DarkMatterLive heads to MetaCon in Minneapolis!! (Part 2) Academy Award Nominee Eric Roberts

Ok, I admit something here...I was completely starstruck on this one! How many people have meet Academy Award Nominees? I have never meet one, until Eric Roberts came walking into Panel Room 1 asking how we are doing. My heart stopped! To be honest, he was running late (stupid traffic, slow elevators lol) and I thought he had cancelled for some reason. Well, there he was! Walking with all the swag of a normal guy and the effect of a superstar!

I want everyone to know that I did try to keep down the gushing with meeting him. I hope I succeeded! LOL I tried not to take much of his time, but boy did I ask a lot of questions!

"How are you? How was your flight in?" - To Eric Roberts
     Eric Roberts: I'm great, thanks. It was fine, actually I slept through the whole thing.

"You have been in movies with Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Dennis Hopper, Alec Baldwin. That's heavy casting! How do you handle that type of thing?" - To Eric Roberts
     Eric Roberts: It is heavy casting. You mentioned Jon Voight, he is a Buddhist...so everything to him has to be perfect. Alec Baldwin loves being a movie star! But when he gets grumpy, he gets really grumpy.

"What do you think about what he did just recently?" - To Eric Roberts referring to Alec Baldwin pinning a paparazzi member to a car.
     Eric Roberts: How many of you are parents? (to the audience) Well, as you know, when you have a new baby in the house, you get no sleep for the first two weeks and you get a little grumpy. With Alec, he got really grumpy.

This next question didn't come from me, this question came from Kristen! Yup, I made her ask this one.

"How long have you been studying Taekwondo?" - To Eric Roberts
     Eric Roberts: Off and On since the second grade
(Kristen dropped her phone in shock)

"Ya, this next question is about a rumor that keeps coming up. I was wondering if it was true that you helped launch Julia Roberts career with getting her cast in the movie Steel Magnolias?"
     Eric Roberts: Ok, you got the story right...Just not the movie. Steel Magnolias was the film she got her first Academy Award nomination. The film she got her start in was Blood Red. The director was having trouble casting my sister, in the film, and I suggested my sister Julie. The director wasn't buying it and I was like, It's my sister! I also introduced her to her first agent, director. She did say thank you. I'm very proud of her.

"What's it like being married to Eric Roberts the actor and Eric Roberts the man?" - To Eliza Roberts
     Eliza Roberts - It's like any other marriage. I mean, you have the ups and downs. When I watch a movie that he is in, I'm stunned at how good he is in the movie...and then he comes walking down the stairs.
     Eric Roberts - It's great being married to me!

To be honest, there were a lot of great questions that came from other audience members. I don't remember them all but I will mention the question about the film, The Expendables.

"You did the film, The Expendables. What was that like?" - To Eric Roberts
     Eric Roberts: It was great, with the exception of the farting contests. There was one pre-madonna on the set. Sly is all work! He is a great guy. Steve Austin is a sweetheart.

I do want everyone to know that I did try to remember what the answers were. If I got it wrong, I do apologize. This is why I didn't quote them.

Later that night I did go to his autograph session and received another surprise! He signed an autograph for my mother! When I took it back to her, she laughed and thought it was cool and a big surprise! A close friend of hers is now jealous of the autograph! LOL I had to laugh on that one. Eric Roberts made my moms day with that surprise.

Oh yes, since it seems unlikely that I will ever meet him again. This next message is to Eric Roberts!

To Eric Roberts,
     Thank you very much for the autograph. I'm completely surprised by this! The name of the television show I watched, with you in it, was called "Less Than Perfect." I thought you were hilarious! You played the part of the Will Butler. Thank you again for the autographed picture!

So, to anyone out there, if you happen to know Eric Roberts or if he is reading this, Thank You!

I did run into Eric Roberts two times after the panel. Once, he was walking around the corner near the elevators and said, "Heey! It's Eric Roberts!" He gave me a fist bump and said "Salute." The other time was on Sunday morning. I went up to him and said, "Thank you for coming to this." He said, My pleasure and bent over to pick up his bags. (He put them down to take a picture with a lady and gave me another fist bump.)

