Alicia Witt and Charles Martinet Northern FanCon panels

“It’s the end of the con as we know it …”

Yes, Supernatural convention fan attendees will recognize that line from the final song that Louden Swain plays at Supernatural’s Creation conventions, a paraphrase of R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World. However, it works.

Day 3, the Sunday, saw even more great cosplay, a quick interview with Kevin Sorbo and Alicia Witt answering my question during her panel. As well — who knew that Charles Martinet – Mario – was just so freakin’ funny!

During one of the slow times for the actors, I was able to ask Kevin what he enjoyed most about meeting with fans.

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“Without fans, none of us have a career, it’s as simple as that. I don’t care if you’re Clint Eastwood or Tom Cruise, or a voiceover actor … if you don’t have people that enjoy your work, love what you do, you don’t have a career, it’s that simple. We’re salesmen, we really are.

“I enjoy meeting with them, talking with them … I wouldn’t do these cons if I didn’t enjoy coming to them. Granted, we get paid and stuff like that, but at the same time I wouldn’t take the time to be away from my family and travel as much as I do if I didn’t enjoy it. I also get some interesting ideas from people of things that they like and it’s fun, people are great.”

Unfortunately, the four times that I went to stand in line to chat with Kyle, his lineup was extremely busy. I have learned a lot about conducting interviews over this weekend, and one thing would definitely be to get the interviews with the more popular stars out of the way first. I think it would’ve been much easier on Friday.

In any case, Charles Martinet’s panel was the first one that I attended. Go. Look up one of his panels on YouTube. I highly suggest it … the man is FUNNY! And he never stops talking! But this is a good thing – as everything he says is entertaining. He spoke about how he was chosen to be the voice of Mario (which was pitched as an Italian plumber from Brooklyn) and how his entire audition was talking about pasta – lots, and lots of pasta – and how pleased he was to still be doing the job 27 years later.

One question I thought was interesting – it was on what Charles thought about the many off-colour memes to do with Mario and Lugio that are out there.

His answer – and I paraphrase – was this.

“I love that my creativity has bred so much more creativity in the world. I don’t agree with some of the content all the time, but I love the creativity.”

I have to admit, my favourite part about Sunday was when Alicia Witt – who played Lily Sunder (in addition to much, much more, including being on the Walking Dead) answered my question. Not only did she remember my name, she had a beautiful answer to my question – “Do you think Lily ever forgave Castiel at the end?”

That’s a really good question, and it’s something that I wondered myself. The writing on that show, as you know, is so good. I love that she said, “Revenge is all I’ve ever known, I don’t know who I am without it.” I just thought that was a beautifully honest response to Castiel’s question as to whether she could forgive me, and how he said, “If you ever find you haven’t, you can come find me.”

I think she didn’t know what to say – this character experienced the worst possible and unfair loss 100 years earlier and all she could think to do was – and all you could really do in a situation like that I guess – is figure out how to exact revenge. She learned how to become immortal, or somewhat immortal, and she’s learned how to harness angel power, angel magic, which most humans don’t know how to do.

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I loved that response. I think she doesn’t know in that episode if she’s forgiven him. When Castiel decides to kill Isham for her that was not what she was expecting. Definitely not. She was prepared to kill everyone who had anything to do with killing her daughter and her husband, and then she’d be done. She would have then done what she came to do and my feeling was she was so overwhelmed with emotion when Castiel does that, that she isn’t sure what to say and what came out was fully honest. That she doesn’t know who she is without that. So she needed some time to consider if she has forgiven. I would think she would though. I think she saw the honesty in him. I certainly could, as Lily in that moment, I could see that he really felt remorse and that it hadn’t been his choice.

I’d like to see more of her though! I’m really not so secretly hoping I get to come back as Lily. Unlike the Walking Dead, I didn’t die on Supernatural. I want to see Lily again. See what happened to her after that.

I loved her relationship with the Jared and Jensen characters [Sam and Dean]; I really did. I liked that she said I don’t want to hurt any human. She was never going to be a threat to them. I love that they made a snap judgment and decided to trust her. She was just a cool character.”

I want to thank Norm Coyne from Northern FanCon and Movie TV Tech Geeks for giving me the opportunity to attend this con as media – I’m already looking forward to next year!