United Fan Con IX

United Fan Con IX Report
Written by: Christina Getrost

Saturday November 6, 1999
Springfield, MA
LISA HOWARD questions & answers session

Lisa's first ever convention appearance. What an exciting moment for her and for her fans. And she pulled it off with flying colors. She waded in and really opened up to us. She did a terrific job of establishing a rapport with the audience. Here, in her own words [with my comments or clarifications in brackets] is what Lisa had to say at that first question and answer session with fans. I hope I've been able to impart a sense of Lisa's cheerfulness, her spontaneity; that she is warmhearted, generous, honest, and funny. What I found amusing was that occasionally when she told a story for a laugh, she would slip into almost a Valley Girl accent; Lisa, you've been in L.A. too long! :) Picture her smile as you read this, because she was smiling and laughing the whole time.

"I've never done this before. You have to help me out here, what do I do, do I talk first? You guys ask me questions? I don't know what to do. I talk first? Okay. Oh boy, great, now I've put myself on the spot. First of all, I am the world's worst mother, I didn't even bring a picture. I meant to bring a picture. My husband's fussy about that, I'm like, oh, let's put her on the web site, he's like no, no, he's all cautious, but he's loosening up. That's why I wanted to bring a picture because he won't let me put her on the site. Her name is Sofia Cerone. Her middle name is Lulu, because when I was pregnant the crew would call her Lulu, just because we didn't have a name yet. And whenever we'd be doing a shot the camera operator Drew would go, 'Scuse me, Lulu's making her debut', and we'd have to change the angle or hide me behind something. You notice on our set there is NOTHING to hide behind. I was stuck on that mother ship all season. Matter of fact that became my nickname, I was known as 'The Mother Ship' for all of season two. The mother ship is completely empty, there's [only] some kind of console down there, so I ended up hiding behind Von most of the time, because he runs about yay high. [gesturing at a point above her head]. That pretty much worked out okay. So the crew called her Lulu and when she was born I sort of fell in love with her before she was born as Lulu and so that name kind of stuck. Poor thing, she's gonna be teased sooooo bad at school. She was also born on April Fool's Day, which you know is a big teasing day. So she's gonna have to be tough, that girl, I tell ya. She was born on April Fool's, her middle name is Lulu, and she inherited my ears! [pulls hair back to show an ear] My father always said when I took this job, 'I knew those Roddenberry people would find you someday.' With those pointy ears, it's bound to happen, and poor Lulu's got them. [sees child in audience] And there's a baby here, how sweet! I'm a magnet now. You should have seen me on the plane; I'm like, first of all I'm thinking wow, I'm going to have a weekend away from the baby, I'll actually sleep. It'll be kinda nice. On the plane I was a heat-seeker for babies. [mommy-type voice] 'Oooh, can I hold her?' I was five hours away and I was already missing her! She was enormous, she was eight pounds eight ounces. Huuuge, she was huuuuuge. And I never really got that big so I wasn't planning on pushing out 8 pounds 8 oz.! I thought she looked kinda cute, [pretended to show us her pregnant profile] and small. Fifteen hours of labor. But she was healthy and fabulous and my husband was a great coach and my mom was there. My dad couldn't be there because my sister had a baby the next day. The very next day. We were pregnant together. She's in Toronto as well, where we were shooting, so it was wonderful to go through our pregnancy together and then I came back to L.A. during hiatus to have the baby. A hiatus baby, too, the kid's got showbiz savvy already! [baby voice] 'Okay, I'll show up on hiatus!' Thank you! So consequently that meant 8 of my 9 months pregnancy I was on camera. Which was actually okay. You all could tell, right? When you watch the show? You could tell that I was pregnant? [audience protests, no, not really] I thought I looked different. I liked it, my face looked rounder, I think I looked younger. I think I looked really good when I was pregnant. [amused] I loved it. I've never felt so good. The costume designer did an incredible job, and the camera operator did a really good job on our naked sets, hiding my belly. It was really kind of a great thing to work with a pregnancy on my set. It keeps your mind off it, keeps you busy and active. It wasn't too bad. The difficult thing was that my husband was not in Toronto so we were apart for the whole pregnancy. So, [audience's reaction is Awwwww] I know! I was imagining three in the morning waking him up and going [whiny voice] 'aww honey I want Chinese food. Go get it. ' It's like the only time I can ever get away with that kind of behavior!

