Fantasy phenomenon at Supanova Pop Culture Expo Sydney

Our onscreen infatuation with fantasy some of the worlds most identifiable supernatural faces to this weekend’s Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Sydney.

Names such as Tyler Hoechlin (Teen Wolf), Juliet Landau (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Peter Facinelli (Twilight), James Marsters (Buffy) and Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs (Charmed) will be heading up the guest list.

Others to join them include Sean Astin and John Noble (The Lord of the Rings), Travis Fimmel (Vikings), Eugene Simon (Game of Thrones) and more.

California-born actor Tyler Hoechlin has been one of the most popular werewolves on the screen for the past few years.

Hoechlin starred in the role of Derek Hale on the supernatural television drama Teen Wolf for four seasons and is now directing his attention to film.

He was offered the role as Emmett Cullen in the Twilight saga, but turned it down to play college baseball. Ironically the sport centres around one of his latest films, Everybody Wants Some!!, which will be in Australian theatres on June 23.

“It is about a group of mates who play baseball together and it is set in the last five days before school starts at a university in the 1980s,” Hoechlin said.

“It is a great movie to see with your friends and to have a laugh. It sort of feels like you are all going to the same party.

“It was so much fun, the movie is about the guys and the team environment. It was a fun trip down memory lane that is for sure.”

Remaining tight-lipped, Hoechlin confirmed that filming had recently completed for his part in the next instalments of the Fifty Shades of Grey series.

For Fifty Shades Darker, which is expected to be released onscreen next year and Fifty Shades Freed (to be complete in 2018) he will be playing the role of Boyce Fox.

“My portion of filming is complete and it was the first time I have been to Vancouver so that was great,” he said.

“I can tell you that my character is Boyce Fox and he is an author and that is about all I can say. It is one of those things where you have to stay pretty tight-lipped.”

Hoechlin admitted working on film and television both had their positives and negatives.

“I’d say I enjoy working on both because they both have their fun sides,” he said.

“But as I have gotten older and have gone between the two, the speed of which things need to get done on a TV set is sped up a lot. While on a film set you have a lot more time and could spend the whole day on one scene.”

There are not many who can claim they know more about vampirism than Juliet Landau.

The actress, director and producer has lived and breathed the fantasy phenomenon for the better part of the past 20 years.

While her Drusilla days on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are far behind her, her intrigue in everything fantasy has led her down the path of reality.

For the past two years she has been co-directing two feature length documentaries.

 A Place Among the Dead investigates the crime and reality when people take the fantasy of vampirism too far.

While the second documentary, A Place Among the Undead, covers every aspect of vampires in myth and pop culture; movies, TV, art, literature, comics, music, video games and young adult literature. 

“Working on Buffy really intrigued my interest into the world of vampires,” she said.

“A Place Among the Dead and A Place Among the Undead really started from stepping into that world and seeing how incredible it is.

“We have been crowd-funding on Indiegogo to put together the documentaries and my husband and I really do loads of it ourselves.

“Some of the interviews for it have really been incredible, we have spoken to Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy), Gary Oldman (Dracula), Tim Burton (Dark Shadows), Charlaine Harris (True Blood), Willem Dafoe (Shadow of a Vampire), Kevin Grevioux (Underworld) and the list goes on.”

While researching, Landau admitted there was also a more sinister subculture to the fantasy.

“We spoke to a criminal profiler and they said in the United States alone there were 13 actual cases where people were killing in the style of a vampire,” she said.

“That is obviously very upsetting and dark, but we have started to follow that angle.”

New York-born actor Peter Facinelli can thank the Twilight series for kicking his career into hyper-drive and giving him the opportunity to branch into almost every aspect of the film industry. Since the series concluded in 2012, Facinelli has dabbled in acting, directing, producing and writing.

He said he was thankful the series was as popular as it was because it “opened many doors” for him.

“The whole series was really fun to shoot, the actors were like family and the whole fan-base was so loving and giving – it was a really wonderful experience,” Facinelli said.

“I have been working for 15 years before that… but for me it did open up doors in the sense that it gave me the platform to be able do other things, like get my writing off the ground and have a production company to get my films off the ground.

“I co-wrote a young adult novel, I did a graphic novel and some comics... I was able to do some things that I would not be able to do if I did not have that new fan-base.