The first day of Comic Con International was an extremely busy one. Yours truly found herself completely stunned by the amount of people in attendence. But it is a truly unique experience for those who attend for the first time like I did. On the day’s schedule was the TV Guide Fan Favorites panel where I had expected to find Joe Manganiello (Alcide Herveaux). But upon consulting the schedule that day I found that Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pamela De Beaufort) and Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette) were going to appear instead. Ballroom 20 is the gigantic ballroom where all of the major TV show panels are held and were able to attend the Ringer panel as well as Game Of Thones which were nice to see. The TV guide panel opened with a clip package featuring stars from Castle, Covert Affairs, and of course True Blood featuring Joe, Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman), and Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton) in the video related to their photoshoot and article.
After the package ended, Debra Birnbaum, Editor in Chief of TV Guide came out and introduced the panelists Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, executive producers of the Vampire Diaries, Nestor Carbonell from the Ringer and Lost, Jorge Garcia from Lost and Alcatraz, Zachary Levi from Chuck, Matt Smith from Dr. Who, and Leslie Hope from 24 and the River. But we of course screamed for Kristin and Nelsan who looked wonderful.
The first question that was asked of the panel was when did you know that your character was a fan favorite? Kristin’s response was that it was just starting to sink in. Being here at Comic Con and seeing the entire ballroom filled was amazing to her. She also started to tear up when she was talking about it. And then people began to scream “We Love You Kristin!” which was very sweet. Nelsan said that he knew his character was a fan favorite when people started to respond positively to Lafayette in spite of the fact that the character is so controversial and edgy.
After Deborah finished asking each panelist about being a fan favorite, short clips were shown from each show were shown and then Deborah did a short q&a with each panelist. When she reached Kristin, she showed a clip from this Sunday’s episode “Me and the Devil,” involving a scene between Pam and Bill Kristin said that she has loved see what Alexander Skarsgård has been doing with the amnesia storyline, adding that she didn’t think Alex could get any more adorable until now. But for Pam, this sweet and vulnerable Eric is no good to her in this state. Up until this point Eric has always been her rock and since her world consists of Eric, Fangtasia, and eating people, this twist has shaken her.
But just when you would think that Pam would crumble emotionally like her face is physically, she stays strong and hangs tough, Marnie’s (Fiona Shaw) magical misdeeds fueling her anger. So according to Kristin will stay strong and not let this bring her down.
Nelsan was next and Deborah began to talk to him about his character and how Lafayette has found a new love interest in Jesus (Kevin Alejandro). According to him, now that his character has become involved with the witches thanks to Jesus, we’re going to see Lafayette do some very wild and crazy things as he taps into the magical power that has been hinted at that he has.
After that, the panel was opened up to fan questions. One of the questions that Kristin was asked is if she has a favorite line from her character since Pam is infamous for her one liners. Her favorite lines are usually from the season that is currently being shot and right now it’s one from episode 11 that is so good but it’s very wrong. She has no idea how it made it to air, it’s apparently that bad. Nelsan concured when he realized what she was talking about with a little smile on his face saying that it was a great line.
Kristin and Nelsan also addressed how it felt to have such popular characters and be at at convention such as comic con. Kristin’s reponse was that it was nice to be here and see such a huge response. That is one of the problems with filming is that she doesn’t get the fan feedback until much later so the actors basically are filming in a bubble doing their scenes most of the time and have no sense of what has really resonated with fans until they do things like these events and get the feedback.
Nelsan agreed with that and and said that for him it was nice to get feedback from other people that weren’t his family. He comes from a Christian family in a small town in Alabama so to have fans embrace a black homosexual character that does questionable things is wonderful.
That concluded the panel. Below you’ll find a gallery of pictures that Isis Noctourne took for me while I was trying to tweet and listen at the same time. Stick with True Blood Fan Source for more on Comic Con 2011. I will be posting the True Blood panel experience next!
Image Credits: Isis Noctourne
