JIB Mostly pics and a few words on Lucifer

I'm going to post the images in batches. Each image was around 4MB large so I'm not posting them that size, plus to be honest the perfectly clear non blurry ones are as rare as hen's teeth, but I'm posting some of the blurry ones because they are just fun.

I had the privilege of talking to Mark Pellegrino twice on Sunday. Once in the morning with Rob Benedict ( and honestly he really takes the cake for being the nicest most affable, friendliest, completely humble guy at the con - I think he would be the guy out of all the ones there who would take the longest to get irritated or annoyed or pissed off and I frankly can't even imagine him with a stormy expression ever, just super super sweet ) and then later by himself. Mark totally bemused me. His first Q&A on the stage he was by himself and it's a bit hard to describe what he was like. Picture Sebastian's complete gregariousness and energy and inability to filter anything that comes out and now invert that. Mark was like the antithesis of Sebastian's panel. I can't say he was softly spoken, that wasn't it, everyone definitely paid attention to that very identifying underlying Lucifer tone - but he was quietly and deliberately spoken. He was thinking about what he way saying and he mostly had an inquiring tone as he tried to decipher what people were asking and if he could give a satisfactory answer. He was totally gracious and very pleased to be there but at the same time didn't get overly animated at any point really.

His Meet and Greets were a different story. I'm not sure if it was too much caffeine or if I just triggered an invested issue for him but I asked about (given that we haven't seen the final three episodes yet) where he would like to see Lucifer go in terms of the storyline of Supernatural so far where we are up to. And after explaining to Rob (who hadn't caught up on the show) where Lucifer was currently residing and how he is manifested so far this season Mark announced that he would really like to see Lucifer rise up or escape his confinement and go back to being more of the epic big bad he's supposed to be. He's Satan for crying out loud and Mark felt that Lucifer feels a little frustrated by his ineffectiveness right now, he's emasculated and not really able to have any kind of realistic impact on the state of things right now. I think the word he wanted to use was that he felt Lucifer was somewhat impotent right now in terms of his usual clout. Then Mark turned around and said Where would you like to see him go and I explained that whilst I was glad the Lucifer issue wasn't solved directly and so easily, in that it has now transferred to Castiel, I thought I didn't really see where it could go from here without having some kind of trite solution or without ending Cas forever. But I mentioned Michael as well - since he technically was in the cage still with Lucifer. And then Mark got all belligerent about that - saying I know right? It totally sucks I'm stuck in the cage with that little cocksucker. LOL! I hate him. Fucking Michael. And Mark said Lucifer has no love for Cas either and he'd like to see Lucifer break out of Cas's body with as much physical torment as possible.

He remembers very well trying to convince Gabriel and Cas and Michael to join him but his brothers weren't having it so now he wants to rip them apart. It was kinda amusing how strident he got about all this. Of course I managed to set him off again by saying yeah but isn't he just a turfed out angel with daddy issues, throwing a tantrum? Good lord. Mark should be a lawyer - he then spent the next ten minutes arguing totally for Lucifer's point of view saying what kind of father asks their creations to love another completely inferior species over him, Mark then listed all the horrible things that humans do etc etc, and I stated well surely Lucifer's father holds his angels to a higher standard than the humans because humans are so imperfect and full of flaws and then he started arguing that yeah but surely a loving father allows his children to be independent and to have their own opinions and to choose their own path and doesn't punish his children when his children decide not to do something based on their own opinions, choices on the matter.

And then he said besides what the hell kind of father creates a son named Jesus and then tells him he has to die for the sins of these humans? LOL! Mark pointed out that even Jesus was like why hast thou forsaken me? and that Jesus faltered and wanted to bail a couple of times on this whole loving humanity gig. He came back to me and asked if I still didn't side with Lucifer a little and I grinned and said yeah okay maybe a little bit. Thinking in my head it really wouldn't be a problem if Lucifer just wiped out the complete psychotic nutters in the world and just left the sane ones but I really didn't think Lucifer was going to differentiate and I felt that might instigate another long, probably amusing, debate on why Lucifer should just wipe out the entire human race instead of just the bad apples.

