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QC: Behind the Scenes

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jwhouk:
NOTE: The following set of interviews were never aired for the original "Behind the Scenes" special.

DORA: "We all knew it was going to end between Faye and Sven. We just didn't know exactly how it was going to end."

SVEN: "I had always figured that it was going to end because my character was going to screw someone else behind her back – and that would set her off."

FAYE: "We all knew what was gonna happen, right? We just didn't know the particulars. Or who would do it."

JEPH: "The lothario thing was always going to be what would end the relationship. Dora was pressing me to end it sooner, because she was getting uncomfortable explaining to her parents why her husband was sleeping with another cast member."

DORA: "Jeph decided that it was going to have to be a country music singer, since it would fit with Sven's role as a country music writer. And in so doing, he wanted to have a name that would show his general contempt for the genre as a whole."

FAYE: "And the name was a doozy: Kelly Swiftwood."

SVEN: "Kelly Swiftwood." (shakes head) "It was over the top."

DORA: "Way over the top. So much so that his lawyers told him that it might not be a good idea to go forward with the name."

SVEN: "So we all sat down and did some brainstorming of what her name could be."

DORA: "Lydia came up with the name 'Gina Riversmith', figuring it sounded like a good name for a country music starlet."

FAYE: "A country music starlet who was also a nymphomaniac when alcohol was involved."

SVEN: "Jeph loved it so much that he actually had Lydia include it in some dialogue in the strip – right before Cosette made her first appearance."

DORA: "Only problem was, Cosette had no desire to even touch the role. And Lydia had already revealed that she was in town for a concert by that point, and Jeph had already planned to have Cosette be the little redhead who hit on Marten."

COSETTE: "Dee made it really clear to Jeph that there was no way in HELL that his girlfriend was gonna pose nude in a webcomic."

SVEN: "So he started looking around, frantically. Asking everyone in the cast, friends, family – even family members of the cast."

VERONICA MILLER-REED: "Yeah, he asked me if I knew anyone who'd be willing to do it. I told him he was slightly insane for writing himself into that kind of corner."

JEPH: "I was getting nowhere fast. I knew I wasn't going to be able to extend out the Cosette storyline longer than a week or so, and no one wanted to play the role of the young country music starlet and nympho." (pauses, then looks into the camera)

"So I made a phone call. She kinda owed me one, because I did her a huge favor at Comicon the year before. When I told her what I wanted, she told me I was ####ing nuts. I told her that we'd put her in costume, and that it wouldn't even look like her. She turned me down again. I told her I'd make sure the nude scene was done tastefully, and no one would ever know it was her. She refused. I promised that I would have the staff involved all sign non-disclosure agreements that would keep them from ever saying anything about who played the role of Gina Riversmith. She was about to hang up on me when I made my final offer."

(pause)

"A full case of Absolut vodka."

SVEN: "Jeph gave me the call to come in late that night, after the rest of the cast had already left after filming their scenes. I was really surprised when I saw who it was, but we did the scene in one take."

(looks uncomfortably into the camera)

"She was really getting into it. And she was also a bit inebriated."

JEPH: "A lot inebriated. It was just her, me, Sven and the cameraman. At her insistence."

SVEN "The next afternoon, she came in and did a few stills that would end up in the Google search segment – and she did the digital altering of the photos herself. She also did the digital editing of our scene, just to make sure that no one could recognize her in the scene."

(pause)

"She destroyed the rest of the clips from the scene after Jeph had posted the strip that evening."

FAYE (sitting nervously next to Dora and Sven) "We all signed the non-disclosure agreements willingly before she left."

(all three look at each other nervously)

"Her use of a flamethrower to destroy the clips and the negatives of the promo stills was a huge incentive."

DORA: "And none of us have ever revealed who played the role of Gina Riversmith."

SVEN: "Never. Not even with bribes or cajoling."

HANNELORE: "Even I never found out who it was. Marten and I had left after the Drunken Scrabble scene, and I was already home and in bed when this all happened."

MARTEN: "I had my suspicions, but Jeph never told me. And I always figured it was never that important."

JEPH: "No one. Not Cristi, not Penelope, no one ever knew who came in to play that role. And no one ever figured it out."



