Minneapolis Xena/Herc convention.
Report and photos by: Lisa Westerveld
On the 30th of July 1999 I attended the Minneapolis Xena/Herc convention. I arrived at the
convention a little out of it, 4 hours sleep in 28 hours was not enough but my excitement over what was to come eventually pulled me out of my stupor and I headed off to buy some merchandise.
I bought a picture of Danielle Cormack and Claire Stansfield so I could
have them sign them. I was very disappointed in the Claire Stansfield
one. The 'picture people' claimed that they thought Gina Torres was
going to be there and they printed off a lot of her but not Claire.
Hence had to rush out and scan in a picture and colour print that. The
quality of the picture sucked and it was only normal A4 size L I was
excited when I got my ticket, FRONT ROW!! WAHOO!!!
Showed a clip of Iolas, which was ok, kept hearing comments from people
not wanting to see any Hercules just Xena, understandable. Then they
showed the Australian 60 minutes clip with Charles Wooley. It went down
well with the Americans; they laughed and cheered at the end. Then came
the trivia competition where 3 people went up on to the stage and the
audience got to ask questions, when a question stumped them, other
audience members could answer them. I won something when they got
stumped on "What breed of dog is the one in The Bitter Suite?" The first
audience member said Lhasa Apso, wrong. I then answered Maltese CORRECT!!
I won a CD ROM game based on the Bacchae. They then did a Salute to Ares
GROWWWWLLLL! To "Bad to the Bone." It was cool. Then came the Auction.
A Salute to Xena, Wonderwoman and Supergirl which was made by a fan. It
Rocked!!
Then came DANIELLE CORMACK!!! She talked about her horrid flight from
New Xenaland, which she flew in economy??##!** Up the back of the
plane and she sat next to an Australian girl who wouldn't stop moving
around (usual New Xenaland/Australia rivalry came out during this
explanation) she put on her Aussie accent. She also talked about her
obsession for duty free shopping and how she loves perfumes. She said
she thinks that she sprayed so much perfume over herself that she was
still feeling hungover from all the perfume she sprayed.
Also spoke about how she didn't really see Lucy and Renee off set but how
nice they are. A girl then asked was she fired or did she choose to
leave the show. She was like, "You want to be a bit blunter next time?
Hold on while I kill you." A baby kept crying during all this and she kept
on apologizing to it saying how she wanted to comfort it. I guess her
maternal instincts were showing. She also spoke about the comments that
flew around the set about her conceiving a centaurs bay, i.e. How did you
do it? Also talked about the dirge she sang and then went on to sing it.
She would sing Ahhh ah ah ah ahhh ah ahhhh deep breath ahhh ah ah ah ah
ahhhh ahhh. Hehehe. Then she did the, "AMAZON'S ATTACK!!!" Yell facing
away from us all and with one hand in the air. She talked about her tattoo
on her ankle of a fish with these patterns in it and then she left. They
then showed the Xena blooper reels, which are hysterically funny. Musical
salute to Xena. INTERMISSION. Musical salute to Gabrielle done to "You're
my hero." Then showed the making of The Bitter Suite, which was
interesting. They showed one part where Renee is fooling around behind
someone's head and her and Lucy start giggling. Also Renee lying on the
Alter and singing loudly Love Will be Our Guide. Then came the costume
competition, no matter how much bagging Joxer gets, the kid who dressed up
as him won, in the adult section, Cupid. Then showed Bloopers of Hercules.
Musical salute to X:WP the show.
Then came CLAIRE STANSFIELD. She Rocked, a very funny person. She
talked about how she got the part and how she didn't realise the role they
wanted her for was Alti (described in scripts initially as an old hag).
She thought they wanted her to play the amazon Cyane and when she found out
it was Alti she was like "Ummmm, excuse me, did you read the f**king
description?" Then had them change the script where they call Alti an
old hag although people didn't remember and was called an old hag several
times. She then went on to describe how in an upcoming episode of Season
5, they were going to have her appear naked and she was like, "Hmmmmm, ok
I have done this before when I was on The X-Files (Jersey Devil). I had
a long wig that was glued to my tits and a lot of body paint so I can deal
with it." They scrapped the idea though and just changed her outfit to a
skimpier one. Cinched in waist and more cleavage (much to Lucy's
chagrin.Supposedly the heavily pregnant Lucy wanted the nudity!!) She
then went on to talk about how Lucy goes home early due to her pregnancy
tiring her out and so that left Claire to do all of her scenes to a cross
made out of gaffer tape onto a wall. Then talked about a line in Them
Bones, Them Bones where Alti says a sexually explicit line to Xena, an
'overtly sexual offer.' She was once sent a script and they didn't give
her 2 whole pages of the monologue J hehehe. Interesting when it came
time to say her lines and she didn't know them all. Talked about her
admiration for New Xenaland and the Maori's. About how Renee will read
information on a subject so she knows as much as possible about it and how
great she was. Talked about how she came up with Alte's voice. She
watched Merlin one night and really liked one of the characters' voices.
She went into the studios the next day and said, "Hey did you hear that
voice?" They were like, "Yeah! That is exactly what we want." Claire
said her natural voice is a bit higher pitched and so she tends to lower
her voice when talking to people. One day she spoke to her agent or
someone and then they rang her back and when she answered in her like a
weakling. She said that they didn't care about her acting skills, just
how she looked as a woman, "No talking Claire, Run!!" "Xena's coming.
Did you idiots think I wouldn't know??"
YAHOOO!! She said that when she first said that at a con, she wanted to snatch the words right back because she felt she'd insulted them all by calling them idiots. Her
boyfriend is a closet Xenaphile; he would stay up late and watch Xena
without her knowing it and how he knew all the character names. When
Lucy came over to their house, she thought he'd die!! One day they all
went and played golf and Lucy began fooling around with the golf clubs and
started swinging them like her swords and he was just in heaven!! Her
boyfriend also had trouble with Lucy's name and kept calling her Xena J
Claire kept telling him off, "Her name's Lucy, please use it!!" BYE
CLAIRE!!! Tribute to Joxer which was great. AUTOGRAPHS!! YAY!! I was
about number 6 to go up and I had this BIG picture of Danielle and when
she saw it she went, "Oh My God!!!" I don't know if it was because of
the size of it or because of her cleavage J. She did try and cover it
with a little sketch of herself over that area J. I said something about
how I hated the flight and how I had this New Xenaland girl sitting next
to me on the way over and how she kept moving, getting up, etc. She was
like "Oh where are you from?" "Australia." "Where?" "Australia!" I think
she then thought about how she sounded during her talk about the annoying
Aussie sitting next to her on the plane and grinned. Then I went on to
Claire and she asked me where I was from. "Australia!" "Oh, WOW!!"
she said. Then I had to move on and that was it.