Legend:
Azar's part of the account will be listed in straight type.
When Anne does jump in, she will be doing so in italics. <g>
NOTE: AS OF 10/13/01, there are spoilers/speculation about Season 9 below! Spoiler virgins read with caution!
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AZAR: Okay. Sorry it took so long guys, but here is a fairly complete account of Anne's and my latest location set visit. :-)
Anne, feel free to jump into any holes I leave in the story. Er...you know what I mean.
ANNE: Will do.
By the way, the whole rest of that day we met him and into the next I was bouncing around like I'd just won the lottery, and then after that I began to have a sort of post-exciting-event-letdown phase, the phase that comes after "Robert Patrick paid attention to ME!" where you remember "Oh yeah, but it's not going to happen regularly" and worse yet, "And he's still not my husband, is he?" (which is a rather *polite* way of phrasing what goes through a true female fan's mind...)
AZAR: The shoot actually started in the morning, but since I had an interview with a temp agency, I decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea to cancel it for an XF shoot. ;-) And it worked well because Anne wasn't up that early anyway. <g>
We left Anne's place at about...one-ish?
ANNE: I remember more like 12-ish, but whatever.
AZAR: Dunno, but I remember being pretty sure, and rather bummed, that we'd missed the lunch hour. But just in case we took the (stuffed) dog, the "fear the jar" t-shirt and the album pages for Robert, the book of Reyes art and flowers for Annabeth.
We parked, wandered down to find the address, speculated that they might be inside a hotel on that corner, but then braved a security guard who told us they were filming in the alley behind the hotel. A very small alley, I might add.
Well, we almost gave up right there. But I paid for those flowers, darn it, so we eventually decided to stick it out. Then it turned out that "base camp" for the shoot was across the street from the alley and they'd *just* broken for lunch (we didn't miss it!), so we parked ourselves near the gate.
About five minutes later, watching all the production trucks across the street, I spotted a familiar figure in a light blue dress shirt (unbuttoned) and dark slacks. RP. :-)
Then he turned and starts walking away from us...which gave us a bit of a panic (er, well, it did me anyway) until he stopped at the crosswalk. (Unlike us, he didn't jaywalk. But the cop did!)
He crossed the street and started coming towards us, and kept throwing us this sorta suspicious look.
ANNE: Well, he was also noticing the scrapbook pages I held, which - I realized as he looked at them - screamed "Defenders of Doggett!!" in large letters. <g> I think that helped tip him off, too.
AZAR: Finally he got to us and mentioned that we looked familiar. We told him we were the girls who gave him "the Snoopy Album" (photo album of letters to him from RP/JD fans) and were returning, as promised, with more pages. :-)
He lit up. And let me tell you, there is no feeling on earth like making that man happy. ;-)
ANNE: Amen. :) Yeah, getting a positive reaction feels fabulous. He was in a lovely mood that day. He smiled and laughed way more than he did the first time I met him, when it was 7 am and raining, and genuinely seemed to enjoy our conversation, which does, as Azar mentions, make him incredibly attractive and make you feel like a million bucks.
We gave him the pages, then the dog, which we told him was for his wife.
ANNE: I remember he said: "Oh, I'll give this to Barbie!" <g>
AZAR: And also told him he could read the card if he wanted, but we promised there was "nothing psycho" in there. :-)
ANNE: (The general jist was just, thank you for loaning us your husband on Sunday nights, <g>, and here's something you can cuddle on the nights when he's out filming. <g>)
AZAR: I don't remember what order we covered everything in, but we talked about a *lot* of stuff. I'll just list it in random order.
- a little about the episode (spoilers later, so spoiler virgins can keep reading <g>)
- the dogs in the Patrick household--they have two chocolate labs and a golden lab. :-) One of the chocolate labs is named "Skippy" I think (Anne: no it's not! <g>) (by his daughter)...or am I confusing that part of the conversation with the part about the t-shirt? :-)
ANNE: Yes, a little. He told us briefly about the dogs at first, and then more detail later, when he said that they had two chocolate labs and "a blonde". When he said "blonde" he raised his eyebrows at me like he was saying something naughty - like maybe he was making a joke about how it sounded like he was bringing home extra blondes or something <g> (Of course the fact that *I* am a blonde didn't occur to me until later, and I'm still wondering if I missed something...yike!!) Anyway, he said that one of the chocolate labs was named Brownie, and that the dog's sole reason for being in their household was because he stopped at a Starbucks that happened to be near a pet store. One minute he's getting a coffee, the next minute his 6-year-old daughter is dragging him next door to look at the dog she wants (and evidently he's caving in to her. <g> Which is really cute. Wouldn't you love to be in his daughter's position, and have RP wrapped around *your* little finger?? <eeeeg>)
AZAR: - the t-shirt: I told him to read the enclosed paper about what "fear the jar" means, but Anne summarized the part about Doggett stuffing Krycek in a Skippy peanut butter jar, which he got a huge kick out of. <g>
ANNE: Yeah, he definitely did. He also liked another tidbit: at one point, while talking about what was going to happen in S9, he mentioned Cary Elwes, and immediately stressed what a great actor Cary was turning out to be, in his opinion. That reminded me of something I'd seen, and I told Robert that people online were already starting to call Cary's character The Dread Pirate Follmer. He cracked up at that.
