Tell us about the Buffy pilot episode.
Any time you shoot a pilot, whether it’s a full pilot or a pilot presentation, it is in order to give the network an opportunity to see the potential that a new show might have. What it would look like and how the cast would be - in the hope that they would buy it and pick it up for a certain amount of episodes and the show would get made.
That’s the general idea of a pilot presentation or even a full pilot. That’s its job, that’s why you do one. Doing the presentation of Buffy, at the time the WB was a very new network. I think it was the first or maybe the second year it was in existence, so nobody really knew the actual influence that that network could have on a lot of careers.
The WB has been very influential in creating a lot of stars and their shows have been some of the most watched shows amongst a certain age audience and it’s amazing what they’ve done. Back then when we did Buffy I don’t think people realised that. Nobody really knew what was going to happen, it was kind of like "Nahhh..."
I saw the potential in the script when I read the script. I thought it was a great idea. I never saw the movie, so I didn’t really know anything about the movie, I just knew when I read the script that it seemed like a really cool script and a really great idea. Doing the presentation, Joss was very involved in every element, creating the whole world. He’s always been very involved in every aspect, from wardrobe fittings to what purse you’re going to carry in a scene to what props you’re going to use, to what he wants you do as the character.
He’s extremely involved in creating the whole show and the whole look and feel of it. I think the minute you meet him, you realise that this man is a genius and that he’s brilliant. From the first moment I met him I was like, "Oh hey he’s got a very clear vision about what he wants."
It’s comforting as an actor to walk into a situation with the creator of a show who knows exactly what he wants and can explain it to you and describe it to you and everyone fully understands exactly what he wants and how he wants certain things to look. You have a lot of confidence in the project then.
Back to doing the presentation, we had some different cast members. It was definitely a thrill to be one of those taken from the presentation into the series. Not every person who played a vampire victim survived, not even every actor. We had a different Willow even. But the experience was still pretty much the same. It was still pretty much working with a genius like Joss Whedon, who really knows what he wants and doing it.
