The last day of Fan Expo Canada 2024. Waking up early is painful, but FOMO is worse. We weren’t going to miss the last day of the con and the few panels we’d planned to attend. Would we get into our panels on time or would the queues get in the way? Here’s the fourth and final volume of our con diary. ICYMI, you can catch up and read Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
Louis: Our first panel of the day was for The Mandalorian with Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, and Temuera Morrison. We got there with a minute to spare — some of us had to stop for breakfast. The queue of people was almost completely seated by then, but we found a spot just off to the right of the stage. Not the worst. Within minutes, the panelists appeared, first Esposito and then Swallow. No Morrison. To say I was crushed was an understatement. I feel like we’ve been watching Morrison all our lives, and his Jango Fett is still the coolest character ever to appear in Star Wars. In my opinion at least. Nevertheless, the panel plugged on.
Swallow hilariously spoke about being drawn into the Star Wars universe because of her love for Ewoks. She had Ewok dolls and used to have Ewok adventures with them in the backyard. Esposito went the more traditional route: he spoke about being torn between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. But about 20 years ago, Esposito was doing a Broadway show where one of his castmates’ dad Steve became a friend of his. Steve turned to Esposito for literary recommendations and was so impressed that he thought Esposito was a Jedi and was going to be in Star Wars one day. When Esposito got the role of Moff Gideon, the first person he called was his friend Steve.
Speaking of the secretiveness involved in working on Star Wars, Esposito said he didn’t really know what a Moff was and, when he first joined, he wasn’t sure where the character was going. But when he’s given good writing, he can pick up notes to inform his character. For Moff Gideon, he had the direction: “Assume I know everything.” Gideon is ahead of the curve, but he’s not smug about it. Esposito thinks of Gideon as a hero who has fallen from grace. Gideon had ideas that he thought were needed for the longevity of the Empire, but nobody else believed him. Esposito particularly enjoyed that Gideon could do all the things that everyone in the Star Wars universe would like to do, like flying tie fighters and wielding the darksaber.
When speaking on what got them into character, both Esposito and Swallow said the trappings of the costume helped them get into character. When Jon Favreau asked Esposito if he wanted anything for the character, Esposito immediately asked for a cape. It got him into the physicality and mentality of the character. For Swallow, wearing a full costume that covered her face meant she had to unlock the “delicious puzzle” of her character. It’s difficult to know in editing when their characters will be highlighted in an ensemble scene, and Swallow was aware that when the camera was tight on them, every movement would be highlighted. Since Swallow struggles to remain still, she had to learn that stillness from the Armourer.
The audience got insight into the now iconic line: “This is the way.” So secretive was The Mandalorian that Swallow didn’t know what show she was auditioning for but during her audition, she said the phrase and people repeated it back to her which made her realise that this was clearly an important line in the show. She actually loves that we don’t know much about the Armourer — she enjoys the mystery of the character.
Finally, Temuera Morrison did show up and what a personality he turned out to be! He sang an impromptu Star Wars song with some delightful references to Tatooine, banthas, and Mos Espa. This entrance definitely made up for him waking up late.
The panel shared their memories of Carl Weathers. Morrison met him at an Atlanta convention, and they pretended to spar ala Rocky. Esposito shared a funny story about working with Weathers on The Gentlemen when they were discussing shoes. Weathers couldn’t decide about getting shoes made until Esposito finally convinced him to get them. Weathers did. Swallow wasn’t sure what she’d talk to Weathers about, but they realized that they shared a love for theatre.
There was one last surprise in store for the audience. As the panel concluded, a Jango Fett cosplayer appeared on stage, followed by a host of the 501st Legion. The Jango Fett cosplayer asked Morrison to lead the 501st in a Haka. What a treat. I know Morrison has performed the Haka at events before, but I didn’t imagine I’d get to see it myself. It was incredible to see in real life and made me surprisingly emotional.
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Mon: Following the Star Wars panel, we raced out to another Star Wars-related panel.
The Bryce Dallas Howard session had fewer people in it than I expected, but it turned out to be a really fun session. She’s very aware of her family’s long history in Hollywood, but is also very fond of her family. It’s seems, per her, anyway, that they’re a normal, flawed, and loving unit who have been supportive of one another.
