Friday 

As much fun as we had, there was a bit of underlying sadness to this weekend. Everyone in the audience and on the stage could feel the cancellation hovering in the background and although there was a lot of hope for renewal or the move to another network, the uncertainty was still there.

Everyone on the stage knew about the Save Farscape movement as well as the Save Farscape website and they all are amazed at the amount that's been accomplished already.

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Wayne Pygram

Before he started answering questions, Wayne brought us a message from Ben Browder who couldn't be at the convention this year. Ben sent his love to the audience and Wayne said he was home with his family getting ready to move back to the USA. 

Then he said that there was plenty of time and began taking questions from the audience. One fan asked two questions: 1, Has Wayne done any roller coasters since the one in Infinite Possibilities (Wayne got sick to his stomach during that little event and everyone teased him about it at last year's convention.) and 2, this year his character has gone from the abuser to the abusee. Is it more challenging playing that type of role rather than being evil? 

Wayne said there have been no more roller coasters although his "friends" tried to get him to go to Magic Mountain, which is nothing but roller coasters. He said it was quite a challenge being on Moya this year. First of all, there's something else going on. Scorpius isn't prepared to give everything away. Wayne said that when he was following Ben through Moya, Ben turned and said he was uncomfortable with Scorpius behind him, especially carring a gun. That's where the idea of John giving Scorpy an unloaded gun came from.

In response to someone mentioning that the fans are doing their best to get another season, Wayne said that the amount that's been accomplished by the fans is overwhelming to the cast and crew. "Anything can happen. Who knows?" 

What has Wayne lined up in Australia, what's next for him? He's mostly taking a vacation, he's turned down some jobs. He said he had some skin issues this past year for the first time and he's taking it easy for a while to recuperate. The cancellation is still upsetting for the actors and crew. When he learned about the show being cancelled, he had already finished shooting. "Thank God," he said because he doesn't think he could have gotten back in the suit and done his thing to finish the season. There was an awful lot of emotion around the set and Ben had to work in that environment. It was pretty awful. They all knew that one day Farscape was going to end. It just didn't end the way they wanted it to. "Life is like that."

Last year we heard from Wayne that there is love between Scorpius and John Crichton. I light of what's happened this year, does Wayne think that love has been consumated, so to speak? Wayne answered that the love he meant has nothing to do with sex. Scorpy's future is dependent upon John Crichton. There's fear, respect and he sees them as being very similar. Scorpy is the only one of his kind as is Crichton. They're both struggling for survival. 

Someone said that they hoped the Scorpius suit wasn't all that uncomfortable because we're gonna get him back into it. Wayne said that he can't get back into it. It's too small because he's gained several pounds lately. Wayne was quite sick for several months last year and had no idea what was wrong with him. Actually, he was ill for 6-10 years. He began losing weight, about 25 pounds since Christmas, and everyone was quite worried about him. He was eating breads and pasta trying to get some strength back and the weaker he got, the more he ate. It turned out he was allergic to wheat. Now that he's stopped eating the stuff, he feels great. Once he began putting the weight back on, the suit got tighter. Sometimes they'd have to get out pliers to get him into the helmet!

He was asked if he would take another role in which he'd be wearing a "suit" of the type he wore as Scorpius. He said yes, under the right circumstances. But the trouble is that you become a just a guy who wears suits, typecast as someone who only does this sort of role. He loves the "hot flesh" of the Scorpius makeup - and he said that if he's going to get back into a suit, "it has to be that suit!" 

"At what point would you say you can't come back." Wayne said that some shows have been resurrected after years. But if he keeps putting on weight, he's not gonna fit in the suit and he's certainly not going to look as good! "There's always hope," he said.

Farscape Trivia Contest

Three volunteer contestants were chosen from the audience to test their knowledge of Farscape. Audience members would ask questions on any Farscape subject with two exceptions - no number questions (ie how many or how often) and no annoying questions (determined by the rest of the audience.) Everything else was fair game. If the group on stage didn't come up with the correct answer, members of the audience got a shot at it. Here are some of the questions, click here for the answers. 

1. Name an actor who's played 4 different Scarrans on Farscape.

2. In Look at the Princess, what fantasy character is mentioned by John when he's complaining to D'Argo about having to become a statue for 80 cycles?

3. Who composed the music for the Velorek and Aeryn scenes in The Way We Weren't?

4. How many episodes have we seen vomit in? This one was discarded because it's a number question. 

5. Pilot's manual navigational array includes a particular item that human pilots navigate with. This is actually a piece of computer equipment - a real-world computer peripheral, but not a joy stick. The audience began yelling that it was an annoying question, so we never got the answer. 

