How The Hillywood Show Got It Right: the Supernatural Parody!

Like everyone else in the Supernatural fandom (and cast), I loved The Hillywood Show’s brilliant parody of our beloved Show – mostly because they got it so very right. It’s not that easy to create a parody of a show with a passionate fandom; as fans, we notice everything. Get it wrong, and we’ll call you out on it in a microsecond. But get it right, and we’ll shower you with gratitude. I couldn’t wait to talk to the Hillywood girls, Hannah and Hilly Hindi, to find out how they managed to do just that.

Lynn: I’m so excited to talk to you, I absolutely loved the Supernatural parody! I’ve been a fan of this Show for nine years and this is one of the best things EVER. Congrats!

Hilly: Ohmygod, thank you, that’s a lot coming from you!

Lynn: Pretty sure I’ve watched it about a million times. I notice that many of your parodies are of shows or films that are fan favorites, like Lord of the Rings or The Walking Dead or Doctor Who – or of course Supernatural. Do you pick things that you know have passionate fan bases, or do you pick things that you are fans of yourself?

Hilly: We usually take to heart what fans are requesting at that time, but at the same time we would never do a parody that we didn’t already have knowledge of or were a fan of ourselves. So if someone came up to us and said ‘hey, do one of that new California earthquake movie with The Rock,’ we’d probably say no because we’re not fans of that. We haven’t seen it, I don’t even know if we’re gonna like it. But when it came to doing LotR or TWD or SPN, we were like OMG yes, we have this knowledge, we’re fans, so we want to do this.

Lynn: So, would you define yourselves as fangirls?

Hilly: I would say yes, but I feel like we have a really different outlook on shows because we are filmmakers. It’s almost like we’ve become fans of the stories and the camera and the characters. Like for LotR, we’re fans of that movie because that’s what inspired us to become filmmakers. So each thing has a really special place in our hearts as to why we’re fans of it. Everyone has their different reasons and stories for loving what they love.

Lynn: Absolutely, that’s a good description of fandom. We all have reasons why we love what we love, and that’s an important part of our life story. You’ve crossed the boundary back and forth too, on the creative side and on the fan side, and it does change your perspective a bit. We wrote about that in Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls too, about sometimes straddling that boundary.

Hilly: It becomes more special. It becomes unique.

Lynn: It does. I’m not surprised that you’re fans – that explains why you got it so right. Because fans would know if you got something wrong. You got the title card, you called the Impala ‘baby’…

Hannah and Hilly: (laughing)

Lynn: So when did you start watching Supernatural? Have you watched from the beginning?

Hilly: What year was it?

Hannah: What year was it we were hosting Twilight? We used to host the Twilight and Vampire Diaries conventions for Creation years ago.

Lynn: You did?

Hilly: Yeah, we worked with them for years. And we did performances at the LotR cons too. I remember when Supernatural was on, we’d miss a lot of the episodes because we were touring like every other week. It was nuts. We were aware of the show, we’d catch an episode or two, but then it was like crap, I missed an episode! And I didn’t want to jump ahead because I don’t wanna see who died or what happened…

Lynn: Spoken like a true fangirl.

Hilly: So it took a long time for us to come up with a concept because we kept missing it. I wanted to be totally aware, because I don’t want to do the wrong thing. So finally over the years we had the chance to kinda catch up and it’s been like such a relief. So we were finally able to have a chance after those years of hosting and filming and running our own show – it’s been something we’ve been wanting to do for a very long time. But even after having knowledge of the show and catching up, we still couldn’t think of a concept. Because there were just so many seasons!

Lynn: (laughing) I know, right? This Show is pretty extraordinary. Season eleven, here we come!

Hilly: And there are so many stories, and so many characters, and I didn’t want to get it wrong because it’s a freaking awesome show!

Lynn: (stating the obvious) No argument here.

Hilly: And Hannah was like ‘do it!’ but I was like I’m not gonna do it if the concept’s not there. I’ll feel stupid, I don’t want to get it wrong. I like the show and I don’t want to ruin it. So it took this long, but I think there were reasons for that with all the blessings we’ve had. I needed to come up with a concept, and now we realize why it would’ve been bad to do it two years ago. Because there were opportunities that were there and we just couldn’t see them yet.