"And he was in Vancouver. He's the story editor on a really good show called 'First Wave.' [applause] Isn't that a good show? It is! How 'bout that guy? How bout Sebastian Spence, is he totally a hottie? I think he is soooo cute! When they were doing casting for it, and my husband brought home all the audition tapes, there were some really good actors, Rob Stewart, another guy Rob Wilson who's actually guest starred on our show, and Sebastian came on-- I was like, [growly grrrl voice] 'Honey, he's the GUY!' So my husband called up his producer and said, well, my wife gave Sebastian Spence the old hottie thumbs up. Yeah! He [Daniel] was story editor, I think he worked on 11 of the scripts last year, he did only 3 this year. Of course, we couldn't be apart this year, and that's another reason why I couldn't do this season of Earth. I really thought I'd be ready to go back to work. I went to my producers and said I'm pregnant, but it's a hiatus baby, and I'll be ready to go back to work for season three, she'll be eight weeks old. They all looked at me and went [she gave an incredulous snort/laugh]. They all have kids, they KNOW what that means. I'm like [innocent voice] 8 weeks, that's PLENTY of time, I'll have my act together, everything will be fine. [Then darker, knowing voice] 8 weeks, I'm calling them going you were SO right. I was still in that weepy 'oh my god I don't know what I am doing' stage. Not sleeping. So fortunately they had the insight to KNOW that I would not be ready at 8 weeks. And meanwhile right through my pregnancy I was saying goodbye to the crew like, oh, see ya, see ya, and they were shaking their heads like, forget it. You won't wanna come back. So I am truthfully the luckiest, luckiest actress in the world, because my producers are just incredible human beings, I mean apart from being talented and wonderful they are just wonderful human beings. First of all they knew that my husband and I were apart last year and they have a lot of respect for our marriage and they know that my priorities exist with my marriage, my family. They said listen, tell us when you want to come back and for how many episodes. You NEVER ever hear that, as an actress. You just never do. I'm eternally grateful every day. I wrote them a card the other day. I went to the park with Sofia and she sat there and she straddled a tree and she played with the bark of the tree for an hour. Now that is like a stupid boring dumb thing, right? It is a HUGE deal, and I wrote my producers saying these little gifts every day that she gives me are made possible through you guys. Majel Roddenberry, everybody's been so incredibly nice, and I appreciate every moment with Sofia because it goes by so fast . I'm just so lucky.

"They thought I'd be able to do a little more episodes this season and now it turns out I'm not going to be able to do any more until the final episode. So I did episode one and two, what will be episode nine [In Memory] which is a really good one, and then I'll do the season finale. I was hoping to sneak a few more in there, but it's difficult because they have to write story lines that don't involve Lili. So how do they sneak me in for an episode here and there when I'm not involved in the main action. So I completely understand why they did that. I mean I miss everybody so I wish they'd stick a little bit in there. And as far as next season currently our goal is to get my husband a job in Canada so that the whole family can be together in Toronto. That damn Toronto thing, I tell ya--I wish they'd just shoot in L.A. and call it a day. :) Aaaaahhh, it's SUCH a hassle. My family's there [in Toronto] so that's one good thing. If my husband can get a job in Toronto then I'm all for it. I think it'll be a lot of fun. She'll be a year old then, and she can hang out on the set with me and my mom; my mom can be her nanny, I think that would be SO cool. So we're just keeping our fingers crossed, if my husband cant get a job in Toronto I don't know what's gonna happen. Also, we're watching this new season, which I think is really really good. Last season was tough, I tell ya, last season was a TOUGH road, but this season I think the writing is a lot better. And talk about Jayne Heitmeyer, doing such a good job. I'm like, Jayne, don't do such a good job, please, coz I'd like to come back! She's beautiful and talented and having a great time and hopefully there'll be room for both of us next year. I'm hopin'. Geez! She's kickin' butt over there!

