Thank you Laurel !! Tibette.com went to the L3 convention in Blackpool where Laurel Holloman, Kate Moennig, Leisha Hailey, Erin Daniels and Eric Mabius where invited as guests. And here it’s our report… we are just gonna summarized Laurel’s Q&A’s. There was no opening ceremony due to some flight delays, but we had Leisha playing with her band Uh Huh Her. Laurel couldn't stay for the closing ceremony as she had to catch a plane back home that evening
Birth scene. They intended to play the scene while I was pregnant with my daughter but my daughter came two weeks earlier so when I came back I did the birth scene with a fake belly but at least I had given birth so I knew the craziness of it and birth can be very unpredictable and reminded me of the experience and it was kinda tense. I did turned to Jennifer that day because I was really tired, I had a two weeks old baby and I was shooting for 16 hours a day and pretty much she held my hand through the whole thing, she really did, Jennifer has this very nurturing, very protective quality and she is always like a big sister and she got me thru that scene Bette or Helena? They can’t compare, I think Tina will be forever in love with Bette but Rachel and I had such a great time and this is interesting, my daughter can go for months without seeing Rachel and the minute she hears her voice she has an immediate response as if she is known Rachel for years, she’s 3. I think it comes from the time we spent together and how we spent the time we were together… Marlee Matlin taught me some sign language, but most of them are a little dirty. We share make up trailer, she is such a pro, role model as a mother, I ask for advice, learnt a lot around her, her perseverance, her talent, it’s amazing to watch Jennifer and her sign Season 5 is like season one but on crack, it has humour, it’s our best season yet. There are elements of the movie The Player, a movie within a movie, a set within a set. Leisha and I had a scene together where she visited my character on set and we actually started shooting in front of where we have craft service, where we eat snacks between takes and we couldn’t figure out if we were shooting, just a very surreal moment, it’s absolutely genius what Ilene does to the writing Playing a character who has a daughter the same age as mine, actually my daughter is a week apart from Olivia who plays Angelica and they actually play together, it was very hard for me in the intense scenes like pretend right now someone is gonna take your daughter away, I wanted to see that animalistic threat and that was the scene when Tina thinks Bette is going to take the baby away and that’s why she holds on to Henry, out of fear. So there are times when I can have an immediate connection to a child.
Husband and daughter on the show. It was really fun, my daughter was 6 months old, I was still breastfeeding and she came to work with me. It was Roche Troche’s idea, my favourite director. It was unexpected, we talked about the room and the extras, and she said my husband and daughter should join in as extras Feedback from friends and colleagues about the show. I had a couple of straight friends who wanted to be gay Fave L word quote. I think Leisha has some of the best quotes but always comes to mind Karina Lombard talking about Silver Waters… or anything she said to Jenny “Thus Spoke Tharathustra” we quoted her for a while.
She loves Vancouver, “it’s an amazing city, I feel like living a wonderful life that never gets in LA, clean air. My daughter was in pre-school this year and my husband took her to class on a aqua-bus, and I thought wow how cool is that to take a boat to school every day, I thought it was pretty amazing. There are many things to do, things I like to do, outdoor things, go hiking, go to different beaches, have picnics. There are really wonderful restaurants there, wonderful lakes, you can rent a red cabin, you can swim, there is an area called Tofino, in winter they have these amazing storms to watch. I try to take advantage of anything there that LA doesn’t provide. Natural red head? I’m gonna say what Julia Roberts said when she changed her hair, "I’m whatever colour you pay for baby!". I’m a brown hair girl. For the role of Tina I tried to change it to red because it was easier for me to be red but the Lword said no, Tina is blonde, it was a contrast to Jennifer There is one of my favourites photographs that was shot during season 2 and all the girls came along and put their hands on my belly and Jennifer took a black and white shot, she is a fantastic photographer and it’s enlarge in my living room and the energy around and my pregnant belly and Kate giggling in a corner... Kate got the first kick Convention. There was a little part of me when I first came out. For example I was like maybe they want Bette to be with Jodie, they are still mad at Tina for being an asshole and ran off with Henry and they’ll boo me off the stage, you feel so vulnerable as an actor and *squeaky voice* I’m not the character !!! but it’s so amazing to see how many people loves the show, I feel fantastic . Being starstruck . I was at the Oscars party this year, it was very “celeby” . When you get to be there with so many famous people in a room I start sweating but Marlee was there and she is crazy too about all that so she made it kinda fun I loved Justine, it was a great role, I’ve never seen Angel or Buffy before and they asked me to come for that and I passed on just without knowing about it and my manager I think you are making a mistake and then I watched some and I went in and it was great that I got it. I see this character as some version of Ripley from Alien. It was a really wonderful experience, learning how to fight, use a sword, never done anything like that, it was great time and it toughened me up a bit. And Joss Whedon has this witty style of writing and beautiful metaphors.
