ON HOW I MET MISTER
JONES
It all began on
the last days of July. The last Thursday of that
month, I was doing some summer work at school along
with a couple of very good friends. During our idlest
hours of hard working, one of them told me about
the Instituto Mexicano de la Juventud (IMJUVE),
and how he had found some of their publications
very useful and interesting. I had my laptop with
me that morning, so we went online to the IMJUVE’s
website, and started looking for their list of printed
materials. Suddenly, as if struck by a bolt of lightning,
I gasped. The words “Conferencia con Doug
Jones” caught my eye, and I couldn’t
help but flap my hands in a most fan-girlish style.
After a few seconds of sheer astonishment, I calmed
down and clicked on the picture of The Pale
Man.
The IMJUVE organizes
twice a year a comic convention named ExpoComic,
and the latest edition of it would take place the
following weekend, with Mr. Doug Jones as a special
guest. I freaked out. Saturday, August 1st, was
the date of my brother-in-law’s graduation
from college. Saturday, August 1st, was the date
(according to the official site of the Con) of Doug’s
conference. I couldn’t find the schedule for
that day posted on the website, so I sent a couple
of e-mails to the ExpoComic staff, asking about
Doug’s slot on their time table.
My next step was
to go to the best source there is for Dougie-related
knowledge: The Doug Jones Experience. How
surprised was I to discover that, according to “Appearances”
page, Doug was scheduled for ExpoComic on Sunday!
How on Earth would that make sense? I went to The
Tank [Dougie's message
board ~ Ed.] for answers. Saturday got
closer, and I still had no clue how would I be able
to attend the conference. Then the answer came in
a reply from a very nice woman named Helen: Doug
will be attending on Sunday. I could breathe again.
Minutes later, I got a message from IMJUVE: “Doug
will be attending on Saturday, 1:00 PM. Stick to
our schedule.” And then I went back to The
Tank and, once again, asked for clarification.
It was Friday already,
and I needed a plan: I would leave all my stuff
packed in the morning, run to ExpoComic, attend
Doug’s conference, run back home, get dressed,
run to my best friend’s place around 4:30
PM, and finally, run together (in time) to her boyfriend’s
place (the brother-in-law). It seemed flawless.
Until my mom decided she’d come with me to
ExpoComic, just to make sure I would stick to my
own schedule. (After all, it was I at a comic con,
so … you’d never know). Destiny forbade
me to get near a computer between Friday afternoon
and Sunday night, so I just assumed the world had
stopped on the Internet.
Saturday morning
came, I felt so excited, so terribly nervous, so
happy. I would be listening to Mr. Jones, live.
“If it all goes well, I’ll get it on
video and write something about it for the magazines
I work at”, my wildest dream included getting
close enough for Doug to sign my Hellboy 2 notebook,
right above Abe’s head. I sighed;
it was too good a dream to become true.
My mom and I took
a bus to the Centro Nacional de las Artes, where
ExpoComic was being held. We arrived around 12 o’clock,
so we had a little time to walk around, appreciate
cosplays, get a coke. About half an hour later we
went to line up outside the Plaza de las Artes,
where Doug would be speaking to us. At first I became
annoyed, because a lot of the people walking by
had no idea who Dougie is, but I thought “Let
them be, they probably geek out on stuff I have
never even heard of”. So, I waited in line
for a couple more minutes when a group of four or
five people passed by my side, and all I could catch
from them was a glimpse of a tall, sleek, white
figure with what looked like ginger hair. I squeaked.
Mr. Doug Jones had just walked less than a meter
away from me.
Fast Forward: My
mom and I ran and got first row spots for Doug’s
conference. And again we waited. Finally, around
2:30pm, a montage of various Dougie gigs was played
on a screen over the stage. It ended with the lovely
scene from Hellboy 2 where Abe and Red
sing along to Barry Manilow’s “Can’t
smile without you”. I could swear that somebody
had given a microphone to Doug, because I am sure
Abe’s voice sounded too alive and
close to us. There were about 100 people in the
audience, and most of them went mad when Doug was
finally presented on stage. He looked so peaceful
and happy! Doug calmly walked to the table they
had set up for him … and climbed on top of
it, where he cheerfully sat down to face us.
Dear Mr. Jones was
dressed in white, his tall figure calmly sitting
on top of the table, on stage. One of the organizers
presented him to the audience and asked him to start
his speech. Dougie said hello to his audience and
excused himself for his terrible Spanish. After
that, he proceeded to telling us everything about
his career: how he started out, how he got cast
as Mac Tonight, how one of his make up
department friends got him to appear in Mimic,
how he met this “geeky fan boy” also
known as Guillermo del Toro … it was about
an hour of pure joy listening to Doug Jones (and
of ignoring the poor translator, whose comprehension
of the English language was terribly limited).
Then the moment
of truth arrived. It was time for the Q&A, and
I had a whole page of my notebook scribbled with
questions I was dying to ask Dougie. It has to be
said: I’m short; I barely reach 1.54m. I’m
short, so it was hard for me, even standing in the
front row, to be noticed by the organizers. I was
so scared I wouldn’t be able to ask my questions
… but then this teenage-looking guy came to
me with a microphone and said the magic words “Después
de ésta sigues tú”. I wanted
to hug him.
