed to head to the airport as well. Since he had a car waiting outside, I was tempted – for a second – to ask for a ride. It sure would have been more comfortable than to take on the hour long trip by subway and bus. Needless to say, I kept my mouth shut.

Peter Jurasik

As during the two previous B5 panels I had quietly made my way up front and thanks to the very generous guests sitting in the first row I was once more able to crouch at their legs on the floor and take some awesome pictures of Peter.

When Marc B. Lee, the master of ceremonies, started to introduce Peter to the packed room, he was cut off by shouts from the balcony – it had been agreed that another fan vid should be shown, this time before the panel. The reminder came just in time – Marc had already started with ‘And here’s senator…’. Marc, either ambassador or emperor, but not senator. ;)

Now, I already knew the video very well and so I watched the audience. You won’t believe how hilarious it was to watch their faces. Confusion and raised eyebrows anywhere I looked. No one I saw put the pieces together, even though some obviously recognized the music. But when the end credit rolled and gave it away, the Mainbridge erupted in laughter and tumultuous applause. There could have been no better way to introduce Peter to the stage. Anyway, here’s the awesome video made by mayanvideos:

Peter was the only actor at FedCon to come to the stage with a book and severals pieces of paper under his arm; he placed everything next to a chair and squinted against the lights into the audience, which was cheering him on, still hyped by the video. When the applause finally subsided, Peter chuckled:

“There are many, many reasons why I wish Andreas Katsulas was among us tonight, and that is one of them. He would love that, that’s so funny. I’ve seen that before, it’s great, isn’t it? I wish he was here.”

Way to go tschilai, did you hear? He had seen your video before! And he was absolutely sincere about that.

As on the night before, Peter thanked the fans for giving him such a warm welcome and apologized for not speaking German. Once more, Peter stressed that he would answer all questions openly since the statue of limitations on B5 has expired:

“I will reveal anything. As I said last night, we are beyond the statue of limitation so they can’t sue me. I am so old that if I tell an outright lie, I can get away from it, saying “I was old, I forgot, alright?” — and he said that with his best Londo voice, hilarious! — “And if I don’t remember it, than maybe it didn’t happen.”

Over laughter, the first fan got to ask a question that made use of that promise – a question about the two captains:

Fan: “What was the biggest difference working with Bruce (Boxleitner) and Michael (O’Hare)?”

Peter: “There was a very big difference working with them. Michael O’Hare was an actor that had come from New York; I don’t think he had done too much television, he was put into a situation, where I think [regarding the fact he had the lead role as the captain] he was in over his head, so there was a lot of pressure on him. (Bruce) was particularly eloquent as the captain. He understood how to be number one and how to run the cast. It’s like running a team of horses, right? You have to know how to do that. Bruce was able to do that. You have to have that every man touch, you have to be easy, but you need to be strong, you have to show by example, but you can’t be a show off, so not everybody can do it.”

In saying so, Peter referred to what he said the night before while being on stage with his acting colleague when a smilar question popped up. Bruce Boxleitner answered it quite modestly, but Peter interjected and praised his friend’s ability to hold everything together – on stage and behind the scenes. He was quite vocal about it and Bruce Boxleitner was staring at his shoes all the time.

The next question revolved around “The Lost Tales”, the direct-to-video project JMS had announced and finished shooting in 2007. At the time of the convention (spring 2008), there was still the expectation among fans that there would be more “Lost Tales”. But that possibility has more or less evaporated for the moment, since JMS himself announced last year he would not do any more low budget B5 stuff. Back then, though, Peter answered the question affirmatively, but only as long as JMS wrote the story.

Peter (to audience): “Would you like to see my impression of Londo Mollari with no JMS?”

Over the cheering of the audience, Peter sat down on the chair on stage and stared straight ahead, not saying anything, not moving a muscle. Ok, I think everyone understood he was serious about not doing the job for the money, but for the passion and love for the character.