Lynn: The Mark of Cain story line was a multi-season one, so it was pretty rich in content. And even though much of that was very serious, it worked as parody.

Hannah: Good, thanks.

Lynn: So how did you decide what moments to include? Mark of Cain moments of course, but how did you choose Jensen’s Eye of the Tiger outtake or even the shooting-while-hula-hooping, which was from a convention? Or the scene with Dean as gym teacher? [I guess we know why that one is iconic…]

Hannah: Hilly is pretty much the creative one. Before we actually went into pre production, we had done the LotR parody in December and right after that was released, she immediately was like ‘I really want to do something on Supernatural, but I need to study it and just be sure. Like what’s on Tumblr, what are some of the inside jokes?’ So she came up with everything – the hula hoop, the hamburger, the little jokes. I give all praises to her.

Lynn: No wonder you got it so right, you went straight to Tumblr! Those are the moments that really grab the fans. But Hannah, I give you credit too, it’s the director who puts it all together. You two are obviously a good team (like Sam and Dean!)

Hannah: Thank you so much.

Lynn: Hilly, you said that you felt sad about not being able to play Dean anymore. Can you talk about that? Also, how many times did you watch Jensen’s Eye of the Tiger outtake, because you had every move and expression down pat?!

Hilly: Thank you so much! For the Eye of the Tiger scene, I always watched it…

Lynn: Me too…

Hilly: But the day before shooting I watched it like four times in a row, but at a certain point I kinda had to walk away because I’ll drive myself nuts wanting to study it.

Lynn: [silently] Though I could think of worse ways to go…

Hilly: What helps is that I’m doing the action and Hannah is there to say ‘there’s something off’ or ‘I think your hand needs to be higher’ or ‘I think you need to reach over the car more’, so she’s there monitoring what I’ve already studied, know what I mean?

Lynn: I do – that’s why you’re a good team!

Hilly: She’s my mirror at the moment and it’s one of those things where you just have to trust each other. But I was sad on the last day of filming. You know, the first couple of days I was really nervous to play Dean because I wasn’t sure how I was doing. I wasn’t able to watch the dailies because I was getting no sleep, so we didn’t review footage at all for this one. I was just relying on Hannah saying ‘good job’, so I had to trust her. But by the third day I was starting to feel more comfortable and have more fun with it. And by the last day, I was feeling much more comfortable, like ‘oh I think I get Dean’. And right when you feel like that, it’s the last day!

Lynn: Well that’s just not fair. You might just have to do another…

Hilly: Maybe… I don’t know. But I’d love to go to cons and dress up or something, that would be fun. If the fans want to see us there, we really want to be involved with the SPN Family. And give you all squirrel hugs.

Lynn: OMG yes, you have to come to some cons! Screening the parody would be perfect at a convention, and I think you guys would really relate to the fans – I mean, you ARE fans! And I would personally love a squirrel hug. And a moose hug. Oh wait, Hannah was Cas….

Hilly: Squirrel hugs and grace!

Lynn: (laughing) Yes, excellent.

Hilly: (laughing) And we can have hula hoop contests!

Lynn: I’m totally impressed that you can actually do that shooting while hula hooping thing. Actually I was pretty impressed that Jensen could do it too. You and Jensen can have like a hula hoop off.

Hilly: Oh, that would be fun!

Lynn: So Hannah, about playing Cas – I thought you did a fabulous job. You sort of have his pretty eyes.

Lynn: And you also had his expressions down. Even that sort of deadpan expression that’s so very Cas. Did you study the character a lot?

Hannah: Yes, and thank you by the way, I was really trying with that. It was kinda the same thing like Hilly said, I can only do so much and then I need that other person on the other end of the camera to say like ‘oh, can you stick your neck out a little further because Cas did that’ and I’ll do it. And honestly, I studied him as best I could. He doesn’t have too much expression half the time, so it was kinda hard to find that meeting ground of that’s this expression and this expression. But it was a lot of fun other than the fact that my shoe broke on set.

Lynn: Oh, I saw that on the behind the scenes vid, yes. You never know what’s going to happen in the middle of filming, do you?

