Meeting Doug Jones ... or ... how a Cat got to hang out with a Movie Star

First off, I must say that I have the best husband in the entire bloody universe. I know you married ladies out there are saying, “Hey! My hubby’s the best!” But I’ve got news for you ladies, you’re wrong and you’ll see why in a bit. *grin*

My journey started back in May when Dougie’s webmaster, Helen, posted on the Hellboards that Dougie was going to be in Sacramento for one day. Now for me, that’s a bit of a drive, but it’s not impossible or even all that daunting. So I told Hubby about it and my wonderful love not only told me to go but suggested that I go up the night before and stay in a motel so I wouldn’t be driving about 5-6 hours in one day. THEN, this absolute angel of a man finds me the closest place to stay to the convention. And to really top it all off, he lets me borrow his new digital camera. Is this guy great or what?

So plans are made and set, I’ve pre-registered for the convention so I can get in early and I spend the next month bragging to anyone who’d sit still long enough that I was going to meet Doug Jones. Needless to say, after a while, no one wants to sit still any more. Hey! I may have invented a new exercise program.

So the day finally comes and I pack, give hugs and kisses to Hubby and the kids and head out. 2 ½ hours later I finally arrive at the motel with the new found knowledge that one who does not normally drink caffeinated drinks, shouldn’t suddenly drink one just before going on a long road trip. Live and learn.

I call home to let them know I made it safely and get informed that the 4 year old has been throwing up for about the past hour. Have I mentioned that Hubby had arthroscopic knee surgery about 2 ½ weeks prior to this and has his leg in a brace and has to use crutches to get around? Like I said, I have the best husband in the whole bloody universe.

Ok, now it’s time for bed. Ah to sleep, perchance to dream. Yeah right. I’m staying in a strange place, lying in an unfamiliar bed, it sounds like the room is on the freeway and it smells like stale cigarette smoke. (Would someone please tell me why there’s an ashtray in a non-smoking room?) Oh, and there’s the little matter that I’M MEETING DOUG JONES IN THE MORNING! Ok, so I got a minimal amount of sleep, but as I found out later, I did better than a certain Mr. Jones. More on that in a bit.

Time finally does its thing and I arrive at the Scottish Rite Center at 9:30 and it feels like I’ve swallowed a swarm of butterflies. I get checked in; head inside and there are the tables for their special guests…and no guests. Ok, maybe they don’t arrive until 10:00, so I wander off to check things out.

At 10:00 I’m back with fewer butterflies and still no Dougie. Ok, time to check out the Anime room for a while. When I finally check back, there’s Dougie talking to a couple fans and the few remaining butterflies are making a feeble attempt at escaping.

Before I get the courage up to go up to the table, I snap a couple pictures of Dougie, one of the ceiling, one of the floor. Ok, so I’m still getting the hang of Hubby’s camera.

I tell the butterflies to give it a rest and I wander over to the table. Since we’ve never met before, Dougie doesn’t know me from Eve, but he knew I was going to be there. He’s still talking to the other fans, so I just hang out and listen as he talks about Abe and how visually impaired he was wearing that mask. Finally, the others leave and the butterflies are back in force and I take a breath to speak.

“Sharon! You made it!” Dougie yells as he leaps out of his chair and flies around the table.

Sharon Bridge, who some of you may remember had the good fortune to meet Dougie in October of 2004 at A Series of Small Things premier, has arrived with her two kids, Dalton and Jordan. For the next couple of minutes the hugs and introduction thing is done and I wait patiently. And if you knew anything about me, patience is not one of my stronger virtues.

Finally, Dougie turns to me and asks for my name. I tell him and the next thing I know I’m in the midst of some serious Dougie huggage. If there was a hugging contest, this man would win hands down.

After being thoroughly hugged, he lets me go and introduces me to Sharon and her kids. Then Dougie asks if we live in the area. Now for Sharon it's a twenty minute drive to get to the place, but when I told him that it took me 2 ½ hours with traffic and the occasional stop for other things (remember the caffeinated drink I had?), his eyes got really big.

I’m surprised he was impressed. Here’s a man who flies all over the world to be in movies that he usually has to endure hours of makeup before he even gets in front of the camera. Who should be impressed here?

So we chat for a while and Dougie finally admits that he’s not feeling 100%. It seems the Wednesday before he developed a fever with no other symptoms and only managed to sweat it out the night before the convention. He later told me that he had been having fever dreams the night before and woke up literally in a pool of sweat that morning.

It’s also the reason he arrived late to the convention. Seems he was supposed to be picked up at the hotel at 9:00 but didn’t wake up until 9:15. Yet, he still shows up despite feeling like he’d been run over by a steam roller. Again, who should be impressed?

While we’re talking, he lets us know his most exciting news. When Hellboy 2: The Golden Army gets made, Abe’s part will be much bigger (no trying to make sushi out of him this time, I hope) and Dougie will be doing the voice of Abe. He also revealed that the reason he hasn’t seen the script yet is that Guillermo del Toro told him that if by some strange quirk of fate the movie doesn’t get made, it’ll be the biggest disappointment in Dougie’s life not to do it. However, Guillermo did warn that fans are going to hate him for what he does to Abe.

So more chatting and picture taking happens and I’m able to get some little trivia bits out of him about Pan’s Labyrinth a soon to be released independent film that was directed and written by Guillermo del Toro.

I found out that it took him five hours to get into the Pan and Pale Man costumes and with the Pale Man he had to look out the nostrils of the mask to see where he was going. To really add to the challenge of seeing out of that mask, the holes didn’t even look forward. The right nostril looked left and the left one looked right. Even after they took the mask off of him, he was still walking around with his eyes crossed for a few minutes.

Now one thing that I’ve always wondered about his job is how does he get into the mindset of creatures that are completely non-human such as Pan or the Pale Man or even everyone’s favorite fish guy, Abe. He told me that he starts off reading the script to get an idea of how the creature thinks and acts and then he sees drawings or the maquette. After he knows how the being is supposed to think and act, he then goes to his 24 hour gym in the middle of the night, goes into the empty aerobics rooms with the walls of mirrors and starts practicing how these beings would move. In the case of Pan, he knew that he was going to have to wear leg extensions, so he walked around on his tip toes to get a feel for how a faun would move about. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall at that gym.

After spending a few hours with this wonderful man, I had to finally say goodbye. So with lots of hugs to get me through my drive home, I left. I glanced at my odometer when I got in the car and saw that I had driven over 138 miles to meet this man. And you know what? I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

With Love and Laughter,

Stephanie Metz, aka 'The Shadow Cat'
California, 14th June, 2006