Nerd Alert: Connecting the Dots With Fan Expo Celebs

They’re taking the hobbits to 12 and Arch. / Photo by Chi Tang

What do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a bunch of Goonies, a gaggle of hobbits and Mr. T. have in common? Not much — except they’ll all be at the Convention Center this weekend (May 29th-31st).

As always, Philly Fan Expo (the convention formerly known as Wizard World) offers a motley assemblage of live appearances, panel discussions and autograph sessions with celebrities whose work generally falls under “pop culture” but otherwise bears little relation to each other. Or so you think! Let’s make some connections.

Note: We’re about the drop a lot of names. Only the ones in bold will be at Fan Expo. The rest are mere stepping stones on this pointless quest.

Let’s start with the halflings. It’s been 25 years since The Fellowship of the Rings, so it makes sense that The Lord of the Rings makes up the biggest bloc at this year’s con. The top hobbits of the first franchise will be in the building for the pricy but thorough An Evening With The Hobbits event: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan.

That last guy, he was Charlie on Lost, which also featured Emilie de Ravin who went on to star in a show called Once Upon a Time with Colin O’Donoghue. Seven seasons? I had no idea.

There’s a lot of LOTR at Fan Expo, including Orlando Bloom, Miranda “I am no man!” Otto and the great John Rhys-Davies. JRD of course, was in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1980) with Sean Connery who was in Highlander (1986) with Christopher Lambert. Still not beheaded! (P.S. Do we need a Gandalf with weird politics?)

Meanwhile the aforementioned Sean Astin was also in The Goonies (1985), so that’s an easy connection to co-stars Corey Feldman and Kerri Green, also appearing at the Expo. (R.I.P. Sloth.)

Feldman’s a good connector; he did a ton of big movies in the ’80s, the golden age of nostalgia. He was in The Lost Boys (1987), so let’s check off his fellow Frog brother Jamison Newlander. Corey was also the voice of Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), which also starred Judith Hoag as April O’Neil, the human face with the most screentime. We can also check off Kenn Scott, Brian Tochi, Ernie Reyes Jr. and Robbie Rist who did stunts and quips. Those guys were brought back for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) which was Corey-free, but did feature François Chau as Shredder. (P.S. The secret is the ooze.)

Last leaf on the Corey Feldman branch: His Lost Boys bud Alex Winter (aka Bill S. Preston, Esquire) who co-directed, co-wrote, and co-starred a completely bonkers comedy called Freaked (1993) whose wild casting includes Fan Expo royalty Mr. T. Let’s watch the trailer.

Okay, now, bear with me. The aforementioned Judith Hoag? She’s been in a lot of stuff — Halloweentown, Armageddon, etc. — but she was cut from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016). One guy who was not cut from that movie was Gary Anthony Williams, also of Malcolm in the Middle fame. Which makes him just one Cranston away from Dean Norris. Speaking of Norris, he’s in several Paul Verhoeven movies including Total Recall (1990) with Sharon Stone who was in Basic Instinct 2 (2006) also starring David Morrissey aka the Governor on The Walking Dead. (Remember when they added, like, a second governor at the end of the series? Dumb.)

Speaking of Breaking Bad, Giancarlo Esposito was in that. And he was also in The Mandalorian (which my spellcheck accepts as a word!) with Katee Sackhoff who was in Battlestar Galactica with [redacted] and [redacted] who was in a cult with [redacted] who was in Smallville. And, whoa, there are lots of Smallville peeps on the Fan Expo bill: Tom Welling (Clark Kent), Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor), Erica Durance (Lois frickin’ Lane) and James Marsters (Brainiac). Put your hand down. I know Marsters is a pillar in the Buffy community, but for our purposes that’s a dead end.

So let’s return to the expanded Mandiverse, because stars Brendan Wayne, Jonny Coyne, not Wayne Coyne and Boba Fett himself Temuera Morrison are probably at the Convention Center right this very minute. Which brings us to director/producer/Swinger Jon Favreau who has his hands in all kinds of Star Wars and Marvel stuff. Let’s use him to get to Ahsoka and David Tennant, who has made many house calls in Dr. Who-ville (which also includes Arthur Darvill) and Harry Potter-ville. Oh, and Tennant played, uh, Barty Crouch Junior in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), so welcome aboard Bonnie Wright aka Ginny Weasley.

You might think we’re done with Star Wars since Favreau has no IMDB-approved connection to The Acolyte, but hold on tight.

You know Taiki Waititi? Not at the Expo. But he does do some voices in the aforementioned Mandalorian (as IG-11, IG-12, etc.) and in the MCU (playing Korg in Thor, Endgame, etc.). Well, apparently there was a short film called Deadpool’s Maximum Reactions: Deadpool and Korg (2021), because why not, and that takes us to Ryan Reynolds and then Hugh Jackman, star of Logan (2017) which also stars Dafne Keen of Acolyte. Fairly confident we took the most direct path there.

Know who else was in Logan? Patrick Stewart! Now we’ve arrived at Star Trek: The Next Generation and Picard, and we can finally check off marquee Expo attractions Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner. Feels nice to go from “a long time ago” to ~2400 AD.

Only three left. Time to do some scramble. Remember when we mentioned Sean Connery? Well he was in The Name of the Rose (1986) with O.G. Hellboy Ron Perlman. Perlman was in Sons of Anarchy with Emilio Rivera (who is at the Expo) and Katey Sagal (who is not). But I mention her because she did three episodes of One Piece, as did Rob Colletti who is best known as a Broadway dude, but we lucked out.

Holy hell we are done. This sounded like fun before I started.

Fan Expo Philadelphia runs May 29th-31st at the Philadelphia Convention Center, 1101 Arch Street.