"So that's my baby/family story. My husband actually wrote, in an attempt to get to Toronto, a new show that's called Trax. They shot the pilot. The director Renny Harlin, who's a big action director, directed it and it's kinda cool. [Daniel] said if you talk about Trax be sure you tell them that I invented it before Blair Witch came out. And it's true. Last January he had the idea of a hand held video verite half hour horror show. And he wrote it and had it produced [said in a rush in a silly voice] before Blair Witch came out. Okay, so I'm saying that now for him. But now that Blair Witch is so hot Fox is going to take a look at it this Wednesday and fingers crossed he'll be shooting it in Toronto next year and I'll be up there too. And that would be a happily ever after kind of story. [applause] Yeah, I love that! See, I'm doing okay aren't I? I'm talking, not too worried. Okay good. Just checking, 'coz I really don't know what I'm doing!"

At this point Lisa began to take questions from the audience.

First off the bat was "The William Boone question."

Lisa replied, "So, what do you think? What's your theory? [the audience shouted out some opinions] Money? What else? He wanted to move on? What else? [she was just like a teacher, prompting her students] The direction of the show? These are all very good. They are very good. [Now she's starting to sound like she has no idea and is going to pick one of our ideas!] Alien abduction? [laughs] We should have come up with that one! That was just so funky how that was handled. There were all these rumors and there was never a straight answer from anybody. Girlfriend? That was out there too. Kevin had come out recently on the web and in an article, gosh I wish I could remember the name of the magazine, does anybody remember? [Someone shouts] Was it Cult Times? He came out and just laid the cards on the table I tell ya. Definitely the main reason was story development. They felt they had written themselves into a corner with the character of Boone. And they wanted to just move on from that and Kevin was not happy creatively with the direction the story was going. And was in agreement, he's got a big career ahead of him-- he's currently starring on Broadway in a show. And he decided that it was best creatively to A) move on and B) be with his girlfriend and everything was sort of in the works but the bad luck came when it just wasn't a clean break, so all the rumors of the turmoil, they're kind of true. The communication line during hiatus is always bad. There's no office to call. So one producer thought that the other producer called, the other producer thought that Tribune called, and consequently Kevin, up until two weeks before we were shooting, wasn't sure whether he was gonna come back or not. And in the meantime he could have booked some gigs. So I think that was where the bad luck came from. But we miss him, he's doing really well and he's really happy. He got married in the meantime and he's living in New York. My husband plays basketball with him every Tuesday night he's in L.A. So I'm in touch with him all the time. It really was best for him to move on. You know, alien abduction is a MUCH better answer! But it was just funky. It was too bad, because it's a great crew, and amazing producers, and to have that little bit of bad stuff going around is not the way our show is."

The next question was about her work as April on Days of our Lives.
Did she ever work with John DeLancie?

"Yes, he was on intermittently."

Then on The Pretender she was reunited with her Days costar Michael T. Weiss. Any practical jokes carried over from Days onto the Pretender set?

"No, I was on my best behavior on the set of Pretender. Because I was the guest star, it's not like it was my show. When you're a guest star you kind of have to be quiet, and sit in your trailer, and I was REALLY nervous about working with Michael because on Days of our Lives I had just met him, so we met as actors. Our friendship formed after we had established our relationship as actors. But in the meantime, he's my best friend. He was my maid of honor at my wedding. [This garnered huge laughs from the audience] Man of honor!! [In came that valley girl voice] He looked really good in taffeta. My husband's best friend is a girl. [to the fan who asked] Oh Thank you for your question you can sit down now, I know, it's horrible standing there with a microphone in your face, isn't it? He gets to sit down in the corner. I was really nervous on The Pretender because every time I looked at him I would laugh! On Days of our Lives it was different because we were comfortable together as actors, but [now] ten years had gone by, we hadn't worked together at all. All we'd done was goof around for ten years, go skiing and hang out and have fun. As it turned out I was brilliant, I kept a straight face but he couldn't stop laughing, and I got SO mad at him! Literally, I was not kidding, I was furious! I was like, Michael this is your show, you can screw up, and they won't fire you, but they're gonna fire me, stop laughing!! [She mimes Michael losing his composure and giggling during serious scene] It was horrible. He's just a really big goof. And I love him. He's been so incredibly good with my daughter. He checks up on her all the time. He won't change a diaper, haven't gotten him to do that yet. Working on him. His show is doing really well and I'm really proud of him."

How often do her EFC costars call and ask about the baby?