Hannah: I loved playing Cas though, it was super fun.

Lynn: In a way, the fact that he has a somewhat limited repertoire – not Misha certainly, because he’s very animated and expressive – but Cas, which makes it more of a challenge (for you and for Misha) to portray him. Dean has a lot of well-known
expressions, which is a different kind of challenge. But I think you pulled off being Cas.

Hannah: Thank you so much, yay!

Lynn: There was one scene in the parody that got surprisingly emotional. When Osric was Sam and Hilly was Dean in his death scene from the end of Season 9, I was suddenly like ouch, that’s a step outside the funny, because it looked so much like the actual scene from the show. (Which I maybe had a somewhat emotional reaction to at the time….) Were you emotional in it?

Hilly: I remember while we were shooting, we would do different takes of Osric of how we wanted him to look when he [as Sam] was crying. And we tried out a comical cry, like really over exaggerated, but for this time I think he needed to be more serious. And he said okay, I can do that. And then I said, so can you get a tear out? And he was like, ‘I have to cry?’ I said yes, I wanna see a tear go down your face. And he said ‘yeah, I think I’ll be okay’.

Lynn: He was more than okay, he looked as devastated as Sam did in that scene.

Hilly: And honestly I was just able to close my eyes and just cat nap.

Lynn: (laughing) You really needed it by then!

Hilly: It was 26 hours without sleep, so I was falling asleep on Osric half the time, but I heard Hannah say ‘good job, good job.’ I think he was actually pulling on something to get a little bit teary eyed, which was really sweet of him, because it’s very hard. I had to cry for LotR like 99% of the time, and it was like wow, I feel depressed. But yeah, I was just sleeping on Sam’s shoulder, so good on Osric for working with the sleeping person.

Lynn: Well it worked, you sorta did look dead…

Hilly: (laughing) I was going in and out of dreams.

Hannah: I know that when we were shooting that she was technically closing her eyes and relaxing but I had to like keep coming over there and shifting her head this way and then this way to make her look like Jensen did and she was like just relaxed.

Lynn: Well, it worked!

Lynn: I know you worked with Osric on TWD parody, so you knew him. I talked to him a bit and he said that originally he wanted to play Crowley, which made me laugh because he adores that character and Mark Sheppard. You had a great Crowley though (Adam Stuckey). How did you make the casting decisions?

Hilly: Well, for Osric’s character, I remember he had mentioned to me that he’d like to play Crowley, and at the time we didn’t have a strong concept yet. We were scripting it, and we weren’t really sure who was playing who or even characters for us. But once we landed those roles for me and Hannah, we knew a friend who looks a lot like Mark, so we wanted to take advantage of that. Plus, we wanted to give Osric the bigger role in this. Then we got a call from Osric that he might be booked for a movie, so he wasn’t sure he could do the SPN parody. So we started buzzing around like little bees, and thought well then obviously this guy who looks like Crowley should play Crowley. And we also then had an open slot, so we started looking at strangers and actors and trying to find someone who looks like Jared, and it was not working out, it was like a nightmare.

Lynn: (silently) Jared is sort of one of a kind (an awesome one of a kind…)

Hilly: I was getting upset because I wanted there to already be a relationship between the actors (including myself) who were playing Sam and Dean.

Lynn: That makes so much sense, because their relationship is so close on the show.

Hilly: I wanted them to be really close and understand each other and work well on set, and I was like ‘I don’t wanna work with a stranger, that’s gonna be awkward.’ And we just prayed and kind of waited until the last minute and said you know what, if Osric is meant to do this, it will happen, and then we literally kinda let go of everything. And then we got a call from Osric saying the movie is not gonna go so I can do it. We were overjoyed and we knew for sure he was meant to be Sam, which is a better role – plus he gets to drive the Impala.

Lynn: True! No small thing.

Hilly: So everything worked out how it was supposed to.