DANIELLE CORSETTO (creator, Girls With Slingshots) "Oh, yeah, Jeph and I go back to our mutual early days of webcomic production. He helped out a lot with the development of Hazel in my webcomic, and I helped him out a lot with his comic. I was the one who encouraged him to have Marten and Dora break up, just to keep the characters fresh and all that."

(pause)

"Of course, he pushed me to do the same thing in my comic between Haze and Zack, but that's something else entirely."

(another pause)

"So what exactly was the reason for this interview, again?"

(pauses for a question from off-screen)

"What?"

(another pause, her face suddenly falling)

"How do you know that?"

(another off-screen explanation; she turns and looks into the camera with a death glare)

"Excuse me. I have to talk to someone."

(takes off her earpiece and mic and storms off stage; a moment later a hand reaches in front of the camera)

"Gimme that, you're not airing that."

(A blip sounds)

JEPH (who is holding an icepack up against the right side of his face, as he has apparently been hit hard with something) "Yeah, no one is ever going to reveal who actually played the role of Gina Riversmith in the comic. We all agreed to that."

SVEN (sitting on one of three chairs next to Faye and Dora on the interview set, talking quietly to them): "He didn't really call her in here to try to get her to admit to it, did he?" (Faye and Dora look off to the side of the set in horror as they see Danielle come charging in)

DANIELLE: "That's IT, this is NOT going to be airing anytime soon!"

(reaches the camera and it suddenly cuts out to black)

MALE VOICEOVER: "The interviews you just saw were originally thought to have been lost after Miss Corsetto's rampage on the set of Behind the Scenes. However, a copy of all of them were preserved for posterity – and the unlockable Special Extras part of this DVD version of the special."

(pause as the source of the voice is finally determined to be…)

R.K. MILHOLLAND: "And I didn't agree to any non-disclosure clause, so she can come after me all she wants. She knows what dirt I've got on her otherwise."

(smirking)

"And she #### well knows she's got nothing on me."

DSL:
HARRISON FORD: "So I said, Jeph, you can type this shit, but no one can say it. He did end up changing the way Faye talked, but I always wondered if that was why all my scenes got cut out of Hannelore's couch dream sequence."

jwhouk:
Good one.

Veronica Reed (Veronica Miller-Reed)
MARTEN: "Jeph let Faye and I fill in a lot of the back-story parts of our characters that he hadn't developed in the original framework of the script. Faye was the one who came up with her character being from Savannah – and how her accent didn't come out until after she had a few drinks in her. She already had the role of the overprotective and PTSS-suffering mom (and deceased dad) written into her character, but mine – well, Jeph left it open-ended.

FAYE: "We got into the whole 'whose family is worse' discussion before we did those strips where he talked about his parents, and he mentioned his parents had divorced after his mom finally figured out his dad was a closeted gay man. I made the off-hand comment that the only way it could be worse is if his mom turned out to be a dominatrix or something."

MARTEN: "Close – she did do some acting as a burlesque dancer in college. Which is how she met my father, at USF (University of San Francisco). But her whole life was for her teaching career."

VERONICA: "I've been a professor at Stanford University now for about 14 years –about three years after Henry and I divorced. I lecture in the human biology department of the school – mostly to undergrads in the 100-level courses. It does give me some free time to pursue acting, though. Mostly things on campus."

DORA: "I was the one who came up with the Bettie Page angle. I suggested to Jeph that it would not only take Marten's awkwardness to another level, but it would also bring an interesting development to the character."

JEPH: "I'd toyed from the beginning that Dora's character was bisexual. Thing is, short of her trying to make out with Faye – which Faye told me in no uncertain terms would happen only over her DEAD BODY – I had no way of showing it in the context of the strip. Then came the Bettie Page angle – and the interplay came naturally."

VERONICA: "When I'd done burlesque shows at USF, I'd gone under the stage name of Veronica Vance. I just dusted it off and played the part for a bit. Tell you the truth, I loved it. Unfortunately, I couldn't get away from the campus to make another appearance until the post-breakup storyline. If I could, I'd be appearing more often." (Shrugs for the camera) "Alas, I have a few more years before I get tenure and can just leave whenever I feel it necessary."

MARTEN: "What she doesn't want to mention is that she wasn't kidding about the whole incident with Steven Tyler. I remember that because mom has always cringed whenever she hears the opening riff to 'Walk This Way'. And she HATES American Idol."

VERONICA: "No comment."

