Behind the Scenes

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WITNESSES FOR THE DEFENCE

From the moment that Christian and Stephanie stepped on stage, the respect and friendship that they hold for one another is evident. There is excitement and euphoria at seeing the Lilah and Lindsey partnership reunited as the crowd in the room gives them both an unbelievable welcome. "Hi, I'm Christian Kane," Chris starts to say over the noise, "And I'm his sidekick," Stephanie finishes before adding, "How excited are we to have Christian Kane? He's doing a day and a half turnaround to be here." Stephanie is referring to the tight schedule surrounding Christian's visit. In order to meet his commitments, Christian flew in to the UK on Thursday, landed on Friday, the first day of the event, where he attended the meet and greet. He then had planned a full day of things to do on Saturday including the KANE acoustic set before flying back to L.A. on Sunday morning ready to begin filming Angel on Monday. As the crowd show their appreciation for his dedication, Christian merely points at Stephanie and calls her, "My favorite person in the world."

~ Christian Kane & Stephanie Romanov

Chris refers to Steph as, "My favorite person in the world."

The questioning opens with a query as to whether the actions in the 'evil hand scene' from S2 episode Dead End had been scripted or whether Christian had taken a certain amount of poetic license. "You mean when I grabbed her ass?" Christian clarifies, "It was scripted but I tell you what, I had a lot of fun." Stephanie pipes in, "He kept making mistakes so we'd have to shoot it again" Christian admits, "I kept screwing up. I'd say, 'You know what, that wasn't good for me, we have to re-shoot this.' It was nice and besides Stephanie has a really nice ass!" The question was then raised about what was the 'coolest' moment on Angel. Without a moment of hesitation, Christian states, "When I beat his ass with a sledgehammer! I got so tired of being beaten up by girls all the time that finally I give Angel a little redemption. It probably is one of my best moments to be honest with you as David and I had such fun with that." Christian adds with sincerity as he reflects, "He's one of my best friends in life as I've known him for seven and half years now. He'd just come from the premier of Valentine and had to go straight from the premier to the set and so me and Mike Massa, who's his stunt double, choreographed the whole fight. David just jumped in and because we're such good friends he was hitting a little harder on me than he would usually his stunt people so we kinda kicked the shit out of each other. It was just a lot of fun because I was getting to whoop some ass and other than that I was getting to do a little stunt stuff and I kinda like that."

Christian then goes on to choose his favourite Lilah and Lindsey moment, "The coolest moment between me and her would probably be the scene when she comes in and tries to seduce me but she has a microphone on. There's so much sexual tension between Lilah and Lindsey," Christian pauses to quickly cast a glance to his partner on stage, "and in real life as well," he jokes. Stephanie denies all knowledge as Christian continues his previous train of thought. "She comes in and does all this stuff, and it was a different character move for both of us which was fun as we're usually at each other's throats. We're very much stand-offish but this was a very intimate scene and a cool time was had so..."A question then came about Christian's role in the film Second-hand Lions and was it as much fun to film as it was to watch. "You know, it's my favourite feature role to date and I'll tell you why, because I got to play a younger Robert Duvall. It was a defining moment," he explains, and his genuine enthusiasm for this film and role shines through in his response, "I had one line in the whole movie which was at the end but I did all the stunts.

"And notice I always go behind Boreanaz! I always get laid 'after' David, they have to let David go first." ~ Christian Kane

I've got a scar on my face and I got pierced with a sword and had a couple of stitches but that was the deal. They said, 'We can't really afford to have you as this person and have a stunt guy.' I said, 'Just let me do my own stunts,' and they let me do it so what you see in the movie is actually me. I took a lot of falls from horses and stuff like that but it was probably one my favourite thing to do in the entire world, was this movie."

Christian trained for two and a half months for the role, "Sword-fighting and stuff like that, but then they said, 'I want you to come to set and just hang around with Robert Duvall and I want you to get all his mannerisms down.' I didn't have to do it, I'm a fan of Bobby Duvall, I grew up with his films and he's one of the reasons why I wanted to become an actor so I knew what it was already. I used to look in the mirror, before my scene, and I'd do it and see if I could catch a little bit of Bobby [does an incredible impersonation] and I'd try to slip little things like that into the character. I saw a picture of him when he was younger and we're actually a lot alike, it was an unbelievable experience." Christian's film career raised a fair number of questions and one such question came from a man who admitted whilst being on his sick bed, he had encountered a film by the name of Crooked E (the mention of which saw Christian physically cringe). Crooked E - The Unshredded Truth About Enron, to give it's full title, was a made for TV film based on Brian Cruver's book, Anatomy of Greed. The film itself tells of the collapse of the notorious Houston based Enron Corporation in 2002. Despite the moralistic curiosities that could have come from such a film, the question that was actually raised referred to whether or not bunny girls really walked around the offices all the time. "They really did," Christian confirms, "I actually played a real guy as it was a true story based on a real character and he shows up two or three times in the movie with me. I gained a little bit of weight for that and I put on a few pounds because he was a bit heavy. I really wanted to portray that whole thing because where I grew up, in Oklahoma and Texas, you know that was a big thing, a lot of people had money in on it and across the world, but that was a big thing for Houston, Texas. And to answer your question, yeah man, there were some hotties. They actually hired women as secretaries that were ex-strippers and they actually hired them to boost male moral. It's all a true story. What a great company!" Christian laughs.