How great his performance of Londo during the five-year run of the show was got reflected in the next question. The fan wanted to know how Peter prepared for the scene onboard the Centauri battle ship, staring out of the window while Narn was being bombed from space. The scene is a fan favorite, even though I find Peter’s acting more powerful in a completely different scene. ¹

Peter: “I was very busy on getting away from my character, so as soon as the scene would stop, I would start to fool around and talk, and make good jokes on Londo, because I wanted to get away from Londo, he was all over me when I was acting. But John (John Flinn, director of photography) knew that about me and so he build this platform, it was ten feet high, and it was only as big as this box here and he put me up on top of it and left me up on top of it while they set up the shot, so I could talk to no one. And he said to me: ‘You just take the time to think about what this man’s doing. About this bombing that he’s doing.’”

Peter finished the recount by telling how he quieted it down after a while and when the scene was finally shot, he was most somber on his lonely post up in the air.

During all this time it was great to watch Peter Jurasik on stage. He didn’t stand still, he paced the whole width of the stage and enacted many parts of the things he said. Most impressive, though, was when he slipped in his ‘Londo voice’ – the deeper sound of his voice and the fake accent drew cheers every time. In addition, he always thanked the fans for their questions and repaid the compliments, creating a very friendly and open atmosphere in the room.

Echoing my thoughts, one fan in particular waited at the mic to just thank Peter for the time he spent with his fans during the autograph sessions and the time he took to speak with them throughout the entire convention when he was milling around in the lobby or the convention area. Peter himself said it was easy for him to be so generous with the people, he just wanted to give back some of the appreciation he was receiving day in and day out.

“Almost never someone comes up to me and says ‘I hate Babylon 5 and you particularly suck. Fuck you! No one ever does that at conventions! If you have the impulse, by all means, get it out!”

Well, thank god we are in Germany and don’t mind the swearing :D I wonder if he can say that at an US convention?

With the next question, the whole mainbridge (at least every B5 fan in there, and there seemed to be quite a bit) erupted in laughter:

Fan: “What do you want?”

Peter (into the audience): “If I could only see her better. Last night when I was on the dancefloor there was a few things that I wanted, but…’You don’t always get what you want.’ A great philosopher from the UK said that.”

By now there was a lack of oxygen in the room, as many fans remembered Peter’s dancing to YMCA the night before.

His recount on how he came up with the Centauri accent got a similar crowd reaction (and I have to admit, until I saw Peter interviewed on a clip on YouTube, after I had finished watching the entire show, I had no idea that accent was fake!). Having been criticized for his accent on an engagement prior to Babylon 5, he decided to come up with something no one could criticize him on:

“So I mixed some accents together with the very idea that no critic could ever come up and say ‘That’s a bad Centauri accent!’”

A good twenty minutes into the panel, tschilai made it to the mic and thanked Peter for the kind words he had for the fan video shown at the very beginning.

Peter: “You made that? Oh, you made that? I saw that before! Andreas would have loved that, he had such a great sense of humor. You know, people were almost afraid of him, of Andreas, when they first met him, but if you spent ANY time with him – those of you who met him know – what a warm man he was. Great guy.”

I don’t want to speculate, but I am pretty sure that praise must have felt awesome, didn’t it, tschilai? ? But of course, that was not all and:

tschilai: “I have two questions. Which do you want: easy B5 question or current political?”

Peter: “I don’t care. Make ‘em tough, baby!”

(tschilai refers to an earlier statement of Peter, how emotionally exhausting and thought provoking it was to play a character that was a leader and had to make terrible decisions. She drew a parallel to Mary McDonnell, who had said the day before how difficult it had been for her to play certain scenes. What did Peter think, did the George W. Bush feel pain and doubt over his decisions? The kind of pain we are shown in shows and movies by leading characters?)

Peter: “I don’t know, but it would be good to put him on a ship and fly him over Baghdad when we’re bombing it, right?”

And for that statement, Peter almost got a standing ovation. As it was, the ovation he got later, but at that moment, the Mainbridge was shaking with tumultuous applause.

Another humorous moment was when a fan, giggling so hard she could barely talk, made a mention about Peter’s last name:

Fan: “Do you know what the one thing is that always comes to my mind when I hear your last name, ‘Jurasik’?”

Peter: “No. You wanna come up and whisper it in my ear? Or you wanna say it and embarrass me in front of all of these people?”

Fan (shaking with laugher): “Jurassic Park.”