We then got onto the discussion of acting as someone in there had listened to him speak about the fact that he teaches acting in LA at the Group Theatre school I think. Pacific Valley? Not sure I can remember the details. And they asked him what is the first piece of advice that would give to someone who wanted to try acting. His first piece of advice would be that to make sure that they treat acting as a craft. It's not just a job or a way to get glamour and fame and money etc but that it is a craft and that ninety per cent of those industry are crap because Hollywood is stupid and rewards a pretty face with no application towards craftmanship in the business. He told us that where he teaches they teach the Meisner method which is basically that you work in the moment, you really imagine that this set, these props, these people in front of you are real and that you act from that, you don't worry about memorising lines or where you need to stand, sit, move to you simply just be in the moment and let it happen. I found that fascinating and he did mention later on in his panel that if we ever got the chance he'd love to invite us to sit in on a class that he teaches. Mark stressed that he wanted to make sure that nobody was misunderstanding him, he does feel these big budget popular main stream films definitely have a place in that they can frequently contain the elements of really good story telling and he loves to escape. He likened the effect of such movies as equivalent to reading a book like The Notebook. He's just tried his hand at reading a very dark book callled Everyman by Phillip Roth and he found that extremely heavy and depressing and just plain horrible it's got two divorces in it, a life crumbling down, terminal cancer etc etc etc and Mark was like - that's not what I want to read to escape to, to be lifted up and then he picked up The Notebook and he knew it was not that great writing and that it was somewhat trashy but it made him feel good anyway because it was a story of love surviving through all adversity and no matter what befell these characters they still had this love and he was all like sighing with contentment and happiness with this book. Mark was just so animated about it all it was just so entertaining listening to him.

I did manage to get a question into Rob about which business did him better fiscally speaking music or acting and he laughed and said that he never really thinks of it that way. Acting has always been his passion since he was young and that was where always his drive was, and that when he started this band thing 15 or so years ago he had no idea where it was going to do and it was just something he liked doing in his free time and it's kind of taken on a life of it's own now but it is still very much like his happy place in terms of his approach to it. There's no where near the kind of work ethic he applies to acting with it and he thinks that's a good thing, that if he put the kind of pressure on himself that he does with acting that he would probably grow to not like it as much. That the ambition of say must nail down a record label and release and album would become too much and overshadow the enjoyment for him. And Mark added in here that that was a really good point in acting as well, that you can have too much ambition and if that ambition is totally goal oriented on must be a star by such and such a stage etc well then your craft can suffer. But he also pointed out that there are so many crap actors out there because they don't actually treat it with enough work ethic. They're not losing sleep rehearsing, trying to get themselves on stage, trying to hone their craft and then Mark quoted the great Rod Steiger saying he remembers him saying that Steiger always said to be a good actor you should be performing on stage at least twice a week.

There was also a comment in the other Meet and Greet about how many actors, many good actors often seem to be using the profession as a bit of therapy as well. And Mark totally agreed with this, he did feel that many such greats often didn't have fantastic wonderful childhoods, broken families are common in the backgrounds and that yeah, some of them are definitely filling that void, the basic human need to feel loved and worthwhile and that acting done well can fill that. He said that he came from a broken family and he did think it was a bit like therapy for him to be able to act and to wear this new person and also that it was creating a wall for them, somewhat like protection.

So that was Mark. He's awesome and menacing without trying and a total softie for his two little Dachshunds - Frankie and Abby (he showed me pics on his phone and yeah for sausage dogs they're pretty damn cute - although he wanted to interrogate me about my opinions on Cesar Milan once he heard I was off to Belgium for the World Dog Agility Champs and I expressed a tone of disapproval over Cesar's name lol! Luckily he never got to!). I have utmost respect for him. He said he really enjoyed the meet and greets because we were getting into some gritty topics and having morality debates and talking shop on a non trivial non superfical way. He hates frivolous superficial talk he says, so maybe (due to some of the questions - one of which was mine I totally admit - I asked what would be on Lucifer's bucket list - bit redundant really) that was why he was somewhat diluted down in the stage Q&A.

Changeover - Jared and Misha leaving stage whilst Brock and Jim come on.

This is the end of Jared and Misha's Q&A, they had to give a stuffed toy to a fan...but they didn't wanna go near her as she had
promised to kick Misha's ass due to the fact that he was being an ass when she was trying to ask Jared a question (he was like making noises every time she'd go to speak cos he was pissed the question wasn't for him and he kept going on and on and on and on and apparently Jared was just laughing his ass off! I missed all this cos of Jensen's M&G but

netlynn was there and she told me all about it.) So Jared was acting all like his bodyguard and actually giving a great opportunity for ass shots I must say LOL!! I'm not really this shallow. Usually. ;-)

Changeover between Sebastian/Richard/Mark panel to Jensen and Misha, if you notice the screen behind Sebastian is making finger puppets on the camera pretending to give Jensen a big kiss. I'm pretty sure there was an open bar back there in the green room.

When Jensen and Misha came on stage one of the first things mentioned was the fact that things can get a little awkward sometimes between Jen and Misha when they're acting. So they promptly did the whole body language impromptu awkward improv as Jensen talks. Misha is totally the girl.