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Whedon is an old boy of Winchester public school. Now, he has an impressive list of writing credits that include Alien: Resurrection, Speed, Toy Story and of course, the 1992 film, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Whedon studied film at Wesleyan in Connecticut, where he graduated ''broke and without a job prospect ... I wanted to write for TV, so I wrote a sickening number of TV specs, most of which were returned to me.'' After a year of sending his work around, he found success with a script he wrote for Roseanne. A year later, he quit the show after selling a movie script.

Whedon takes the horror genre very seriously. His favourite description of Buffy is My So-Called Life meets The X-Files. ''Basically, Buffy has all the classic, very cool monsters: vampires, werewolves and mummies,'' he says. ''She is a good role model for not just girls but for everybody, because she has to use her wits and her physical strength to win. Yet, she still has to get high marks in all her courses at school.''

He says his storyline inspiration for Buffy involves not only his own experiences in school, but the universal woes of others. ''When I get together with my writing team, I ask them 'What was your favourite horror movie? What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you? Now, how can we combine the two?''

Season 4 will take Buffy and the gang to University, with adult challenges and yes, some more scary monsters. Whedon is pretty optimistic that the show's formula can translate to this grown-up milieu: "College opens up a whole new wealth of problems to look at and our characters' relationships are always in flux." He is of course also hard at work on the new spin-off show, 'Angel', directing the pilot and overseeing the script. With 'Angel' having already started in the US, it won't be long before we find out whether the talented Mr Whedon has another huge hit on his hands. As Tony Head said, "It's only a matter of time before we lose him to the cinema."

Read 大象传媒 Online's exclusive interview with Joss.

All images are copyright 2000 20th Century Fox.

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