Peter (dryly): “And I am sure you think you are the first one who came up with that? I had no dinosaurs in my family. I had an uncle who was pretty fierce, but that’s about it.”

While the laughter was dying down, the infamous white smog that signaled the last five minutes of the panel, was blown on stage. First Peter didn’t notice, but the disappointed noises by the audience made him turn around. Realizing he didn’t have much time left, he asked if he should continue answer questions or tell a story about Andreas Katsulas, the wonderful actor portraying G’Kar. The roar from the audience was a clear vote in favor of Andreas.

Peter sat down, picked up a folder, but then got up again.

“I don’t wanna make fun of Andreas, I don’t wanna exploit him in any way, but I do wanna talk about him because people link the two of us together because of our work. And so I just want to read something that I wrote for a little biography that they are doing about him. And I’ll show you some pictures of him, really quick.”

And Peter held up the pictures shown below, earning a cheer from the audience for the ones of Andreas in make-up, but only quietness for the last one.

When Peter started to read out the excerpt, I put the camera down in respect and listened … as did 2,000 other people in an unusually quiet manner, realizing that this was a very human tribute from one friend to another (part of the excerpt follows):

“He carried himself with a quiet, easy confidence, but he had a rich and dynamic personality. He stood out in any crowd without effort. He was proud of his hard working Greek-American heritage and sentimental about the people and the traditions of his extended family. He was then, as always, completely private, about his spiritual believes.

I try not to forget that long before the mind of JMS ever imagined the superb character of G’Kar, Andreas already had a full and successful life and his art. His acting career rested confidently on a seventeen year working relationship with the British theater icon Peter Brook and his amazing acting troupe, in which Andreas distinguished himself in live performances worldwide.

Audiences had watched Andreas’ acting magic all over the world, from the shadows of the pyramids in Egypt, to the formal theaters of Paris, in empty dirt field and market places of remote African villages back again to command performances for royalty in the Persian palaces of Iran.  Anyone who is ‘in the know’ and had been around world class theater knew Andreas Katsulas and his work. By the time he treated us to his work on the soundstages of Babylon 5 he had already been a significant mark in Hollywood in many films and lots of fine TV.

We were lucky to have Andreas in our cast and we all knew him. As far as his work as G’Kar goes, I suspect that you (points at the audience) may have a better perspective than I do on his contribution to that character, to Babylon 5 as a whole. As the saying goes, I am blind to the forest for the trees. But I looked into the eyes of G’Kar more than anyone else. I worked day to day with Andreas in a rare relationship actors share. I know of the love, the life and the light that he poured into G’Kar.

(…)

For my part, I remember him as a simple, strong willed man who lived his life on his own terms. A true lover of life with an enormous appetite for all of its pleasures and his easy open laugh regarding its mysteries and uncertainties. (…) And in the end, most importantly for me, a friend, a good friend, gone away. I miss him often. I look forward to sharing the good luck of his light again, someday, somewhere, soon.”

After he spoke the last word, the quietness lingered for another moment over the audience before almost 2,000 people rose to their feet and gave Peter a standing ovation that lasted so long he had to come out from behind the curtain three times. It was only the second standing ovation of that entire weekend, and it was the only time, when I turned around and looked at the fans next to me, that I saw oh so many of them with tears running down their cheeks. Even while writing about this, the memory chokes me up, that’s how powerful it had been.

Going home

And with that an incredibly exciting weekend ended for me. It had been my first convention and I had the luck of meeting not only the stars I liked most, but also a lot of other fans who shared in my craziness and now even friendships beyond the virtual message boards have developed through that contact.

The new FedCon in 2009 is only three weeks away and I am sure, it will be another great experience.

I will see you then, on the other side of the blog.

The complete FedCon 17 reports:

• Friday Part 1 (Arrival and first impressions)
• Friday Part 2 (Panel Bruce Boxleitner)
• Saturday Part 1 (Goings-on, Nicky Clyne, Leah Cairns, Jamie Bamber, Mary McDonnell, Michael Shanks)
• Saturday Part 2 (Panel of Bruce Boxleitner and Peter Jurasik)
• Sunday Part 1 (Panel Sorbo and Bacic)
• Photo Gallery
• Art Gallery

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