20161105-06 Jason Isaacs & I at Comic Con Stockholm | Kistamässan, Stockholm, Sweden

ratexla posted a photo:

FAN REPORT BELOW! (Vaguely coherent? Maybe? Cobbled together at the last moment before the 10-year anniversary of my first Jason encounter, because I procrastinated from November to March. Not least because I was trying to find TEH WORDS. Words like "ARGH", "SQUEE", and "ZOMFSMWTF", apparently. It's not much, but if you're a Jason fan maybe you will enjoy it.)

ULTRA-BRIEF BACK STORY:

To the best of my knowledge, I first saw Jason in "Armageddon" in 1998. I didn't notice him much, but I may have taken home Quincy's important life advice regarding fire crackers! <:D (… Was he right? :B )

In 2000, I saw "The patriot". (…) But (I'm ashamed to say) it wasn't until my second viewing in 2001 that I, AHEM, noticed Jason. o_O "Who is this light-eyed, high-voiced, posh-accented fuck? :D "

The crush was mostly mild from 2001 to 2016. :)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4:

That morning, I randomly went on Facebook and very randomly saw a group post about weekend plans. Someone mentioned Comic Con Stockholm. I hadn't even known Sweden had a Comic Con… but figured I'd better Google it. (My current "hometown" [BLARGH] is only 1 h from Stockholm.) They probably wouldn't have any interesting guests, right!

WHAT THE FUCK!

JASON!?

AW SHIT BUT I'D BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO A QUIET STRESS-FREE WEEKEND AND -

(The previous weekend I had studied for a MONDAY EXAM, and the weekend before that I was in London, and…)

I briefly considered not going (!), as I had already met him in 2007. (LUCKY! Click here for that fan report.) But I knew that if I didn't bite the scary scary con-apple I would regret it. Since he was one of the fan-friendliest celebs I'd ever met, perhaps the risk of EXTREME EMBARRASSMENT was… relatively low. o_O The 2007 encounter had felt a bit like a group standing around and talking to a teacher after class. (The nice, funny kind of teacher…) ^_^

So I soon booked my con tickets for the two Jason days. "Eh, maybe I'll be satisfied with only one day… But what if the tickets sell out and I regret it!" (Looking back, YES, I WOULD HAVE REGRETTED THAT.)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

I took the commuter train to the con hall (where I had never been, but which was only a five minute walk from the station) and arrived around 9.15. The con itself was open from 10 to 19. Compared with the Scandinavian Sci-Fi, Game & Film Convention (the only other con I've been to) the entrance cost more, but autographs and photo booth were cheaper. NOT THAT IT MATTERED MUCH TODAY. :B Of course I hurried to get tickets for a siggy and a photo. Only for Jason… as I had never heard of any of the other guests. :O

The main man hadn't arrived yet – his first autograph session was scheduled to begin at 11.30. I joined the long line and spied around for Jason, but didn't see him (YES YES THERE HE WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!) until he was quite near the siggy table, smiling at people. :)

The line was slow… which was FINE, because
1) that gave me more time to COLLECT MY AWKWARD ASS and
2) it meant Jason was being talkative. This was kind of unsurprising. :)

There were three photos available to buy – two of Lucius and one nice black and white portrait. I picked the latter, and the siggy assistant attached a post-it with my name on it.

At the risk of repeating myself, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

IT WAS NOW MY TURN!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Stuff that happened (obviously every conversation in this post is paraphrased):

- I didn't step forward too early!

- HANDSHAKE!

- I knelt down and said "Hi, thanks for coming" to which Jason replied "It gets me out of the house…!"

- He signed the photo! (Ya rly!)

- He asked me about good tourist attractions in Stockholm! Shiet; I'm not from Stockholm and haven't done much touristing there, and I told him so. He then asked where I was from! I mentioned my hometown GOTHENBURG (YEEEEEAH! IF ONLY I HAD THOUGHT TO MENTION THAT GOTHENBURG HAS CONS TOO! *cough* *nudge*), and started to mention my current hometown but… DAMMIT RAT, RELEVANCE!

- The "Dammit Rat, say one of the things" moment presented itself.

