Slayers and Vampires

by Edward Gross,Mark A. Altman

  So, yes, they decided to write her out of the show. But I couldn’t be more thrilled to be the one to bring her back for “You’re Welcome.” It was largely Joss figuring out she needed a proper farewell, and I was very grateful to be the one to do it, because it was great fun and it was great fun working with her. I’ve got to say, she was an absolute doll to work with and she and David got along great. It was a nice little reunion. There was no bitterness between anybody. You’ve got to give it up for that. Wherever the anger was, obviously it was all [water] under the bridge. She definitely deserved a better goodbye than going into a coma, and I’m so glad we were able to do that.

  CHARISMA CARPENTER

  Coming back was . . . complicated. I didn’t want to do it. My only request was, “I just don’t want Cordy to die. I’m not going to come back for you to kill her.” At the time I was actually working on a show called Miss Match with Alicia Silverstone and having a great time there. It was shot on the same sound stages that Buffy used to shoot in. David Fury, who wrote the episode, came to see me in my trailer at Miss Match to talk to me about it. I was pretty angry with the way things were, and I had really no desire to give that show any more than I had already given. Then, of course, my personal feelings got put aside and I thought of the fans. You know, there’s always two sides to me, where you want to act like the petulant child and be, like, “Fuck you, I’m not coming back!” Then there’s the other part of you that goes, “This is a huge part of your life. It’s an amazing show and it’s the right thing to do for the fans.” The higher-minded self gives you the kind of closure that you need to move on.

  So when David Fury came to see me, I said I’d come back, but I wanted this amount of money—my feeling was if you’re having me back, you’re going to pay me what I deserve for the first time ever in the history of the show—and the second thing was I didn’t want Cordy to die. So I signed the contract and then David says, “I have to tell you something. We’re going to kill Cordy,” and I’m like, “Of course you’re doing this after I signed the contract.” But he goes, “Hold on, just hear it out.” He tells me how she dies, and I’m in tears now for a completely different reason, which is that it was really well told and beautiful. That changed everything.

  I came to set, Joss sent me a really nice bouquet of flowers and a beautiful note, which I have framed in my room. It basically said, “I think it’ll be one of the sweetest stories you’ve ever told, thanks for coming and ‘You’re Welcome,’ ” which was a play on words with the title of the episode. And it was a really beautiful episode.

  JEFFREY BELL

  We were all excited that James Marsters became a part of the show. He’s a good actor and an interesting character. Throwing him into the mix only helped. He died a glorious death at the end of Buffy, a truly heroic death, and we didn’t want to shortchange that. What we needed to do was deal with that in an honest way that didn’t diminish what he did and allowed him to come back in a meaningful way.

  JOSS WHEDON

  What Spike brought to the show is what he brings, which is a little anarchy and a blond: two things that we needed. He’s the guy to confront everybody all the time over what they’re doing. You can’t have your characters constantly going, “What are we doing in this evil law firm? Make mine black with no sugar.” Eventually you would start to think that they’re patsies or idiots. You needed that voice, and to me Spike was that voice to start with. There was a lot more to do than that, but when I thought of it initially, he was the guy who was really bridling against what was going on.

  JAMES MARSTERS

  One of the great things about going over to Angel was that I could just be the dick again, like I had been on Buffy in the early years. I could just be the jerk and try to give Angel a headache on a daily basis. And, again, David is great. He was always really nice to me, so was Sarah.

  J. AUGUST RICHARDS

  It was really great to have James come to the show, because he brought so much. He’s so invested in his character, and I love that about him. He’s very easy to work with as well. When he came over, there was no friction at all. He’s just about the work and he’s so good. A great addition to the show.

  STEVEN S. DEKNIGHT

  James Marsters—I could not love him more. He was brilliant as Spike. He was brilliant on Buffy with the darkness and the rage and the passion, along with the humor. Then he just brought that to Angel with a new spin on it. He and Boreanaz together were just absolutely gold—the way they hated each other, but also kind of really meshed in a way they couldn’t with other people.

  JAMES MARSTERS

  I got to go back to a version of Spike that was vicious and not as tortured as the Spike that Buffy had on its last few seasons. They were, like, “Yeah, he has a soul, but he still is in competition with Angel. He’s still gonna try to outdo him at all times” [laughs]. It was him coming into balance, you know? Like, the character had gone through his fire walk. That character had come out of that difficult period of getting his soul and now he’s coming to balance and becoming a fun character again.

  JEFFREY BELL

  The addition of Spike works on a drama level and a comedy level. Both James and David were really good at that. That, and the changes in most of the characters, just opened up a lot of storytelling opportunities. Once again, . . . some decisions made very early in the year allowed us to tell a very different kind of season in year five [than in] year four.

  JAMES MARSTERS

  My intent joining the show was to make life as miserable as possible for Angel. I just absolutely wanted to be pitted against him, to have to work with him and hate him anyway was absolutely hilarious. As I discovered with Principal Wood on Buffy, Spike functions well with an enemy or someone he can be surly to. David plays that really well, too. I don’t know if it’s about good and evil. Even if Spike’s good, he hates Angel anyway, because Buffy could obviously never get over him. And Angel would hate Spike, because he’s been with her. The dynamic was set up for some delightful conflict between the characters.

