Top Five Favorite Con Celebrity Meetings

Welcome to Five by Friday! Every week, we’ll provide a nerdy topic of our choice, and start the game rolling with our own lists. Sometimes, we’ll work together on one list of five (as we did this week) and sometimes we’ll provide our own individual lists. Join us in the comments or on your own blog–we’ve even provided a graphic for you, which you can either save to your own space or link from tinypic using the HTML code below. Just remove the asterisks, and you’re all set!

This week’s Five by Friday takes a look at some of our favorite celebrities we’ve met at over the years attending Dragon Con. The guest list is usually filled with super nice people (although there are a few entitled jerks thrown in) and while we’ve been lucky enough to meet quite a few stars of our favorite TV shows and movies, we’ve narrowed it down to the people who really stood out.

Five by Friday

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Craig Parker

For those that know her, Teija’s love of Lord of the Rings is no secret. She grew up with the books and naturally fell in love with the movies when Peter Jackson put out the original trilogy. One of the biggest surprises was how much she found herself attached to Haldir, a marchwarden of Lorien. Something about the actor portraying him just drew her right in. Imagine her excitement when a few years later, she discovered the same actor playing Darken Rahl in Legend of the Seeker. When it was announced that Craig Parker would be at Dragon Con 2009, it was only natural that she wanted to meet him. When we approached his table, he was surprisingly alone. He was simply standing in front of his table, chatting with the passers-by that would stop to talk, and he was more than happy to spend some time chatting with us and signing a photo before posing for this picture.

Teija and Craig Parker at Dragon Con 2009. © Sarah Brown.

Teija and Craig Parker at Dragon Con 2009. © Sarah Brown.

Gareth David-Lloyd

Teija’s younger sister Jenni absolutely LOVES Gareth David-Lloyd and he was the one person she was determined to meet at DC 2009. Sarah hadn’t actually seen Torchwood yet, but she tagged along and decided it couldn’t hurt to ask him if he’d take a photo with Jenni. He was incredibly apologetic, saying since he was working with the official Con photographers, he wasn’t allowed to do candids at the Walk of Fame. Totally understandable, so she thanked him and returned to deliver the sad news to Jenni.

A few minutes later, still standing in the Walk of Fame chatting with our group of friends, someone tapped Sarah on the shoulder and she turned to see Gareth standing there. He explained that he was heading down for a smoke and if we’d like to follow we could get our photo.  He was so incredibly gracious and went out of his way to make sure Jenni got her photo with him, even eating into his own little break away from the madness. Definitely one of the highlights of that weekend.

Bex, Jenni. and I with Gareth David-Lloyd Dragon Con 2009. © Sarah Brown.

Bex, Jenni. and Sarah with Gareth David-Lloyd Dragon Con 2009. © Sarah Brown.

Tricia Helfer

We met Tricia Helfer at our very first Con, back when the Walk of Fame was in the odd shaped little room at the very bottom of the Marriott. It was 2005 and we had just returned from our year in England where we had managed to get our hands on the first season of Battlestar Galactica. We were completely hooked and therefore completely starstuck when we saw Tricia Helfer sitting at her table. Since BSG had only just started and didn’t have quite the following it gathered in subsequent seasons, there was no line to stop and talk to her. She had also been a last-minute addition to the guest list, and was there taking donations to aid in Louisiana after hurricane Katrina. We ended up spending quite a bit of time standing around and chatting with her as she was thrilled to see women expressing an enthusiastic interested in sci-fi shows. She was friendly, down to earth, and an absolute pleasure to speak with.

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Teija, Sarah, and Amy with Tricia. Dragon Con 2005. Photo © Teija Johanson.

James Marsters

When it was announced that James Marsters would be at Dragon Con 2009, we knew we had to see him. Having grown up watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer as it aired, only a few years younger than Buffy herself, the show was an incredibly important part of both our formative years. Of all the celebrities we’ve taken the time to get in line for and meet at Con, James was probably the one that got us the most star-struck. We held it together while chatting with him–we brought up how we watched as it aired, and he was very enthusiastic in telling us that we were the target age group of that show and it made him so glad that the show meant as much to us as it did to him. After getting our photos signed and maintaining a relative calm in front of him, we definitely scurried away to flail around a little bit out of his line of sight. After all, we’d just met William the Bloody.

James Marsters. Dragon Con 2009. © Sarah Brown.

James Marsters. Dragon Con 2009. © Sarah Brown.

Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk

Teija’s sister Jenni was determined to get signed photos for both Nathan and Alan, and asked us to join her in line, so we did (it was a very, very long line). When she finally got to the front of this line and started getting Nathan’s signature, he asked us what we would want and we told him we were just joining her in line. We got ourselves a proper Nathan Fillion reaction (there may have been jokeful dismissive hand-waving), and while that was going on, Alan Tudyk cleared up for signatures. We chatted with him while Jenni wrapped up what she was doing with Nathan, and told him that we had recently been to an advanced screening of Death at a Funeral. He was incredibly excited to hear that we had already been able to see it and asked us what we thought. We had loved it, and we told him so. It was one of the more memorable conversations we’ve had with celebrities at Con, even if we didn’t come away with any evidence of having met him in the end. It’s all right. We’re sure he’ll be back.

Footage Not Found

Sadly, as they were two incredibly in-demand celebrities, we were not able to get any pictures of them or with them.

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