lurkers-guide/ftp/Misc/vortex-961101.txt

SF VORTEX 11/1/96
Transcribed by Alison Weinstock


Excerpts from coverage of Sci Fi Universe Awards:

Peter Jurasik, accepting Best Supporting Actor award:
	"For me the only three people to thank are my wife, who I share
everything with, Joe Straczynski, who writes great scripts for me, and the
guy who made my wig."

Bruce Boxleitner, accepting Best Actor award:
	"Last year I was asked to emcee the first Sci Fi Universe award
presentation, and umm - I was very very fortunate to get the award _also_.
But I shared it with David Duchovny. And um --" (chuckle) "-- I thought
they gave it to me 'cause I showed up and he didn't." (there was more, but
it was cut off)

	***

Host, segueing from awards coverage to 'War Room' segment:
	"And, my favorite show, Babylon 5, took home the award for the best
Science Fiction television series. You know, one of the best things about
the awards"..."was trying to figure out who was who without all the makeup,
right? So we thought to ourselves, hey! What a great idea for a War Room!
So coming up next you will meet some of the cast members of Babylon 5,
Delenn and Lennier! When SF Vortex unmasks them in a moment."

	[commercial break]

(murmurs; seating order is Bill Mumy, Host, Mira Furlan, John Vulich. Host
murmers to Bill "... that's awful, I gotta tell ya..."

H	All right, welcome back everybody, welcome back to the big show -
we're in the War Room with Mira Furlan aka Ambassador Delenn who represents
of course the Minbari Federation. And Lennier who is also Minbari, is
played by none other than Bill Mumy, who of course we all know is Will
Robinson on Lost In Space, and he's also the co-creator and writer of
Nickelodeon's Space Cases. Mr. Mumy? [they do Minbari bow to each other.]
[BM: Well done.] Nice to have you here. And also, the man behind all these
faces is John Vulich, Babylon 5's man in charge of special effects makeup.
thanks for being here, gang, I've got to get right to it. John, I'll start
with you, I've been dying to ask you this -- Claudia Christian, is she
single?

JV	That a trick question?

H	All right, we'll get to that later. Now between these two actors,
and you know what? Between any actors on your program, okay, my favorite
show, Babylon 5, who takes the longest in that makeup chair in the morning?

JV	 Oddly enough, Mira's makeup here does take the longest. [Mira sighs.]

H	Longer than -- [off camera, apparently bumps Mira] oh sorry, I was
throwing my hands up (?) [Mira laughs] Than anybody?

JV	Absolutely, especially with that scar now that we're going to have
to touch up. [Mira laughs]

H	Now wait a minute. Now I'd think that would surprise a lot of
people because you'd think G'Kar would take like three weeks to get him
made up. Is it really Mira?

JV	Absolutely, absolutely. [H: Why?] It just seems to be - it's the
irony of it, it's the more subtler the makeup is, the more time it takes.
There's more blending and less finessing. There's no big black spots we can
hide it under.

H	So let's say she has a 7am call, what time is she gonna be down there?

JV	About 4:30, what we've seen? [MF: Yeah.] In fact tomorrow morning,
we're gonna be there Friday early.

MF	Yup -- 4:30 in the morning, yeah.

H	How about Mr. Mumy over here, how long does that outfit take?

JV	Makeup's an hour and a half.

BM	Oh please!  [JV: It's an hour and a half!] When is it ever an hour
and a half? [JV: Hour and forty minutes.] Give me -- I wish it were an hour
and a half! My first season it was three hours, twenty minutes, and now
we're eking by at one hour and forty-five minutes.

JV	But we're not counting the hour break.

H	Then let me ask you two this -- [BM murmers something about a
burrito (?)]

BM	Then I have to wear that dress every day, too, look out.

H	Welcome to the Bill Mumy show, my god, he's going on a roll here!

JV	Danger Will Robinson!

BM	Warning! Warning!

H	As two terrific actors who I watch week after week --  [BM
	Well, one, anyway. (gesturing to MF)]   What about the fact that
all that makeup you have on, okay, is it frustrating as a performer, I
mean, don't we - don't you do this, I mean, isn't part of the fun of being
a great actor the fact that people come up and say, god I love your work,
you're terrific, but how can they recognize you if you have all this stuff
on, isn't that frustrating?

MF	It's kind of working incognito. You're kind of, you know - [H:
Right.] - But you know, it has some advantages.

H	Which are...?  [MF laughs]

BM	You can go to Disneyland! [H: People don't bug you.]

MF	Exactly. (laughing) People don't bother you. [H: You can go to the
mall!] [BM: That's right, that's right.] You're left alone.

H	So those are the pros. What are the cons?

BM	Well, there's a lot of glue, and plastic, kind of --

H	Is it hard to get that off, I can imagine...

