The Movie- and TV guests of FACTS Spring 2024 - P2

Yes!!! This weekend it is time for FACTS Spring edition 2024 in Flanders Expo Ghent again. Earlier this week we already told you everything about a few of the attending guests. Haven't read that article yet? You can read it here. Today we are telling you all about the remaining movie and TV guests for this upcoming edition of FACTS...

We are very excited to go to FACTS and will be there for the weekend. Hope to see you there, but first sit back, relax and read this article...

Douglas Christopher Judge was born on 13 October 1964 in Los Angeles, California (U.S.), where he grew up with his younger brother Jeff Judge (also an actor). There isn't much to be found about his early life, but Christopher knew he wanted to become an actor from a young age. He says he grew up with the TV as his babysitter. While he was watching it, he realised that hé wanted to be the one to invoke all kinds of feelings in other people, just like the feelings he got from watching his favorite shows. Soon it became clear that Christopher had a talent for sports and especially for football. He knew that if he wanted to get into performing, he had to use sports as a stepping stone. Judge got into the University of Oregon on a football scholarship. He played defensive back for the Oregon Ducks from 1982 until 1985 and he won quite some prizes. 

While at University, Christopher realised that he had to have a back up plan, in case his sports and acting ambitions did not work out. He considered to major in pre-med, but had trouble with the required math. Judge then decided to change his major to Psychology and later to Telecommunications and Film, with a minor in Psychology. In his senior year, he won a contest to host a regional morning show and this experience gave him the nudge he needed to get an agent and move back to Los Angeles after graduation. In 1989, Judge began studying acting at the Howard Fine Institute. During the first year of his career, Judge had some minor roles in movies and TV shows. In 1990, he appeared in: "MacGyver", "Booker", "21 Jump Street", "Bird on a Wire" and "Cadence". His first big role was the role of Officer Richard Stiles in the crime drama show "Sirens". He played the role for 22 episodes from 1994 until 1995. Unfortunately the show was cancelled after only two seasons. 

In 1997, Christopher was at a friend's house, when he saw that the roommate was practicing for an audition for a show called "Stargate SG-1". He was instantly intrigued and when the roommate was gone, Judge looked at the audition notes. He called his agent and insisted that he got him an audition for that show. Judge read for the role of Teal'c together with another 8 to 10 candidates. When all other actors got dismissed, he knew he did it and this was the moment that changed his life. Christopher ended up playing the role of Jaffa warrior Teal'c for more than 10 years from 1997 until 2007. He reprised the role in 2 episodes of "Stargate: Atlantis" and in the movies "Stargate: The Ark of Truth" (2008) and "Stargate: Continuum" (2008). During his time on "Stargate SG-1" Judge also had some other roles and among them were: the voice of Plato on "Adventures from the Book of Virtues" (2000), the voice of Simon Grey on "Action Man" (2000-2001), Alfonso James in "Out of Line" (2001), Dr. Brooks in "Snow Dogs" (2002) and the voice of Magneto on "X-Men: Evolution" (2000-2003).

Marina Sirtis was born on 29 March 1955 in Hackney, London, England (U.K.). Her parents Despina and John Sirtis are both of Greek descent and they just moved to England 3 months before Marina was born. Her paternal grandparents are Cypriot and at that time Cyprus was British. This meant that Marina's father had a British passport and could easily move to the U.K. with his wife. Marina was born into a blue collar family and her parents worked very hard. Her father was a tailor and he was so busy that her mother started working for him . Although Marina's parents worked very hard to provide her with the things she needed, they couldn't afford to give her any extras. Marina started helping her parents with the finishing touch on the jackets and she earned 5 pence per jacket.  SHe always wanted to become an actress and when she was young TV had always been an escape. She used to sit with her nose against the TV, wishing she could be in there. When Marina told her parents, that she wanted to become an actress, they (especially her mom) were not very happy about that. When she was still in secondary school, Marina auditioned for Drama School. Ultimately she got accepted in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Marina was 21 years old, when she graduated from Guildhall and started her career in theatre (she joined the Connaught Theatre). After some roles in theatre productions and roles in TV series and movies like: "Raffles" (1977), "Who Pays the Ferryman" (1977), "The Thief of Baghdad" (1978), The Wicked Lady" (1983) and "Death Wish 3" (1985). In 1986, Marina decided to move to Los Angeles to try and make it big there. After 6 months of auditioning, she auditioned for a role in "Star Trek: The Next Generation". After what she thought was a terrible audition, Marina was ready to pack her things and go back to England (because her VISA had expired). when she was packing her things, she got the call that she got the role of Deanna Troi. Eventually Marina would play the role of Troi in: "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987-1994), "Star Trek: Generations" (1994), "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996), "Star Trek: Insurrection" (1998), "Star Trek: Voyager" (1999-2000), "Star Trek Nemesis" (2002), "Star Trek: Enterprise" (2005), "Star Trek: Lower Decks" (voice, 2020) and "Star Trek: Picard" (2020-2023).

