Having a beer with Joss

[eyeofhorus]

I am starting a new thread for this since it was only tonight I managed to get all this written down and the previous threads on Joss at the Orient hotel were posted two days ago. This is what I can recall from the pub on Sunday. (Hope my crappy memory doesn't lead to too many errors).

Joss turned up at about twenty to five – walking across the road with a driver who promptly took off to do his own thing. There were about fifteen of us hanging around at the door and a whole lot of people out back in the beer garden (courtyard), minding tables.

Joss said a brief hi, seemed taken aback that there were that many people (15) there for him (little did he know), and promptly went to the bar to buy himself a drink – he was disabused of that notion pretty quickly by Dave. (Joss Whedon buying his own beer in an Aussie pub with a Browncoat present? Not gonna happen.)

Joss said that he thought he’d beat everyone there by being early, so he could hold court in a corner. We moved out back and then more and more people arrived – around 90 or so in total. Zuckerbaby asked (politely I’m sure, though she mimed reaching across the bar, grabbing the bartender by his lapels and shaking hard) if we could use an upstairs room since, “we have a celebrity here.” They were reluctant until they saw the crowd outside (they don’t open the upstairs on a weekend) and then they agreed quickly. So move we did, ending up mostly sitting at tables.

Joss was incredible. Friendly, polite, funny, self deprecating, incredibly warm, open… He signed things, he had numerous photos taken, he answered every question put to him, he remembered people (‘hey – you bought me that beer’), he looked at people’s artwork, he read one girl’s covering letter for a Buffy script – looked incredibly moved, hugged her and signed the script. He went from table to table, spending tons of time with as many people as possible. Near the end he looked dead on his feet – and he was still gracious.

So here is what I can remember of what Joss said in answer to mine and others questions:

‘So, would you consider doing this (indicates pub and adoring fans) in any other country in the world?’

Joss: ‘It seems like there is only one correct answer to that question.’ Smiles and adds, ‘I haven’t done this in any other country. I’m not doing it in Melbourne because I only have two hours to spare there and I’m spending them with Angie Hart.’

He elaborated later that he had a crazy schedule for Monday and Tuesday – media appearances all day, screenings in the evening, but nothing scheduled for Sunday. So he thought he might meet a few fans. He really had no idea if it would just be a couple of people or more. He agreed that it was perhaps a ‘little more brave and interesting’ than he had realised it would be.



‘Have you started writing Wonder Woman yet?’

Joss: ‘Define writing.’

‘Pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.’

Joss: ‘No fingers to keyboard. I have written some stuff down, you know – ‘She should be cool!’, ‘bad guy = evil’, I think I have her sort of worked out… ‘shape of a bat!’ Makes little crossing out motions with imaginary pen, ‘cross that out. Shape of a stoat!’



‘What language is the safe word in? What does it mean?’

Joss: ‘Actually it is Russian, Old Russian, it’s something my Russian teacher in England used to say. It means ‘that’s absurd’, well the words are literally ‘that’s laughter for chickens’, and that means ‘that’s absurd’.

I asked if he could write it in Russian – he didn’t know how, so I asked if he could write it for me in English, which he did, saying ‘It’s been a while’. He remembered it perfectly though – same wording as in the Visual Companion – ETA KOORAM NAH SMECH, and he signed it ‘Joss’.


Later in the evening it struck me that the safe word involved chickens. On the commentary to ‘The Train Job’, Joss talks about how you have to get a chicken in there some how. And I hadn’t spotted any in the BDM yet (on my fourth screening, after this conversation I finally spotted chickens in the bank heist scene). So I had to ask him…

‘Was the safe word your way of getting chickens into the movie?’

He looked taken aback, mildly puzzled and then laughed.

Joss: ‘No, but the place I was always trying to get chickens into was Angel, because Boreanaz HATES them.’

‘He does?’

Joss: ‘Oh yeah, phobia. Terrified of them. So that’s always funny.”

‘So are there any actual chickens in the BDM?’

Joss: ‘No, no chickens, those CGI chickens are just so expensive.’


Then Joss came to sit at our table and stayed for about 20 minutes.

I asked him about the beginning of Serenity – Simon getting a whole heap of information he didn’t seem to have in the series.

Joss said that that was the one deliberate change they made from the series. He started to write Serenity and had two people we had never met rescuing River, and he was thinking “this is not that engaging”. So he changed it and had Simon rescuing her, which is not how he envisaged it happening when he wrote the pilot.


I asked if the movie follows the arc he had laid out for the series – ‘other than having to drop a bunch of stuff, yes’.


He was asked about Blue Sun – ‘I had so many things happening – there was the Parliament, an Operative, a war, The Alliance… all of which happened off screen. There was just too much information.’


I asked him about the viral marketing clips – ‘Who exactly were you trying to attract to see Serenity, because they are kind of disturbing.’

He agreed they are disturbing. The idea to do something like that was presented to him by (I think) the UIP people who showed him a clip of (I think) a Dutch(?) guy lipsynching to something. (Other people at the table knew about this clip – I was clueless). They kept saying to Joss ‘isn’t this cool!’ He wasn’t so sure. They wanted him to write something and film it with Summer Glau and were all enthusiastic about doing it that Saturday. Joss said ‘But, umm, I haven’t written it yet. And It’s already Thursday. And Summer is in Texas!’

But they did it anyway. He decided that it would be really great to show River ‘slowly going insane at the Academy.’

And then he realised ‘the back of my head is going to have to act… with SUMMER GLAU! Which means I’m going to have to remember everything I wrote or I’m going to look stupid.’