Hannah: And for Rob, Hilly had told me that she had this whole idea for Cain and how she wanted his hand to be chopped off, and I thought, okay cool. So we had to find someone to play Cain and I was like, oh no, we have to find an old actor, this is really hard! We need someone who can have fun on set, and it’s like, you kind of feel uncomfortable around someone that you maybe don’t know. Then Hilly was like, ‘what if we maybe get another actor from the show to play Cain without it being actually Tim?’ So we started looking at photos and I noticed Rob’s eyes and said hmmm, Rob’s eyes remind me of Tim, I wonder if we covered his whole face with the beard and the hair if we could get away with it. So we mentioned to Osric, ‘we have this funny idea, do you know Rob?’ I mean, we know that they know each other, but like, do you really talk to him? And he was like, oh sure, let me do an email introduction, and we started speaking with Rob and he was like, ‘I am so down!’ He was so excited to play another character from the show. On set he was taking a ton of pictures and saying ‘I can’t wait to show Tim!’

Lynn: That’s one of the unique things about this cast – they’ve all been doing conventions for so many years and so many times a year that they’ve all become so close. Not just like ‘oh I worked with this guy, I sorta know him’ but like best friends. The show has changed lives for fans, but it’s changed the lives of the actors too. The new book I’m working on, lots of fans wrote really powerful chapters about how Supernatural changed their lives, and then a bunch of the Supernatural actors wrote about the same thing. Rob wrote a chapter that made me all emotional, Osric wrote a great chapter, Jared’s writing a chapter.

Hilly: I’m dying to know Jared’s thoughts on the parody and what he thought of Osric playing him!

Lynn: Oh, me too! I loved it that Osric was playing Sam with the sling on, because Jared broke his arm wrestling with Osric. That was so meta.

Hilly: When I said to Osric, ‘oh we need you to do the dungeon scene and you’re gonna have the sling on,’ he was like ‘Ohhhh, but I feel really baaaad.’ He still felt bad putting himself in the sling because it reminded him. He was like, I feel really sorry about this still.

Lynn: Poor Osric. I remember him telling us that whole story and how bad he felt at the time.

Hilly: And I was like, it’s okay, you’re supposed to be Jared, no harsh feelings here. But he was still like ‘I feel bad.’

Lynn: He’s a sensitive person, but I think Jared is over it. But I guess I might feel that way too. So how did it come about that all of the actors did cameos? You filmed at VegasCon, right?

Hilly: When I mentioned to Osric that we were doing the Supernatural parody, my first question to him was, do you want to be in it? And he said ‘yes, and I want a role, I don’t just want a cameo,’ and I said okay. So then once I came up with the ‘Shake It Off’ concept, I thought about how at the end of her video [Taylor Swift], she has a bunch of fans dancing and stuff like that. And I said, you know, that would be really cool if we could get the actors dancing and doing cameos in front of a white background like in her video. So I was like, ‘Osric…I have this idea that we could maybe work with some of the actors, just like a 30 second cameo, and they would just do this little moment at the end of the video’. And Osric said, ‘you know what? Let me ask Richard, because if I can get Richard on board, I guarantee you’ll get a lot of people.’

Lynn: Yep, that’s so true. Richard is the guy who makes things happen.

Hilly: (laughing) So Osric knew what he was doing! And he did this whole intro thing with us and Richard. We actually spoke with Richard on the phone and explained the idea…

Hannah: That it was a parody…

Hilly: We didn’t really say that it was going to have this big Mark of Cain story line, we pretty much just explained what the cameos would consist of, and he was like ‘okay this sounds interesting, let me go talk to people and I’ll let you know who’s interested’.

So then we get this email and there’s like 15 people on it who are interested! We were overjoyed and we couldn’t believe they were all interested, because usually in our experience actors never want to be involved in a fan project that’s like a video because they’re like ‘I don’t want it to be stupid, I don’t trust these people.’ But apparently Osric and Richard were sending out our videos and giving them a heads up about who we were.

Lynn: This cast is just not like any other cast. And I think they know their fans better than most actors do.

Hilly: But the catch was, we weren’t sure how many people were going to be able to fully commit because of their con schedules. But they said, ‘if we’re in Vegas and you’re in Vegas, we can try to make this happen for you girls.’ So we had a little room there at the con and we just waited and trusted. You never know, their photo ops or their Q and A or their autographs could go long, and bye bye opportunity. But we waited and trusted and were thankful for what we had. Every time they would bring someone in it was like a celebration, so much happiness and joy. We were just happy that we got like four people! And then it turned into 8 and then 9 and they just kept coming. And we’re just very thankful and blessed, because this would never have happened without amazing people like the cast of Supernatural.