At one point, Laurel asked the audience who thinks Bette should be with Jodie and the audience went silence… and who thinks Bette should be with Tina and the audience cheered and said yes loudly She talked about the tender moment scene in episode 8 in season 4, saying we asked Ilene can we just show these women and their connection because we fought so much in season 3 and part of 4 and we were just these actress wanting to try these other things and try to figure out were the relationship is going.. it's exhausting to play that much, I really liked that scene, it's one of my favourite scenes and also the scene has to do with missing the company of women after she had been excluded from the group after dating Henry, it wasn’t only that she missed Bette so much but she also really missed all the girls, she wasn’t living in her truth and when Bette put her arms around her it just brings up their history. And then Jodie walks in.. When talking about Tina going back to men, she said that a lot of women have been in this situation, there was this woman Ilene watched this happen to, after she had a baby, she wanted to tell that story, Laurel also knew another woman who is identified as a lesbian but at one point dated men for a while, then went back to women and kinda went back and forth, it happened to her and she was a good friend of one of the producers, Elizabeth Ziff and by the way, Randy Dean is based on Elizabeth Ziff when she was younger !. Basically it was just an story that needed to be told and certain characters’ reactions, Shane is much less judgmental to Tina while Jenny is very hard on her but Jenny is sort of a newbie so she is very righteous in everything and it’s interesting that Alice shut Tina too and Alice was bisexual, it brings a lot of issues for everybody that Ilene wanted to focus on, she wanted to show what would happened to this character if she was iced out.. basically her relationship with Henry goes down the drain and that’s part of it because she is not gonna loose her friends in a relationship
Erin, Kate, Leisha and Eric at the convention
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Lword. My manager read the script of the Lword and said you are going to love it and I did. I had a buzz after reading the pilot and wanted to be part of it, there was a lot of support at that time, it was a great script something I wanted to be proud of. We had a premier in LA and all the industry people felt like something big was gonna happen and it was here to stay.. and you never know with pilots, they come and go or sometimes they only run until 6 episodes and then they go away… so everyone seemed really excited and originally was called Earthlinks but they say don’t do that or anyone will think of Startrek.
Laurel. Laurel was asked if she when was younger if she was a tomboy, like her character in the incredible adventures of two girls in love…she said because she had no sisters and had two older brothers, she had an inner tomboy growing up. When filming the incredible adventures of two girls in love … Maria Magenti took her to Gay Pride NY and immersed herself in the character.
Tina. She talked about Tina being a doormat in season 1 and how she lost her identity, now Tina needs to be more attractive to Bette, Bette has changed, she is more vulnerable and they have started talking to each other and things are changing. One of my favourite scenes were with Bette and Tina talking and Tina finally said "you know you are such a control freak" and they really start talking and listening to each other and that it has to happen and ultimately Tina has changed too 
Jennifer. Talking about her chemistry with Jennifer she said that Jennifer was filming in Calabasas, witch by the way at the audition Jennifer’s dogs were barking at everyone but her, they had another girl for casting, they got rid of her after they saw Laurel and Jennifer talking, the network videotaped them and they saw how they got along and they loved it.