  DAVID FURY

  The most significant element we were looking to add to Angel’s character was that of the ever-put-on big brother Spike. Spike was a character Angel was powerless to get rid of, first because Spike was a ghost, then simply because he’s a vampire of virtually equal strength. It provided us with a true comic foil for Angel, allowing for some funny and sometimes interestingly poignant scenes.

  BEN EDLUND

  I remember we were pitching ideas about Spike—I was so excited—and I pitched this moment where Spike as the vampire ghost had drawn some enemies into some part of Wolfram and Hart. Nina the werewolf was staying overnight, so there was a moment where there could be some guys trying to get in. They’re the equivalent of burglars or whatever the fuck they were—assassins—and they run into a ghost of a vampire and then a werewolf jumps out of the ghost [laughs]. Spike is just there and he goes, “Yeah, I’m a ghost, but this is a werewolf,” and then the werewolf jumps out of his chest. This show is fucking awesome, man. The only time I’ve ever heard that as a possible game to play—the ole werewolf jumps out of a vampire-ghost’s chest. That, to me, is Angel. At one point I was pitching that the Big Bad at a certain point was a scarab that they kept in a box, almost like the typewriter from Naked Lunch. It didn’t even matter if it got in or didn’t get in, because other things almost as crazy did.

  CHRISTIAN KANE

  (actor, Lindsey McDonald)

  I’d been wanting to come back to the show, and when they asked me to, I asked Joss for a favor. Joss said, “You have to trust me. I can’t tell you what’s going on, but you have to trust me.” I said, “I trust you, anything you want, but if I could just not get beat up by everybody . . .” I come back for season five, first episode I’m getting thrown around a strip joint by Spike. He’s beating me up. I’m doing it, and during filming I look at Joss and go, “Duuuuude. This is exactly what we talked about. The first thing I’m shooting is this.” He jus
t repeated, “Trust me,” and, sure enough, Lindsey got to kick some ass that season.

  J. AUGUST RICHARDS

  When I think about fifth season, I think about the episode “The Life of the Party,” because Andy Hallett was the life of the party. He was the life of the set. He was so funny and made everybody laugh constantly. Losing him was a great tragedy. He was a really good friend. He was a really good man and a really good person, and all of us miss him very much. It was just wonderful working with him. I also had the pleasure of traveling a lot with him by doing conventions. He made the conventions a party.

  AMY ACKER

  Andy was awesome. We had a great friendship, too. We lived really close by each other. He had such a hard job; he would be there in the wee hours of the morning, when it was still dark outside, to start getting that makeup on and stay after to get it off. He worked harder than any of us and managed to still make everyone laugh and be the kind of center of it all, because he was pretty fantastic.

  MARK LUTZ

  (actor, Groo)

  There’s a lot of stuff that I hold private about Andy, but there’s a lot of things that people should know about him. The best thing was his spirit, that show business quality they call “it.” He had it in spades. He was a Pied Piper—everyone that met him loved him, and he was always his best to all of his fans. He had this innate ability to meet you and instantly find some common thread you both shared, whether it be the esoteric or something right on the surface. He would bond with you instantly and you’d feel like you knew him all your life.

  CHARISMA CARPENTER

  Andy was probably one of my favorite people to be around. He was always witty, always funny, and he’s kind of like Jerry Seinfeld in a way, because there are a lot of funny people, but there’s not a lot of people who are clean funny. The things he would say were so beyond his years; he was this old man stuck in a young man’s body. I remember he saw a pair of pumps, and he said, “You have to have these. They reminded me of you and I’m going to get them for you.” He was out with his girlfriend at the time and he said, “Charisma needs to have these.” It was the weirdest thing anyone ever did for me, and he was just so sweet and fun and charming. Always lit up the room.

  MARK LUTZ

  When they started with the character of Lorne, they weren’t sure if he was going to be a one-off or maybe a little bit recurring here and there. To go to full cast member by the last season, that’s a testament to what he brought to the show. And it was an element that only bolstered what was an all-star lineup.

  DAVID BOREANAZ

  Andy was always laughing and always spreading his joy and his humor and his energy, which in itself was fantastic to be around. We would always compare jackets and where his came from, because his were always so loud [laughs]. A great, beautiful soul that was taken way too early from us. Every day was hard for him, because he endured, I think, two hours of makeup just to get into that character. But he was a trooper, and behind that was a great person and someone who was a lot of fun to work with.

  One of the most shocking developments was the death of Fred, when she becomes “infected” with the spirit of an ancient, extremely powerful demon named Illyria. Even more shocking was the manner in which Fred died, and a moment later Amy Acker came to her feet as the resurrected Illyria.

