Tag: Gil McKinney

Supernatural in The Big Easy: SPN NOLA 2023

Supernatural in The Big Easy: SPN NOLA 2023

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I have enjoyed every Supernatural convention that’s been in New Orleans, which is one of my favorite cities in the US. The food is incredible, the history and architecture are fascinating, and it’s a place where people are determined to relax and have fun – which makes it a great place for a con. This year was the first time it was a Road So Far Creation con instead of an official Supernatural con, but it was once again a wonderful time, in part because I had lots of friends there.

And because  – New Orleans!

My friend Tedra brought a bunch of free postcards to put at my vendor table, from artist @sfwFandD, which were needless to say very popular.

I love when fans do things for other fans just out of wanting to share the joy – so much of what makes fandom special!

(Also they made great bookmarks for the books)

I had to work later than usual, and then flights were wonky, so I didn’t end up actually getting there until Saturday late afternoon – which meant I missed a ton of panels and people that I really wanted to see. First Misha panel I’ve ever missed, I think. Boo work.

I did make it in time to have dinner with friends, and for the Saturday Night Special, luckily!

This was a uniquely awesome SNS because the stage at this venue was very very far from the first row of seats (which makes no one happy) so the ever resourceful Creation tech team constructed a catwalk to bring out a portion of the stage – and every single actor and musician seemed to love it as much as the fans did!

Kim performed one of my favorite Blondie songs, which is a perfect fit for her.

Creation’s own Stephanie Dizon performed, which she used to do a lot back in the day, so it was great to have her (and her great voice) onstage again.

It’s also great to have Gil McKinney back – at the cons and at SNS singing. (Check out our exclusive interview with Gil recently here if you missed it)

And look at those fabulous back up dancers aka Kim and Briana!

And newcomer to the cons JoJo Fleites also joined in the SNS.

They absolutely blew everyone away with their beautiful rendition of ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’ which was also performed this season on ‘The Winchesters’. Wow!

‘The Winchesters’ cast is as talented as Supernatural’s actors have always been apparently – Meg Donnelly also performed, showing off her onstage experience.

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A Chat With Gil McKinney – ‘The Winchesters’, Cons and The SPNFamily!

A Chat With Gil McKinney – ‘The Winchesters’, Cons and The SPNFamily!

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As we wait to find out whether the Supernatural universe’s ‘The Winchesters’ will return for a second season, I talked to one of the show’s guest stars for its first season – Gil McKinney, reprising his role as Henry Winchester, patriarch of the Winchester family. One of the exciting things about ‘The Winchesters’ was having some of the cast of the ‘Mothership’, aka Supernatural, make an appearance – including Gil. He has also been doing the convention circuit again recently, so it’s been wonderful to see him in person as well as onscreen.

Lynn: How did you find out that you’d be playing Henry Winchester again? I’m assuming you didn’t have to audition for the part!

Gil as Henry with Jared and Jensen as Sam and Dean

Gil: It’s kind of funny, I remember exactly where I was when I caught wind of it. I was driving around running errands and got a text from Alaina Huffman, who played Abbadon on Supernatural. She left LA years ago, but she reached out to me and said hey, are you doing The Winchesters pilot, because your name is in the script?! I said, wow that’s pretty cool. No one had reached out to me yet, but I knew the pilot was in the process of being cast. She had been sent the script, and I don’t think she would mind me telling the story that she had an audition for Josie.

[Who we didn’t end up seeing on the series – at least not yet.]

Gil: I asked her to send me the script – not the whole script, but the audition material.

Lynn: The sides.

Gil: The sides, exactly. It was the scene in the pilot where they’re reading the letter from Henry, and it says Henry Winchester played by Gil McKinney in the sides, and I was like, that’s cool! That’s never happened to me before, but also kind of strange because no one had mentioned anything yet. That casting office knows me fairly well, I would say they’ve cast me in more shows than any other office. They’re wonderful. They’re called UDK, Ulrich Dawson and Kritzer, and they’re fantastic, some of the kindest casting people you’ll ever meet.

Lynn: They cast Supernatural too, right? I’ve heard many of the actors talk about how great Robert Ulrich is, and how great that agency is. I keep saying someday I need to buy them a fruit basket. A GIANT one!

