Multiplicity by Matt Springer
An interview with Kristine Sutherland, conducted during the filming of Season 3.

For Joyce Summers, a constant source of mother-daughter tension revolves around Buffy risking her life battling vampires. But for Kristine Sutherland, the actress who portrays her, most major childhood battles involved a far more harmless pursuit: piano lessons.
    “It was the biggest bone of contention between my mother and I growing up,” recalls Sutherland. “It symbolised everything that I thought was wrong with our relationship. I was finally allowed to quit when my brother and I were caught lying about whether we had practised.”
    Joyce can take some solace in the fact that Sutherland has once again taken up the piano, and today loves to play.  So maybe there’s hope for Buffy and her long-suffering mother. Regardless, Sutherland’s conflicts with her mom over the piano are just one example of the experiences she draws upon in creating her performance.
    “In terms of trying to parent an adolescent, I try to go back to my adolescence and my relationship with my mother. I try to figure out those struggles, and try to get into that from her point of view.”
    Fortunately for Sutherland’s sizable acting chops, Joyce’s point-of-view has been changing on virtually a weekly basis. Learning about her daughter’s dangerous little secret at the end of Season 2, Joyce was left dealing with some complex new internal conflicts, resulting in a few hap-hazard explosions.
    “Now I know she’s a vampire slayer, there’s so much to process. Coming to terms with that,” she says, “I think Joyce is struggling to find her place in Buffy’s life. There was a comfort level in the second season, that whatever Buffy was doing, she was on the right track. Finding out she’s a vampire slayer just threw things right open, so I really struggled to find out what in her life I can share, and how to manage my sense of fear for her.”
    Forget about the extreme complications of parenting a Slayer, just parenting that most peculiar of beasts – the teenager – presents enough problems of its own. This has led to Sutherland finding that her work is often based in an identification with her on-screen daughter, as well as a sympathy for the mom’s perspective. This often means tempering an awareness of teenage rebellion with a parent’s ability to strategically look the other way.
    “It’s funny, because sometimes people said to me before I knew she was a Slayer, ‘How could you possibly not know that she’s a vampire slayer?’” comments Sutherland. “I started to laugh, because at that time in my life – sophomore, junior year in high school – I did all kinds of things my mother had no idea I was doing. It didn’t seem strange at all to me that she didn’t know, because I think there’s a healthy amount of denial at a certain point. That’s important to have as a parent.”
    But with Buffy’s big revelation, Sutherland’s on-screen alter ego could no longer hide behind the mask of parental denial.
    “It’s strange to recognise that your daughter is so different from you, that she’s this thing that you really don’t understand and in many ways is so powerful, yet is still a kid,” says Sutherland. “Joyce still has to figure out when to look out for her, when she needs it and when she doesn’t need it.”

It’s unlikely things will change anytime soon. Every week provides a new bundle of surprises from the show’s writing staff, and the actors are often as eager as the show’s viewers to find out what’s going to happen to the characters.
    “I’m such a big fan of the show; I really anticipate getting each script and seeing where it’s going to go,” says Sutherland. “When I read part 2 of ‘Becoming,’ I grabbed it off the front porch and I had an appointment early in the morning. I drove to Hollywood, and I’m pulling over to the side of the road – I had to peek. I’m sitting there on the side of the road, reading the script, and when it gets to the part where Angel gets sucked into hell, I’m devastated – I’m just completely devastated. I can even watch an episode that I’m in, and know exactly who’s behind the camera and who’s checking the focus, and I don’t see any of that. I totally get into the scene.”
    Best of all, portraying Buffy’s mom gives Sutherland plenty of time to practise her parenting technique whilst preparing for her own adolescent in the house.
    “My daughter is much younger than Buffy,” she says. “It’s been a very interesting exercise for me, like I get a dress rehearsal for the future. It’s interesting emotionally. because the show is a journey I’m going to be taking myself as a mother. It’s just really fascinating to explore.”