Geek of Oz

To celebrate the upcoming Supanova Comic-Con and Gaming exhibition in Sydney this weekend, I sat down for a phone chat with the cheerful and charming Ricky Whittle earlier this week. You may have seen him as Calvin Valentine on Hollyoaks , Lincoln in The 100 , and as protagonist Shadow Moon in the new series based on Neil Gaiman's beloved book,  American Gods  (it has been blowing up just a tad lately). Below we talk about Australian time zones, Ricky's fandom, some of the American Gods  cast's interesting on-set pranks, and some hints about where Shadow might be headed next year for Season 2 of the acclaimed drama. Chris: First of all, thank you so much for sitting down to talk with me. It's morning here, but I gather it's late night there for you in Los Angeles? Ricky: It's just come into the evening, yeah. It's not too bad. I was just saying that the time difference isn't too bad when I come to Australia. Because you're so far ahead it...

Photo by Kimberly Butler I arrived at a lavish hotel in Hobart 45 minutes early to be greeted in the foyer by the concierge, a young man who looked uncannily like the film incarnations of the Weasley twins, sans ginger. "Are you here for the interview" Fred asked. "Ah, yes" I replied surprised. I should have expected that there would have been more people than just me there. The concierge motioned to a large, luxurious sofa where I sat sweating bullets. Panicking that the writer whom I most admired would think me to be a prat, or worse, a hack. The lump in my throat rose and fell every time someone entered the lobby. Was it him? No. It was a middle aged couple wearing middle aged couples clothes, linen shirts and boat shoes. A 30 something year old man approached me and asked if I was there for the interview to which I enthusiastically replied "yessir". He then went on to ask for my resume... wuh? My resume? It turned out that he was conducting in...