  AMY ACKER

  Joss asked me to meet him for coffee, which was weird, because he didn’t usually do that. I went and met him and we’re sitting there and he said, “I’m going to kill Fred,” and then waited an extremely uncomfortable time before adding, “I’m making you into this demon goddess.” A few weeks later, Aly [Hannigan] and Alexis were getting married, and, at their wedding, Joss showed up and handed me and Alexis some scenes that he had written for Illyria and Wesley. They weren’t scenes that were actually ever in the show; they were designed to test it out. Then, after Alexis came back from his honeymoon and we were all back, Joss had Alexis and I over to his house one night to work on those scenes. He had all these lights in his house that were different colored. We were reading the scenes and he said, “I want her to kind of move almost like an insect.” So we were experimenting with different moves, and then he started changing the colors of the lights in the room. He had a red light, then he tried a yellow light, then he got the blue light and he was, like, “Oh, yeah, she’s gonna be blue.” So we got to develop the character in a way that you wouldn’t normally get to do.

  STEVEN S. DEKNIGHT

  Joss wrote and directed “A Hole in the World,” and then I did the next episode, “Shells,” where you see Illyria for the first time. Because Joss was directing it and she dies at the end of his episode, he directed the first scene at the top of my episode. I had something to work off of. But I cannot tell you how stunned we all were with Amy Acker’s performance. She would just give this spot-on chilling performance as Illyria. I call, “Cut,” and then she would be Amy again, who was the sweetest woman in the world. She would ask, “Was that OK? You want me to do anything different?” I’m, like, “Holy shit!”

  KELLY A. MANNERS

  Amy Acker was just amazing in that moment. I never forgot that transition that she made. Illyria was, in a lot of ways, a better character than Fred was. I loved Fred, but Illyria was fascinating. The way that Amy created this entirely different person for us, within seconds [of] seeing it on screen, I was, like, “Holy shit, what happened there?”

  BEN EDLUND

  If you were going to cast someone whom we’d only seen play Fred, the last thing you would ask for is super ice queen, strong woman. Because a lot of women who can do the kind of wilting-violet thing, they don’t have the Geena Davis thing of putting real iron in. There’s people who can do the accountant and there’s people who can do the action hero. It’s like you’re asking a person to just pull it like an action hero trope, which is a villain element, out of their tool kit without casting them for it. She did amazing.

  JAMES MARSTERS

  Holy God, what a great actor! I was fooled by Amy. Fred is very close to the Amy that she presents to the world; just absolutely sweet and loving, patient and kind, and I had no faith that she could do Illyria at all. And I had no idea how talented she was. I just remember being blown over when I first saw her as Illyria. She just rocked it. It was amazing. I should know better, because she’s a great actor. You get fooled. They’re so good, you’re just, like, “Oh, that’s just them.” Same thing happened to me with Charisma Carpenter. I assumed that Charisma was like Cordelia and so I never bothered to get to know her. I avoided her, because I thought she was like that head cheerleader that drove me insane as a young, awkward punk rocker in high school. I just thought, “I am not going to get by that person.” I guess it was an episode of Supernatural we were both on where we got to talk and I discovered she’s a sweetheart, absolutely wonderful.

  DAVID FURY

  The death of Fred and birth of Illyria was pretty remarkable. That’s all Joss. He loves Amy, but he loves pain as well. You want to kill a character and Amy was such an amazing actress that he went, “I’m going to kill Fred, because that’s going to be devastatingly painful and I’m keeping Amy, but she’s going to become this new character.” It’s brilliant. Even as you see Illyria, you hold the pain of Fred’s death and the knowledge that that’s not Fred. It was an amazing group of actors.

  STEVEN S. DEKNIGHT

  I loved how she got to really stretch. One of the great tragedies about the show being canceled at the end of season five is Joss had really great plans of where to take Illyria. It was also so bittersweet with Wesley still being in love with her, but trying not to be because he hates her—she actually killed the woman he loves. But she’s kind of sympathetic, and he starts to fall in love with her again. It was just all so juicy.

  AMY ACKER

  I would say playing Illyria was definitely harder than playing Fred, because I had the makeup and the different movements and the different voice. I had been so accustomed to being Fred that, you know, i
t’s kind of scary when you’ve got everyone used to seeing you in one part and then you show up the next day and you’re, like, “I’m this different person,” and it’s really different. At the end of the first week of Illyria, one of the camera guys came over to me and he was, like, “Amy, we just wanted to say we’re sorry we haven’t been talking to you and hugging you like usual this week. It’s that that we’re all a little scared of you.” I was, like, “Oh, that’s nice.”

  JOSS WHEDON

  In season five we had to dance around a lot of things and I figured it out as we went and still tried to keep the integrity of it. I loved the sort of free associativeness of being able to do stand-alone that at the same time started to weave in the stuff that the people actually show up for, which is the character material that progresses things. Killing Fred was one of the most painful experiences of my career, and certainly one of the most lovely. It was like writing a big poem. I wanted to show people what else Amy could do, so I wanted to kill her and create an entirely new character for her to play. It’s an opportunity you can only have on a fantasy show, and she pulled it off magnificently.

  DAVID FURY

  Joss’s idea for Illyria was in the mix a long time before Angel was canceled. In fact, if we knew we were going to be canceled, we may not have done it, if only because we barely had any time to do anything with the character. It was almost as if Fred died in vain.