Interviews Eve Myles at Collectormania 2013 by DJ Forrest

Fumbling as I was and praying the voice recorder would play ball then realised this was behaving as badly as it did when I was interviewing Dillon Casey I was so glad that Eve has the patience of a saint. I set the recorder down beside her and prayed for the best. Thankfully the counter was working.

The first question came from Natalie Vanstone, who had met Eve previously and had had such a blast with her. Natalie had asked two questions, the first of which fell flat, for a question that would wind up on a page and not on an audio interview but still fun to ask and listen over on the recorder later. I handed Eve the written words, and she replied. “Arse biscuits!” Natalie also asked if she’d like a pint of wine.

Eve: I actually haven’t’ been drinking in 8 months, I’m on a bit of a health kick but thank you very much!

Katya Armbruster said she looked forward to seeing Eve at MD Con next year. 

Eve smiled and said “OH yes that is going to be fantastic!”

John Bond-Winstone wanted to know what the funniest moment Eve had had at a convention.

Eve: I think it was John Barrowman making me do Pamela Plastic hip in Canada and then us making Gareth David Lloyd do Asparagus Man.  Hysterical! Or Ian Gelder doing an orgasm that lasted nearly 15 minutes, yeah because we all know they don’t last 15 minutes. She laughs.

Emma Tennant Jemison wanted to know if Eve would ever consider working on Doctor Who again?

Eve: Yes yes of course

Clare Witch Project asked: When you were emotional in Torchwood you broke many hearts, what did you think of when you did these scenes?

Eve: Oh that is very complimentary, thank you very much.  Because when you get given scenes hopefully people will believe in them and unfortunately people’s hearts got broken because they believed in it.

Amy Atkinson asked what Eve’s favourite Gwen outfit was

Eve: I think it’s the classic black with red top, black tight jeans, yeah.  Kind of classic look!

Mickie asked what do you think is Gwen’s defining episode?

Eve: I would say the last episode in the series of Miracle Day when she has to shoot Jack, to save the world.

More signing, including signing someone’s sling. Molly has come over with her recording and Eve is having a right laugh at it. Watching her actions prior to this filming was amusing from where I stood earlier!

Eve apologised several times to me during the breaks in the interview as more people requested an autograph but I didn’t mind one bit. 

Would you consider a role as a zombie, as Gareth is playing Jacob Fitts in I am Alone?

Eve hadn’t heard of the new film, so after giving a brief description of Gareth as a zombie, judging by his make-up, Eve replied, “I’m the biggest kind of horror fan of the world so I would do anything that was to do with a horror. “

I’m in a film at the moment called ‘Bad Blood’ and made up as a zombie.

Eve: I love it, I’ve just worked with a director, who is a huge director in horror and a writer in horror as well and we’re discussing a film together.

Oh, cool that will be brilliant!

Eve: Hence why Countrycide is my favourite episode.

If you were allowed to take 3 physical things from the set of Torchwood what would they be?

Eve: My thingymajig, you know the thingymajig that was in Children of Earth?  It looked like the Doctor’s pen but we don’t know whether it was or not.  And Owen’s sex perfume and the glove.

You’re back acting again with Anthony Head; can you tell us anything about your role?

Eve: I play a character called Lauren Gray who is a very upper middle class English girl whose travelled the world several times and finds love in an airport with Anthony Head.  He is 59 in it and she’s 33 and of course the prejudices around the family and friends think that this isn’t going to work and it’s ‘who is this guy?’ and it’s a ‘creepy kind of thing to do’ but they are the normal people who are desperately in love with each other and it’s the people and the family around them who are the nightmares.  It’s a comedy on UKGold and I think it’s airing October but I’m not sure, there’s an air date very soon.   It’s very funny.  It’s Gold’s first original comedy.

Were there outtakes when you were doing it?

Eve: I’m sure there’s a ton. This is the thing with comedy you can’t really mess about too much in it, because it’s the timing, comedy is the hardest thing you can do.  It’s so difficult.  Give me a Greek tragedy any day, it’s so difficult so technical, structured it’s really difficult.

Who directs that?

