STAR-STUDDED LINEUP

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/10/2011 (5441 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a funny thing about interviewing guests of the Comic Con: They often have as many questions for me as I have for them.

Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation) for example, wanted to know what kind of numbers the convention attracts. (Last year’s con attracted more than 20,000 visitors, according to publicist Shelley Ostrove.) He also wants to know if he should expect any serious cold weather. (Not that he is intimidated. Frakes has lived in Maine.)

Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) wanted to know if he could expect to see the Manitoba Moose play. (I had the pleasure of informing him that Winnipeg is back in the NHL. Alas, no game is scheduled this weekend and if there were, you’d have to be Hercules to score a ticket.)

Sorbo evidently caught a Moose game a few years back when he shot the 2007 cable horror movie Something Beneath in town. Curiously, his favourite Winnipeg memory is the smell of the gym at the downtown YMCA, where he would relax by shooting a few hoops before doing his cardio regimen. “Basketball is more my game than hockey,” says the Minnesota-born actor. “And I love the smell of a wood gym.”

He also recalls really having to act on some of the colder days of the movie shoot, when his character might have been obliged to talk about what a beautiful day it was, while the actors reserved their bouts of shivering for between takes.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised by the questions. The Comic Con is, among other things, a sci-fi fan convention, and the purpose is to allow interactive contact between stars and their admirers. Frakes, on the phone from Los Angeles, says when he signed on to Star Trek: The Next Generation in the role of Commander Riker in 1987, he had no idea what was in store for him, as far as the rabid Star Trek fan base was concerned.

“Michael Dorn was a big Trekker and Wil Wheaton. But Patrick (Stewart), Brent (Spiner) and I came at it without a full awareness of the power of Kirk and Spock and the title,” he says. “We learned fast.”

Indeed, Star Trek continues to be a magnetic attraction. While the 2011 convention hosts the usual contingent of comic-book artists, wrestlers (Bret “The Hitman” Hart) and sci-fi/fantasy performers representing a spectrum of shows such as Battlestar Galactica to Xena: Warrior Princess, it looks an awful lot like a Star Trek convention. Credit headliner William Shatner, who appears Sunday. Frakes represents The Next Generation (Spiner cancelled his appearance several weeks ago, but has been slotted into the 2012 convention) joining actors from Star Trek: Voyager (Ethan Phillips) and Deep Space Nine (Chase Masterson and Nana Visitor).

Frakes says he enjoys the experience of the conventions and remains in awe of the staying power of Star Trek in all its incarnations.

“My show is 25 years old! Bill (Shatner)’s show is 45 years old, and we still draw a crowd, people still show up, and they have that wonderful attitude,” Frakes says, while acknowledging that some Trekkers cross the line to fanaticism. “They’re out there. There’s a 0.01 per cent of the fans, so you do keep your eyes open. You never want to let your shields down.”

For his part, Sorbo has encountered some unfiltered fan response in his capacity as both a star of action fantasy (Hercules, Kull the Conqueror) and science fiction (he played the captain on the series Andromeda from 2000 to 2005.)

“I’ve had people say things like ‘I hated Hercules, but I loved Andromeda,'” says Sorbo, who adds his accumulated 200 hours of TV subsequent to those series has made him recognizable to a different generation. “Kids will approach me who don’t know Hercules or Andromeda from Adam, but they’ll say, ‘Oh my God, you were the dad on The O.C.!'”

Frakes claims the conventions can be as fun for the actors as they are for the fans.

“I always look forward to the conventions because you’re surrounded by people who have liked what you’re blessed to be a part of,” he says. “It’s all in good fun and it’s such a great gift.”

For a complete rundown of guests and activities, log onto www.c4con.com

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Event Preview

2011

Central

Canada

Comic Con

Winnipeg Convention Centre

Oct. 28-30

— Single-day ticket: $15