Lynn: Best. Cast. Ever. We felt the same when we were writing the books – like oh, the actors probably won’t want to do this, they won’t want to talk to us, who are we? But just about everyone contributed – Jared, Jensen, Misha, Richard, so many of them. And they shared such interesting things with us for the books. I think they’re invested at this point in doing things for the fans, and what you did with the parody is really a gift to the fans.

Hannah: That’s so nice to hear. We don’t even know how to thank the fans. Because as we were doing it, seriously we were really excited after shooting just four cameos. We were excited for the project, but it was almost like not just “my project”, but this is what the fans are going to DIE for. This is their fandom, this is their love, their passion, these people make them happy. And so we were like so excited to do this parody for us, because we’re fans ourselves – but we really couldn’t wait to present it to the fans.

Lynn: Did you have ‘Shake It Off’ playing when they filmed their cameos? Because they’re all dancing, which is awesome.

Hilly: Actually we didn’t have the master completed. I think maybe we had Taylor’s original version, but we just gave them like a variety of different songs that had a similar beat, and we tried to make it really fun. And they would say, ‘what are we doing? What’s it gonna be?’ So we’d show them other people’s cameos and then they’d start laughing and go ‘well, I’m gonna do this then,’ and they’d try to one up each other, so to speak.

Lynn: (grinning) Yep, that sounds like the Supernatural cast for sure.

Hilly: And we’d also ask them, ‘what do you think the fans would like to see you do? Anything you think the fans would like, have fun with it.’ And so they would get excited and then they would go do like improv almost, like do your thing and have fun. I think they really enjoyed it once we told them that this is for the fans, because you could see their eyes light up and their smiles come on and they totally got into the moves.

Lynn: That’s the thing about this cast. They really do care about the fans and want to give what they can to the fans. And they clearly enjoyed it. Did you consider any songs other than ‘Shake It Off’?

Hannah: Yes, we considered other songs, but we’re not gonna say because I feel like if we tell people, maybe they’ll say ‘oh that would’ve been better’. Or maybe we’ll revisit those in the future and that idea we had will work.

Lynn: Good point.

Hilly: The other ones kinda dealt more with the history of Supernatural, and I wasn’t feeling it at the moment. Once I told her [Hannah] the whole concept — at first she was like, Shake It Off?? What? She was like, ‘It’s sung by a girl!’ but I was like no, no you remaster it. We love Taylor Swift, but thought it wasn’t gonna work for Supernatural. But then I was like no, you know, Dean’s shaking because of the mark and she was like ‘aaaaaah that’s clever!’

Hannah: (is laughing)

Lynn: And then they used that song in the show.

Hilly: Yeah that was a fun thing, but it had nothing to do with this — it wasn’t because it was in the show.

Lynn: Did you get to see much of VegasCon while you were there?

Hilly: Yeah, we were sneaking around. I was watching from the sound booth because I know Benny and Doug, and I wanted to watch because I had never been around a bunch of Supernatural fans. You know, I’m a fan, but I watch it by myself. So I laugh at what I think is funny and I get this inside joke, but I wondered, ‘what if no one else is getting this like I’m getting this?’ At the panel, I started hearing people laughing along with me, so it was a really good feeling to get, the full capacity of a Supernatural crowd and kinda feeling like ‘okay, we’re all in this together.’

Lynn: You just described perfectly why cons are such powerful experiences for fans – it’s like, you’ve found your people. Like oh, I’m not the only one!

Hilly: We went to karaoke too. We couldn’t stay too long since we had to get up early to set up cameras, but we saw Timothy sing ‘Let It Go’, so it was worth it.

Lynn: I’ll say! I was there too, so I can vouch for that.

Hilly: And then the hula hoop thing happened again at VegasCon. I had already had the idea, but when it happened again I was like, OMG thank the Lord now it’s really set in people’s minds and hopefully they won’t forget about it.