Eve: Simon Hind. Scottish director actually, wonderful guy, he’s completely brought me out of my shell confidence wise with comedy.  It’s going to be a really fun show.  It’s going to be 6 x 40 minutes

We loved Frankie and were gutted that it never made a 2nd series, and we signed the petitions.

Eve: I know I can’t quite believe it, I can’t get over the response, none of us can actually because it did better than any of us predicted.  We’re blown away by the figures every week and the audience appreciation.

When they altered the day it completely threw it.

Eve: It completely threw it. Football - England versus someone, it don’t think it helped that they didn’t publicise that we were back on at the same time on the following week. It was a difficult thing to do, but every week it just got more viewers.  People loved it, it was a huge disappointment to everybody involved that we didn’t get it, because we were all raring to go.

Do you think it helps having a good production crew, in order to give your best performance and are there some you haven’t clicked with?

Eve: The thing is every production has a small production team or a huge production team, all shapes and sizes, but what you have to understand is that you’ve got to work with these people a lot during the day and over an amount of time and the crew and cast that I’ve worked with in every production has been amazing and I can’t speak enough about them. To me it’s about the job and to make friends, it’s great!”

In the gun room scene in Torchwood when Jack was teaching Gwen how to shoot, how much of that was scripted?

Eve: When he teaches her to shoot? I would think 95% of that was scripted, but some bits and bobs were adlibbed. I mean not a lot, we have to be strict we’ve got to be really precise, there were little bits we could get away with.

I thanked Eve for the interview and she thanked me too, and we shook hands.  It was ten minutes before the photo shoot, so time to get ourselves over there before the queue began to grow.

Expo & Cons Collectormania 2013 by DJ Forrest

By DJ Forrest

The day started early, boarding the train at half 8, and waiting till nearly 9am before whatever fault with a back carriage was fixed before we could head off on our two hour journey to Glasgow.  We were already behind in schedule.  The next fun moment was discovering I really had no clue where I was going in Glasgow and all streets looked the same.  But we found the bus stop and grateful that the two people we recognised from the train were going to the same place, we boarded the X7 bus to Braehead Arena!

We arrived about 20 mins later only to find a queue that stretched a good way into the building, so after the initial worry of being late seeing any attractions, I had nothing to worry about after all. 

The floor show while we waited was fantastic.  Star Wars had come to Braehead Arena and all my favourites were there, even if I couldn’t remember all of their names.  Their costumes were fantastic and I was in absolute awe of them. 

I didn’t have a Press Pass and was initially told that as Eve Myles wasn’t due till 3pm, she’d be a bit pressed for time. Accepting this, I focused on the Arena, the stalls and the celebrities visiting. 

It was mobbed.

Wall to wall toys, collectibles, signed and unsigned photos and at a bargain price of a quid each for 8x10’s and £2 for larger it was an Aladdin’s cave, so obviously I bought a few, and the only remaining Torchwood photo.  There was no escaping 1 Direction either, signed photos in frames adorned one of the aisles and a canvas for £7 adorned another. 

My son pleased me no end by locating a box of Torchwood trading cards for £2.50, a guy at a stall was trying to sell him a box.  I obviously went back and bought 2 boxes.  He had a whole box load under the table, I just didn’t have enough money by this point, we still had to get the bus back to the station.

There were any amount of Doctor Who figures, and after speaking with Antje recently regarding a certain figure, I located an unmarked one, for £3.  I couldn’t find the stall with Dr Constantine that I’d passed earlier in the day.  There were tons of Star Wars figures, even a Death Star, Millennium Falcon and the many fighter ships.  Some really gruesome figurines and masks, and busts of the undead, zombies and the devil, and a Muppet dressed as Doctor Who with an asking price of £899.  Didn’t see any takers!

We wandered out of the Arena for some lunch despite having the Molly Weasley bag of tuna rolls made up, which had been scoffed by the kids before they had stepped from the train. 

The Arena is huge, the shopping centre not so much despite being on two maybe three floors.  All shops pretty much the same in any centre you visit.  Aside that is from the Build-A-Bear workshop!

With the kids content, well one with what they’d purchased, we returned to the arena to wait for Eve.  We collected our virtual queue ticket No 36 and waited.  It wasn’t long before Eve arrived and we formed a semi orderly queue.  I saw Molly ‘Evelet’ and introduced myself. 

