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Gillian Anderson, Amy Acker, Hayley Atwell and Neve Campbell answer our super gay questions at FanExpo

If you haven’t heard, Fan Expo Canada is basically Toronto’s version of San Diego Comic-Con. This four-day event attracts over 125,000 people from around the world, but, more importantly, it’s a fangirl’s dream come true. This year Fan Expo ran from September 3 to 6, and I had the pleasure of attending for the very first time—and as a “professional fangirl” to boot!

I arrived tasked with a very important mission: find some ladies the AfterEllen community loves and report back on all the juicy stuff that made you squeal.

Now because I have not yet mastered the ability of being everywhere at once, I couldn’t get to all your favorites (sorry Ming-Na Wen and Jeri Ryan!). But I do bring you goodies from Neve Campbell, Gillian Anderson, Hayley Atwell, and Amy Acker. We good?

Before we get there, let me take a moment to acknowledge that no, I can’t provide video footage of the Carmilla panel (you probably already found it on YouTube anyway…). I will say this though, Sam Maggs (author of The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy) was a brilliant choice of host, that live script reading was the bomb, Carmilla fans ask the best questions, and I have never seen so many teenage lesbians in one room in my life.

Back to our scheduled programming—Neve Campbell! I know many years have gone by since Wild Things came out in 1998, but the girl has still got it. The mood in the room was a bit somber, as Scream director Wes Craven’s recent passing is still fresh in the minds of the franchise’s stars and fans. Fortunately the power of fandom always means fun is just a few awkward questions away.

An interesting note: Neve hasn’t seen the Scream TV series, meaning she’s yet to witness Bex Taylor-Klaus kill it as Audrey. And with that revealed, I was able to segue into what was probably the most out of left field question she got that day (only because it was a Scream panel, where the weird becomes the normal and vice versa). The question: would she play queer again?

“I think I’ve played homosexual or bisexual about five times already,” she said. “So I obviously don’t have an issue around it. It’s just as long as the character is well-rounded and comes from truth, and is something that someone out there will be able to relate to or take something from—then that pleases me.”

Staying with creepy genres, I also got to listen in on Gillian Anderson of The X-Files fame. Hats off to my fellow fangirls for asking the important questions this time around (speaking of hats, Gillian auctioned off a hat for charity signed by her, David Duchovny, and X-Files creator Chris Carter for $1,000 CAD—after she wore it and rubbed it all over herself).

First off, before any annoying guy could, a lady fan of Gillian’s asked her out (it’s not as cringe-worthy because she volunteers with cheetahs and, as such, is a super cool person). Her response: “Thank you. I’m very flattered.” Ladies, Gillian Anderson is not hostile to the question! I repeat—she is NOT hostile to the question!

And then another amazing woman had the brilliant idea to ask her if Dana Scully and Stella Gibson from The Fall would make good partners. Gillian started by answering that Stella could teach Scully a thing or two about drinking, which, yes, but then she interrupted herself by asking, “As in life partners, or as in working partners?” Whichever you want Gillian! Though now that you mention it, life partners! Just answer the question! “They actually might make good life partners.” And with that, a new fanfic pairing is born.

Juicy additional note: Gillian revealed that out actress Cynthia Nixon and Jill Hennessy (hello Chutney Popcorn!) both auditioned for the role of Scully. Do what you will with this information.

Hayley Atwell, you’re up next. Questions about Agent Carters OTP Peggy and Angie in 3-2-1… Again, another fangirl beat me to the punch: “How real is Cartellini?”

“How real? Like have I hooked up with Lyndsy [Fonseca]?” Are you going to answer that? Instead, she got real. “I don’t want to speculate and I don’t want to put ideas into the writers’ minds that don’t feel like they’re founded on anything real.”

But…”I’m a huge fan of Cartellini, as is Lyndsy. And we are huge supporters of LGBT rights. We hope there’s more diversity on television promoting the importance of those kind of relationships, both romantic and platonic.”

And then it was my turn. “Hayley, why is your show such a hit with queer women despite no clear lesbian storyline (a villainous kiss doesn’t really count)?” “Because gays have good taste.”

This is true. Now what about that Boston Marriage that Peggy and Angie are about to embark on, and the connotations that surround that?

“I fully support that idea. I think it’s a great idea,” Hayley said. “It’s a very modern notion. I think relationships are so much more interesting and complex and grey area than we like to kind of portray in the media. I think they’re a lot more richer and fuller, whether there is a romantic element to them or not.”

There you have it. Oh, and Hayley Atwell on Jennifer Lawrence (the visual!):”Now that’s a girl I have a crush on!”

Did I forget someone? Maybe a convention darling who’s presently one-half of a lesbian love story on primetime television? Amy Acker, perhaps?! Amy brilliantly plays Root on CBS’ Person of Interest, opposite lesbian favorite Sarah Shahi, who plays Shaw. She says their chemistry was instant.

“The first episode we were in together, where I was torturing her with an iron, just seemed like a logical setup for a relationship,” she joked.

The showrunners clearly saw something. “They didn’t really imagine that it was going to be something that was going to create chemistry between us,” Amy said. “It just kind of turned out that way and they decided to go with it.”

Amy is a friggin’ sweetheart, but I had to ask the hard stuff: Who does Root love more, the Machine or Shaw? “I feel like that could be spoiler alert for Season 5, ” she said. Folks, that’s telling! “You really saw that there’s a struggle between which one.”

Ultimately, however, she says Root feels like the world itself would end without the Machine. “I feel like in order to have Shaw, I have to be able to help the Machine.”

This all sounds so final. Is this next season the last? According to what executive producer Greg Plageman told her, maybe, or maybe not: “He said they are writing this episode [the Season 5 finale] to be an end, but if it gets picked up then they’ll make a new end.”

By the way, all new episodes are supposed to be very action-packed.

Final awesome side note: Amy’s had a hard time holding up those guns for long periods of shooting for the show, so she’s now lifting weights regularly to keep from shaking during takes.

There you have it. Four wonderful women popped my Fan Expo cherry and we’re all happier for it. I hope to be back next year, so we’ll see how well my experience might serve me then.

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