Near the end of the first panel, Kristen turned to me and said, "Yeah, that's how your going to be in a few years."

I have to say that Eric Roberts is a class act with a twinkle in his eyes! He is great to talk too and will answer any question you have to ask him.

It was great meeting him and I wish him all the best in life!!

p.s. Oh yeah, for those who are interested. Eric Roberts put Kristen and I on too a few things that he supports and does in his life. First off is the musician, Keaton Simons!

Here is the link to his website: http://redbootpr.com/featured_artist/featured_artist.html

Also, Eric and Eliza Roberts support The Natural Child. Here is the link to this:
http://www.naturalchild.org/book/audio/

Eric Roberts is also an animal rights activist, here is the link to the organizations he supports: http://www.preciouspaws.org/ and http://600million.org/?r=ericroberts

If you cant get to these sites by the links given, I apologize. You can find all the links on Eric Roberts website! http://www.ericrobertsactor.com/

DarkMatterLive heads to MetaCon in Minneapolis!! (Part 1) Power Rangers and the Hyatt Regency

Ok, this is going to be a long blog! I promise. Do you want to read it? I know I would! LOL Anyway, brace yourself, Icarus went to MetaCon!!!

To tell this story, I have to go back a couple of months to about May 2013. Kristen/DJ BeatsPoint mentioned to me that there was an Anime Convention in Minneapolis and she was interested in going. My first thought was, "Gosh, I don't know." Anyway, she asked me to check it out and get back to her about my thoughts.

DML doesn't typically go to many large conventions. The reason? Well, we feel that the larger the con, the more confusion and chaos there is at that level.

I looked over the website and was stunned at what they were lining up for guest speakers! Billy West, Academy Award Nominee Eric Roberts, Erin Cahill, Jason Faunt, Nakia Burrise, Michael Copon, Leif Ganvoort, Chris Patton, Sonny Strait, Chuck Huber and Terry Pavlet!! This is some high profile people to be bringing to a convention in the mid-west!

So, I decided to notify the other members of DML or our intention to go to MetaCon and see what was up with all this awesomeness!

Go forward a month or so and SoDakCon happened in Rapid City! We had a great time and Kristen/DJ BeatsPoint brought the house down. We had so much fun at SoDakCon, I decided what the hell! Bring on MetaCon!

The passes were bought and the room was reserved at the hotel!! (OMG, the hotel)

A few weeks later, I'm sitting in my apartment packing up the rest of my stuff! Sadly, business had to intrude and a quick trip was made to my parents house. I mentioned to my mom that I was headed to Minneapolis for a convention and she asked who was going to be there.

When I mentioned Eric Roberts, she looked at me and said "I know him! He is on that sitcom that I love!" Not telling me much else, I left and went to meet Kristen/DJ BeatsPoint at my apartment to pack up the car and head to Minneapolis!!

Sadly, we missed the opening ceremony with a few of the small panels. Stupid construction!!! Oh well.

We get to the hotel and was shocked by what we saw:

The Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis had just finished a huge renovation process and what we saw was nothing short of amazing!!! OMG The entry way was enough to make your jaw drop!

I ran up to the check-in counter and my reservation was all ready to go! We got a cool room on the ninth floor and just stared at the size!

Phil and Sam Firefox came with us and immediately took over the couch. (Silly guys)

I helped Kristen sign up for the Cosplay/Masquerade contests and we got a few moments to relax and enjoy the convention! Little did we know that this would be the last time we got to breath...or eat!

As we were going through the vendors area, which was huge, Kristen saw four people walk in and didn't mention it to me until I almost passed right by them...I stopped and turned, yelled "OH MY GOD...IT'S...IT'S!!"  Nakia Burrise turned, smiled, and waived at me. Erin Cahill said, "Hiiiii!" I turned back to Kristen and she said, "Yup, it's the Power Rangers."

