She’s
blonde, she’s bold, she’s beautiful—and she’s coming to the Metroplex.
While
Laura Vandervoort’s days of playing Supergirl on Smallville are safely in her past, that doesn’t mean she’s given up
flight. This weekend she’s soaring in from L.A. for Fan Expo Dallas, a massive
gathering of autograph hounds, comic book collectors, movie buffs and sci-fi
aficionados at the Dallas Convention Center.
Vandervoort,
appearing with numerous other celebrities, will meet and greet fans, sign memorabilia,
pose for pictures and talk about her current TV series, Bitten. She’s the star of the Canada-based show, playing a woman
torn between her normal existence in Toronto and her life as the world’s only
female lycanthrope in upstate New York.
“I’m
not playing a werewolf, to be honest,” Vandervoort says, emphasizing that Bitten is more of a character drama than
a horror yarn. “I’m playing Elena Michaels, who happens to be a werewolf—that’s
sort of a subplot. Yes, she can fight remarkably well, and she does have
animalistic instincts, but really it’s about her and how she grew up and the
stuff she’s been through. She just happens to grow body hair and sprout fangs.”
Vandervoort
gets paid to appear at conventions, but it’s not just about the almighty
dollar—she embraces fandom.
“I
enjoy meeting and talking with the fans, and traveling,” she says. “It’s also
really cool to see actors that I love watching, that I’m a fan of. You know,
like William Shatner. It’s always sort of an out-of-body experience sitting beside
them, signing autographs. I’m like, ‘Who the hell am I? This is crazy!’”
While
Shatner isn’t scheduled to appear at Fan Expo Dallas, there’s no shortage of
big-name guests on the docket, including such luminaries as Carrie Fisher (Star Wars), Nathan Fillion (Castle), Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters) and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad). Fans of classic
television will get a kick out of meeting Batman’s
Adam West and Burt Ward and I Dream of
Jeannie’s Barbara Eden and Bill Daily.
Vandervoort
may not be a household name like some of the actors mentioned above, but she’s
very popular among geeks, thanks in part to her prominent role on the late,
lamented V, where she played a
“visitor” from another planet. Her fan base is rabid (so to speak), but she’s
never had a bad or even uncomfortable experience at a convention.
“Nothing
really weird has ever happened, just flattering,” she says. “There are people
with tattoos of my face on their body [laughs]. One guy actually had me sign
his arm, and he came back three hours later and had tattooed it. But then I
thought, ‘That’s the signature I use for legal documents, so wow, I should have
changed it.’ So yeah, nothing really weird—just lovely fans.”
Vandervoort
was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, where she got into acting at a
relatively young age.
“I
was about 12 or 13,” she says. “I saw My
Girl with Anna Chlumsky, and I loved it. It was the first movie I watched
at that age that impacted me emotionally. I was just sort of in shock—it really
touched home base. I thought Anna was fantastic. I had a need to be creative,
so I asked my parents if acting was something I could try, and they said yes.”
After
taking a few acting classes, Vandervoort appeared on such television series as Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark?
“And
then I did some Disney Channel movies and that sort of thing,” she says. “I
just kept working, and it was great.”
Despite
her identification as Supergirl, Vandervoort wasn’t considered to play the part
in the forthcoming Supergirl series,
which will begin airing on CBS in November. Instead, the role went to Melissa
Benoist.
“I
was shooting Bitten anyway, so I
wasn’t technically available,” Vandervoort says. “But I think they wanted a
fresh take on the character, and Melissa is younger. It was a good idea to
start fresh with a new actress, because you don’t want actors from Smallville reprising their roles. It
would just seem odd. I’m totally happy for Melissa.”
Based
on the “Women of the Otherworld” book series by Kelley Armstrong, Bitten airs on Space in Canada, where
the second season has wrapped up, and on Syfy in the U.S., where new episodes play
on Friday night.
The
powers that be have yet to greenlight a third season of Bitten, which has developed a strong cult following, but has had
mixed reviews among critics.
“Hopefully
we’ll hear something soon about season three,” Vandervoort says. “It’s been a
great experience for me so far.”
Fan
Expo Dallas
▪4
p.m.-9 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday
Dallas
Convention Center
650
South Griffin Street, Dallas
▪
$25-$89, $10 ages 6-12, free age 5 and younger
▪ fanexpodallas.com
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