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Authors: Candace Havens

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One possibility is that the series continues, but without Gellar. There was some speculation that the introduction of Dawn at the beginning of season five (at 15, one year younger than Buffy in season one) was a hedge against Gellar’s possible departure. Another alternative is the return of Faith. At the time of this writing, Eliza Dushku has just signed on to appear in the final five episodes of season seven
Buffy
(and three episodes of Angel), sparking the interest of curious fans. Could
Buffy
become
Faith the Vampire Slayer?
“I think absolutely you could have a show that revolves around Eliza. She is an extraordinary talent,” Whedon tells
TV Guide Online.
“But [it] would be a very different show. There’s a reason why Sarah is Buffy and Buffy is Sarah. What Eliza brings to the show is very different than what Sarah brings. They have very different personas ... a very different kind of magnetism.
“Could there be another Slayer?” Whedon continues. “Yeah. But you are talking about a radically different show, and right now I’m happy with this one.
“[Besides], I don’t really think that far ahead,” he says. “I’m thinking about [season seven] and I know Sarah will be here. And I imagine that she will be here for some time after that.”
Could there be another Slayer? Yeah.—Joss
 
A third possibility is the end of the series, but its resurrection as a series of movies (a la
Star Trek
). Joss has expressed interest in a movie, as have many of the cast, but insists this will have to wait until the series ends.
It’s not clear that Gellar is on board with a movie. She’s expressed skepticism that a second
Buffy
movie would do better than the first. So the fate of any
Buffy
movie is still very much up in the air.
So if season seven is the end, what does Joss have in mind for the series finale? According to Head, “I know what he’s got in mind, but I ain’t going to tell you. It’s brilliant.”
6
 
Angel
 
“Angel was the one character Who is bigger than life in the same Way that Buffy was . . . a kind of superhero.”
—Joss Whedon
 
 
T
he WB launched
Angel
, a
Buffy
spin-off, in the fall of 2000.
Angel
was set in the
Buffy
universe, but was intended to be very different in tone.
Angel
was aimed at twentysomethings looking for meaning in a confusing world. The concept was film-noirish, and originally focused on Angel as a private eye, solving a supernatural case each week.
Critical to
Angel’s
success was finding an identity that was clearly distinct from
Buffy
, while still appealing to
Buffy
fans. “When we conceived
Angel,
we knew we wanted a much darker show and for it to be different in tone from
Buffy
,” says Whedon. “It’s inherently different because the star is David, but at the same time we didn’t want to do the same thing we had done before. It was an opportunity for us to move in a new direction. The show is set in Los Angeles because there are a lot of demons in LA, and a wealth of stories to be told.
When we conceived Angel, we knew we wanted a much darker show and for it to be different in tone from
Buffy
.—Joss
 
“We also wanted to take the show a little older and have the characters deal with demons in a much different way. Angel has a business that he runs with his friends. And he has relationships with different demons. We learn that not all demons are bad. The show complements
Buffy
in a lot of ways, but they couldn’t be more different.
“Buffy is always the underdog trying to save the world, but Angel is looking for redemption. It’s those two things that creatively make the shows different.”
“Well, there’s no denying, of course, that
Angel
grew out of
Buffy
,” says Greenwalt, coproducer of
Angel
. “But even from ... the first time David came to
Buffy
... we were always discovering new things. I’ll never forget the first episode ... Buffy discovers that he’s a vampire and they kiss for the first time, and it was just incredible. You know David brought so much of that to the role. David always represented something scary and then something occasionally funny, which are all of the things we like to do. But when we spun the show off originally, our notion was this will be a really dark, gritty, urban show.
“Our show takes place in the big city, the characters seem older, they seem more mature, it seems more like the travails of your twenties. It just seems meaner and leaner to me, this show. But certainly there are many elements ... I was going to say that are stylistically the same, but that’s not the right word. Something in the way that Joss finds the core of things, and just when you think something wonderful is going to happen, something terrible happens and vice versa.”
For David Boreanaz (Angel) having his own show has been both exciting and frightening. In the beginning he had talked with Gellar about the pressures of being the lead and what that means, but it didn’t prepare him for the burden he would bear. Whereas in
Buffy
it was Gellar who was in most every scene, now it was Boreanaz’s turn to be the focus of almost every frame. It meant a lot of hard work and long hours.
 
