Slayers and Vampires
Page 12
JOSE MOLINA
I had no idea what I was doing, so my priority was to stay the hell out of the way on set. But I remember a conversation I had with Sarah Michelle Gellar while they were shooting one of the big fight scenes with her and Kendra. Fights take a lot of time, so there was a lot of downtime. She was very nice and was willing to talk to the consulting producer’s assistant, who was just the visitor. As I managed to do more often than not, I planted my foot firmly in my mouth.
Sarah had a movie opening that weekend; little thing called I Know What You Did Last Summer. That weekend was also the opening weekend of a much lesser known David Duchovny movie called Playing God. So I’m talking to her and she’s wondering aloud how well her movie is going to do. My response was that I thought she was going to get stiff competition from that David Duchovny movie. Thankfully she did not punch me in the face.
DAVID FURY
We all knew the Buffy actors really well, because we’re in the same space. If you have a break, you go down, you watch them shooting, you talk, you have lunch with the actors. On Angel we never saw anybody, because they were across town. Unless we had a reason to go to the set. It was a pleasure to be able to be on the set of a show I had been working on for years but only occasionally visited. Did not know the crew as well, because, again, we just didn’t have the opportunity to drive across town to go to the stages where they’re shooting Angel.
JAMES MARSTERS
(actor, Spike)
Acting, for me, is much simpler and less important than I thought. It feels like every time I learn something new about acting, it’s just about simplifying and not acting and letting the words work for you. An actor needs to know enough about structure and quality writing to be able to choose good words. But once you’ve chosen those words and signed the contract, get out of the way. Don’t bring attention to yourself, bring attention to the words and let them make the money for you. At which point it becomes brutally simple and easy to look cool. I always say that a character is defined much more by what they say than how they say it, which means that how the actor says it is important, but it’s not nearly as important as what the writer is saying, Acting then becomes the breath and life under the words.
DAVID FURY
It was helpful to talk to the cast. To know how they would feel about things. That’s something that’s very rare now in Los Angeles, because very few shows now are shot there. I was in Budapest for Tyrant and Berlin for Homeland. Nobody is shooting in L.A. What was great about doing Buffy and Angel was you’re there with each other all the time. You’re there with your collaborators. You’re part of a repertory company. You get this great experience to trust each other, because you see each other all the time.
RAYMOND STELLA
On any set, there’s so much food around and if you’re on a film that takes time lighting, you tend to wander over and graze a lot. At the end of Buffy, between all the work we’d start out at seven or eight in the morning on Monday and work our way into four or five on Friday. With twelve hours’ turnaround, because you’d work until four or five in the morning on Saturday. You’re a zombie that day and Sunday. Forget it, you’re so tired you just have to recoup. It takes its toll, so it’s a young man’s business, an episodic twenty-four-show season.
CHARISMA CARPENTER
We were literally sheltered. On Buffy we had our own sound stage, we were in Santa Monica, we worked so many hours. We barely had a life; our life was each other.
KELLY A. MANNERS
We had a crew that liked to have a good time, though the hours were torturous. Being vampires can’t go out in the daylight, that was torturous, because we were working many, many all-nighters. Through it all we kept a good sense of humor and we had fun. I’ll never forget, I was sitting in a room with the executive producers . . . and we’re talking about demons. I said, “I can’t believe there’s six grown men in here talking about demons.” It was wacky and it was fun. It was good storytelling.
RAYMOND STELLA
I would have probably liked it more if it was not such so much of a night shoot. Those are hard on you. [Line producer] Gareth Davies was interesting. He’d come on the set looking for me when we were behind, and I’d be hiding. I’d see him come on and I knew he was looking for me to kick my ass about something. But it was OK. It wasn’t that serious. He’d look around and he’d storm off and I’d come out of hiding.
MARK HANSSON
Unfortunately, Gareth Davies, a not very nice British producer, also known as Dr. Death, fired people left and right, so it was kind of a dreadful set.
HARRY GROENER
The worst thing about working at a real high school was all the night shoots and everyone had to be out of there before the students came to school in the morning. So to see everyone scrambling, all the technicians, to get off campus before the sun came up was very funny considering it was a vampire story.
JOSS WHEDON
I honestly believe that we had a good vibe on the set and I honestly think it made the show better. Is art worth pain? Yes it is. Is it worth me feeling pain? Yes. Is it worth me causing pain? No. It doesn’t mean that I’m nice to everybody. I try not to be a dick, but I have to get stuff done. But if everybody feels like they’re actually part of making something that they like, they give everything they have. At one point I was just so exhausted. Somebody comes over and says, “What prop should we use?” “I hate this show. God, why do we have to have props? What happened to mime? Mime is a great art.” And everybody is, like, “Whoa, PMS on the Joss man.” It truly takes your life to do TV, because you always have a deadline.