Howard was vivacious at her session—the bubbly personality that’s always brimming at the surface of her roles is evident in how she engages with an audience.
She talked a little about her directing, including learning more over the years. For example, she learned about the silent take from Gus Van Sant, and she uses that in her work now. A silent take is the second to last take of a scene where the actors act out the scene without any dialogue. She doesn’t need it as much when working on The Mandalorian because, as she said, a lot of the takes are already silent, but in other projects, the take following the silent take is usually “dazzling.”
She’s also learned to give actors three takes—when appropriate—to see what they bring and how they “dazzle,” before she gives them notes. Howard said she wished she’d remembered that her father had got a similar note when Ron Howard worked with George Lucas on Willow. Better late than never.
While she said that she can’t take much credit for what’s done on The Mandalorian, she does take credit for the romantic subplot in the season one episode “Sanctuary.” Howard loves romance and wanted to include that in the episode. She’s also the one who asked for the woman farmer to have a name – because of course the men behind the scenes didn’t bother. Her assistant at the time came up with the name Omera.
Howard briefly talked about the new Star Wars show Skeleton Crew. She loved working on it, and it helped that she went to university with the showrunners.
In response to a fan question about her performance in The Village, Howard explained that she loved playing the role and worked closely with the visually impaired community to create a believable performance. I was surprised when she followed this up by saying that there are many great actors with visual impairments who haven’t got opportunities and it’s up to the system to fix that so that in the future a role like that of Ivy Walker in The Village, who is visually impaired, is played by someone who is also visually impaired.
Louis: Something similar happened at the Echo of Hill House session. An audience member asked about Kate Siegel’s role in Hush, and Siegel apologised for the hurt the film had caused the deaf community and that they’d learned a great deal since then.
Mon: Howard was also asked about how she ran in heels in Jurassic World. Now, her character, Claire Dearing, is controversial because of many reasons. Howard did not delve into those issues, but she did talk about the thinking behind the infamous scene(s) of Claire running in heels. Turns out, Howard did ask for her character to have some boots so she’d have more protection in the jungle, but the costume designers didn’t want to foreshadow that the character would eventually be in peril so they kept the heels.
Director Colin Trevorrow gave Howard the option of losing the heels and running barefoot. Howard was not going to run around barefoot in a jungle, so she kept the heels. And, to make sure she could do all that running, she brought in her martial arts background and used boards to do several calf exercises. It’s about balance, Howard explained because it’s essentially running on your “tippy toes.” It worked out for her, but she joked about how no one on set complimented her for running so well in heels. At least the audience at Fan Expo did.
While we can’t forgive the creators of Jurassic World for creating the problematic character of Claire, I do love how Howard has found a way to, quite literally, run with what material she was given.
Louis: We then trudged off to the South building where I attended the I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost Stories panel presented by the Horror Writers Association. The panel included Sèphera Girón, CC Adams, Ai Jiang, and Tim McGregor and was moderated by Jessica Peter. I was looking forward to this session because, even though I’m not a huge horror fan, as a true-blue Bengali, I love a good ghost story.
The discussion opened with how the authors defined ghosts. For McGregor, ghosts embody a secret or sin from the past which informs the present. Jiang looked at things differently, saying ghosts were essentially us but in an afterlife setting – they’re beings stuck in a time and unable to move on either because of greed, loss, or a continued fear of death. Adams felt ghosts were a remnant of something living which could be a human or an object because there are people or emotions connected to it. For Girón, writing ghost stories means trying to connect with people that she’s lost.
The topic of tropes evoked an unexpected discussion around whether the writers and audience considered ghost stories and haunting stories to be one and the same. While tropes themselves don’t seem to matter in horror writing anymore, largely due to cross-genre fiction, the audience were in disagreement about whether hauntings and ghosts were the same. Many in the audience said people can be haunted by more than just ghosts.