"You know they're so darn busy. That's the excuse that I'm giving them. However Von emailed me two days ago for the first time, just to let me know how it was going. I was up there in June and July and the end of August. I send pictures all the time. There's a big wall in the office by the Xerox machine [where they post them], so I'm keeping in touch with them that way. But they're so busy. You know this is why I've never done a convention, because we're working like dogs this time of year. There's no time off at all. Leni, who plays Da'an, is not on the show nearly enough. I love her. She's just so incredible to work with. I've been tuning in and seeing them so I don't feel like I've been apart much, coz I get to check in. And they see my dorky pictures. I have Proud Parent Syndrome--'oh look! This is the first time she went bleahh!" [and she makes a face]

Did they kid her a lot when she was pregnant?

"Yeah, kid the pregnant lady! Let's give her a tough time. No they were actually really sweet to me. Scheduling to make sure that I was out first. You have to get knocked up to get that kind of treatment! Coz most of the time you're in there 'til the bitter end, the snowstorms, and there are no favorites on our show. Von is a pretty wacky prankster for sure. Leni cracks me up, she's got the most bizarre sense of humor, I really miss working with her. Leni and I had this one episode where we had this...hand...hand connection [holds hand up in joining thing, from the episode where her shuttle crashed, The Wrath of Achilles] and the baby was Leni's, as far as she was concerned, from our connection in season one. The episode that I shot on Labor Day, I think it's episode nine, it's called In Memory, unfortunately she's not in it but it's really good and I hope you get a chance to catch it. It's my favorite one from the past 3 seasons."

How is Richard Chevolleau like his character of Augur?

"Richard is a very funky dresser. He doesn't dress like Augur coz Augur is the year 2012 or whenever our show takes place. He's that version of Richard. Richard is the 1999 version of Augur. He's a little behind the times, according to Augur, but he's still very stylish. He wears hats and really cool suits. It's an interesting thing when you're on a show for three years or know you're going to be on for three years; the character that they give you is pretty much a sketch, and you fill it in with who you are. You've got to live with this character for three years so it's a really smart thing to bring a lot of yourself to your performance, coz that's a long time to pull something that's completely apart from yourself off. So as the writers watch you perform in first season, and the more of yourself you bring to it, especially for a character like Lili and Augur who are human. If you're playing Da'an or if you're playing some wild wacky character then you get into some fun tricky acting stuff. But if you're playing the human heart and soul on a show I think you're best to show up with your heart and soul on your sleeve and say this is who I am, this is what I have to bring to it. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Augur and Richard are the same guy! [She asked if anyone's been to a con with Richard.] Am I right? He's just a lunatic! And when I first met Richard, Augur was a very serious character at first, very underground and very anti-social, and Lili was the Marine, and we looked at each other [thinking] I'm going to be bored to tears if this is the way it goes for three years. So we got a funny little vibe going and we started playing off each other, and the writers are smart enough to pick up on that and write for it. Our relationship developed into this interesting flirty little sparring thing, to the point where last season the HoloLili character was introduced. It enabled Richard and I to have fun like that without getting too far away from Lili's character, coz Lili really wouldn't go down that road with him. Much as I wanted to, I was like yeah! Yeah! It would be fun. They accommodated that chemistry by inventing HoloLili so Augur and Lili could really have some fun without undermining Lili's integrity--[coy voice] which, you know, I'm always up for. We gotta shake that girl up a bit, geez!"

How did she get the part, and what were her original thoughts about the show?