David Greenwalt and the staff we had were the best writing staff. They came up with great stories. It’s never cheap, it’s never bullshit, it’s never how do we vamp until the end? It’s always, “How can we make this story better?” So when it comes down to the prop guy, we know there’s a reason, that he cares about it. It applies to us as well as everybody else. If we don’t love the stuff that we’re putting out on the screen, it ain’t worth the pace.
DAVID GREENWALT
The network was afraid of Joss. They almost never gave notes. Occasionally they’d call me and say, “Does Willow really have to be gay? Can’t you talk him out of that?” I always ran to Joss like Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen in The Godfather and would always say, “My employer is someone who likes to hear bad news fast.” I would tell Joss whatever was going on. He was right. Willow was gay before every show had a gay character.
JOSS WHEDON
They really let me get away with murder. They got what the show is, how strange it is, how it’s all over the place, how edgy it sometimes is, and so there was never really a problem. We never had a story thrown out or a real disaster. We’ve had standards and practices issues, which you have on every show, but they got what we were doing and they didn’t interfere. I’ve seen networks that do it the other way and this is the ideal.
CHARISMA CARPENTER
We were a bunch of young kids, we’d get together every week and watch the show, most of us, and we were already together all the time. It was very informal on set, to be honest. I get a little mushy thinking about it; it was a really sweet time. We worked and played together and we were going through this crazy life together and no one understood it better than us because we were doing it together. So it was special.
After work we would sometimes go to the pub or if we’d have a great guest star, we’d all go out with them. David Solomon directed a lot of episodes and we’d loved him, so we’d watch the show with him. It was a really special experience. We always celebrated together. I remember having my first New Year’s Eve party at my house and Joss came and it was so fun. We were very supportive of each other.
The first season culminates with “Prophecy Girl,” in which Buffy finally confronts the Master and is briefly killed. Filmed and completed before a single episode aired, the fate of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was uncertain as the crew went to the first-season wrap party, but on
e thing was clear: creatively, Buffy had lived up to the potential of what Joss Whedon had articulated for the series, and then some.
SARAH LEMELMAN
The first season shows Buffy struggling to find her identity as a slayer, and the heroine is truly at a crossroads when Giles discovers a prophecy that describes what is to become of her fate in the final episode of the first season: “Prophecies are a bit dodgy. They’re mutable. Buffy herself has thwarted them time and time again, but this is the Codex. There is nothing in it that does not come to pass. Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master and she will die.” In Buffy’s moment of shock, she no longer is the plainly confident hero that the viewers have come to love. In a conversation with her mother, Joyce surprises Buffy with an expensive prom dress that Buffy has been eyeing at a store. When Buffy tells her mother that she cannot go to the dance, Joyce authoritatively states, “Says who? Is it written somewhere? You should do what you want.” In this moment, Joyce is oblivious to the fact that Buffy’s fate is indeed written, but the message is still clear. Joyce begins to plant the seed that the role Buffy is supposed to play in the prophecy, and society, does not have to be the way it ends.
Despite this message, Buffy faces the Master, and indeed dies at his hands. She is bitten and thrown into a shallow pool as he leaves his lair, free to ravage Sunnydale. Luckily, Xander and Angel show up in time and resuscitate Buffy. Buffy may have died, but she is now reborn, and a prophecy means nothing to her. She can write her own story, and this renews her strength and confidence to kill the Master.
Whedon once again stepped behind the camera for the finale, which, as far as the cast and crew knew, could be the series finale. Although he had directed the pilot presentation, this was really his first time directing a real hour of television that would actually be aired.
JOSS WHEDON
Basically, there is usually something I desperately want to say, a moment I want to capture, an idea I want to try out. I like to create. To me, the writing is the most important thing. If I’m going to take the time to direct something, to take the time out of my schedule, I usually want it to be something of my own. It would certainly be an interesting exercise to direct other people’s material.
RAYMOND STELLA
Joss’s episodes always went, like, twice as long. I loved working with him. He put a lot into it and I enjoyed every minute of it. He’s so proud of that musical, “Once More, with Feeling.” He’d take it to his alma mater and show it, which was really fun. That one went fifteen or sixteen days.
JOSS WHEDON
I was afraid at first. I didn’t study directing. And so, you know, that feeling you have that I’m a fraud and they’re going to find out. I was! I was an actual fraud. I was bullshitting. I thought there was some secret language they all knew that I didn’t and they were going to find out. But the only thing I had in my arsenal was the truth. “This will work better if it’s like this.” That’s all. And that’s all anybody wanted to hear was the truth. A nice version of the truth. And so it became very easy, very quickly—and then very exciting.
J. AUGUST RICHARDS
(actor, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Joss was unlike anyone that I had ever auditioned for and still is. It’s so hard to describe, but I would later just come to understand that he is really a genius, but his level of creativity and his ability to communicate with actors is unparalleled. My last scene in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., he was able to direct me in a way that in some ways he reintroduced me as an actor to people, because he just knows how to calibrate you in a way that is so effortless. It’s so hard to describe. For me, I either say a director can either inspire me to greatness or just de-inspire me by the things that they say. Joss has a way of saying something to you that just completely turns you so on that you forget about the cameras, you forget about the fact that millions of people are going to be seeing it, and you’re so invested in your character that it just translates in a new way.