Then later on, when we saw Cary walk by, I just kind of stared at him (Azar's back was to him as he approached) and he just stared back in that faintly paranoid way many actors have, when they're pretty sure you recognize them but they don't know your intentions yet. <g> I felt bad - here we were spending all day trying to talk to every other available cast member, but HIM we couldn't be bothered with! (He also took us by surprise because he wasn't in costume yet, and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I said it then and I'll say it now: who expects an X-Files cast member other than Frohicke to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt??) When he was past I said: "I should have told him about the Dread Pirate Follmer!" And Azar said: "Oh, don't worry. I bet Robert'll tell him - he really liked that one!"
AZAR: (And like Anne commented to me afterwards, when the man (RP) laughs, he laughs big! Just throws his head back and lets out a hearty, rich, wonderful laugh. :-) )
ANNE: It was great to see him laugh. What I specifically mentioned was that, just about the only time I'd seen him do that on film was in "A Texas Funeral", and I realized that his smiling/laughing reactions in real life looked just the same as the movie's. (So if you want to see what it looks like when he laughs, watch that film.) It was so sweet to watch. <g>
AZAR: - SHODDS: YES, I told him about us. <g> And he sounded intrigued, so everybody be on your best behavior for a few weeks just in case. ;-) Anne made me *not* tell him what the letters stand for...
ANNE: I couldn't help it. I just kept thinking that the "Slobbering, Howling Obsessed" part might just be that one toe over the edge, the one that makes him think our group could be scary instead of an honor. <sheepish g> I don't know. I'm now thinking that if I see him again, (maybe I should say "when"?? <g>) I'll want to stress how much support there is for DSR, so perhaps I was in error.
Oh! I also remember that he read one of the message's headers, and asked what "ADSG" stood for. Azar told him: "Agent Doggett Support Group." He just kind of grinned and laughed and looked amazed: "I got a support group??"
AZAR: ...but he knows we're a Doggett/Scully fanlist that is approximately a hundred and fifty members strong.
He seemed very pleased with that. :-) No, I did not tell him we consider him an honorary SHODDS brother, but I will next time. ;-)
ANNE: I think you should, Azar, because he is.
AZAR: I think it was at this point that he said the "not for lack of trying" part.
ANNE: What I remember happening was this. He was telling us about what was in store for S9, and that the Reyes thing was coming into play (NOTE: MORE ON THAT IN THE "SPOILERS" BELOW) and we weren't looking too happy about it. We said we'd rather have he and Scully together. He made a kind of apologetic face/noise to indicate that he didn't know yet how it all was going to turn out, so he couldn't promise it was going to turn out the way we wanted. Then I (in a comment that I subsequently want to take back!), expressed a sentiment that I'm not the first to voice: I said something like: "It's okay. We don't really *expect* to things to turn out our way - that's just what we want." And that's when he said, "Well, if they don't end up together, it won't be for lack of trying on Doggett's part!" And that comment went through my head over and over throughout the rest of the day, making me want to do a little happy dance. The man who plays the character not only wants the same things we want, but envisions his character feeling that strongly about it. In his mind (which is to say, in Doggett's!), Jawn's not giving up Scully without trying everything he can to win her first!
I also remember mentioning to him that I'd seen some of those outtakes that the Frenzy site has up. He was surprised to hear such a phenomenon existed (at which point Azar urged him not to tell on whoever it was that leaked them out, because then we wouldn't see any more!) I told him that in those outtakes, I'd seen him laughing and loose and joking around, then suddenly go deadly serious and focused as he actually *did* the take, and then go back to kidding afterwards like nothing had happened. I said "How do you *do* that?"