Gil: So I called my manager, just to let him know, and then weeks, if not a couple of months, went by and I remember exactly where I was – in my garage putting together a motorized tractor trailer situation for my son – and I get a text out of nowhere from Jensen. We’re very friendly but we don’t communicate regularly or anything, but I got a text from him out of the blue saying hey, do you have a minute to chat? I was like, yes Jensen, I’ve got a minute for you! So we chat and he tells me they want me to come play Henry on the show again, and I was just floored, I was so happy.

Lynn: I can imagine!

Gil: You know, I can only speak for myself, but as actors, the disappointments pile up so the victories become extra special, and that was just really cool. We had a really nice conversation – he was on a boat somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana. I want to say he was with Robbie Thompson and they were looking at alligators or something cool like that. I was like, that sounds nice man, I’m putting together a motorized tractor for my one year old. I said, this is the best call I’ve gotten in a long time and of course, anything you need.

Lynn: That’s awesome.

Gil: I’m over the moon because, you know, conventions and Supernatural are one of the best things that have ever happened to me, but I did one episode in Season 8 and one in Season 9 and they never got back to Henry. I’ve been lucky enough to travel all over the world doing conventions and the one question I got more than any other is when is Henry coming back, are we going to see Henry again?

Gil answers questions at a Creation Supernatural convention

Lynn: I think we all thought we would. He’s part of the core family, the Winchesters, so I really thought we would.

Gil: Well, you know, I’m not in the writers room, I don’t know why decisions are made one way or the other. All I do know is I spoke with Adam Glass somewhere during the course of those years – Adam basically created and wrote the Henry Winchester character and introduced it and cast me, which I’m forever grateful to him for. He also flew me back to LA to do an episode of Criminal Minds Beyond Borders that he was writing on, he offered me a guest star on that. One day we were sitting in my trailer at CBS studios and talking about everything and he expressed to me that he fought and fought to have Henry come back in a much bigger way, but for some reason, in the writers room not everybody was on the same page. They wanted to go in a different direction. One producer just felt like Henry should stay dead, which is hard to hear. So I didn’t lose hope but as season 14 and 15 came, I just had to kind of accept that Henry likely was not going to be back on Supernatural. And that was a tough pill to swallow.

Lynn: I’m sure it was. It was a great character, and I think a lot of people wanted to see more of Henry.

Gil: I’ve done a lot of guest stars on shows, and hands down that role is my favorite, because it’s such a cool show and such a great character. Especially in that first episode I did, As Time Goes By, when Henry is in almost every scene. So as an actor, I spent a couple of weeks in Vancouver, on set pretty much every day. It was so much fun to shoot!

Gil with Serge Ladouceur on the set of Supernatural

Lynn: And it was such a great episode.

Gil: So fast forward to this call from Jensen and I was like, wow, it’s finally happening – Henry is gonna get to come back finally, after all these years!

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Supernatural Dallas Con: The Boys Return (Close to) Home

Supernatural Dallas Con: The Boys Return (Close to) Home

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The Supernatural convention in Dallas is always fun because it’s the closest we get to the boys’ hometown (until next year, when the con moves to their actual hometown, Austin!). That means they’re rested and have friends and family joining them and everyone is in a really good mood. That was the case for this con too! And it was equally fun for me because I had lots of friends there too.

I was excited to escape from the Philly winter to warmer Texas, only to arrive just as the giant Texas ice storm was ending. There were still piles of ice along the streets and slippery patches, and many people had stories of digging out their ice-encased cars that morning.

The convention center and the surrounding area was turned into a magical place, looking like a fairy corridor instead of a pathway through a parking lot.

And every branch or railing was a work of art if you looked closely enough.

Climate change, not fun. But really pretty for Liz’s camera to capture for posterity!

My intrepid friends came to pick me up at the airport anyway. #SPNFamily.

Friday was hosted by the lovely Jason Manns, as Fridays often are, in his comfy Mr. Rogers-esque sweater.

I caught some of David Haydn Jones’ panel on Friday – I love that he always dresses the part of wherever the con is, and this time was no exception. Cowboy David!

He’s working on a new song for karaoke, which is still a secret, but I’m looking forward to it.

He had only good things to say about Supernatural.