CAMDEN TOY
(actor, the Gentleman)
Joss was incredibly even-keeled. He never showed any tension, but you got to know there was tension. When I did [fourth season’s] “Hush,” he had just launched Angel and was in the middle of a season of Buffy. And yet he was always the first on the set; he was always the last one to leave. He never looked tired, there was never any drama, even though I’m sure he had sleep deprivation. There was one point with this little gag we did shoot with the scalpel touching the skin and blood coming out. We ended up not using that, which I think was really wise, because, instead, everything was left to your imagination, but we did shoot it, and unfortunately that gag wasn’t working. Joss was, like, “We have to move on.” Instead of him getting angry—“We can’t stop working!”—he’s, like, “OK, we just have to move on.” And, because of Joss being like that, he really inspired us to work even harder. Sure enough, within minutes somebody had it working.
J. AUGUST RICHARDS
I’ll never forget the one note he gave me for my final scene on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I was doing the scene very emotionally and I was crying and just feeling sorry for myself as a character. Joss just came over to me and said, “You know what, I think your character has more pride than that.” That little bit just took the scene from being average and something you would expect to just something that I’m so proud of to this day.
IAN WOOLF
(first assistant director, Angel)
I AD’d [assistant directed] on a bunch of episodes for Joss. I love working with him. He’s a character who’s got his own kind of style. I kind of equate Joss to David Lynch. I did two movies with David Lynch, Dune and Blue Velvet. The two are very similar in the way they direct and their mind-set.
RAYMOND STELLA
Joss is just one of these guys that knows what he is talking about. He’s very intelligent. I always look at writers as very intelligent people. It’s hard to write. To make something good. He knew how to direct, too, and get what he needed. He was easygoing, but when he needed to be forceful, he was, to get his point across.
CAMDEN TOY
He was incredibly even-tempered. He didn’t give us a lot of instruction, you know, 95 percent of directing is really in the casting. If you’re micromanaging the actor’s performance, you’ve probably cast the wrong actor. So he would give us little adjustments occasionally, but really let us do our thing. He was incredibly generous.
RAYMOND STELLA
I saw him gain a lot more confidence. At first, he hadn’t done a whole lot and this was big and it started steamrolling big-time for him. As you get bigger and better, you become more confident and you can see that with him. He made decisions easier. He had more clout, too, because he was on a roll. That helps.
JOSS WHEDON
When I finally directed the season finale and the first episode of the second season, every fucking grip in there was busting his ass because, I think, they were enjoying making the show.
By the end of the season, the show was already a hit, if not in the ratings, with fans. At the time of its debut, The New York Times dismissed the show, claiming, “nobody is likely to take this oddball camp exercise seriously.” In retrospect, TV critic John O’Connor’s criticism of Sarah Michelle Gellar is particularly laughable: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teenager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.” But the show rapidly earned a small but fervent (and demographically desirable) cult following and was championed in such popular magazines as Entertainment Weekly as well as USA Today and TV Guide back when that actually meant something.
JOSE MOLINA
I had a feeling it was going to do pretty well, because this is an era where WB and UPN were just starting out. And it didn’t take a whole lot to stay on the air on one of those networks. Even from the get-go, probably because of Joss’s background as a script doctor, having worked on stuff like Speed and Waterworld, he was a pretty well known. The te
rm “script doctor” sort of became well known at around that time. So because of that I remember seeing right from the get-go articles in Entertainment Weekly about Joss himself and about Buffy.
Given the fact that a little WB show was registering with a major publication that didn’t often cover a lot of sci-fi or a lot of genre stuff at the time, I wasn’t particularly worried that it was going to go away. I didn’t realize, of course, that it was going to become the touchstone for so much genre, especially female-led genre that came after it.
JOSS WHEDON
I can almost never experience total, naked surprise. I can never see it with perspective. I’ve said before, I always intended for this to be a cultural phenomenon. That’s how I wrote it. In the back of your mind you’re picking up your Oscar and your Saturn and everyone is playing with their Buffy dolls. You go through so much rejection and so much negativity—and believe me, I did—you sort of have to develop this shell of incredible hubris, this arrogance, where you say, “This is going to be huge.” Because if you don’t believe that, you have so many people you’re going to fail or it doesn’t work, and you sort of just crumble.
So you sort of take it for granted and when it happens, when it goes the way you hoped that it would, then you’re sort of striding along, and every now and then you’ll take a moment of total perspective where you forget about all your arrogance, you forget about everything you’ve been through, and you just see it in perspective for the first time and it’s boggling. It’s so intense. But it doesn’t happen very often. You just have to believe that it’s going to so strongly that when it does, you don’t get the fun of going, “I can’t believe it.”
BEN EDLUND
(creator / executive producer, The Tick)