He said that part of it was just the confidence of experience, and part of it was actually a conscious move for keeping himself loose. He said that there were times when you *did* have to ruminate on what was going to happen in a scene, but that in general, doing that too much would screw you up. He said another part of it is just, that's what they pay him to do. I told him that I used to do stand-up on the road, and he said "Well then you know about that," which 1) I do - if you're doing any kind of art for pay, you gotta do what they pay you for at the time they ask for it, or they got no reason to pay you, and 2) made me feel *incredibly* cool to hear him say! <g>
Azar was nice enough to leave out the fact that I generally I monopolized RP during the time we were there. <sheepish grin>. To quote an ex-boyfriend (from a situation that, frankly, belongs in one of my fics): "I'll say excuse me, but I'm not sorry." <g> I couldn't help it! I was calmer this time, and my brain was working and I had things to ask him. And he was giving answers! Which made me think of more questions! Azar, you always have my permission to butt in, if you want. But Jesus God, he was really LISTENING, actually paying attention to ME, which I must admit, I wanted to go on for as long as humanly possible. <g> As I'm sure Azar will attest, having those blue eyes fixed on you *quickly* becomes addictive.
AZAR: - his fans: Anne asked him if he'd ever been scared by the fans, and he said the only time he ever got nervous was one time when someone (Anne: specifically a van full of someones) recognized him when he was walking around his neighborhood (and he was a bit worried they'd specifically come hunting for his house), but other than that his experience with the fans had been great.
- Sept 11: he asked us how we were doing. We told him we'd both been lucky to have not been personally affected by it, but that I knew a man who was close friends with the pilot of one of the planes. :-( I also said that I'd used my shows as a coping mechanism at first, speculating what Doggett would've done had he been there. He told us that the man he'd based his portrayal of Doggett on was a retired NYPD cop who had helped with the rescue efforts. Hmm...too bad retired probably means too old for me, huh? ;-)
ANNE: I was really touched by the fact that when all that stuff went down, one of his priorities was to call that guy and make sure he was okay. He said he met the guy when he was doing Copland, and that basically, that guy *was* Doggett. (Don't worry, Azar, just because the guy acts like Doggett doesn't necessarily make him sexy enough to replace RP. <g> And yeah, he prolly is too old for you. <g>)
AZAR: - Doggett's skepticism: he said Doggett has "earned the right to be cynical" because of Luke's death, and also agreed with my tentative suggestion that the character was an "I'll believe it when I see it" type of guy. :-) Anne mentioned it's easy to roll your eyes at a character on The X-Files for being skeptical because we as fans know everything paranormal on the show is gonna turn out to be "real", but in real life most of us would be more skeptical. And for characters like Doggett and Scully, this is "real life" for them, they don't have the benefit of knowing they're in a TV show that does follow a certain formula. ;-)
ANNE: Yep, all that's true. In fact, you phrased my little observation way better than I did at the time. <g>
AZAR: I'm almost certain there was more, but I don't remember right now. He thanked us several times for the gifts. At one point, a crew member interrupted to give him a message, but amazingly no one came up and told us he was needed elsewhere. <g>
ANNE: Yeah, I couldn't believe our luck on that one! It all just went so incredibly well. As Azar mentioned in another post on SHODDS, he probably spent a good 15-20 minutes with us. Of his lunch break. <g> I couldn't quite believe it was happening, but I was glad it was!
AZAR: We did at one point ask if Annabeth was going to be there, so we could give her the flowers and the art. He said she was supposed to be there later, and went into the base camp to find out when. Then HE CAME BACK! At which point not only did he chat some more, but he gave Anne and I both MIA-style bracelets for the FDNY. They read: "In memory of our fallen heroes/F.D.N.Y. 9-11-01." He handed them to us and said, "there, now I've given you something." (melt)
ANNE: Ditto. <g> I also remember that as I went to put mine on, he warned me, "Uh, they kinda hurt." He sounded a little uncertain. It cracked me up - 'you're giving me something that hurts?' "Thanks for the heads up!" I laughed, but I didn't care. A gift from him was worth it. <g> (They did kinda hurt, actually - the metal was kinda sharp on the edges, but no real damage done.)
AZAR: Anne said he gave us so much every week as Doggett, at which point he looked amazed and incredibly flattered for a second...