6. In Unrealized Reality, what word is Aeryn trying to pronounce?

7. What weapon is the pulse rifle modeled after?

Anthony Simcoe

"One thing that surprises me when I come to one of these things is when people say, 'Well, y'all look different than I imagined you'd look!' So the question that puts in my mind is, 'What did that person think I would look like?' Did they expect the person who plays D'Argo to have tenticles? Did they expect someone who talked [using the D'Argo voice] like this all the time?"

Anthony gave a nice thank you to the Save Farscape campaign, saying, "All I want to say to each and every one of you people who emailed and FAXed and sent messages saying 'save the show'...all I want to say to you people is 'THANK YOU.' Thank you, thank you. You people absolutely rock! The only clue as to how we feel to receive that type of response is that it's just humbling" He said he feels very humbled. Then he removed his sunglasses, looked at the audience and let out a shriek, then put his sunglasses back on. "As long as I'm not looking at you, everything's okay!"

He spotted Riffraffmorgan, who was costumed as a Luxan, in the audience and insisted that he come up on the stage with him. It was pretty cool seeing the two of them together! "Ohhhhh, Yeah! You ROCK!" 

Anthony said that people want to know what Luxans look like. They have tentacles, they have no hair on the top of their heads. They have a beard here, they have all that, they have Kiss boots, but the detail that everyone forgets is...turn around...is that Luxans have these really cute asses! Anthony asked him how he had made the costume and what the headpiece was made from. Riffraffmorgan made the whole thing himself over the summer and the headpiece is made of latex.

"I have a question for you guys...Who's your Daddy?" (Disjointed "You are" from the all over the audience.) Now I say, 'Who's your Daddy?' and you say, 'I'm your Daddy' in wild ecstatic loud voices. That's how it works. It's a relationship here! I'm not coming out and doing my whole D'Argo-thing without [that] I want you to say that, okay?" 

Audience: "OKAY!"

"Who's your Daddy?!"

"I'm your Daddy!"

"Who's your Daddy?!"

"I'm your Daddy!"

"WHO'S YOUR DADDY?!"

"i'M YOUR DADDY!"

You were great - give yourself some applause!

He talked about the name of his band. In his parents generation, "Number 96" was the tackiest soap on Australian TV, full of sex and sleaze and scandal. They thought that since they're a band full of sex and sleaze and scandal, they'd call themselves "Number 96." Steve Edwards, one of the guitar players in the band, did the electrics on Farscape. Now at the concert Friday night, the band doesn't want you just sitting in your seats! They want you to be jumping up and down! Having a blast!

When he spotted three people in the audience holding a up a sign, ("Oh, my God! What's this?") he got them up on stage to ask them about it. They work together at a graphic design firm in Florida and they came up with an "ad" for D'Argolicious Bubble Gum...chew it til the gum turns clear! Anthony loved it!

Anthony then asked for questions from the audience. The first question came from someone who said she wasn't at last year's convention but she heard that Anthony practically undressed on stage and she wanted to know what was going on with that. [So do I - I think I would have remembered that!] "Ohhhh! Well I guess I can't deny it. I think I was just showing off because I look quite good. I really can't come up with an answer beyond that. I am embarrassed about that. 

What is the funniest thing that ever happened to you on the set? He passed off that question onto Claudia, who would be on stage the following day. 

Another fan thanked him for showing up in chat several times during the weeks following the cancellation. Anthony said that in Australia there isn't the same "star system" that there is over here and that it's just about being a person and having something in common - having something sad in our lives and getting together to talk about it. It was just about hangin' out with other people who love the show. 

The next question was about the time he got injured on set. Did they take him to hospital in full D'Argo makeup? Anthony said that he was so off his head when that happened, that he has no idea. During Out of Their Minds, when D'Argo had Chiana in his body, Anthony was doing the breathy thing that Gigi does as Chiana and he passed out. The crew told him later that he the EMTs stuck a needle in his arm to give him fluids. Anthony is scared to death of needles "Luxans not scared of needles. Simcoe scared of needles." He made quite a scene screaming his tentacles off about the needle. I couldn't understand much of his re-creation of the event, only that he was crying and screaming about the needle in his arm. But it was hysterically funny just watching him!

Is the costume tight? Well, he said, he couldn't jump around too much especially in the beginning. It's gotten much better over time, though. 

There's a screen behind the stage and a camera in the center aisle that projects images of whoever's on the stage. So when a person on the stage turns around, he sees the back of himself.

24:55

More Anthony and other events soon. Many more pictures, too!

Number 96

Answers:

1. Thomas Holesgrove

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

3. Guy Gross

6. Existential 

7. An Australian rifle that was used by the Australian military.  I'm sorry but I didn't hear the exact name of the weapon. 

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