Wil (Charelston Willingford II)

The role of Wil, Sven's friend from school, was originally slated to be played by someone a bit more famous than the current "Wil" (Charles Wilford, who goes by his stage name in the strip). Uber-geek extraordinare Wil Wheaton, who had appeared in background scenes of QC in the past, continually turned down overtures by Jeph to join the cast as a lovelorn poet who falls for one of the baristas (namely, Penny).

As has happened frequently in QC history, it was one of the current cast members who suggested someone to fill a role – and that someone just so happened to be Penny herself.

PENNY: "Charles and I had known each other for quite some time before the strip even started. Jeph had wanted my character to get involved with someone, but Steve and I were far from a match. So I suggested Chas, and he came in with his poem about the Large Hadron Collider, and – well, the rest is history."

Charles also declined to be interviewed for the Behind the Scenes special, but Penny does acknowledge that the two of them are still dating and living together. She has been coy about the possibility of the two of them joining the ranks of the married cast members of QC, though: "He hasn't asked me yet, and I'm not pushing things."

jwhouk:
John Ellicott-Chatham (John Ellicott), Francis York (Frank Stafford, Ph.D), Lieutenant Abby Potter (Abagail Potter, Lt.Cmdr., Springfield Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol) and Dr Bernadette Case (Oprah Winfrey)

HANNELORE: "Every time we hit the convention circuit, I was always asked the same thing by at least one person: 'When are we going to find out about your dad?'"

JEPH: "I had the character of Hannelore's dad mapped out long before the Space storyline. I'd always wanted to do a whole storyline about him and his space station – but never could get Topatoco to put it in the budget."

HANNELORE: "I had met John Ellicott several times at various conventions – he was usually there because he'd played a Ferengi dignitary on Deep Space Nine, and he was big into sci-fi roles. He had been a technical advisor to Jeph with the robots in the strip, and it was pretty much always assumed he was going to end up playing my dad when the time came for it.

JEPH: "The incredible success of the release of Volumes 1 and 2 gave us the impetus for it – and suddenly, we got a phone call from NASA."

FRANK STAFFORD (NASA public relations liason, Johnson Space Center, Houston): "I'd been reading QC for a while to that point, and I knew that with the end of the space shuttle program, we needed some impetus to encourage space exploration – and travel. I'd toyed with the idea of using Jeph's ideas to further the space program, but I couldn't convince anyone to do it. (looks into camera) And then, Elon Musk (of Tesla Motors and SpaceX fame) got his daughter a plush version of Pintsize."

ELON MUSK: "She was just all about this goofy webcomic that featured these little robots, and she told me about this one character whose father lived on a space station. I read a bit about this, and decided to contact Jacques through my liaison at NASA (Stafford)."

STAFFORD: "I was thrilled, Jeph was thrilled, and I was just amazed at how quickly everything came together. All the null-G scenes that Jeph wanted to do were easy – we got Marten, Hanners and Marigold up in one of the Vomit Comets and did the shooting in mockup cabins, and we even helped Jeph out with the CGI backgrounds."

JEPH: "What really floored us was how they helped us out with the mockups for the space station. It made it just that much easier for me, knowing all I had to do was write the scripts."

HANNELORE: "The idea as to why we were going up there was going to be the easy one – a birthday party for my 'dad'. What we were going to do when we got up there was going to be up to Jeph."

JEPH: "Come on, you KNOW what it was going to be about." (looks at camera) "Null-G makeouts." (laughs) "Seriously, I did want to develop some relationships for Marigold and Marten, but I think everyone knew it was going to be about Hannelore's background."

MARTEN: "Everything kinda came together right there after Thanksgiving of 2011. We knew Faye was going to be out because she was in her last month with Jeffrey, and Dora and Sven were really looking forward to having a proper honeymoon after several years of marriage. What we didn't realize was that there were going to be people beating down the door to get a walk-on role on the Station."

JEPH: "Including that strange phone call we got from Harpo Productions."

Even the large amount of makeup and the glasses couldn't hide Oprah Winfrey's walk-on role during the Space storyline as Doctor Bernadette Case. Winfrey, who admitted to being a secret fan of the strip, played down her role as the "ship's doctor", only relishing in the fact that she helped contribute to some of the background of Hannelore's beloved character. (She was not interviewed for the documentary because of other commitments.)