- I told him he had been one of my favourite actors for 15 years now. (Actually, I may have used the phrase "my favourite actor". 8| This, however, would not have been a major disaster. The order in which I find actors kind of seems to factor into their places on my fave list. AND JASON IS FANTABULOUS. Soooooo if I had found him in, say, 1997, maybe he would have been my official favourite… :)

- Anyway. Jason said that the characters he plays are much more interesting. Rat protests: "Nah, I actually met you at a stage door nine years ago and YOU WERE SO NICE!" He asked if the show had been "The dumb waiter". "Yes, I actually saw the very last performance. And you said it would be sloppy because it was the last one, but IT WASN'T SLOPPY AT ALL!"

- Jason said he hadn't done any stage work since then. (I happened to know this, as I had randomly checked his Wiki a few months earlier.) "I know! I felt so lucky to catch it!" And Jason said something about waiting for the right thing. Soooooo…! :9

- He then shook my hand again, "See you at another stage door!" (YEA! DO PLAYS! WANT LONDON! Until then, there was the photo booth…)

- I thanked him (uh, I HOPE) and walked off. With so much meet & greet time, even I had managed to squeeze in a bit of eye contact! ^_^ (I probably wrote a dissertation in some other post on how eye contact is generally overrated, but hella special with idols. :) Squee.

As expected-ish, I didn't feel 100% embarrassed! Because Jason…

I then hurried to join the line for Jason's Q&A, and got a seat halfway up the big auditorium. (I then tried to use the waiting time to take my pill. Last pill in blister pack. Dropped pill on floor. Lost pill severely. Kept looking for pill after Q&A. Found pill on floor of row below. Picked that fucking pill off the floor and ate it. Hardcore. P.S. Am not on pill because anyone wants to shag me.)

In today's non-news, the Q&A was fucking funny! :D Jason started with a sort of FAQ about Lucius and stuff, then the actual Q&A sesh began. Everyone who lined up for the mic (HELLA NOT ME!) got to ask their questions!

I'm only going misquote the hell out of him on a couple of points:

- "I haven't slept, and when I'm tired I tend to curse a lot." :)

- "Alan Rickman was the best movie villain in the last 100 years."

- "… but I'm not going to talk too much about Alan because I get too emotional."
#afterallthistime #liedowntrynottocrycryalot

I got in the photo booth line! As expected, it was faster than the siggy line; the organizers forbade small talk here. Then my turn came "AND YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!"

- (Well, I went up and said hi.)

- (Handshake? I don't remember. o_O )

- THE MEMORY CARD WAS FULL! So they had to fiddle with it for a few moments. I did not complain. :D

- I can never fucking think of originaly pose-y things to do, so I just went for the good unoriginal V-sign, sort of pointed in the general direction of Jason.

- Jason remarked "Your hand is shaking!" and lightly grabbed my fingers. x)

- Somewhere around this point, 1 photo got taken, but Jason said "One more." ^_^

- Upon the organizers' kind request, I didn't stick around for a two-hour convo, but thanked Jason and went on my way.

People's photobooth photos were already being printed, but at a very slow rate. So I walked around the con for a bit and looked at "everything". I bought my 70th journal (adorned with a gilded Hogwarts crest) from one of the booths. :D

Jason did another siggy session for the last three hours of the con day. The photo booth and its printer table was only meters away, so one could… just… ah… hang out there and wait for one's photo. YUP. :B I also spent some time leaning against a wall across the aisle, surfing and... and stuff. And took another Turn About The Room and shopped a five-pack of Harry Potter buttons just because one of them said "Always" and depicted Lily & Severus under their tree. <:D

Late in the day there was occasionally no line for Jason's table – but as I said, the con was supposed to close at 19, and Jason was still signing at 19.02… :D Then they started to announce the closing, so I kind of had to leave. But I intended to talk to him some more the next day. :)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6:

Shorter line today, and the con would be open from 10 to 18. When they let us in, I went and got another siggy ticket… I had brought a couple of my Harry Potter DVD covers, but had not yet decided which one should get signed. In any case, I wanted to wait for the afternoon calm. :)

Jason's first siggy sesh of the day was from 10 to 11.30. I hung out by my wall-across-the-aisle again, but most of the time he was hidden by the crowd. So I found a bench around the corner, caught up on some journalwriting, and, um, Googled whether a "backward V-sign" means anything in particular. (Because that was how yesterday's V-sign ended up, back of the hand to the camera, since I was pointing at Jason.) WELL. I found meanings such as "The enemy have not yet cut off my fingers, so I can still shoot you with arrows lol" and "Fuck you" and "Now I'm going to gun you down".

