2025 Guest panel schedule
March 29th (X-Mansion Room)
12:00pm – Linda Ballantyne & Katie Griffin
1:00pm – Chase Masterson
2:00pm – Garrett Wang
3:00pm – Johnny Desjardins
6:00pm – Storytime with Fat Apollo
March 30th (X-Mansion Room)
11:00am – Johnny Desjardins
12:00pm – Garrett Wang
1:00pm – Chase Masterson
2:00pm – Linda Ballantyne & Katie Griffin
*Guests are also available during regular vendor hall hours for autographs and to chat with attendees (when not doing a scheduled panel or taking a short break for lunch).
Casper van Dien
ACTOR
Casper grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey on Van Dien Avenue (named after his great, great-grandfather). When he and his family moved to Florida, he enrolled at the elite military college prep school Admiral Farragut Academy, where he graduated third in command. After attending Florida State University, he moved to LA to pursue an acting career where he found success in both film and TV.
His breakthrough role was as the lead in Paul Verhoeven’s cult-classic “Starship Troopers” for Sony/Touchstone. He was also cast in Tim Burton’s critically acclaimed film “Sleepy Hollow” for Paramount Pictures with Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and Christopher Walken.
Van Dien starred as ‘Lord of the Jungle’ in the Warner Bros. film “Tarzan and the Lost City”. Casper has starred in over 60 films and television projects. Some of his credits include “Chasing Destiny” with Lauren Graham & Christopher Lloyd, “Modern Vampires” with Kim Cattrall & Rod Steiger, “Thrill Seekers” with Catherine Bell & Martin Sheen, “Personal Effects” with Penelope Ann Miller, “Officer Down” with Sherilyn Fenn, “Big Spender” with Graham Green, “James Dean: Live Fast Die Young” with Robert Mitchum, “The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb” for Hallmark Entertainment and the surprise independent hit “The Omega Code”.
Anthony Montgomery is an Emmy-nominated actor, author, producer, and creator whose career spans television, film, comics, and music. He currently appears in Seasons 2–6 of Carl Weber’s The Family Business on BET+, Paramount+ and Amazon Prime, portraying Brother Elijah, a key leader within the series’ fictional Muslim Brotherhood.
Instagram & X: @MrAMontgomery
garrett wang
ACTOR
Born in Riverside, California to Chinese immigrant parents, Garrett Wang (pronounced Wong) spent his formative years on the move, living in Indiana, Bermuda and Tennessee. He moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA where he majored in East Asian Studies and minored in theater. He was especially proud of his portrayal of Michio Tanaka in Wakako Yamauchi’s play 12-1-A, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the wrongful internment of Japanese American civilians during World War II. In his first stage performance outside of UCLA, Garrett garnered critical acclaim as the lead in Chay Yew’s controversial play, Porcelain.
For five years, Garrett focused on theater and attempted to convince his Asian parents and relatives that acting was a viable profession as opposed to becoming a Doctor as he had originally planned since Eighth Grade. With his parents finally on his side, he signed with his first talent agent in 1993. Within a year he landed his first speaking role, guest starring on the first episode of the ABC sitcom All American Girl starring comedienne Margaret Cho. Three months later, Wang was cast in the role of Harry Kim on Star Trek Voyager. In addition to being a series regular on Voyager, Garrett was named as one of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People as well as one of E! Channel’s “20 Coolest Bachelors.”
From 2005 until 2019, Garrett took an extended break from Hollywood. With the exception of the occasional cameo appearance in a few independent projects, Garrett focused on traveling, golfing, designing T-shirts, attending conventions, and watching NFL football. In 2020, he began recording episodes of his Star Trek podcast, The Delta Flyers. With his Voyager co-star, Robert Duncan McNeill, he continues to upload a new episode weekly. He is especially proud of his most recent acting credit doing voiceover work on the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Johnny Desjardins
ACTOR
Fat Apollo
comedian, local celebrity & MC Extraordinaire
Fat Apollo, Michael McCluskey, is a mixture of all things geeky and nerdy rolled up in a crunchy comedic shell. Donning Everlast boxing gloves, as well as a cape and shirt made of vintage Battlestar Galactica bed sheets (circa 1977) – Fat Apollo is a true multi-media juggernaut. The showbiz bug bit early with a stint as a Buster Brown shoe model, and appearances on the Reach for the Top teen show. Fat Apollo really made his mark in Victoria BC, as the special guest morning-man replacement on Q100.3 launching the briefly popular, guess that tune game, The Kazoo Monster.
Now residing in his hometown of Halifax, Fat Apollo is a charter member of the long running Geeks Versus Nerds comedy show. Voted funniest comedy night and best podcast in Halifax by The Coast’s readers, it is recorded live and has been featured five times at Hal-Con. In 2010, Fat Apollo debated Nathan Fillion as to superiority of the Millenium Falcon over the Serenity, and in 2011 defeated Teddy & Ajay of Innerspace, successfully proving Yoda was the better headmaster than Dumbledore. His one man show “Storytime with Fat Apollo” is a hit at conventions everywhere! Follow him on Twitter @realfatapollo and on Facebook Fat Apollo, celebrity.
media guest
What’s goin’ on everyone?! Welcome back to the channel.
I’m The Reel Jussy. And I’m Peter Parkour. And we are — The Distorted Theorists
Your hosts, Peter and Jussy, bring you the most distorted trailer reactions and breakdown theories from the cinematic, televised, and gaming universe! From Marvel, DC, PlayStation, Xbox, Netflix, Disney & more!
The Distorted Theorists OFFICIAL social platforms — linktr.ee/distortedtheorists
Want to be notified when a new video drops? Follow us on Instagram— https://www.instagram.com/thedistortedtheorists/
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And remember, like we always say around here — #KEEPITREEL
Editor: Justin Hodder
Co-Editor: Peter Wilson
About Peter Wilson
In a Galaxy far, far away, Peter Parkour started his journey into the world of science fiction when his father showed him Star Wars: A New Hope when he was 8 years old. Soon after, Spider-Man became the ultimate hero for him, initially because there was no one else (at the time) that was named Peter in comics.
Peter became more and more obsessed with the worlds he would encounter through film, literature and eventually video games. When not working in healthcare or spending time with family, pretty much every other waking moment is spent either creating new characters in strange worlds or joining old characters in theirs. Peter writes, plays, watches and devours as much sci fi content as he can (within healthy limits)!
The Distorted Theorists came out of a candid conversation between Peter and Justin one day during a trip to Clarenville. They decided they would start the channel with Phase 4 of the MCU, and the rest, as they say, is history! The two are very interested in seeing where the channel and content takes them, as the sky is (sometimes) the limit!
About Justin Hodder
Justin, aka The Reel Jussy, grew up in the small community of Stoneville, located in central Newfoundland. After his high school graduation, he decided to move to the city (St. John’s) to pursue a career in sales. It was there that he met his beautiful wife, and eventually settled in their home in Paradise, NL. This, along with his social-lite and creative personality led him to eventually focus his creativity on writing his very own novel, titled ‘The Mists of Morne’. Quickly becoming widely successful, Justin, almost singlehandedly, sold over 1000 copies of his debut novel within its first 7 months of its inception; a milestone achievement as a self-published author. He has been featured in such outlets as The Herald, NL NOW on Rogers TV,
The Telegram, and even as far as Bonne Bay Radio. But the creativity didn’t stop there. Partnering with his good friend Peter Wilson, they soon decided they had a great idea on their hands to get into the social media scene, and so their newest venture was soon born—The Distorted Theorists.