By the time we were due to see Eve my hands were trembling and I was very nervous.  I was so excited.  It was fantastic meeting Eve and although my initial attempt at speech was crumbling before me, I managed to name drop Natalie Vanstone and then myself, then Project: Torchwood which I was thankful that Eve had heard of.  I think the constant tweeting and badgering for an interview may have been the cause, that and both John Bond-Winstone and Natalie Vanstone putting in a good word on my behalf to her at the last signing – Thanks guys!

During the signing I asked if it were possible for an interview, offering if it weren’t, for a questionnaire to be sent through to her agent.  That wasn’t going to happen; Eve said she wouldn’t have time to fill it in.  So Eve asked me to wait for a lull in the crowd and she would do an interview here at the Arena.  I thanked her for the signing, shook hands with her.  I was so excited now!

We sat up in the stalls for a bit, the seats overlooking the arena and cooled off.  Packed in like sardines, the heat of the lights, the heat of people close up, my rucksack pressing against my back, I was a bit on the sweaty side, but I was glad of a sit down.

Down below us and to the left, at the free talk was the guy from Red Dwarf who I’m sure also did Scrapheap Challenge!  He definitely had the crowd focused on his talk. 

As the crowd lessened around Eve’s table we made our way back down.  I’d added an extra question to the interview that had come to mind on the train journey. 

Eve answered the questions in between chatting to her fans and signing photos.  Beside her stall was Harry Melling, Dudley from Harry Potter, and I have to say he looked a total contrast to how he was in the film, such a slim figure of a man. 

Jeremy Bulloch was next to him, then Dave Prowse. 

I thanked Eve for the interview (which you can read on our Interviews Page) and she thanked me too, and we shook hands.  It was ten minutes before the photo shoot, so time to get ourselves over there before the queue began to grow

It was out of the entrance, to the left and past the comic illustrators stands and the alien and marines stall.  Those costumes are awesome, and the weapons they’d made.  WOW!

I met one of the fans of Project: Torchwood @huffle_poof and her Mum who is a big Gareth Thomas fan.  So we were discussing Blake’s 7, Children of the Stones, and Morgan’s Boy till we neared the shoot.

We stood in line and Lumineers played which was met with Eve getting into the mood, stamping her heels on the concrete floor, dancing with the public awaiting a snapshot with her, and just larking about that made the whole moment even more enjoyable. 

It was the second highlight of the day and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As a newbie to Conventions I’d say you need to plan your day, have enough funds and don’t wear anything that will make you sweat too much.  The space between the stalls isn’t very wide and given that people flood left, right and centre when they enter the arena, you have the early bird ticket holders already there, and then the new entrants coming in including a good many in wheelchairs and with buggies, it’s like herding blind cattle. Everyone wants to get somewhere and unless you find a gap in the crowd you’re pretty much stuck in a queue of people who aren’t moving because two people are viewing a stall.  But towards the end of the afternoon the stalls thin out and you could view all the things you couldn’t view in the first couple of hours.  So don’t panic that you don’t make it at the start of the Convention, especially if you’re only going to view stalls and meeting the stars is secondary.

Food is over priced in the Arena but then the cost of the pitch could be high so it probably justifies their price. But when you come out of the Arena (you’re hand stamped so you can return) one side of the shopping centre is full of food stalls from Subway, Costa Coffee and a bunch of others, there’s seating there too and the tables are cleaned by a fairly large group of people.  It’s very clean and reasonably priced.

Braehead Arena is clean, that’s the first thing I noticed, and there’s an abundance of stairs, elevators and escalators so there’s no difficulty in getting from floor to floor. 

I would come back again, but probably only if I had a car and then only if I wasn’t driving.  The train ride up was ok, bar the delay to start, and we got back to the station in good time to get an earlier train home.  Although the bus service was a little confusing, so many buses, so thank you to the guy who helped us out and got us back to the train station. It restored my faith in humanity!

On the whole it was an enjoyable day and I got to achieve my objective.  I met Eve Myles and I got the interview.  I’m still smiling now as I write this.  I’ve played back the tape and I will treasure this forever. 

Diolch yn fawr Eve!