Sometimes Dreams Do Come True

Henry David Thoreau once said “Go confidently in the direction of the your dreams, live the life you’ve always imagined.” I love this quote. Following my dreams have led me to some interesting places, and though some of you may not understand why I would spend a ton of money on a trip to Vancouver to meet the cast of a TV show, it was a dream come true for me.

Today, another dream came true. I and several other people had the pleasure of spending an hour with Christian Kane, listening to his music, watching the extended directors cut of his video for “House Rules” and just chatting with a man I have had a crush on for the last 10 years. In some ways it was an intimidating experience, I’m not good with going to completely unfamiliar places without anyone I know being there. But this step out of my comfort zone was entirely worth it.

Now this blog will probably take a turn to detail my afternoon, mostly for my fellow fangirls who were unable to be there with me, so I won’t be insulted if you get bored and tune out.

As most of you who will be reading this know, Christian Kane is currently one of the stars of the show Leverage. He has also appeared in numerous other shows, most notably Angel. Soon he will be releasing his first country album (though true Kaniacs know he’s really already released albums, just independently). He’s currently touring the country, visiting radio stations and getting them to play his first single off that album, “House Rules.” This afternoon he was visiting WIOV in Ephrata, and had a meet and greet with some fans.

When Christian first walked in it was a little surreal, because I’ve been watching this guy on TV and listening to his music for 10 years now, and here he was standing right in front of me (fangirls will be happy know his eyes and smile are just as gorgeous in person as they are on television).  He showed us the video and we also listened to “Whiskey on my Mind” and the album cut of “Let Me Go.” Throughout the time he also answered a lot of question and told us some amusing anecdotes, which I’ll try to relay for my fangirlfriends 🙂

(Side note: “Let Me Go” is one of the only songs on the album not written by Christian, and when he heard it he immediately asked the writer if he would trust him with recording the song, he loved it so much. At the time it was on hold for George Strait, but it ended up being given to Christian)

One of the questions was what will happen if his music really takes off and he starts touring, will he give up on TV? His response was that, except for Leverage, he already has. He has turned down numerous roles and doesn’t plan on taking on anymore acting jobs. Once Leverage is done he will focus on the music. He actually wasn’t too interested in Leverage at first, but the role was written specifically for him and he couldn’t turn it down (“It was the role I’ve wanted to play since I was 15!”) He also mentioned he was the one who asked to leave Close to Home, which is why he was written out (and it sounds like he really didn’t get along with the actress playing his wife, “she was a b***h to work with”).

One of the few guys in the room jumped on his response and asked if that means he wouldn’t be willing to make an appearance on Supernatural (“as a lawyer with tattoos…”) Totally stealing my question! Haha. Christian’s response was that Jensen has to come down and make an appearance on Leverage first (I could totally get behind that).

He then went into a story about being in Jensen’s wedding, and the two of them arguing over who has killed the most vampires (“Dude, I worked on Angel, what do you mean you’ve killed more vampires than me?”) I wish I had been more prepared because he did a hilarious impersonation of Jensen being pompous (with the frown, voice and everything, it was great).

When asked about Trace Adkins recording one of his songs (“Happy Man”) he shared a story about bumping into him (literally) in the airport on day. He turned around to complain and act all tough (“nobody bumps into me”) then realized the guy who bumped into him was huge, THEN realized it was Trace. So he introduced himself and thanked him for recording his song.

He talked a little about Leverage, how they were struggling a little on Sundays (not in any danger, just not doing as well as they had been) until “The Studio Job” when they got their highest ratings ever, and he pointed out to Dean Devlin that means their fans are country fans (previously Dean hadn’t allowed him and Timothy Hutton off work to present for the CMT awards when he was asked, now he’s pretty sure he’ll be allowed).

Christian told us the rest of season 3 of Leverage is going to be epic (my word, not his, but same thing). Especially the two-hour finale, which according to Christian may show us a not-so-nice side of Eliot. Actually he brought this up several times, so I’m inclined to believe it really is gonna be huge. He said it’s the biggest thing they’ve done. He also said Goran Visjnic will be in that episode (at least, I’m pretty sure he meant that one). Apparently there are some other good guest stars coming up, but he didn’t name anyone else.

One of the ladies asked about the great hair debate, and he told us he’s been fighting Dean about that, because Dean wants it cut but Christian says its part of the character. He has a feeling Dean may win and it’ll get cut before season 4 starts filming, but not cut too much. Apparently he has a team of 8 people to tame his hair every morning.

He also shared a story about how back in the `90s when he was on Rescue 77  he used to have to go to Aaron Spelling’s office on a weekly basis because he would never let them fix his hair the way they wanted it fixed for the show. Then one week he was sent to Spelling’s partner Duke Vincent, who scared Christian into cooperating.

Each of us were given photos that Christian then signed, and he signed anything else we may have brought. He thought it was pretty cool I already had Aldis’ signature on my Leverage DVD set. Then posed for photos with all of us. I told him my friend wanted to go to the BOB 94.9 while he’s there tomorrow to try to meet him, and if I could get off I might see him again tomorrow.

Overall it was an awesome way to spend an hour of my time! He was incredibly nice and friendly, and so very gracious. He’s very thankful to all his fans for all their support, and one thing that’s noticeble is when talking about his music he never said “I” always saying “We,” referring to his entire band. He seems very humble about taking credit for the music, it’s a team effort, or “family” as he calls them. And he loves that his fans refer to themselves as Kaniacs (and he’s very thankful he’s not the one who thought of it, “because that would cocky.”)

I think that about covers everything. It was an awesome experience, I’m so glad I went (even though going by myself honestly terrified me). Of course I owe a HUGE thank you to my friend Matt, if he hadn’t texted me this morning I never would have even known about it.