David Boreanaz, looking a bit Angelus-like.
Whedon knew from the first season of
Buffy
that Boreanaz had something special. It was watching Boreanaz in a season-two episode of
Buffy
that convinced Whedon that he could carry his own show. He wasn’t the only candidate; Whedon also felt that Hannigan, for example, had the appeal to headline a show. But the character of Angel was special. “Angel was the one character who is bigger than life in the same way that Buffy was,” says Whedon. “A kind of superhero. And I knew—as the dark, mysterious love interest—that he had the potential for a breakout character. But I also knew he had the potential to go away after a couple of episodes. But then we found David Boreanaz and he doesn’t seem to be able to go away at all,” laughs Joss.
Something in the way that Joss finds the core of things, and just when you think something wonderful is going to happen, something terrible happens and vice versa.
—David Greenwalt
 
To bring a sense of continuity to the show, Joss and Greenwalt decided to bring the character Cordelia Chase, played by Charisma Carpenter, with Angel. She initially helped the vampire set up Angel Investigations, and provided much of the humor in the seriously dark show.
 
Charisma Carpenter plays the ever evolving Cordelia.
“You know, it’s a little scary when you are moving from a successful show to something that may or may not do well,” says Carpenter. “For me though, it was a no-brainer. There wasn’t much more they could do with my character on
Buff
y
. If Cordelia stayed in Sunny dale, she would never grow. I was flattered when Joss and the guys asked if I would be interested in doing the new show. They told me some of what they had planned for my character and I just jumped on board.
“I liked the idea at first that Cordelia was going off to be a small fish in a big pond and she doesn’t have a clue on how to survive in the entertainment world,” says Carpenter. “We learned a lot about her character in those early episodes of
Angel
that we never knew before. Look how much she has grown over the years since
Angel
began. I certainly didn’t see any of this coming—oh that’s funny, because Cordelia probably could have seen it.”
Whedon was intimately involved in every aspect of the show’s launch, but it was clear from the outset that
Buffy
would continue to dominate his time. Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt coproduced
Angel
, and Joss, while trying to direct one episode per year, left the day-to-day management of the series to Greenwalt. But, Greenwalt insists, Joss is always involved.
“Our offices are close,” Greenwalt emphasizes. “When we were on
Buffy
, my office was right next to Joss’s, and now I’m downstairs in the same building with all of the other
Angel
people. And there’s not a major thing that happens on the show that isn’t something that he and I haven’t discussed. And usually it’s some surprise.”
Gellar was a bit apprehensive about the spin-off, concerned about losing Whedon’s direction, not to mention one of her favorite costars. “Joss is our show,” says Gellar, “I mean this is him. And when he first told me that he had this idea, I cried. I was excited for David. I was so excited at the concept that Joss would have a chance to tell more stories, because that’s what he does so brilliantly. But I was concerned, because I don’t think we know how to make our show without him.
“Joss assured me that no matter how famous and busy he becomes he will be involved in our show. As long as I know that, I’m happy. And as for David, he is amazing actor and I miss working with him. At the same time I think he’s doing a fantastic job with his show.”
“There’s a certain amount of pressure that comes with having to be the lead in your own show,” says Boreanaz, “but it isn’t like I’m doing it all by myself. We have this great cast and crew who are a huge part of what we are doing. So I feel some pressure, but only in that I want us all to do well.”
The show has been a learning process for Boreanaz. “I’ve learned that kindness is more than a loving word, that extending one’s hand to your fellow workers and getting through [the] day together is [important]. Shooting a television show can be very difficult and at times it can really wear on yourself as a person. And if you keep reminding yourself that it is a job and you show up together as a team and as a whole, that . . . you can prevail and get through the day or the eight days that it takes to shoot one episode.
 
Yes, he’s married. David Boreanaz and his real-life wife Jaime Bergman (
Son of a Beach
).
 
“Since I arrived on
Buffy
as a recurring character, I’ve grown considerably as a person on the inside from the help of my friends and my family. And now that I’m married, I have a beautiful wife and a child. Life has been very good to me and I look at that as a reward in itself. So along the way you learn, and as long as I keep learning with the show and struggling, trying to find something new every day with it, then it’s more exciting for me to show up. The hardest part is showing up. Getting out of bed for anybody is hard, and driving to work-well, actually I get picked up. Getting into the passenger seat is difficult,” he laughs.
BOOK: Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy
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