Department for Double Enchantment
2 GOOD!

For a more serious and complete transcript of this event, click here
and read the SFX report over at Stargate Solutions

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Michael Shanks
and
Anna-Louise Plowman
at the SFX Event
in London,
May 2003

by The Doc
Ah, Anna . Indeed a classy lady. Beautiful without being a high-tuned Hollywood Barbie, as well as witty, bright and charming. There is something regal about her - a natural authority. She has made Osiris my favourite villain, and I hope we will have the pleasure of her on- and off-screen presence for a long time to come.

It was great to see her teamed up with Michael Shanks this weekend - there's a great chemistry between these two, and there's a lot of natural banter, which is most amusing to watch.

These two classy people made the otherwise cringworthy
"convention" experience at the London Expo / SFX bearable. Shanks looked relaxed, was in a good mood, and for once not suffering from a cold. It was obvious that he felt much more comfortable and confident in front of a live audience than he had a year or two ago.
After welcoming the audience with the words "Hi, I'm Richard Dean Anderson", we put our fancy sunglasses on and waited for the camera flashes slow. Now we know why Shanks and Plowman are
stars - because stars is what they must have seen after this photo session.

So, what can we tell you about his panel?

Shanks is happy to be back.
The gang is happy to have him back.

Be prepared for most interesting guest stars in season 7, among them Jolene Blalock (Enterprise's Wonderbra Vulcan) as Teal'c's love interest, and Robert Picardo (Voyager's Holo Doc).

Needless to say, the mere mentioning of Jolene Blalock triggered the "puff and ruffle" effect on Shanks, who - cheerfully forced by the audience - demonstrated to Anna WHAT P & R is.
For those who don't know what P + R is: imagine any given male, be it peacock, frog or man, trying to impress any given female, and you get a pretty good impression. Shanks showed his feathers,
so to speak. Or his coat, rather ...

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would pay a lot of money to see the various gentlemen on the set of Stargate in action when a beautiful guest star is present. The little old lady who cleans
the trailers will most probably have to sweep out tons of little pheromones that went astray at the end of the day.

Anna laughed heartily about Shanks' demonstration, and tried to look impressed. By now, almost everybody knows about the P + R  manoeuvre, so I'm not sure if it's still working, though.
And now back to some serious business. I think we can all look forward to an episode called "Life Boat", which seems to be very dear to Shanks' heart. He mentioned it several times, and stated this was one of his favourite episodes and the one in which he did some of his best acting. Without giving away too much of the plot, he revealed that he'll play various different persons, all in the same body.

Remembering "Holiday", this is very promising, and Shanks does the split-personality thingy really well. Asked for his worst job on Stargate, he mentioned "Into the Fire". This was shot when he was also perfoming 'Hamlet' on stage in Vancouver, and at times didn't get more than three hours sleep a night.  He wouldn't list this episode among his "golden" ones. Ah well. We all have our bad-hair-days
Anna then shared with us her adventurous experiences while attending the premiere of "Die Another Day". It must have been terrific and frightening alike; beside meeting celebs a plenty (if I heard correctly, this included The Queen), she was stuffed in a dress which was so tight she could hardly sit, not to mention going to the loo.

Men just have no idea what women have to suffer to look the way they do. Vanitas vanitatum est - maybe that's why Anna said that the song best to describe herself would be "I'm so vain".

Shanks said "Row Row Row", but let's face it: it has always been,  and will always be, Monty Python's Lumberjack song (and hey ho, here we go again with the cross-dressing)...
Did you know Shanks eats dog biscuits? No? Well, now you do. Gives him a shiny coat he says. Well then, if we should ever cross his path again, he'll get the king size crunchies from "Science Plan"  - our  cats love them. They make handy little snacks, also great to take with you to the cinema, as a replacement for pop corn.

This was obviously brought up by Richard Dean Anderson whom Shanks caught munching on a doggie biscuit one day (RDA, for those who are new to Stargate, can be caught munching almost anytime, anywhere) - why am I not surprised. When we meet the Unas again in season 7 (yes, they will be back!), I do sincerely hope that the poor beasts will get their granola bars, not bone-shaped doggie treaties.

If you should ever be in Vancouver, by the way, don't forget to visit the "Three Dogs Bakery". Cookies, tarts, muffins, cakes - all for dogs and cats.

It is only a rumour, though, that they now are also responsible for the catering on the set of Stargate.

Woof, indeed.

Now where was I ... dog food ... dog ... howling ... ah, yes: what CD would Michael and Anna take with them to a desert island?
Anna would take her favourite show tunes, so she could do some rehearsals.

I admit my heart skipped a beat when Shanks said "Brittney Spears"  - I mean, beside her non-existent talent she is known for her saying that she "loves to go to over-sea places, like Canada". Shanks smirked, then added: "... because this would really encourage me to get off that island really, really fast!"

Good one, man. I forgive you the sushi. Blech.
Question of the day, coming from this little boy:

"Did you argue with the producers when they said you had to die in the series?"

Out of the mouth of babes ... Shanks howled, so did the audience, and junior got an X-box as reward for the, by far, most intelligent question this weekend.

Maybe the age limit for people asking questions at
conventions should be limited to under 8 year olds - it would be most enlightening and entertaining!
Ah, and here we have Hammond's Angels, the next generation.

On the show, Anna prefers the hand devise, though, because she can make Michael suffer. Ah - always the Goa'uld.

Anna is no stranger to action - she was in Shanghai Knights with the great Jackie Chan. He was worried that she couldn't do her stunt (a backflip over him) because she's so tall. But she managed without a problem. The thing she worried more about than dislocating one or two less important bones was that she might slip out of the corset when doing the stunt, but everything went well.
"Sooner or later I'll getcha, you whimpy archaeologist!"
"You and what army?"
And again, warmest thanks to Sarah, Ann and Lynley for donating these beautiful pictures. Consider yourself hugged. :-)
Talking about strange male behaviour: somebody brought up Shanks' joking remark again that he'd love to play a "cross-dressing aroma-therapist" one fine day. A fan had actually gone to the lengths of writing a script and handing it to Shanks. He flipped through it, then shook his head and said: "Naw - I ain't gonna read THAT!"

Rats. I'm curious now.

On the other hand he remarked that he'd really like to play Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire (Anna generously offered to play Stanley) - now, do we see a trend here? Will we see Shanks soon in s nifty little green number?

Hey, 6' Shanks in high heels, that would be ... quite something.
And wouldn't we just love to see Osiris doing a backflip now ...! (Not to talk about hearing the comments of Anna's mother-in-law, Dame Maggie Smith, who has not seen Anna on Stargate yet. I'm sure a backflip would be just the thing to lurk her in front of the telly.)