ANNE: Yeah, he was telling us "you're so generous!" and my comment started with "Well, you're generous, too!" Azar, I'm glad when you point out these reactions of his, because you know, I was so busy thinking of a way to phrase what I meant that I didn't really catch the look on his face - I was just surprised to see him doing his little strut a moment later. <g> It's awfully gratifying to hear you say that he looked like that.
AZAR: ...then *giggle* did this little thing that I can barely describe. Essentially, he hitched up the front of his pants and did this smug little strut, muttering, "well if you put it that way..." then dropped the act with a grin.
ANNE: Yeah, wasn't that the best? I also remember him saying "I'll accept that!"
AZAR: He thanked us for the gifts about six times, I think.
ANNE: I think you're right.
AZAR: We saw him one more time after he'd finished eating (and we'd run down the street to get lunch ourselves) and he was going back to the set. He'd buttoned up his shirt and was wearing an FBI jacket with the FBI logo on the back (backwards--methinks they're gonna flip the footage for some reason), and as he passed us, said, "I gotta go" or something to that effect with this big smile, implying (IMO at least) that he would love to stay and chat more if he could. :-)
ANNE: I'm fond of your humble opinion. <g>
AZAR: At this point we debated whether or not to stay for Annabeth. We ended up doing so even though she was later than originally thought, but did give the flowers to one of the crew first so she could put them in water. :-) Annabeth loved the art book...
ANNE: Yeah, I don't think she saw something like that coming at all - she may be new(ish) at this fan appreciation thing. <g> I liked watching her trip out on it.
AZAR: ...but the picture she got all excited about...
(ANNE: besides the one Azar mentioned earlier on SHODDS, that featured romantic pictures of Reyes and Mulder together, which caused her to practically jump backward, laughing and exclaiming "Oh, I WISH!" <G>)
AZAR: ...was "Against the Grain." It's the one I did of Mulder, Reyes and Melissa Scully, the "unconventional thinkers of The X-Files." She said she loved working with DD and wished their characters had more of a chance to interact. So I'm thinking the reason Reyes seemed so obviously intrigued by Mulder is because not only was Annabeth playing it that way, but she's got the hots for DD in RL. ;-)
We joked around with her a little bit about how her character was getting matched up with everybody--even Scully--and she hadn't heard of the Reyes/Skinner pairing before but seemed intrigued by the idea. :-) We asked her what they were doing with her and Follmer and she said she didn't really know.
Anyway, I'm sure I forgot something...
ANNE: (How about this: Robert says that they all call her AB. Not AG, her real initials - AB. Which is kinda silly.)
AZAR: (Oh yeah, did I mention that RP's eyes are bluer in person? ;-) )
ANNE: Yeah, we both made it a point to notice this time (last time we were too busy trying to keep calm), and notice we did. His eyes are like neon. They're that impossible sea-blue color of colored contacts, only they're for real. On TV and in print they always look like pale blue to me, but they're not at all. They're just as startling and breathtaking, though, just for different reasons.
AZAR: Now for the spoilers:
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1. Doggett/Scully - "Doggett is still crazy about Scully." and "Not for lack of trying." <g> (direct quotes from RP, as mentioned.)
2. Doggett/Reyes - this (the episode they were filming that day) is the episode where Doggett "notices" that Reyes has a crush on him. :-P But on the up side, he's been oblivious to that point! (Which probably means no past affair--yay!) And if he's still crazy about Scully...Doggett doesn't seem to me like the kind of man to easily cast off one love for another just because the latter has the potential to be requited.
ANNE: Well, you know, the "potential to be requited" does translate to "not a waste of his time", like the relationship with Scully may be written to be. :-( BUT, you're right - it does *not* necessarily translate to "what John would actually like to do", requitable or not. <g>
AZAR: 3. Episode involves: FBI jackets, two DC Metro Police cars racing into an alley, Doggett getting shot (AGAIN!).
Oh, and this isn't from going on the shoot, but I found out from the extras casting agency I'm registered with that they're hiring men to play FBI agents and Hispanic people of all ages to play poor Mexican villagers.
And that's all Azar wrote! Like I said, Anne, feel free to jump into any holes...
ANNE: Oh, I jumped into a bunch, didn't I? It's actually been fun to share all this, get all this info and enthusiasm out to you guys, because there's no one I know in RL who's as excited to hear about it as I know you'll be. Correction: who's as PROPERLY excited to hear about it as you. <g> And seriously, I'm with Lisa K. - at this point, I couldn't love the man more if I tried.
Azar, and Thrilled and exhausted, Anne