FAYE: "Yeah, I'd known about Oprah being a fan for some time. One of the first times we did 3C (Chicago Comic Con), she actually sent one of her reps to our table with free passes for a taping of her show. Tai and I got to meet her backstage. She told us her favorite character was Hanners, and it was just a natural when it was made known that HannerDad was finally going to make an appearance."

JEPH: "Musk's daughter got her walk-on role as one of the 'singing scientists' – something that she came up with as an idea to begin with. Stafford wanted to play a lovelorn scientist who was even more awkward at makeouts than Marigold – which I'd never even thought of happening with her."

MARIGOLD: "Frank was fantastic in the scenes we were in. He was even understanding over my real-life case of space-sickness after our little Vomit Comet escapades. He also got an autographed copy of Naruto from me."

MARTEN: "That only left who I was going to try making out with."

HANNELORE: "I thought it'd be funny if my dad kept thinking that Marten was trying to make out with me, but Jeph and Marten agreed that it wouldn't be believable enough. Though we did get that one 'schtup my daughter, eh?' scene in during the birthday party."

JEPH: "I was going to do some random scientist, or something to that effect – and then we met the Potters."

MARIGOLD: "No, not those Potters. That would have geeked me out too much." (pause)

"Okay, all right, I admit – that lousy Harry Potter fanfic really was mine. Huge Harry Potter fan. One of the few things I have in common with the 'character' that Jeph gave me. Seriously, though – a few years ago, right after the Angus storyline, I tried my hand at getting a pilot's license. On my first training flight, I accidentally set off my ELT (emergency locator transmitter – the "black box") on a rough landing, but didn't bother to check in my post-flight inspection. After I got home, these three people wearing green uniforms with blue nametags appeared at my door to ask if I had been flying that day. Turns out the Civil Air Patrol squadron in Springfield had been doing training that day, and couldn't figure out why they were getting a signal from the plane I'd used."

(sighs)

"ANYways, it turns out that some of the members of the squadron were fans of the strip. When Jeph was looking for some extras, I made a few calls and the Potters were more than willing to help out."

ABAGAIL POTTER: "I had been involved in CAP when I was a kid – went through the cadet program, got my Mitchell and Earhardt awards, and was trying for my Spaatz when two things happened. First, I got into a car accident that left me with several scars on my hip – I got hit side-on and the door caved in on me while I was in the passenger seat. Second, I was trying for my pilot's license when I found out something: I had moderate deuteranopia."

(pause)

"Yeah, that's right – colorblind. It had never come up before then, so I never knew. It also dashed my hopes at getting into the Air Force."

MARIGOLD: "Abby and her family were involved in CAP, on and off, even after she started working as a fitness instructor in Springfield. I'd gotten to know them after my little 'run-in' with them, and they were both thrilled at the idea. They had wanted the entire squadron to join them, but all this stuff was coming together so quick – and it was the holidays at the time, too."

STAFFORD: "Jeph told us about the Springfield CAP group. We were all for it, but at the last minute it was only Potter and her father that could make the trip down to Houston."

ABBY: "My dad and I went with the QC cast to Johnson Space Center, where they had this whole space station mockup thing. It was just too awesome. Dad enjoyed his little bit as the 'Major' (which is his actual rank in the CAP), though he didn't understand the anime references. He wasn't too keen with how Jeph wrote my character, but I absolutely loved it."

MARTEN: "She didn't love the Vomit Comet at first, though. Puked up through our first take of the scene at the 'observatory.' She got over it with some scopamine meds, and we did the whole scene in one take before she had any follow-up issues."

HANNELORE: "That whole storyline was the most fun I ever had since joining the QC cast. And I just loved how we managed to develop the character while doing it. Wouldn't mind doing it again. (pause) Except, of course, for all Vomit Comet stuff. Watching everyone else get sick was not something I'd want to do again."

Spacestation and Spaceship (and avatars; voiced by Peter Hodgkins and Paul Hodgkins)

Both Station and Spaceship's avatars were CGI "holograms". The technology was paid for by Lenovo, who provided Topatoco Studios with the hardware to develop them.

The two avatars are actually voiced by twin English vocal professionals Peter and Paul Hodgkins. Neither like being interviewed on camera, and as such declined to be interviewed for the Behind the Scenes special.

Carl-E:
You're having WAYYY too much fun with this! 

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