Surprise Yellow Eyed Demon and Lots of Well-Hugged Fangirls: A Day At the NJ Con

Last week Kathy casually mentioned (out of nowhere, which always makes Lynn suspicious), “Hey, we should catch up with Fred Lehne, see what he’s up to these days.” Lynn agreed, since our interviews with Fred and his lovely wife have been some of our favorites. At one of our first meetings with Fred in Dallas, he managed to make grits mysteriously appear at a restaurant which didn’t even have them on the menu after we wistfully mentioned wishing they had some. How can you not love a guy like that?

So imagine our surprise when we arrived at the Creation convention in New Jersey on Friday to find none other than the original Yellow Eyed Demon himself! Although he didn’t bring his guitar this time to croon “Sympathy for the Devil”, Fred did have the audience cracking up repeatedly.

Fan: “The YED is a little….flamboyant…don’t you think?”

Fred: (scandalized) “She thinks I was effeminate! I’m gonna butch it up next time! But wait, he’s the devil, he can be as flamboyant as he wants to, right? (ponders) Besides, they’re all kind of flamboyant.”

Audience: *smirks*

Fan #2: “Why do you always play a badass?”

Fred (makes a scary face): “Well, I’ve got this face….and you don’t trust it – and I don’t blame you! Besides, it’s more fun to play the bad guy.”

Fred also shared his secrets for helping Nathan Fillion act pissed off and taken aback on Firefly (slap him and call him names, for which he will apparently be appreciative) as well as some of the pitfalls of being a little TOO method. But in case anyone is thinking about really being scared, you might want to imagine the other behind the scenes insight Fred shared — the female crew member holding the fearsome YED’s hand and walking him around the set while he intimidates Aldis Hodge’s Jake – so he wouldn’t stumble right into the fire with his blinding yellow contacts. Not so scary now, huh?

And what is Fred Lehne afraid of?

Fred: “Afraid of being on my deathbed and having my last words be ‘I should have….”

Pretty thoughtful guy for a Yellow Eyed Demon.

We caught up with Fred in the green room after his Q&A where he confirmed …..

(spoiler alert, skip to past the photo now if you want to remain unspoiled….)
….. that he was about to head to Vancouver to film our favorite Show. We’ve agreed not to spill the rest of the details, but let’s just say everyone should be excited about Season Six! And Fred has promised to share his thoughts and any behind the scenes tidbits once the episode airs, so stay tuned.

Fred let us know what he’s been up to, including a return to the stage which was his first love and some thinky thoughts on Facebook, fans and being a working actor on television. We’ll have that interview shortly – for now, we wanted to share the rest of our fun day.

We caught up with Steve Carlson in the green room before his concert, along with Darren and Rosalie – we think this should be the cover of their new CD it’s so nice. Usually we’re not known for our photo taking skills, hence the awesome photographers we work with. But this one is actually ours. Awwww.

We also enjoyed seeing Alona Tal again – who not only wore great shoes, but shared a few interesting stories from her incredible performance in the episode “Abandon All Hope”. She gave Jensen Ackles credit for making Dean’s goodbye to Jo even more emotional than it was written – Dean pressing a tender kiss to Jo’s forehead before their proper kiss goodbye wasn’t scripted, and when Jensen made that acting choice, it made Alona even more emotional than she’d already been feeling. We have a feeling with instincts like that, Supernatural’s newest director is gonna kick ass in Season 6.

Alona also got the most amusing question of the day – a thirteen year old fangirl came up to the mike and asked Alona, “My dad wants to know if Jensen is a good kisser.” Alona raised an eyebrow, but managed an answer. Given the lights and the cameras and the crew and Jared farting in the background, it’s hard to tell – but she’s sure he’s good at it and she’ll be sure to ask Danneel the next time she sees her. (The girl’s father managed to embarrass her right back during Fred’s Q&A though. His question? “Do you believe in demons and is she one of Yellow Eyes’ kids?” We wonder how the car ride home was for that family….)

Finally, the adorable Matt Cohen took the stage for his first North American fan convention. He endeared himself to the entire audience by insisting on jumping down off the stage to hug a fangirl who was nervous about asking him a question. Being the savvy young man he is, he then proceeded to hug everyone else who came up to the mike, with many delighted fangirls left grinning in his wake.

Matt told the same story that Jensen had shared at the Q&A in LA (see our LA con post) – that Kripke gave him free reign to play Michael, and that Jensen was immensely helpful. Jensen pulled Matt aside to his trailer before they started filming, and showed the scenes of Jared playing Lucifer and gave him some coaching. Matt expressed his admiration for Jared and Jensen, saying that they’ve carried the show for five years, so he knew if they were happy with his performance, then the fans would be. “You guys can’t imagine how great it is to work with Jared and Jensen,” he went on to say. “Those are two of the most solid, modest young men I’ve met – I’d work for free on that show! Any excuse, in fact – I’d play Mary Winchester!” Matt grinned at the fans then, and urged, “When you guys speak, the writers write – so speak!”

Matt also endeared himself to the fans by turning red when someone called him hot, relating teenage pranks like water ballooning the faculty and driving a golf kart into the deep end of a pool, and sharing his background in motocross and go kart racing from childhood. “Cars are awesome!” he declared, and dropped to his knees to fanboy the Impala – literally! “Not only did I get to drive it,” he laughed, “But I got to tell the two lead characters to shut up!” He claims being able to tell J2 off was so empowering, he deliberately flubbed a few takes so he could say it more than once. LOL

In his more serious moments, Matt described his experience of wanting to do a good job for the fans so badly that he once went too far into “method” acting and lost so much weight he had to be hospitalized briefly. When asked whether he preferred good guy roles or complicated bad guy ones, he answered “My agent hates it when I say this, but I’m as dark as they come – I struggle with romantic comedies or love stories more, my favorite to play is a dark character.”
We have to say, Matt may not crave the romantic roles, but we’re pretty sure everyone in attendance yesterday would vouch for his ability to pull them off.

Alas, we were only able to be at the con on Friday. Lynn is off to Europe today (yeah, cry her a river) and Kathy has to get ready to leave for a conference. She hates it when work gets in the way of her work.

More from our interview with Fred soon. In the meantime, we leave you with a question.

What was up with the monkey??????