-_-

(At first I was going to Photoshop in a huge yellow emoji V-sign (bizarrely twisted the right way), but I later tried out a simple DIGITAL FINGER AMPUTATION and… *shrug* … IF I HADN'T TOLD YOU MAYBE YOU WOULDN'T HAVE LOOKED CLOSELY AND NOTICED.)

Jason had a photo sesh from 11.30 to 13, but at 12.30 I lined up for his Q&A, which was to take place between 14 and 15… When the auditorium doors opened I could have grabbed a FRONT ROW SEAT, but… that's too… exposed, hehe. I picked second row. :)

JASON APPEARED! He said he had been told off yesterday for having monologued for too long, leaving too little time for fan questions. Either way was WAY fine with me… xD

- He asked who had heard yesterday's Q&A, and a lot of people raised their hands. "Oh, I'm in trouble." I decided against yelling out "DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, MAN." ^_^

- Someone had apparently asked why he hadn't let a press guy take pictures of him. (There was also a no-photo policy by the siggy table, and at each Q&A there had only been a one-minute photo window right at the beginning.) Jason (possibly terribly misquoted AGAIN, but it's relevant for later events, sooooo): "The reason is that I'm incredibly vain. I borrowed my daughter's moisturizer but it's making my skin flake! [I hadn't even noticed.] And I don't want photos taken when I don't have control of the light and such, otherwise people might say 'Oh, looks like he's back on the heroin!' or something."

*diez* xD

- One fan said "First of all, I've had a huge crush on you since I was eight years old!" to which Jason replied "That is completely creepy and inappropriate! :D "

- A while into the Q&A, Jason decided that our applause after every answer was taking up too much time, so he instructed us to use just single claps. And he took a little video of one of them!

- He talked about fame, saying that he rides the tube without getting recognized. He knows some people who are superfamous, "and the only good thing about that condition is that one gets to pick and choose among movie projects."

- He said he loves walking around cons and checking stuff out, but can't do it with his own face because he gets too many selfie requests that way, sooooo… he wears a mask! :B (Masks and stuff are normal at scifi cons, FYI.) "And I'm not gonna tell you what mask I wear, heehee."

- He got through the entire line of question-askers again!

- I was extremely un-bored.

- Someone remarked "… and all your impersonations [he imitated a bunch of different people over the course of the Q&A] are spot on!" This was true. xD

Jason was going to have another siggy sesh for the last three hours of the con. Around 17, I joined a little line of just a couple of people who were waiting for him to return from a break. When he did, I offered the guy behind me to skip ahead. Guy: "Nervous?" Rat: "Yeeeeeeaaahh… :B "

Closer to the table I let yet another fan skip ahead of me. Jason happened to write that guy's name wrong twice, and proceeded to tear those photos up and throw them over his shoulder. :)

He mentioned to somebody that he hadn't had "the typical Swedish experience" (HAY JASON IF YOU COME BACK I CAN TAKE YOU OUT AND SHOW YOU A GOOD TOURIST TIEMZ? <:D ) "… but everyone's been lovely."

(Eeeeeeveryone? ((:B )

Once more it was my turn!!!!!!!!!!!! :O Guess we shook hands again? (I often think of bringing con celebs little gift bottles of beribboned hand sanitizer.) Guess he asked how I was? :) ("I'm… … … … … … fiiiiine, thankyou…") Of course I knelt in front of the table, as usual. "I got your autograph yesterday, but I wanted to say hi again while I can… :D " (A line recycled from a certain Daisy encounter, but fucking true!) And at some point he put his hand over my forearm, which was resting on the table. x)

I had my siggy object ready – the "Deathly Hallows" DVD cover. Jason prepared to sign the back, which has a photo of Lucius (and some other people I guess. Pfft), but I asked him to sign the spine instead, "if it's not too narrow." (They didn't seem to have a fine-tipped siggy pen around.) But Jason bravely accepted the challenge.

