We haven't gotten too many notable actors at cons in a city the size of mine for a while, but that's started to get better in recent years. I tried to think of something thoughtful and not to obvious on the occasions where we had Q&A's with them.
-Gwyneth Walsh and Barbara March showed up around late 2007. I hadn't really seen any of Barbara's other work, but I asked about Gwyneth's work on "ER" (she was in one episode, playing Lucy's mom in the first episode after she gets killed and asks Carter, who was also stabbed, but lived, about it). She said that was a rather hard scene to do. I also about a handful of episodes she did on "NYPD Blue", playing Theo's doctor in a couple of episodes where he gets sick. She said it was a good experience, but David Milch was notorious for being late handing in scripts which was really hard on most of the actors (which I'd definitely heard before, in fact Jimmy Smits eventually cited it as his reason for leaving the show).
-Robert Picardo was a lot of fun and had some great stories. He actually talked about getting better acquainted with the original series and even asked the audience for some suggestions of episodes worth seeing (I think he may have been humoring us, but whatever
). I asked him about working on Gremlins 2 (one of my favorite movies growing up). He thought it was superior to the original (and while he's not in the best position to be objective on that, I agree with him). He had a hilarious story to tell about working on that one that I just can't bring myself to repeat it. You need to hear it from the man himself. 
I also picked up an autographed picture of the Johnny Cab from "Total Recall" and asked if it had been sculpted based on his likeness. I think he said it had. (Being Canadian, one thing I later really regretted not asking, in both his case and later Ethan Phillips, was about working with John Candy on his last film).
-I asked Michael Dorn about any guest stars that had really made an impression. He gave two. One was John Colicos. The other was John Anderson, who played Kevin Uxbridge in "The Survivors". Apparently, he was really impressed with Anderson's body of work (which included, I noted, the used car salesman in the original "Psycho").
-Technically, Yvonne Craig was a Star Trek actor, but not, surprisingly, most of her questions were about playing Batgirl (for the record, her favorite "Special Guest Villain" was Vincent Price as Egghead). Someone also asked her about working with Elvis. In my case, I asked about working with Alan Napier, who played Alfred. Not surprisingly, she said he was a gentleman, but he came from a very high-class British family who apparently looked down on his decision to become an actor. I noted that he was actually a cousin of Neville Chamberlain, which apparently surprised her. It's possible she was humoring me, too, but it's nice to think I could tell her something she didn't know about one of her co-stars decades later.
-With Walter Koenig, everyone, of course was asking about Star Trek or B5, so I wanted to a little different and asked him about "Moontrap", which is this cheesy, low-budget sci-fi movie he made with Bruce Campbell in the 80's, where he was actually the lead. The movie's pretty shameless with its gratuitous nudity, probably the most ridiculous being right after Bruce's character gets killed by an alien/robot thing, Walter and the female lead pitch this tent on the moon and hook up! Though she was topless for the whole scene, Walter said he was proud that he only looked at her eyes the whole time.
What did you ask any of the actors when you got the chance?
-Gwyneth Walsh and Barbara March showed up around late 2007. I hadn't really seen any of Barbara's other work, but I asked about Gwyneth's work on "ER" (she was in one episode, playing Lucy's mom in the first episode after she gets killed and asks Carter, who was also stabbed, but lived, about it). She said that was a rather hard scene to do. I also about a handful of episodes she did on "NYPD Blue", playing Theo's doctor in a couple of episodes where he gets sick. She said it was a good experience, but David Milch was notorious for being late handing in scripts which was really hard on most of the actors (which I'd definitely heard before, in fact Jimmy Smits eventually cited it as his reason for leaving the show).
-Robert Picardo was a lot of fun and had some great stories. He actually talked about getting better acquainted with the original series and even asked the audience for some suggestions of episodes worth seeing (I think he may have been humoring us, but whatever
). I asked him about working on Gremlins 2 (one of my favorite movies growing up). He thought it was superior to the original (and while he's not in the best position to be objective on that, I agree with him). He had a hilarious story to tell about working on that one that I just can't bring myself to repeat it. You need to hear it from the man himself. I also picked up an autographed picture of the Johnny Cab from "Total Recall" and asked if it had been sculpted based on his likeness. I think he said it had. (Being Canadian, one thing I later really regretted not asking, in both his case and later Ethan Phillips, was about working with John Candy on his last film).-I asked Michael Dorn about any guest stars that had really made an impression. He gave two. One was John Colicos. The other was John Anderson, who played Kevin Uxbridge in "The Survivors". Apparently, he was really impressed with Anderson's body of work (which included, I noted, the used car salesman in the original "Psycho").
-Technically, Yvonne Craig was a Star Trek actor, but not, surprisingly, most of her questions were about playing Batgirl (for the record, her favorite "Special Guest Villain" was Vincent Price as Egghead). Someone also asked her about working with Elvis. In my case, I asked about working with Alan Napier, who played Alfred. Not surprisingly, she said he was a gentleman, but he came from a very high-class British family who apparently looked down on his decision to become an actor. I noted that he was actually a cousin of Neville Chamberlain, which apparently surprised her. It's possible she was humoring me, too, but it's nice to think I could tell her something she didn't know about one of her co-stars decades later.
-With Walter Koenig, everyone, of course was asking about Star Trek or B5, so I wanted to a little different and asked him about "Moontrap", which is this cheesy, low-budget sci-fi movie he made with Bruce Campbell in the 80's, where he was actually the lead. The movie's pretty shameless with its gratuitous nudity, probably the most ridiculous being right after Bruce's character gets killed by an alien/robot thing, Walter and the female lead pitch this tent on the moon and hook up!
Though she was topless for the whole scene, Walter said he was proud that he only looked at her eyes the whole time.What did you ask any of the actors when you got the chance?
Just to be clear 