David: On my first day, Jared, Jensen and Misha were so collegial. Then they gave me a Bentley and a grenade launcher – I was a kid in a candy store!

What’s not to like? Well, actually the fire in that scene – which was real!

David: When you see that fire behind me, that’s real. Jared and Jensen were like, I’m outta here!

David is a great story teller. He told a hilarious story of that gag reel moment when he was attempting to say ‘chupacabra’ over and over, which was funny enough. But when he was saying ‘chupa chupa’ apparently in Spanish that means ‘sucky sucky’ so… very dirty.

David: There’s a whole fic on Ao3…

Also David, though I can’t remember context: You can always trust this audience for testicle humor.

David said that Ketch was originally conceived of as a sort of East End brawler – who sounds a lot like Billy Butcher on The Boys. He did have some more serious things to say too, including how being onscreen can exacerbate any kind of body dysmorphia someone might have. On the other hand, dressing up for a living is fun.

David: One of the fun parts of this job is getting to cosplay for a living.

Briana Buckmaster couldn’t be at the con because she’s filming a movie, but Kim Rhodes had her join the panel a bit through Facetime anyway!

Kim told the amusing story of her favorite memory from filming Kung Fu – which wasn’t actually from filming at all. Richard Speight, Jr. was directing, and they were walking back from lunch when a guy stopped Richard and asked for a selfie with him, proclaiming himself the worlds’ biggest Supernatural fan (and never noticing it was Kim there). As he walked away, Richard scoffed: “Not the biggest!”

They also apparently had a lot of fun on the Kung Fu set voicing the actor lobsters who were sometimes more well treated than some humans lol.

Like David, she had all good things to say about Supernatural.

Kim: I’ve been fortunate to work on shows where people who are at the top of the food chain make sure that no one gets fucked. Jared and Jensen were the same way. I’ve been so lucky to work with generous, lovely human beings. There’s not an atom less on Supernatural that it felt like my birthday.

She had kind words for the fandom too.

Kim: The greatest gift this fandom gave me is permission.

I love the way Kim greets fans, so full of joy each and every time.

It’s what she writes about in her chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood, powerfully.

She also had a visit from a tiny but awesome fan who joined her onstage – adorable!

We all had a delicious home cooked meal at a friend’s house on Friday night (and some homemade cherry cobbler which, mmmmm) and then I collapsed like I almost always do on Friday nights at cons – which meant I didn’t get to go to karaoke. The problem with the con being at a convention center is that it’s a little difficult to get back and forth, so once I was dropped off at my hotel, that was it for me!

On Saturday, we had a panel with Smallville’s Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, which I’d really enjoyed at the last con too – this time they had a table, which confused me when I came in because it looked for a moment like I’d wandered into a conference instead of a convention. Michael played his guitar in between the two answering questions.

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The First Supernatural and Other J & J Projects Convention – Vegas 2023!

The First Supernatural and Other J & J Projects Convention – Vegas 2023!

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The first “Salute to Supernatural and Other J & J Projects” and the first con of 2023 happened in Las Vegas two weeks ago. Anyone who knows me knows that I am generally a person who loathes change – especially when it comes to things that are important to me. Like Supernatural. So I had a little trepidation flying to Vegas, wondering if the con would feel different, if it would be less “Supernatural” and if that would make me sad. I was nostalgic to be back at the Rio despite my less-than-wonderful memories of the year our toilet started overflowing in the middle of the night (when everyone had been asleep for hours) and we ended up having to switch rooms at 3 am in the midst of a truly horrific mess. Somehow I am STILL fondly nostalgic for the Rio anyway, with its open-24-hours Starbucks and its gigantic Hash House breakfasts and its 20 mile walk to the convention center (yes, that’s an exaggeration). Alas, there’s only one Starbucks left and it closed at 5 pm every day much to my dismay, but I did have some Hash House thanks to my lovely friends.

Most importantly, yes, it still felt like a Supernatural con! Give me the Jared and Jensen gold panel and the Jared and Jensen main panel and the Misha Saturday panel and Louden Swain at SNS and I will continue to be happy. I thoroughly enjoyed the Smallville panel with Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, and the Walker panel with Mitch Pileggi, Jake Abel and Keegan Allen. SNS was awesome and there was no drama (that I witnessed anyway) and phew, I feel like I can relax a bit. I just don’t want to lose what I so love about Supernatural cons, but I’m happy to get to hear some new stories and meet some new people for the other shows I’m watching too.