BM	It's very hard, but you have to also learn -- it's restricting
sometimes, when you turn your neck, you have to learn how to kind of work
the bone, so to speak.

H	It's a whole neck thing. [BM: It is.]

H	Now Mira -- (BM and JV chuckle) (H stops to laugh) (to BM) You're
funny - you know, I think you're _funnier_ than Jerry Doyle, by the way.

BM	Oh, well, that's a [MF: That's a complement!] Thank you very much.
Would you like to wear the bone for awhile? We could just move seats -

H	Okay. All right, Mira, let me ask you this, okay, the fact that
you're working behind all this makeup, does that make it as a performer
more difficult or maybe a little bit easier that you have this wall to kind
of --

MF	Overcome. [H: Overcome, good word.] Yeah, I feel that I'm
overcoming something.

JV	Wait wait wait, it's supposed to help you act!

MF	(laughing) Okay, let's just say -- [JV: Wrong answer.]

BM	 You should see for yourself sometime, you should come down to the
show sometime, and put on, like, the bone -- [JV: Plenty of spare bones
around.] -- and the dress, and the glue, and experience it for yourself.
That would be -- then you could _do_ the show as a Minbari.

MF	I mean you have to get used to a totally new f-- [H: Do I have to
read, audition --]

BM	We could make that happen.

H	Okay. So, (to MF) what about it?

MF	You - you have this new face, and you have to get used to it, you
have to know it, you have to have seen what it can do, how you can -- you
know, what devices you have to -- I mean things that you kind of went
through with your own face, but now it's a whole new process, so it's --

H	Did you like your face when they said, okay, this is what you're
going to look like, do -- yup, look in the mirror -- what was your reaction?

MF	(laughs) (everyone laughs)  [H: Be honest!] I asked, where's the
gun. I'll kill myself.

H	Really!

MF	Ah, no, ah (laughing) No, I have to say that was the situation, my
situation in the pilot. Ah, you know, you have to kind of get rid of all
vanity, which is a _task_. I don't know, I see it as a --

H	Bill Mumy, happy with your look on the show?

BM	(sarcastically) Oh, LOVING IT. [MF laughs] Just loving it. I mean I
think everyone in town is gonna be walking around with an eggplant and a
bone on their head [MF and JV laugh] pretty soon. It's the look to have!

H	Regarding your character --

BM	That would be Lennier.

H	Yeah, I knew it was Lennier --

BM	Right. I'm reminding myself.

H	How much time, do you have a little time with the Great Creator,
the Great Maker Mr. Straczynski, as we refer to him as -- [BM: Yes.] How
much influence do you have, do you talk about where you're going with your
character?

BM	Yeah. You know, being a fellow _writer_ -- no, Joe and I get along
pretty well, and I have had some input into the arc of Lennier's character.
I went to Joe early in the second season and suggested that Lennier was
deeply in love with Delenn. Although he would never express that to her. I
wanted to play him that way. And he thought about that, went away for a
couple of days, and came back and said, okay, let's start playing it that
way. And we put that in place early in season 2, and -- [H: Really!] --that
didn't come out until the end of season 3. Really. Middle of season 3.

H:	That's power, folks. That is the power of Bill Mumy.

BM	 Big time show biz power.

	[commercial break]

H	All right, welcome back, we're still in the War Room with Babylon
5's Bill Mumy, Mira Furlan, and makeup artist extraordinaire John Vulich.
Gang, season 4 starts next week, so why don't we take a quick look at a
clip from "Hour of the Wolf." [BM and JV howl]

	[clip of Lyta, Delenn, Ivanova and Lennier approaching Z'ha'dum]

H	Who was it? It was the First Ones, I know it was the First Ones.

BM	No no, it was the Stones on their Galactic tour of 2261.

H	Let's get to some viewer mail, Mark Rivera from Brooklyn NY, big
Yankee fan, he wants to know -- he wants some hints on season 4, how dark
is this show going to go?

BM	Tell him to play with his bright switch, on the tv.

H	John, come on, you know what's happening down there on Babylon 5,
how dark is this show going?

JV	The Great Makers tell me it has to get dark before it gets light. I
will tell you that the first three episodes that _we've_ done, from our end
of it, we've done stuff more akin to what you'd do for a horror film than a
science fiction show, I think.

H	That's it? That's all I'm going to get on next season?

JV	That's it, you've got to watch, you've got to watch.

H	What good are you? Come on, what else ya got?

BM	You gotta find out -- tune in.

H	Folks, you have any questions for us here in the War Room, you want
to see someone else unmasked, email us at SFVortex@aol.com. There you have
it! That wraps up another episode of SF Vortex. I want to thank my guests
-- Bill, will you come back?

BM	Thanks. No. (everyone laughs)

H	Mira, thank you very much for coming, John, thank you so much.
There you have it, folks, so long everybody! (does Minbari bow) ... I've
got this down pretty good...