He agreed with me in a very heartfelt way when I commented on how good Summer was in the clips. He was very proud of the fall he did in the first clip released – ‘I had bruises!’.

‘So River killed you with your own pen?’

Joss: ‘Yes, River stabbed me in the throat with a pen – seemed appropriate.’

I asked if it was specifically the Hands of Blue that River was talking to when she looks through the glass – he said it was just whoever is on the other side of the monitor.

He said his one regret about the viral marketing clips was that he didn’t find a way to get a shot of Summer’s feet in them. I said there was a good shot of them in the BDM and he said ‘Oh, more than one!’


He was asked about the temporary score (like the one we heard when we went to a marketing screening of Serenity In April) – who puts it together, is it lost forever. Joss said there are editing people who put those temporary tracks together, they do it in just a few days. They aren’t kept afterwards – they change all the time, from screening to screening. He was impressed by how good it was but now prefers the score for the finished version. Except that it ‘isn’t finished yet’, in that whenever he hears it he is thinking ‘that cue should be louder’ etc. he said ‘it’s driving me nuts’.

He talked about that if the movie does well, then more DVDs will sell and that is a polite way of letting Fox know that they had a good thing. Apparently ‘Plan A’ for letting Fox know involved ‘getting a machete’ and doing some damage.


He talked a bit about Angel.

He wouldn’t have killed Wesley if Angel wasn’t cancelled – ‘Are you kidding? He’s the Godfather of my son – I couldn’t have killed off my boy… you know, unless it was cool.’

He really wanted to direct ‘Smile Time’ – the muppet episode, because there was a family connection to muppets (he said someone close to him, (maybe his own Godfather?) I can’t quite recall, had actual muppets speaking at his funeral. Anyway, he realised he was going to kill Fred and he had to direct that episode – he enthused about getting to spend the day with Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof while filming that. So he handed Smile Time over to Ben Edlund and then was really jealous when he turned up the next day and said he’d written all the songs already. He said Ben did wonderful job with the episode.

The reason for killing Fred and bringing in Illyria was to showcase Amy Acker’s amazing acting skills – in a way she wasn’t getting to do with Fred. That arc was planned for Season 6 but was brought forward when they heard about the cancellation plans.


I asked if he has planning to work in television again. He said ‘it’s complicated’ and that there was a brief time where he was welcome in TV and then they kicked him out. ‘I’m going to do movies for a while.’ He went on to say that if the movies do well enough, then he will go back to TV and they won’t be able to kick him out. (If this sounds familiar, it probably is – it is almost word for word what he said to Empire magazine – he must be getting asked this question a lot.)

I told him we miss him on TV. The following night, at the Q and A, he said ‘I think I know what the answer to this is going to be, but anyway, if there was a choice, how many of you would like to see this continue in more movies (silence), on TV (wild cheers). Yup, thought so.’

How about something else in the Buffyverse? He said that ‘something may firm up in the next couple of months’. This was the only time he got cagy while we talked to him. He said he had ‘lots of ideas’ but ‘nothing is confirmed yet’.

He was asked about Australian beer and had he tried anything else. He likes our beer – heavy but not too bitter. In the US he drinks Bud. He tried Sydney Rock Oysters – they were good.

I asked him ‘is it 4am for your body right now?’ – because he was starting to look extremely tired. He kept rubbing his eyes and he cracked jokes about them disappearing and starting to ‘look like Meg Ryan’s eyes in Proof of Life’.

He said ‘It is always 4am for my body. Always. Because I don’t sleep well, I’m incredibly busy and I have tiny children.’

He smiled and then moved on to the next table, looking as if he might collapse at any minute.

So there you have it – a beer with Joss.
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Also, I can kill you with my brain.

[mimbles]

Awesome recap eyeofhorus! Thanks

Cheers
Mim.
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Mim's Muddle/twitter/Made by Mim

[eyeofhorus]

Thanks Mim but I can honestly say that all the awesome belongs to Joss.
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Also, I can kill you with my brain.

[ZuckerBaby]

[nixygirl]

Yea that was great!
The first exchange I must have been sitting at the tabel or near it because i remebered all of that???
Where were you?
luvs nix
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[Rusted]

I am astonished that you can remember all of that glorious information.

Joss... one who is extremely devoted to his fans.
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"Our democracy is destroying itself because it misrepresented the right to liberty and equality. It taught the citizens to regard disrespect as a right, lawlessness as liberty, impertinence as equality and anarchy as enjoyment."

-Socrates

[Chocolate]

eyeofhorus,

Thank you so much. I only just read it now.

Wonder if anyone has any more? What? nobody can write as well as that?

[davej]

Thanks eyeofhorus , that was great !! I don't have anything to add ,I didn't get much of a chance to speak with him , apart from ....Hi , I'll get that for you , I'm Dave .....I'm Joss , thank you .
What a totally accessable guy he is , dead on his feet , he kept going until he absolutely had to go to sleep .
I think Sunday evening will stick with me for the rest of my life . A hazy , blury kind of stick with me , but stick with me all the same .

Shifty Dave .

[Cerulgalactus]

Consider us up in Brisbane very jealous. Although, the idea of flying him up for our little shindig was tossed around.
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Mal: "Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all comin' to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you, than I have before. Sure as I know anything, I know this. I aim to misbehave."

[pabz]

is it just me or does it feel like a long time ago since we met Joss? it was only a week ago and it seriously feels like a month or so has passed...
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Bible's broken

[Lioness]

I am so amazed that you could remember all that. Thank you! Lots of great information but I have to say that my admiration for Joss has dimmed a bit. He drinks Bud? Tasteless beer!
Anyway, I felt as though I was actually there except, you know, without the actually being there part.
Thanks!