When talking about the purpose of a ghost story, McGregor said it’s about the ghost forcing the protagonist to deal with what’s actually haunting them which may not be the actual ghost. Other times, it could be about leading the protagonist to bring peace to the ghost. Jiang echoed a similar sentiment that ghosts are there to teach the protagonist about the past. But once again, Jiang threw in an unexpected plot twist by suggesting that ghosts could inadvertently drag the protagonist back into thinking about the past. Adams further echoed McGregor, saying ghosts as antagonists were meant to make protagonists confront something.
The writing tips section was what I was looking forward to. My love for ghost stories has not translated into writing good ones. Girón told the audience to write what scares us. Adams reiterated to the audience a couple of times that ghosts aren’t living beings, so they don’t have human sensibilities. Even if the ghost’s motivation is somewhat human, it doesn’t go about it in a human way. Jiang told budding writers to evoke people they’d lost, to remember places they were no longer at, and even use past regrets as inspiration. McGregor’s advice was to remember that everyone’s take on ghost stories is subjective. Bringing one’s authentic self to the writing is what will make the story unique because it is unique to that writer.
While I enjoyed this session, I was under the false impression that I would be attending a session similar to a Bengali adda – a communal chat – where the panelists would share the ghost stories that inspired their writing. That’s not what I got. I would have also liked if the writers had shared some tips on how to create the rules for their ghost stories, but since I didn’t pluck up the courage to ask the question, that’s on me.
Mon: I caught my last panel of the con — Wolverine at 50. The panel featured Jim Zub, Steve McNiven, Stephen Platt, Marc Silvestri, as well as Jackson Lanzing, who wasn’t on the roster originally but joined late to represent the Laura version of Wolverine who he’s writing in the current NYX series.
This was essentially a retrospective of the beloved character told by creators who’ve worked on iterations of Wolverine over many years—the exception being Lanzing.
Part of the panel definitely felt like a fly-on-the-wall experience of hearing these creators chat amongst themselves about how they were introduced to the character and which runs of Wolverine are their favourites. They were effusive about one another’s work with shout outs to Zub’s work, Silvestri’s team up with Chris Claremont, and Old Man Logan. They also talked a lot about their love for Frank Miller and Claremont’s run that has now become synonymous with the Logan we all know so well. They especially like how Miller brought in the Japanese influences that inform the character to this day. I love that Lanzing jumped in and suggested All New Wolverine for people interested in learning about the new Wolverine, aka Laura Kinney.
One of my struggles with this panel was that there weren’t enough mics to go around and the ones there didn’t work well. I had to strain to hear what several of the panellists were saying at different times. I’m really surprised by the organizational issues that keep cropping up, especially for relatively intimate panels like this one.
What the panelists all agreed on was that the reason Logan as Wolverine has endured and is considered so universally loved is because he’s an archetype that a lot of people like. The Ronin, Samurai, Cowboy. Zub said that Wolverine “has masculine traits, but not toxically so, as a protector, to be strong. To overcome.” They referred to Wolverine as wish fulfillment while being nightmarish and how he has a great combination of characteristics of the hero’s burden. All of which is packaged in a 5ft 3in, 185 pound character.
They also alluded to being drawn in by Wolverine because he’s a character who desperately hangs on to his humanity but inevitably ends up having to give in to his violent nature. It’s all very tragic, and that’s why the panelists, and the readers, love him.
This was an enjoyable panel that celebrated Wolverine and gave readers, old and new, some tips on which series to check out if we’d like to get to know him, and Laura, better.
Louis: While Mon was at her Wolverine session, I made one last round of the South building of the MTCC. I took some pictures of cosplayers and saw the ridiculously long lines to make Lego Yodas and get free Squishmallows – which the kindly young gentleman in charge of queue management told me were plushies. That’s some dedication to plushies if you’re going to stand in a line that goes around the block. I’ll also add that since we were in the South building, we managed to avoid seeing anyone lining up for Gina Carano’s session. Why Fan Expo Canada would invite somebody who’s been so unrepentantly transphobic I can’t imagine. However, I hope Carano got to see the many out and proud trans and queer geeks walking around. And shoutout to Jessica Peter for wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Transphobia has no place in this world.’ I sure hope Carano saw that!
Once Mon’s session was done, we bid Fan Expo Canada 2024 goodbye and headed home to nurse our aching feet. Fan Expo Canada 2025, let’s see what you’ve got.