Rat: "That's daring, trying to fit the whole name in there."
Jason: "I can do it!"

Which he could. (Not that I would have cared much if he had instead produced an ABSTRACT FINGER PAINTING.)

He also asked if I'd had a good day!

Hmmmm, YES!

(Not sure, of course, if actual reply was "Yes" or CHEWBACCA NOISES.)

And Jason asked "What did you do?" I couldn't think of many things to list… since I had mainly sat / stood / walked around o_O … But I told him I had attended both of his Q&A:s and that they were great. Jason again expressed concern that the Sunday talk had been too much repetition. I denied this. (Repetition, yes. BUT I ENJOYED HAVING FUNNY AND INTERESTING STORIES DOUBLY BASHED INTO ME BRAINE! Sigh, I should have told him so.) He asked whether I preferred his monologues or the Q&A; I said I liked both. And that I liked his stories, and that he should do a STANDUP TOUR or something. ^_^ He may have replied that he didn't think enough people outside of cons would be interested. NAWWW! It is my unprofessional opinion that he should do some kind of survey to find out if enough people would be interested, hehe. In any case, even non-fans should be interested in juicy stories from the movie world. :B

I also told him "Until Friday morning I didn't even know Sweden had a Comic Con. And I thought 'Oh, probably no one interesting will be there', but I looked, and… 'OH SHIT! JASOOOOOOOOOON!'" *handhead* Jason double-facepalmed dramatically. xD

*FLAIL*

I left the table again… But stayed nearby, blowing a bit on the siggy to dry it properly. MAYBE I blew on it several thousand percent more than was necessary. :B I soon discovered that I had (seriously, and unsurprisingly) left the DVD case on the table, so I sneaked up real quick and snatched it, "Sorry…"

But still I hung around, as I had forgotten to mention a couple of things. Of course. -_- Soon the line ended, and Jason got ready to leave. It was still 10-ish minutes to closing time, so when a couple of stragglers showed up he attended to them as well. :) Then he said his goodbyes to the organizers.

Rat: *LURK*

Some person between Jason and me went away, and Jason looked at me.

Rat: "Hey, Jason, I forgot to mention… You're one of the least intimidating celebrities I've met, hehe." Jason iterated what he had said in the Q&A; that he wasn't a celebrity, just a guy doing his job etc.

(But I could have used the word "people" instead of "celebrities", although I never told him that… :)

Rat: "… And you don't look like you're on heroin. :) "
Jason: "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me all day."
Rat: "Aw."

xD

And at some point during this almost-post-con convo he lightly touched my arm again. 8D

A tiny while later, he left the siggy table area for real. I was packing the DVD case into my backpack at the time, and Jason passed behind me. I turned my head towards him, "Bye!" Jason, to everyone in the vicinity: "Bye, thank you!" My "You too!" was not very loud, but hopefully loud enough… :q

And Jason and a couple of the organizers wandered off down a long aisle… :)

I was relatively high for the rest of November, at least. :B

Fun bonus:

So, Robbie Williams, who is my 2nd fave artist or something, had released a new album on November 4. But I wanted to get into it properly, i.e. by giving it my full attention for the first few listens. I didn't find the time to do that until November 10. I enjoyed the album, and it now reminds me a bit of that special, high November. (… OH HAY SWEET NOVEMBER!!!!!!1!!!!111) For reasons, I rode the Stockholm train unusually often that month, and made it a bit of a tradition to listen to the album on the way, and of course to gaze wistfully at the con hall as we passed it… :) I almost forgot that I hadn't even heard the album at the time of the con – the songs, the month, the trains, and Jason became somewhat (and nicely) entangled in my mind. (It doesn't hurt that Jason and Robbie are funny and handsome in similar ways. :B )

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