By BetteAndTinaForever

I can’t believe another convention is over yet again. Why is it that the time moves so slowly when you’re waiting for something wonderful to happen but once it happens, it seems like it’s over in the blink of an eye? I guess it’s true that time flies when you’re having fun and believe me; I had so much fun at the L4 Convention that I didn’t even notice when it was over.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed that Sarah Shahi and Laurel Holloman canceled their appearances for personal reasons (and no, Laurel is not pregnant as the rumors fly). In spite of the cancellations, the convention turned out to be a great success and the replacement guests, Guin Turner and Lauren Lee Smith, were absolutely fantastic.

Let’s start from the beginning…

Day 1: Opening ceremony, meet&greet

As usual, I arrived a day earlier and after visiting rainy London, I spent the rest of the evening with my friends and ran into Sean, the event’s organizer, at the bar. He told us how disappointed Laurel was that she couldn’t make it to the convention and she promised to make it up to all her fans by coming to another convention. Sean made it clear that there’s a great chance for Laurel to appear at the L5 Convention in November. He agreed that it would be such a wonderful opportunity and a dream come true for all the TiBetters to finally see Laurel and Jennifer together at the same place and the same time. Sean also mentioned Pam Grier and that he wanted to invite her to L5 as well.

The opening ceremony was short and sweet. Sean once again explained that two of the guests were unable to attend and apologized for them. He said again that laurel was really upset about the turn of events because she was such an enthusiastic guest, who came to the first convention and then told everyone about it. Because of Laurel, all the other cast members wanted to attend and more than once. And now we’ll even have an opportunity to see Jennifer Beals. Laurel Holloman is awesome, as I’ve always said.

Sean then introduced the guests for L4 and one by one, Anne Ramsay, Lauren Lee Smith, Guinevere Turner and Rachel Shelley came on stage and said a few words about their pleasure and excitement to be at the convention again.

As soon as the ceremony was over, the lucky holders of the first 150 tickets went to meet&greet.

The guests were joining the fans at their tables and chatting with them for a few minutes. It seemed to me that they were rushed through our table like the strong desert wind and only stayed with us for what seemed like five minutes. I’m not complaining, though…I got hugs from Anne Ramsay and Rachel Shelley (I’m still blushing), and I made Lauren Lee Smith laugh at something I said. I just hope she laughed with me and not at me.

Anne Ramsay came to our table first and she told us about her experience on League of Their Own. She said that the director, Penny Marshall, wanted Madonna so bad for that movie, so when Debra Winger was considered for the role that later went to Gina Davis, Debra said that she didn’t want to be in the same movie as Madonna, because she’s not an actress. Penny wanted them both to be in a movie but Madonna won. Anne also told us that she’s working on 3 independent projects with women directors and she feels more comfortable working with women.

Rachel Shelley was next and she was amazing. I didn’t realize how much I missed Helena until I saw Rachel at out table. She told us that she will be back for season 6, that’s she’s returning only in episode 12 of season 5 (as we already know but the finale hadn’t aired yet when I went to the convention) and also that she wants for Dylan to come back in season 6 and have a closure because Rachel felt that Dylan was the only really serious and important romantic interest for Helena throughout all the seasons. I asked her more about it in my interview, so check it out for more details.

Lauren Lee Smith who played the sous-chef Lara Perkins in seasons 1-3, was such a delight to meet. She was really sorry to have missed the first ever L1 Convention and this was a great opportunity for her to make it up to her fans. She told us that she wanted to continue explore her relationship with Alice in season 4 and she was surprised that her character wasn’t invited back. Lauren didn’t even know what happened to Lara. They didn’t explain it to her. She was supposed to become a regular cast member in season 4. She said that she would love to come back in season 6 for a closure as well, if she would be invited.

Filming her scenes with Erin was great; she’s the funniest and the smartest actress Lauren has worked with. In season 1 she loved how they began dressing Dana and Lara alike. When they were filming scenes in Bette and Tina’s house in season 1, it was really funny and great. Later, when they were doing some close-ups, all the other cast members would leave the area but remained on the set and watched Erin and Lauren making out and laughing. So they had a lot of bloopers from that one scene alone.

We asked about her cooking skills, since she played a sous-chef and Lauren said that when she first started on The L Word she could only boil water. And she had to go through a lot of lessons on chopping and cutting things. Her mother is an excellent cook and now she can make toast but she has to go through a few of burned ones to make it just right.

After that we had to wait for a long time until Guin Turner came to our table. By that time I think everybody was exhausted and feeling jet lag. We talked to Guin mostly about the writing on the show. She said that when she was working on season 1 and 2, there were three major writers, Ilene, Rose Troche and herself. They would get a group of writers to work on the initial scripts and then it would get re-written and changed throughout the season.

When someone asked if it was true that Ilene didn’t have any intention of getting Bette and Tina back together after their initial break-up, Guin replied, “FOS.” Took me awhile to figure it out but apparently it’s wasn’t exactly true. Maybe the journey changed from the TiBette break-up to their final reconciliation and maybe Ilene brought in a few unplanned obstacles along the way, but as I understood it, it was always in Ilene’s mind to get them back together in the end.

As usual, our time with the guests was short and quick. I blinked and it was after 11 pm and we were done. It was still a lot of fun, though. I spent the rest of the night with friends, playing the new The L Word Trivia game. Guess who won?

Stay tuned for my reports on day 2 and 3 and for more interviews.