The celebrity guests at last weekend’s Fan Expo Chicago convention in Rosemont couldn’t talk about the films and shows that made them famous because of the ongoing actors’ union strike, but they did give attendees some peeks in to their personal lives.
“Tulsa King” star Garrett Hedlund, who first won over the comic con demographic as the star of “TRON: Legacy,” became a dad in late 2020, and that has changed how he views life on the road.
“Having a son — my son’s just over 2½ — he’s sort of given a rebirth to my experience with location work,” Hedlund said last Friday during a Q&A panel.
“Now when I’ve been on location, I’m out doing scavenger hunts for the most amusing things to show my son,” he said, adding that seeing the country through his son’s eyes has “reinvigorated” him. His most recent “scouting” mission? The Dr. Seuss museum in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Later that afternoon, Gabriel Luna, most recently seen as Tommy on HBO’s “The Last of Us,” brought his own entrance music to the main theater’s stage, playing “Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs on his phone. He then called for “earmuffs” for the younger guests in the room as he switched to “Ambitionz As A Ridah” by 2Pac.
Friday’s main attraction was Christopher Lloyd, who signed autographs and posed for photos all weekend long with “Back to the Future” castmates Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson and Tom Wilson. The 84-year-old star of “Taxi,” “Star Trek III” and “The Addams Family” turned into a little kid when asked what his career would have been if not for acting.
“Since I was that high, I was intrigued by big machines, by bulldozers, tractors, those kind of things,” Lloyd told a ballroom packed with fans. “I think I could sit all day working those gears and picking up dirt and depositing it. Ah!”
Zachary Levi made some headlines for comments he made Saturday at the convention, as reported by Entertainment Weekly. The star of “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” railed against Hollywood “garbage,” saying “they don’t care enough to actually make it great for you guys.”
We don’t know who “they” are, but presumably he doesn’t mean the executives at Warner Bros., the studio that released his “Shazam!” sequel and the summer’s biggest hit, “Barbie.” (That’s at $1.91 billion and counting as of Tuesday night.)