To clarify, Power Rangers Time Force and a Power Ranger Turbo! Jason Faunt = Red Ranger, Nakia Burrise = Yellow Ranger (Power Ranger Turbo), Erin Cahill = Pink Ranger, Michael Copon = Blue Ranger

I went up to there table, after they set up, and proceeded to talk their ears off and ask a ton of questions!!

They were very happy to answer questions and took their time to explain as much as they could about being celebrities! The questions you ask? Well, here are the questions with the answers as best as I can remember them:

"How does it feel being apart of something that just keeps going?"
   Jason Faunt: It's cool!

"How does it feel to come up after Jason David Frank, Austin St. John and the rest?"
   Nakia Burrise: I worked with Jason David Frank.
   Jason Faunt: I never felt the pressure because every season they changed the plot, characters. Our team                            was in the way future.
   Erin Cahill: I think it's cool!

"What was it like working with Jason David Frank?" - to Nakia Burrise
     Nakia Burrise: He is a sweetheart but he can kick some ass

After I found out about the other projects that the cast had done, I started asking questions:

"What's it like doing the horror film, Boogeyman 3?" - to Erin Cahill
     Erin Cahill: It was a lot of fun! There is such a wide range of emotions to bring out.

"Did you know about the Alexander the Great film, while you were doing the documentaries?" - to Jason Faunt
     Jason Faunt: Yes, I did. It was a challenge but a lot of fun learning how to do the weapons and all that                              cool stuff.

"What's it like doing a video game?" referring to Resident Evil 6. - to Jason Faunt
     It was cool. When I went in for the game, they scanned my face with an image machine so the character        looked like me.

"What's it like being in all the teen magazines?" - to Michael Copon
     It's cool! I mean, in this one, I'm on the the top 50 sexy men list!

"When you go to other jobs do you find that people, you are working with, are fans of Power Rangers and what you have done?" - Entire cast
     Michael Copon: All the time! For me, what sells it is: Dude, You're an action figure!
     Rest of cast: Oh yes!

I want to thank Erin Cahill, Jason Faunt, Nakia Burrise, Michael Copon for their patience and for taking the time for all my questions! I had a lot of them.

(I do want everyone to remember that I didn't quote them because I didn't have a mic and I am trying my best to remember what they said as answers, so if I got it wrong, you will have to forgive me)

Ok, now I have to inform everyone of a weird coincidence that occurred during the whole convention! For some reason, Kristen and myself, kept running into them during the event! It was not planned nor are we stalkers. (We swear!) We didn't run into anyone else but these lovely people! Fortunately, they were good sports about the weird coincidence.

Ok, Ok. I probably did the fanboy thing a little too much. I made such a big deal about them! I couldn't help it, these great people were so nice and from a beloved show that just keeps going! Ok, I'm sorry for fanboying too much LOL still, they were super nice and great to meet! I even got an elbow bump from the Blue Ranger! (I hope I didn't bump him in the face with his juice LOL)

I want to send hugs and happiness to Erin Cahill! She is a classy lady and a complete sweetheart! I was so surprised at how excited she was about meeting all of us, attendees, at MetaCon! She seemed so happy to be there and thought that Kristen and I were cool (I guess). At the end of breakfast, on Sunday, she came over and gave us hugs and said goodbye! Wow! I will always remember her kindness and understanding over us being complete goofs!

A big shout out to Nakia Burrise for remembering my name during the panels they did for the attendees! I think she is a class act and super talented.

Sending respect to Jason Faunt for not only being a nice guy but also a Jeet Kune Do student! He was surprised when I got him and Kristen into a conversation about the martial art. He was also surprised when I told him that her instructor was a 4th generation instructor. Now, her instructor is famous! (That's Jason Faunt on the phone in the pictures above.)

From left to right: Jason Faunt, Nakia Burrise, Erin Cahill, Kristen, Michael Copon.

Thanks to you guys for making, what will become, memories of a lifetime! We will always remember this convention and thank you all for being super kind and understanding to Kristen and I for being overly excited dorks and taking the time to answer all our questions.