The new semester just started, so this is a briefer con write up than I usually do, but I wanted to write up some of the fun before I don’t remember it all. I missed Kathy a lot at this con, since my first trip to Vegas was with her – we rode the roller coaster and saw the Criss Angel magic show and generally “did” Vegas, and it will always remind me of her. I still can’t believe she’s gone, honestly. (If you’ve read Fangasm Supernatural Fangirls you understand how unique and wonderful our friendship was). Luckily I had lots of friends at this con, and I’m very grateful.

My friend Sue picked me up at the airport on Friday afternoon after a flight that was long but not arduous largely because I got a very nice seat that had a footrest! So I might have slept most of the way… Anyway, caught some of the Gil McKinney and David Haydn-Jones panel, which was hilarious. When I came in, Gil was telling the story of the time he was filming a show and they gave him a prosthetic penis and it looked like a cave man’s.

David: Why didn’t you keep it? And use it as a hat?

I mean, sure, why not?

From there they ended up talking about hat size…and head size…

David: We’ll try on hats together later…and that’s not even a double entendre!

Gil thanked the fandom for their influence in giving him the courage to go back to performing onstage as a singer – he writes about it in his chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood. And he sang at the SNS in Vegas too, yay!

David wrote a chapter in the next book, There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done, about the impact the Supernatural fandom has had in his life too.

They talked about the flexibility that’s essential to being an actor. David said he first auditioned for Ketch looking scruffy and wearing a motorcycle jacket, but the next time after they took the character in another direction, in a tuxedo!

Gil said that he especially loves working with directors who are also actors, like Richard Speight, Jr. and said he had a great director once who really helped him get back to where he should be.

Jason Manns was the emcee for Friday, and did a great job as always.

Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster had a panel on Friday too, which as always was equal parts amusing and serious (as in, tears in my eyes kinda serious)

What other characters would they like to play?

Kim: I’d like to play Lucifer, angelically… as I pop your eyeballs out…

They told the hilarious story of when they first met on set and Briana apologized to Kim for cussing a lot!

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‘The Winchesters’ Mid Season Finale Brings Back a Familiar Face

‘The Winchesters’ Mid Season Finale Brings Back a Familiar Face

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The mid season finale was aptly titled ‘Reflections’ and that’s what it asked some of its main characters to do. Supernatural (the Mothership for this prequel series) has always been about family relationships, so I was eager to watch this episode, which promised not one but TWO missing fathers returning. The episode was also directed by Supernatural’s Richard Speight, Jr. so that was an extra incentive to be excited. It also had me reflecting on my long history with this universe, since Speight has been so much a part of all things Supernatural and the return of Henry Winchester also meant the return of Supernatural’s Gil McKinney. That meant that this episode was, for me, the most emotional one so far.

We get Dean Winchester right away with his introductory monologue: Comes a time in every hunt when the fightin’ starts. And the difference between winning and losing isn’t whether you have the holy water, the wooden stake or the silver bullet. It’s whether you’ve got the grit to get the job done.

Certainly something that Sam and Dean had, no matter what got thrown at them, and not something that the John and Mary we know in the future were lacking. In this timeline, John and Mary stalk the radio station tower that’s calling all the monsters to the Akrida in a beautifully filmed scene in an overgrown field and then inside a dark abandoned radio tower.

Speight always gives us some shots that strike me as beautiful in their composition, and I enjoy looking for them in each episode he directs – this one didn’t disappoint.

Unexpectedly, Mary finds her father’s bag covered in blood (he apparently puts his initials on everything – someone must have sent him to camp a lot as a kid).

Mary freaks out, feeling guilty about the way they left things. She told him that she wanted to leave hunting and then Samuel went out on his own, and now she fears that maybe he’s not coming back. It’s such a common struggle for people who have lost someone and their last interaction was less than positive, and it can cause painful feelings of guilt and regret that are hard to get past. I felt for Mary there, as she confessed how much it was bothering her. I wondered if John too had felt some guilt – we don’t know what he had said to his father on the night Henry disappeared. Were there regrets there too?

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