Lynn: Not likely. [Does not mention how many vids and gifs she has of that particular moment in SPN con history…] So you got to see how much fun these guys have onstage and at karaoke, how they really don’t worry about looking foolish or whatever. They feel comfortable at cons, around the fans.

Hilly: That showed in our cameos too.

Lynn: Whose idea was it to have Jared and Jensen do the Taylor curtsey at the end?

Hannah: I think it was Hilly’s idea.

Hilly: Was it?

Lynn: lol

Hannah: Sorry, sometimes we get confused, like was that me? Hilly is like 95% of ideas and I’m like 5% here or there because I’m not really the creative one, I’m the one that takes the creativity…

Hilly: And she makes it all happen.

Hannah: I remember when they were in the room, we were just looking for like 30 seconds and then you’re done and you’re good. So they did their thing, like Jared takes his little beanie off and does his little dance, and shakes himself, and after that Hilly was bold enough to say, ‘do you mind me asking if you could do one more thing?’ And they were like ‘no, sure, what?’ And she said I would love it if I could have one of you curtsey at the end and maybe the other one would bow like for the closing of the video, we’d love it to be the last thing. And I think it was – was it Jensen?

Hilly: It was Jensen, yeah.

Hannah: Jensen did the curtsey. And then of course Jared looks over and goes ‘well I don’t wanna bow, I wanna curtsey too.’

Lynn: (laughing) Of course.

Hannah: Then he asked Hilly how to curtsey and she had to teach him how, and then we all had a good laugh. It was really funny.

Hilly: I remember Jared was the one in particular, he said ‘this was so much fun, I wish we could do this all the time.’ And he was just super excited. And when Jensen came in he immediately said, ‘hey, I love your stuff, it’s really great.’ So I’m thinking, maybe it’s because Richard was sending stuff up to everybody, so we were just super thankful. And fun fact, I’m not sure how many fans know, because we said it in the livestream, but when we finished the video Osric was out of town, so it was hard piecing it together because I couldn’t say ‘it’s turning out really great Osric’ because he was out of the country. But when it was finally complete…

Hannah: The day before…

Hilly: The day before we were gonna release it I texted him and said ‘hey we would really love to skype with you and watch your reaction.’ Luckily he got the text since I’m usually up until 3 am, so our times worked. And he was like ‘OMG I’m totally down, I should be back in the evening and I totally want to watch it.’ So I was super excited and we had the computer set up and ready. Then right before, he texted ‘oh by the way, Richard is here with me and wants to watch it too.’ So we were really excited because we could watch two people react, but also nervous because Osric committed so much time, and Richard really went over and beyond to ask people if they were even interested. And then as we start, we get a little message when Skype starts from Osric like ‘oh by the way, I have Jensen here too.’

Lynn: OMG!

Hilly: So we got to watch Osric, Jensen and Richard’s reaction. And it was so funny because I was like ‘Osric, I think you’re gonna love it’ and he was like ‘well I’ll let you know’, like joking with us. And then it started and I got a really nervous feeling, not so much like OMG but like crap, this is the end result, there’s no going back. If they don’t like it, I don’t know what to do. I’m not ever super confident like oh, this is the best thing ever. Yeah, we’ve always been very insecure, like this could go either way, it could sink or float, we’re never sure. So we have that outlook on everything.

Lynn: I feel that way every time a book comes out, or every time I write an article.

Hilly: I think Jensen had the biggest reaction out of everyone! I think Osric was like smiling the whole time, and we could see Richard but just like a little pair of eyes from time to time, because all three of them were trying to share it. But it was mostly Jensen, and his reaction was priceless!

Lynn: I wish you had that recorded!

Hilly: He was laughing the whole time, he was in disbelief, he was shaking his head at all the inside jokes, he was like ‘Oh Oh Oh’ – he caught every little thing from the dodgeball to the hula hoop to…

Hannah: to the burger!

Hilly: And the shaking of the arm, the first blade, and he was like ‘I can’t believe it!’ He was just like speechless! And Osric was like, that was so good. Big thumbs up. And they all started cheering for us and clapping. And Jensen said a lot of things but the thing that meant the most to us is he said ‘this is the best thing we’ve been a part of in our ten years.’