OBJECTION OVERRULED

"And it was great hearing your music in there as well", the guy added after Christian had replied to him. "Oh, did you hear that? Me and Steve wrote that," Christian says. "We went to Nashville and wrote that song. I was talking to Shannon Elizabeth [Christian's co-star in the film] and I said I'd love to throw this in the movie and she said, 'Oh, absolutely.' Then Penelope Spheris who did Wayne's World and who directed this movie loved it so that was cool and I'm glad you noticed that, thank you." The attention is then turned to Joss Whedon and whether or not he gives an overview of the direction in which a character will go by the end of a season. "I don't know if he has a great idea of where he wants his characters to go," Christian states, "as it's always evolving in Joss' head and he gets a good idea with a storyline and then he places his characters. I think he has a game that he's playing and we're all pawns in his game." Stephanie offers, "He's never given me an overview, ever. The only time he has called, he said, 'Look I've got this really cool storyline for you, you should come back.' And I said, 'Oh okay.'"

"He has the biggest arms I have ever seen!"

Christian was asked how good it felt to get the girl within 12-seconds of his return on Angel when previous film roles (such as Life or Something Like It or Just Married) had left him second best. "I never get the girl do I?" he asked, "But then again, how do you know I actually got the girl though? And notice I always go behind Boreanaz! I always get laid after David, they have to let David go first." Stephanie smiles sweetly and in defence of her friend openly states, "That's because if you went first, they wouldn't go to David." Christian's ego is boosted a little further, when a fan comments, "You both have amazing bodies, do you work out?" Stephanie jokes in mock modesty, "I'm sorry what did you say?" before pointing at Christian, "He has the biggest arms I have ever seen! When I get to touch him, platonically of course because I'm married... I just have to casually go and check 'em". Christian seems a little embarrassed and tries to answer the question seriously, "In our business you have to workout. We're competing against some of the best actors and it always helps if you look good, so we have to kinda keep ourselves in shape plus when you have six months off, you have a lot of free time."

"And I walk a lot, to the store, to the car..." Stephanie jokes, "I'm really lucky in that I have the kind of metabolism where I don't work out every day or go to the gym but I'm active in my life. I like to hike and I like to walk to the car...", as the audience applaud and appreciate her languid approach, Stephanie looks to the heavens to show appreciation of her own. "Thank you God, thank you Jesus." Christian comments, "Nice rack too." Stephanie continues, "Once again, thank you God." Of course, acting isn't the only talent that Christian has to his very talented bow. With friend and fellow musician, Steve Carlson, he is an integral part of the band KANE, whose first album contained a collection of songs which were only available by download through the internet or via KANE's website. Christian was asked about his plans for a new album, "Me and Steve were just talking about that and we actually have enough material to do one but there's things in the works right now that I can't really talk about. We're gonna go on to bigger and better things as a band and we got some stuff coming out. Hopefully we can end this shit where you have to go on-line and instead you can walk down to the corner store and get it."

Christian's musically influences are vast, listening to everybody from David Allen Coe to Johnny Cash to 50 Cent, "I don't think you can be a musician and corner yourself into one genre of music or one person in music. I think to be a musician you have to really have a little of something for everyone. A lot of the reasons why I wanted to do what I do and perform is by seeing people like Garth Brooks. Christian confides that, "The Eagles have a lot of influence in our music, but I think about performing he [Garth] said something a long time ago which signifies exactly what me and Steve feel. No matter where we are or what city we are in or on what planet, there's not a person in the room who's having as good a time as me and Steve, you know what I mean? We love performing for people, it's a drug that rushes back at you and Garth Brooks did that!" Taking it a step further, who would Christian ideally like to work with musically? "If I could work with anyone in the world, it would be either Paul McCartney or Johnny Cash," he admits, "But if it was gonna be someone more recently then--"

Steph talks about working with the brilliant Robin Williams

Stephanie offers helpfully, "J-Lo?" The look Christian gives her is an obvious, No! "I'd really like to do something with David Allen Coe. He lives in the Black Hills of Kentucky and he's a little bit crazy but if I could work with someone it'd be David Allen Coe." From the serious to the sublime. There has been a recent Starfury tradition of guests auctioning off a 'feel of their ass' all for a good cause. A young girl stood up stating that she had a question for both Christian and Stephanie. To Christian, she asked if he would consider continuing this tradition, "Erm yeah, I'd auction off something like that," he agreed, "But if you want a feel of my ass right now, come up here." The girl clearly doesn't need asking twice and goes to the front of the auditorium to lay her hands on Christian's rump clearly indicating to everyone her approval.

As she returns to her seat, she turns her attention to Stephanie as to her role alongside Robin Williams in The Final Cut. "It was just an amazing experience," she began, "It was really one of those films where it was a first time director, brilliant writer and everybody was there because they loved the script and so you had this group of people who were all there for the right reasons. It felt like a family. Robin was so nice to everybody so it really was amazing. My part was a very disturbed woman and so it was emotionally very tiring but in between scenes, Robin would either be cracking jokes, laughing, or making sure everybody was having a great time. It was only on the acting level that I felt challenged," Stephanie confesses. "After that I had a lot of fun with some really cool people." Christian chimes in, "Stephanie is also the type of actress that feeds off of other actors and adapts. And so if you guys can imagine one of the best actors around in Robin Williams and Stephanie together, you've got to go and see this thing." Whilst waiting for the next question, Christian takes the opportunity to share his appreciation for English slang, "You know what word I like?" he asks, "Is dodgy! I'm gonna bring that home to The States, I like that. It's like, 'Should we get out in this neighbourhood and walk? No, it's a bit dodgy out there.'" And the audience approves with laughter and applause.

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