"Originally I told my agent I did not want to go to Toronto, I did not want to do science fiction, action adventure, one hour drama, it was too much work. I wanted to stay home in L.A. with my husband and work on having a family. But when I found out it was a Roddenberry show and when I found out David Kirshner was involved, I agreed to take a look at it. How this was brought to my attention, because my agent didn't even send me the script, was that Kevin Kilner called me up. Kevin and my husband had been friends, my husband used to work for TV Guide as a reporter before he got started in television. He had interviewed Kevin and really liked the guy and started playing basketball with him and on the court Kevin was like, hey how come your wife's not auditioning for this? My husband says 'oh no, I don't want her leaving town, we've been apart too much in our marriage.' But Kevin said it's a Gene Roddenberry thing. And my husband is SUCH a Star Trek fan! He's like, Give me the script! And I get the script and go honey you said you didn't want me to leave town-- he [says] it doesn't matter! We'll make it work! We'll fly back and forth! So I read it and I liked it. I was still leery about it, but because my husband said 'get on that plane girl!' and because I met David Kirshner and completely hit it off with him and felt safe coz Kevin Kilner was there. But after that, my husband left TV Guide and again David Kirshner, being such a wonderful creative man...my husband wanted to write for television so David gave him his first break. And offered him to pitch a story, and that turned into a script, that was 'The Secret of Strandhill,' which was in season one. It was the Irish episode. I think it was really good, he did a good job and I'm really proud of him. He created the character of Beckett, and she came back for quite a few episodes but then she got a series of her own so they had to kill her, [and] I totally miss her, she was great. So on the strength of that and a few other scripts he had written, Francis Ford Coppola's company snatched him up for First Wave. So again I have Kevin Kilner and David Kirchner to thank for launching my husband's career too. It's been a great experience for my whole family. [As an afterthought, in a voice full of pride and wonder] I have a family now, I can say that! I think that sounds good!"

Question about Majel Barrett Roddenberry.

"Majel is such a kick! She has more energy than any of us put together. She has so much integrity when it comes to her husband's work and his name, and Rod Roddenberry is constantly on the set making sure things are going smoothly. And when things don't go smoothly they lose their minds. I am really really grateful for them standing up for Gene's vision and the Roddenberry name. It's a very difficult job to assume what somebody would do and the direction it would go in, and it's very hard to be heard when you've got the network and the producers and people who all have their own idea. But they stand strong for the visions and as an actor I'm grateful for their voice. Apart from that she's so much fun. She has this really great Halloween party every year at her house. You can imagine Majel on Halloween, it's just insane. I didn't make it this year and I'm totally regretting it, she's got this incredible house. It's really fun to go to. I miss her a lot. We're in touch through email."

What about practical jokes on the EFC set?

"I'm more the victim, because I won't get mad. I'll just laugh. It's a hard thing to do to pull a prank off, because you have to pick the right time. If you're into your fifteenth hour of shooting, nothing is funny. It's like, leave that at home, because we wanna go home. I'll be a good sport about it. I don't have the time to do practical jokes, I'm too busy trying to learn my lines and hit my marks, usually I'm a much better victim than instigator. Robert says I have a really good laugh, so I think he likes to make me chortle on stage so he can laugh at me. We like to do funny outtakes for our [gag] reel. One of these days I want to get one and bring it." [Note: Rod Roddenberry brought the reel to ConMonality; we the UFC audience had a little discussion with Lisa about how she'd have to get permission to show a reel away from the set. If you ever get a chance to see it, they're hysterical!] Her favorite gag was --"after our little hand connection. There's an outtake where Leni and I are lounging on Leni's chair smoking a cigarette. Another where in the middle of a scene Von bit Leni's head off! Her whole head came off, and he continued to eat her head off! It looked so freaky. It was the weirdest looking thing you've ever seen."

A fan asked about EFC collectibles.

Lisa responded indignantly, "Yeah, where's the merchandise? We met with all these Mattel people. I got fitted for some kind of doll thing, and then we haven't...I think it has to be a bigger hit. I think people have to watch it more. [The fans discuss what they'd like to see, and Lisa is incredulous at all the obvious things there could be for sale but aren't] Oh stop. Now see this is my first convention so now I'm gonna get busy. You don't have pins." She thinks perhaps Majel goes to cons with stuff or sells it on her site. Another fan mentions the Philosophy Sphere contest to see what we want in merchandise. Lisa asks us what we'd like. Someone mentions the EFC Tshirt--for sale in the dealer's room. Lisa is happy: "I'm gonna get me one! I've got a web site and on the web page there's some merchandise that we're going to be adding to." [We LHFCers sit up and take notice. :)] "Yeah, that's a good idea, I wonder where it [merchandise] is. Where's my lunch box?" One fan asks for shuttle model. "My cute little shuttle. Isn't it the cutest?" Lisa says with pride. Our own LHFCer Deb stands up and shows off the club T-shirt. Lisa mentioned her charity, [National Scoliosis Foundation] when she was growing up she had scoliosis and wore a body cast for four years. She also mentioned that her autographed photo sales' profits go to NSF. Said on DAYS she did a lot of work for them and is happy to be doing more now. "So stop by my table and say hello."