Lynn: Oh wow, how did you not cry? I so would have cried.

Hilly: We were just like still in shock that we were able to watch all their reactions. That was something that meant a lot to us. Because you can get a tweet and that’s great but you’re not actually watching like ‘what did you really think of it?’ And we got to see it firsthand from Jensen. And I think because the whole parody was about his character, if anyone was gonna have a reaction, it would be him. Like his reaction could probably win the reaction contest we’re holding because it was just as good as a fan’s!

Lynn: Well, he’s said many times that he’s a fan of the show too. That’s the best compliment ever.

Hannah: We were just like, thank you? OMG we weren’t expecting that. In the middle of watching it, he was actually laughing and putting his hand on his head and looking over his shoulder at Richard and Clif like, is everyone seeing this? And at the very end that’s what he said, ‘this was awesome.’

Hilly: This was before the Australia con and he was like, ‘we need to show this, we need to have this played and share it with everyone’. He was so over the top excited for it, and that was the confidence boost we needed to hear. Because we felt like if Jensen, Osric and Richard are so excited about it, I’m that much more excited to put it out there for the fans. We were very nervous but this took the stress away, it made us so much more stoked to actually put it out there. So big big thanks for Osric, Richard and Jensen for being our confidence boost that day, because we needed it.

Lynn: I say this all the time, but sometimes I really can’t believe how great and how supportive this cast is.

Hilly: They are, and I think that’s why the show has been on as long as it has been. They have a good attitude, they’re very humble, they’re family men, and I think their perspective is clear on life. They know what they want and they don’t take any moment for granted. Yes, it might be tiring to be nine months of the year on a show for so long, but I think they understand how lucky they are to be there. And they’re not gonna stop until this thing puffs out. Because they’re providing for their families, they enjoy it, they have a close relationship with each other, and after ten years it’s almost like the only thing you’ve ever known. We’ve been doing this, in October the start of the ninth year of the Hillywood Show.

Lynn: What?! You guys are so young though.

Hannah: Hilly is 25 and I’m 29.

Lynn: You started really young.

Hilly: I was sixteen. What was life like before The Hillywood Show? I don’t know!

Hannah: I remember a little more because I’m a little older. But Hilly has been into acting all her life, and we love to dance and to act and praise God we can bring that into our parodies. But for Hilly, this is what she’s known all her life.

Lynn: And you’re right, that’s sort of true for Jared and Jensen too, after all this time. Jared was very young when he started the show. You mentioned that you were blown away by fan response to the parody. There are well over 3 Million views!

Hilly: Hannah might chime in too, we’re both affected by it. When we started the show back in 2006, our only thought was, and I think God speaks to you in certain ways – when I thought of the show I wanted it to be something that’s online that when people come home, they can hop on the computer and they can smile. If they have a crappy day at school or maybe their parents are fighting or they’re dealing with something tragic, I want The Hillywood Show to be that little light that you can just turn on and not be worried. And this was in my mind at sixteen. So we kinda had this idea of what we wanted the show to be like. Nine years down the road, we’re still getting those exact words in emails. I had a bad day, I turned on the computer and forget my worries for the rest of the day. And that to us is like God’s fingerprint saying you’re still doing what you’re meant to do. That is something we’re leaning on, so whenever we get those emails – saying I was depressed or I almost committed suicide or my grandmother died or whatever it is – even I woke up in a bad mood for no reason – that I think is what means the most to us.

Lynn: That’s what has meant the most to me too, when someone reads Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls and then writes to us or leaves a review like ‘I thought I was all alone, I wasn’t sure it was okay for me to be a fan,’ and that reading the book made them not be ashamed and proud to be a fangirl, or helped them find the community of fandom that got them through tough times or whatever, that means so much. It’s been the best thing about writing the books, hearing that from so many people.

Hannah: We love hearing from fans and getting feedback on what we’re doing. But it’s the emails saying you changed my life, because of you I’m doing acting in college, because of you I’m pursuing a career in filmmaking, going to university. Like crazy things, like kids come up at 14 and are like ‘I’ve been a fan of yours for ten years’ and I’m like, wait, how old are you? So they’ve been raised with Hillywood! I went back to my childhood like being raised on Batman and the things that had an impact on me – they’ve been raised on Hillywood, which is us! Which is strange. That makes us say, let’s start the next one!

