– Leisha has met Madonna a couple of times and said that Madonna is awesome. Leisha felt star struck and nervous around her.

– Advice for people who are starting their career as actors: keep going even if you think you make mistakes and screw up, don’t give up.

– They both think that accents are cute.

– In a lot of group scenes the audience might notice that the actors don’t look at each other. It was because they were just laughing moments before, and they tried not to make eye contact, so they could make it through the scene.

– Kate thinks that Shane had matured throughout the whole series to a certain extent but not entirely, because there was never enough time to explore everything.

– Both Kate and Leisha agree that thinking is not cheating (remember Season 5, episode 10, campfire discussion?) but it can get dangerous and could get you to cheating. It depends on how you think.

– Kate and Leisha didn’t know each other before “The L Word”. They all became good friends because they were “stuck” together in Vancouver for six months out of the year filming and hang out together. If they were filming in L.A. it would be different because at the end of the day they all would go home to live their lives and it would be more like a job.

– The cast’s favorite thing was wardrobe sales at the end of each season. They would have their little meetings and decided who wanted to take what clothes, and sometimes they would take some other character’s clothes because they liked it. Leisha also wanted to take The Chart but it was too big. Kate said that she didn’t take anything from Shane/Jenny’s house because they didn’t have anything. Bette and Tina had the best stuff.

– One of the scenes they couldn’t get through was when Shane was painting her house and Alice came to help. When Jenny was coming around the corner, Alice sat down on some kind of army bag full of stuff that Shane had and she fell backwards. They were laughing really hard and for the next hour, each time Mia would come around the corner, they began laughing and couldn’t get through the scene.

– If they would write their own ending to “The L Word” Kate would like to see the closure for the characters instead of the whole murder thing, something more realistic. Leisha would like to see an open ending so we could imagine for ourselves where the character would go. She’s not a fan of perfect package endings because life isn’t like that.

– Mia was the queen of pranks on the set.

– Leisha said that if she would meet Alice, she would be drawn to her because she’s such a social butterfly. She had learned from her character to be more open and not be so scared of things, to live in the moment. Kate thinks that Shane and she wouldn’t get along but the one thing she learned was to understand that everything happens for a reason and you just keep going.

 

Auction

 

The auction had begun right after the Q&A session with Kate and Leisha ended. They brought some things like clothes, records, photographs and other items to raise money for a few charities, one of them was Mia Kirshner’s “I Live Here Foundation”. Mia also sent some photos she took and each photo was accompanied by a letter, written personally by Mia and explaining what each photo represented.

I had participated in a few auctions during the years, beginning with L5 Convention and I didn’t feel like I should get anything but let others to participate. There were several very great items but all I tried to do was to help by starting the bidding on certain items when the things were going too slow.

I have to admit, this auction wasn’t as exciting as the one at L5 because there was no Janina Gavankar, who was a perfect and brilliant auctioneer or Rachel Shelley who walked around with the items in her hands like the girls during the boxing matches. Everyone at L5 made the auction very exciting and they ended up raising a lot of money.

It was still great because they were raising money for a good cause. Leisha brought her practice bass guitar, posters from the tour, Uh Huh Her first record, a very unique t-shirt and some other memorabilia. Kate brought a whole bunch of clothes, like jeans, shirts, glasses, and a hat from “The L Word” and also a watch and a hat from “Three Rivers”.

Except for the glasses, Kate put all the clothes together and offered it as a pile for one person. The hat was cute and I would totally bid on it, but I knew I won’t fit in any of her clothes. Even Leisha said she won’t be able to fit in any of her jeans because the size is negative 6.

 

Since I was trying to help by starting the bidding on some of the items, including Mia’s photos, I actually ended up getting one of them and it’s a really precious one. It had a letter attached to it and it said in Mia’s handwriting:

“Hi, this is Mia. Thank you. Thank you for buying this. This will help “I Live Here” run our programs next year. This page is the original page art hand-made art done for the “I Live Here” Anthology. This is deeply personal page for me – it was the first picture that I took for the book over nine years ago. This page also explains why I started this whole project. You have the only original copy of this and I hope that you care for it as myself and my partners have done over the years. If you need more information on the art, please contact me at mia@i-live-here.com. Thank you deeply, Mia Kirshner.”

Closing Ceremony

 

The closing ceremony was a little longer than the opening because Sean gave thanks the stuff members, the stewards, assistants, everyone in charge of the technical side of the event and then the guests said a few parting words. And the Convention was over.

***

My final impression of L7 Convention was that it was a very fast and very mellow convention. Apart from the auction that seemed to go on forever, everything was over pretty fast but like every good thing all conventions are over too soon. It always feels like I barely arrived and suddenly it’s already over, and L7 Convention felt like the fastest of them all.

Maybe it was because we only had three guests and the photo shoots and autographs sessions were done so quick that we had a lot of free time to spend with friends in the lobby, chatting, watching World Cup, drinking British drinks and eating British food, which is still a little strange to me.

It was my first time watching fans watching a soccer game between England and Germany that would determine which team will advance. It was amazing to see how devoted the fans are to their teams. I was told by a very good friend, who is English, that England and Germany are long-time rivals. If England wins, there’s always a possibility of a fight with German fans; if Germany wins, everyone just drinks beer.