I made it up to Seattle for the Emerald City Comic Con just to catch the Fringe panel. I went to San Diego last July for the International Comic Con, but Fringe was one of the shows that I missed out on and I wasn’t going to miss out on it this time around.
The panel included John Noble and Jasika Nicole, who play Walter and Astrid on the show. They talked about Fringe and answered some questions from fans. They couldn’t reveal too much about the rest of the season, but they are hopeful that a fourth season will be green lit. Since moving from Thursday nights to Fridays, fans have been worried that this move could cause the show to be cancelled. John discussed how they have exceeded their Friday night expectations and how ratings have gone up in terms of DVR numbers. Both of the stars sounded confident about having another season.
They are still filming Season Three and when asked about her character Astrid, Jasika gave a little hint that Astrid will save the day in an upcoming episode. She also wishes for an Astrid centric episode and discussed the differences between her two characters. She felt that alternate Astrid is a genius but lacks social skills where the normal Astrid is someone who takes care of everyone. When asked what her alter ego nickname was, since they have Fauxlivia and Walternate, she answered “Kickastrid” which got a loud cheer.
Noble talked about how it was more fun and compelling to play Walter than it was to play Walternate. He also talked about how the writers usually listen to his ideas. He was the one to come up with the idea of Walter milking the cow and when he suggested to the writers that Walternate should have a mistress they gave him one. One of the coolest moments was when a fan went up to ask a question, he instead asked the audience who thought that John should get an Emmy. The whole audience cheered loudly and I completely agree. He is amazing as Walter/Walternate and I will be highly disappointed if he gets overlooked again this year.
One entertaining question related to which scene they found the most disgusting to film. Jasika described a scene where they had to open a body bag where the corpse had worms coming out of his chest. The guy inside was a real person, the worms were real and they had about sixty to eighty seconds to get the scene right. When she opened the bag, the man was shutting his eyes real tight even though he was supposed to be playing dead.
They both seemed like they had a good time talking about the show and answering the questions from the audience. They thanked the fans for sticking with them and John told the audience that the one thing to do if there is something you want to see on the show is write about it. He said that the writers take notice to blogs and articles that are written about the show on the internet. Writers if you are taking notice I would love to see an Astrid centric episode.
I really enjoyed the panel and it was cool to see how much John and Jasika love their show. They were very entertaining and had some good stories about being on set. I got to meet them later for a photo-op and they were the two nicest celebrities I have encountered so far. Let’s hope that Fringe continues to be successful and these two keep gracing us with their presence.
Great site..How do we bring back Friday Night Lights?