What happened to Maiya? Maiya--"who disappeared."

She said drily, "We didn't handle that very well did we? We had a producer come in for season two who re-envisioned the show in a direction that didn't work, quite frankly, and one of his inventions was Maiya. It was brave of them to try a new direction of the show, but it didn't really work. His idea was to go out into the universe more, and we sort of forgot for a while that the title of the show was EARTH: Final Conflict, and it's best to keep the stories here. In his quest to go out and learn about the enemy and what's out there, he invented the character of Maiya, played by Montse Viader, who I hear is pregnant now--she caught the bug! Then he was fired and the show came back to the original storylines, unfortunately her character went along with the producer and that was that. That happened to me on All My Children. I was hired for three years and two weeks later the producer who hired me was fired, so all the actors that he hired [were let go]. It happens all the time, it's part of the deal."

On the fine art of piloting a Taelon shuttle

"I know what I'm doing when I'm flying that shuttle. Nobody else knows. Me and Drew, the camera operator, know the deal. And before I left I kept saying you guys should put this on videotape coz [she won't be there]. [They said] all you have to do is flap your arms, as far as the camera goes you can't really tell, but I go INSANE when somebody does it wrong. And I don't blame the actors, because there's no manual, there's no guide, there's no video. I really should [write the manual]. There's the cabaret tonight and I was thinking, I'll teach you all how to fly the shuttle. [audience cheers] And you can write in when they do it wrong so I won't be the only person nagging them when they get it wrong. Drives me crazy. I worked really hard on that! I got a jet pilot, a guy who does Tai Chi, a choreographer, and me, and we sat together. And you know what, there was a videotape going on, some company was doing the making of...of...what's my show called? Earth: Final Conflict. I almost said First Wave, I don't know why. And they were taping our rehearsal session where we were developing the moves. The guy who flew the jet was telling me the sequence of events that are involved in flying a jet. So I wanted to mimic those, coz Lili would bring her flight training into developing the interface. And I thought the movements of Tai Chi were fluid and strong at the same time so I wanted to incorporate those movements, so the choreographer put it all together. It was really fun; after we developed the moves, then the guys in the shop painted in all the graphics. Every once in a while I'm asked in a script to do something new, like all of a sudden the shuttle is firing bombs-- oh, we've never done that, so Drew and I now do it, develop something new [and the sfx guys add new sfx] It's great because usually the actor doesn't initiate any of that visual process, we're stepping into what's already been done. I was really honored to initiate that so I took it very seriously and [I am upset] when I see people up there going waaah [makes funny face and does strange out of kilter arm movements]. I think it could be a dance craze that'll sweep the nation." [and indeed it could become a dance craze! That night at the cabaret, Lisa was a huge hit when she very comically yet gracefully got the whole convention audience on their feet doing such moves as The Basketball, The Bruce Lee, The Swoosh, The Wiggle, the Clicker, and Side to Side, to music no less! Everyone was laughing at themselves and having a terrific time. In brainstorming with Lisa afterward, I named it the Shuttle Shuffle, and the next day she put a few fans on the spot during her Q&A. They were able to do The Shuffle remarkably well.] She continued during the talk by describing how people come up to her in airports, waving their arms and asking "is this how it goes?" Talk about strange fan encounters! :)

Back to Majel, asked by someone who'd like to see more of her on the show:

"Majel has backed off EFC, acting-wise, because Toronto is very cold. It's too cold. Weatherwise, it's freezing, and who wants to be shooting in a blizzard when you're Majel Roddenberry and you can be playing golf in Bel Air. She is no fool. So she'll come up when it's nice and hot and sunny for the first couple of episodes of the season. No I'm teasing. She's just so busy with her other stuff. She has two or three other shows going on. She gave us a good launch in the beginning. God bless her, she just does not stop. She'll continue to make appearances on our show for the duration." She broke off to gently chide the person who asked the question: "Did you call yourself an 'older Star Trek fan?' I wouldn't say that, call yourself a Star Trek alumni!"