When my turn finally
came, the boy told me it was OK to ask in Spanish,
that the girl on stage would translate the question
for Doug. I said I could ask directly. And so I
did. I forgot my professional mood for a couple
of seconds, so the first words that came out of
my mouth were “I think you are amazing”
and dear dear Mr. Jones answered something along
the lines of “Thank you very much, you are
so sweet”. Then I got my act together and
said to myself “Be a journalist, for the love
of God!” and I asked away. Frankly, right
now I’m not sure what I asked to him, but
I do remember it referred to the way he manages
to build such deep and enthralling characters from
the inside, how he is able to transmit so much from
under so many make up and prosthetics. The very
tall, very nice, very gentle Doug Jones gave me
a huge smile and said “That’s a very
interesting question …” and he gave
me an incredibly long and interesting answer (which
escapes my mind but is recorded on tape, for future
reference).
It was a quarter
to 4 already, and Doug had to say goodbye to the
audience. I almost cried from the shock of a) having
Doug answering my question, and b) having to say
goodbye to him. Surprisingly enough, I heard someone
say “¡Vamos a la sala donde va a firmar
autógrafos!”; I looked at my mom, and
she had this look in her eyes when she just knows
she can’t and doesn’t really want to
stop me.
We ran and got in
line for Dougie’s signing. Minutes went by,
my departure time was approaching, and there were
still like 20 people before me. I started to panic,
but my mom assured me it would be ok (I trusted
her, ‘cause she’s my mom … she
somehow just KNOWS). When the time finally came
I was freaking out. There he was, taking a long
time with every person he met, taking pictures,
signing away, hugging, kissing, smiling …
my palms were all sweaty. There was a girl standing
on the border of his table, asking for our names
to write down so it would be easier for Dougie to
copy them when he needed to sign something. A gallery
of Doug’s portraits was lying over the table,
photographs from his movies, behind the scenes material,
it was all there. The lady told me to chose one
so that I could get it signed. I was shaking all
over.
My turn came. There
he was … all glowy. He said “Hello”
with such a sweet voice that I could have fainted.
I answered back at him and he hugged me. Then he
noticed the electric-blue streaks in my hair, stroked
them with his fingers and said “Oh! You have
blue hair. It’s beautiful!” My only
possible (nervous) answer was “Thank you.
It’s Sapiens-blue, actually”, to which
he startled and gave me the biggest and most beautiful
smile I have ever witnessed: “Oh my!! You
did it for me?! Oh you are such a sweet, oh dear,
dear!” he kissed my hand as if I were some
kind of princess, and he hugged me so tight and
so sweetly and so gently and so amazingly warmly
that I could have died right there. We spoke for
about three more minutes. He asked me for my name
and I said “Marce”; he asked me what
do I do for a living and I answered, “I’m
a student, but I’m attempting to become a
make up artist”, to which he said “Oh,
one of my people!”
Those four or five
minutes I spent talking with him have been some
of the best minutes in my entire life. There we
were: a geeky girl and a very very talented actor,
in a room full of people, with time rushing me home,
and still he made me feel like nothing else was
important. Like the universe had stopped outside
our little bubble. Like everything in the history
of mankind had happened so that those few minutes
could happen. Doug Jones has that quality to make
you feel instantly loved. He asked what did I want
him to sign, and I picked a photograph of him dressed
as Pan, facing Guillermo del Toro. “May
be someday you’ll get Guillermo to sign it
too” Dougie smiled again. My brain gave a
jolt and I remembered my blessed Hellboy 2 notebook.
“Could you please sign this? Right above your
head …” I asked timidly. “Of course
I will!” and so he did.
I got my picture
taken with him, he hugged me exquisitely once more
and I had to say goodbye to one of the loveliest
persons I have met in the 21 years of my life. The
person right behind me was my mom (a big fan of
Pan and of HB2’s Angel of Death),
who got her hand kissed by Dougie and also got a
picture and one big hug. We practically ran home.
I was already very late, but I couldn’t care
less. I had met Doug Jones, THE Doug Jones. The
most amazing guy ever. I went to dance that night,
and still everything went back to Doug.
When I finally
got home next afternoon I found some messages from
dear Hellmistress telling me that I had been a lot
of help in clearing up the scheduling misunderstandings
between Doug’s management and the IMJUVE.
She said to go to Dougie and introduce myself as
Ethne from The Tank, because Dougie had a special
bosie waiting for me. She said Dougie was looking
forward to meeting me. She said Dougie’s appearance
was such a success that they had asked him to go
back on Sunday. But it was all too late …
it was almost Monday. I wanted to kick myself for
not reading all those on time. But then I realized
that no matter what, I would always have that hug,
and Doug’s sweet words. So I smiled one amazingly
big smile, and started writing the articles I needed
to get done about that same convention.
Bottomline: not
only is Doug Jones a great and immensely talented
actor, but he is also a delightful and beautiful
human being … he is almost an angel, he’s
just missing the wings (which he might be hiding
under a prosthetic set of human shoulders).