Hilly: People say oh, you’ve made it big time, but no, actually we’re just on YouTube, we’re still fighting to pursue our career, we haven’t had it handed to us. So when we get those emails, it makes us want to keep going. Anything can happen, we could lose our YouTube channel overnight, and we don’t want to count our chickens before they’re hatched. The second you feel like you have it and have power, it’s like uh oh. We just hope that the fans stick around and we’re able to find opportunities to meet people and be a part of the SPN Family. We’ve been working nonstop for three months and the next thing for The Hillywood Show isn’t another parody right now, because we just want to meet the SPN Family so bad. We just want to thank everyone and tell them what an impact they’ve had on us, and also hear their stories. They inspire us, even though they say we inspire them.

Lynn: That’s the real important stuff, when someone says that. You never lose that.

Hilly: Definitely. I guess we just don’t realize the impact we have on people, and that’s something we always want to be aware of. I think the second you forget that, you can make a really big mistake or offend people, or make a mess of something they really love. That’s why we don’t ever want to bash what we’re parodying, because it’s like, hey we’re celebrating this thing, we’re all fans, it’s a big fandom thing. Harry Potter fans can love Supernatural fans, and Supernatural fans can love Twilight fans, and Twilight fans love LotR…we’re all a big circle of fandoms that collide with us that maybe never would, like a super-fan world.

Lynn: There’s lots of crossover in fandom. SuperWhoLock could really just go on and on…

Hannah: What’s been really cool for us, being Supernatural fans, yes of course it’s the SPNFamily who’s watched this, they’re everywhere. But the strangest thing to me is people who have never watched Supernatural at all have been emailing us and saying ‘just so you know, I had no idea what was going on but I absolutely love it and because of it I’m already starting to watch Supernatural and it’s amazing’. So people are becoming Supernatural fans from watching.

Hilly: Even Doctor Who, we had people saying ‘I’ve never even attempted to go into this, but your parody was the best advertisement because now I want in’. So people were like ‘this looks so fun, what is Supernatural? I need to catch up!’ We feel really good about it because we want the show to prosper because of this. We want to help with what we’re doing. It meant a lot that the official CW account were posting and RTing, it meant a lot that they understand it and want to share it with the fans. But I thought that was so cool that people were like ‘I don’t even watch Supernatural but I love this, so now I’m curious’, and then they watch the entire seasons!

Lynn: That is so wonderful, that people are finding the Show through your parody! So, you’ll be at Comic Con, right? At the Supernatural cocktail party?

Hilly: We will, and we’ll also have a little autograph booth in the autograph section to meet fans. Hopefully we can do something at the actual Supernatural panel, have some sort of involvement, show the video or have a shout out. That would be really cool, but I’m not sure what we’re booked for. We can at least go through the line and say hi to everyone and meet them.

Lynn: Absolutely, people are in line for literally days, so that’s really appreciated. [Misha and Jared both walked the line last year, which was awesome]

Hilly: And this Saturday, we’re having our Supernatural parody Q and A in LA and we’ll try to livestream it so everyone can be involved and we’re super excited. We really want to meet people and ride out the wave, because this was a special video for us and we don’t want to just move onto the next thing. We want to be a part of something that’s really special for us.

Lynn: It is special – everything about Supernatural has turned out to be unique and special. I couldn’t agree more! You guys are part of the SPN Family now. I’ll try to find you guys at Comic Con.

Hilly: I’ll give you a squirrel hug!

Lynn: I’m counting on it.

I’m really hoping we see Hannah and Hilly at some upcoming cons. They’re so much fun to talk to, I almost was late for teaching my own class. Oops. And they definitely get it – both fandom and Supernatural. Watching the Supernatural parody with a ballroom full of fellow fans sounds like a great idea to me.

Besides, everybody needs squirrel hugs.

You can watch The Hillywood Show’s Supernatural parody here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCZy8cAgBlM

–Lynn
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