We heard a touching tale from the family of a fan who had wanted to postpone his heart bypass surgery til after the con! Luckily his family prevailed upon him not to wait, but Lisa was properly shocked and impressed at this guy's devotion to her and the show. He said he wanted to see her on the show in a thong! Lisa was flabbergasted. "You know Lili is not the sexiest chick on the block. My wardrobe reflects who she is, and there's not much interesting sexy stuff going on in her life. TV Guide did a thing, it's kind of a sexy thing [photo layout], it's a color picture, short skirt. At the last minute I made them crop it out because I was embarrassed. But I'll keep that in mind next time, maybe I'll have them leave that in there, for our friend with the bypass. "

A fan gave her one of the official EFC T-shirts. "I have to buy some of these for my family. They're always bugging me and they think I'm lying when I say I don't have anything."

Finally a Highlander question for Lisa. What was it like on the show?

"Highlander was really hard, that's why I say God bless Jayne Heitmeyer. It is a tough job coming in on a show that is already established. Adrian [Paul] was sweet. They just brought me in as a guest star, and then they decided to keep me for a few more episodes, and then a few more episodes after that, so there was no real story arc or any sort of long term thing in mind. They just kept dragging it out, so it was really hard. I didn't know where they were going with the character half the time. When I booked EFC, I'd never really done a big series before as the lead. In the first few months of working [on Highlander], I learned so much from Adrian just by watching how he did his show. How important it is to be the leader of the cast, how important it is to get involved in editing, in the scripts. I'm wholly thankful for what Adrian taught me. He was completely devoted and worked so hard on all aspects of that show, he was a real inspiration to me."

How much input does she have into her character?

"I'm always saying Lili would never say this, or why is she doing this. Especially the first season, we [were] all getting to know the characters. The first season was very difficult because I found that Lili was constantly asking questions instead of coming up with answers. The first four or five episodes all I was doing was asking questions, I wasn't coming up with any solutions, everything was getting deferred to Boone. And that was difficult. Kevin was really good at saying 'well you make this discovery and I'll make this one and I'll ask this question and we'd mix it up.' The producers are very good about being on the other end of the phone when I have a question. Last season I had a difficult time because after Jonas the first producer left, they brought in another producer who had a completely different vision for the show yet again, which was really hard, because we kept changing directions and I know my character more than these producers knew my character. Fortunately they understand that. Lili went through this very violent stage where she was holding guns to people's heads. I said guys you have to back off on this stuff because that's not who she is, and for the most part they did. We've maintained the collaborative spirit, and we gained each other's respect. So as much as I respect their writing they respect me as an actress and it works pretty well. I'd say it's fifty fifty. I don't win all the battles but at least I'm heard, which is the most important thing."

What does she think about Sandoval 's cvi, is it working?

"Lili's theory has always been that Sandoval knows what he's doing. Sandoval has another agenda. That is a mystery that will continue and I'm not even sure where it's going to end up. But the episode 'In Memory' that I shot answers some of those questions, but the mystery will continue. My personal theory is that he knows exactly what he's doing. He's got his own thing going on. He seems to have an agenda that might be anti-Taelon. In fact I'm pretty sure it is. But I'm kind of guessing like you are. I don't really want to know. I like my scenes with Sandoval because there are a lot of elements of distrust and I think Lili and he have a lot in common. I think Lili respects Sandoval for being an absolutist. Lili is an absolutist. This is right and this is wrong. Sandoval for the most part is the same way. They're on the other side of the fence but they operate from the same place. From a certain amount of integrity. In that regard Lili respects Sandoval even though he's her tormentor. I think there's a lot that can be done with that relationship. We've laid a lot of interesting traps. If I don't go out and get pregnant again we might see where that goes! . . .He was really nasty in that last episode. With the black blood, what was with that? Holding a gun to his head, Lili would never do that, but I can believe her being in that position to say that, and believing it at that time. If Lili ever regains control of the situation so that she has power over Sandoval, I don't think she would do what he did to her. But I do belive she would stick him in a lab, and get Dr. Belman on the scene...and do something funky to his CVI! So that he's at least working for me now. I think he's too useful to stick a gun to his head and get rid of him."

More to come!
Con Report - Part II

United Fan Con IX Photos - Gallery 1

United Fan Con IX Photos - Gallery 2

United Fan Con IX Photos - Gallery 3

E-mail the Lisa Howard Fan Club

This page is for information and entertainment purposes only. Last updated: November 19, 1999