Of course, Marina also played other roles over her almost 4 decade spanning career. We will give you a selected overview of these projects. In 1992, she played the role of Gloria in the horror comedy "Waxwork II: Lost in Time". She voiced Demona in the animation series "Gargoyles" from 1994 until 1996 and the movie "Gargoyles The Movie: The Heroes Awaken" (1995).  In 1996, Sirtis plays the role of .I. Walker in "Gadgetman". In 1999, she plays alongside William Forsythe in the movie "Paradise Lost" (as Dr.  DuMaurier). In 2001, Marina makes a guest appearance in the long running British soap "Casualty" and this gets a lot of publicity. In 2004, she played a minor role as Shereen in the Academy Award winning movie "Crash". In 2006, Marina played the role of Gina Richards in 3 episodes of  "Girlfriends (2006). In 2009, she played Veronica Mavis in the movie "Hooligans II: Stand Your Ground" and she also plays the role of Gretchen in "The Grudge 3". In 2010, she portrays Swiss doctor Anna Kleister in two episodes of "Make It or Break It". In 2012, Marina plays in 2 episodes of "La La Land" and Persena in one episode of the fan made series "Castlevania: Hymn of Blood".  From 2011 until 2013, Sirtis gives her voice to villainess Queen Bee in the animated series "Young Justice". 

Stanislav Rumenov Yanevski was born on 16 May 1985 in Sofia, Bulgaria. During his childhood, Stanislav lived in England as well as Israel. When he lived in Israel, he was 9 or 10 years old. In later interviews he talks about how they used to live along the coast of the Red Sea and he used to have a lot of friends. The weather was nice all year round and even in wintertime the temperatures would be 20 to 25 °C. The summers could be very hot and during the hottest days it was even forbidden to go outside between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. in the afternoon. This was because it could be as warm as 60 °C. In the evenings he went walking by the sea and fishing. When Stanislav was living and studying in England, he attended Mill Hill School. He had no particular acting ambitions and didn't even take drama classes. In facts he was known for his athletic abilities. Stan heard about the auditions for "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire" at his school. He did not plan on taking part because as mentioned he did not have any acting ambitions at the time. It was casting director Fiona Weir , who spotted Stan while he was talking himself out of being to late to register. She went to the drama teacher of the school and told him that she wanted Stanislav to come in and audition for the role. The drama teacher talked to Stan about it and he decided to take the chance and go.

He did very good and was one of the few that was asked to attend a sort of workshop/callback audition at the studios. The school, however, would not give him permission to go, because of exams, so he missed two appointments. Stan thought he had lost his one chance, because of this, but luckily he got a third chance to come in. Eventually Stan was officially cast as Viktor Krum . Out of the thousands of kids and the more than 600 kids in Sofia that tried out for the first round, it was the Bulgarian kid living in London that landed the part. When they called him to tell him he got the part, he was very cool under it and that was a very atypical reaction (people normally scream and make backflips). Not Stan though...why? He had no idea what he was getting in to. Unlike his sister Stan was not a fan of the "Harry Potter" franchise before he got the role. After his landed the role he watched all the movies and read the books and he could not believe what he had missed. His first day of shooting was in the labyrinth and he says it was terrifying.

Stan recalls that he really looked up to all the iconic actors on set (like Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Richard Gambon and so on). He tried to learn as much as possible from them during his time on set. The movie took 12 months of filming and another 6 to 8 months of post production. Stan mentioned that he tried almost everything to take his wand from set. He hid it in his sleeves, his socks and underwear, but the prop guys were on to him every time. One of his best memories was the premiere with all the fans and the facts that Madonna was sitting right behind him. After his role in "Harry Potter" he landed the role of Miroslav in the Eli Roth movie "Hostel: Part II".  In 2011, Stanislav played the role of Bernhardt in the war movie "Resistance", which also starred Michael Sheen, Tom Wlaschiha and Iwan Rheon. Also in 2011, Stan plays the role of Angel Yakimov in 11 episodes of the Bulgarian TV show "Undercover" ("Pod prikritie"). In 2015, he plays in the Bulgarian movie "The 11th Grade". His most recent acting job is the role of Dr. Feltspan in "Last Man Down" (2021). Besides being an actor, Stanislav is also a motivational speaker. In interviews he often gets the question what he would do if he could use magic. His answer is that first he would take away all evil from the world and stop every conflict. He would also clean the earth and the oceans on it, as well as providing for enough biofood for us all to live long and prosper on this beautiful planet...