Buffy the Vampire Slayer Yearbook 2002

Date: Winter 2002/03
Price: £4.99
Page Count: 100
Editor: Darryl Curtis

Stake Out
Coming out around Christmas time, the first Yearbook presented by Titan is largely considered the best.

The Yearbooks were designed to do two things: showcase the best of the Magazine’s content, including archived interviews long since lost. The other was to introduce the series to newcomers entering the final season, which gave the Yearbook it’s only original pieces: A guide to Buffy with the story so far, and episode guides for the first six seasons and the first three seasons of Angel.

The only other new pieces were interviews with Alexis Denisof and Robin Sachs, which we’ve archived below. There’s also a piece on Sarah Michelle Gellar herself…

The Ultimate Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer by K. Stoddard Hayes
A complete Season by Season Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with character notes, storyline details and classic quips!

Summer Time by Ian Spelling
To celebrate our 100-page-special edition, we profile the already legendary actress responsible for bringing the Slayer to life, Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Typecasting won’t ever get the better of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Though many other actors and actresses have suffered greatly during and after they’ve become so associated with a particular character, Sarah’s managed the neat feat of finding – and succeeding – at work outside the realm of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. During the show’s six years on the air, Sarah has turned up as wildly diverse characters in such varied projects as Scooby Doo, Harvard Man, Cruel Intentions, Simply Irresistible and I Know What You Did Last Summer. She displayed her versatility further when she guest-starred in an episode of Sex and the City, and also when she hosted the 2002 MTV Awards and a hilarious night of Saturday Night Live.

Of course, Sarah’s career pre-dates even Buffy. An agent discovered her at age four – she was born in New York City on 14th April 1877 – and by 1983 she had logged her first acting experience in a tele-movie entitled An Invasion of Privacy. “I told everybody what I wanted to do,” Gellar told journalists at a press conference earlier this year, referring to her acting ambitions. “I was just this precocious kid. My mom had put me in ballet and tap and jazz classes, and I hated ballet and all that stuff. I wanted to go to karate because that’s where all the boys were – at four! So I was eating in this restaurant – and it’s one of those Lana Turner drugstore discovery stories – but this woman came up to me and said, ‘Do you want to be on TV?’ I’d just learnt my name and address, so I recited them to her. She called my mother and sent me to an audition, which I got! It was really an amazing outlet for me All these kids say they regret being in show business, but it’s made me who I am. It’s made me a responsible individual that understands the importance of a dollar, that understands how to have a job and how to be a person and work with people. My mom always said that as long as it was still fun for me, she’d let me continue.”
Following An Invasion of Privacy, Gellar appeared in the mini-series A Woman Named Jackie, playing a young Jacqueline Bouvier. And then came the short-lived series Swann’s Crossing. Her first breakthrough role, however was as Erica Kane’s (Susan Lucci) daughter on the immensely popular soap opera All My Children. Sarah stayed with the show from 1993 to 1995, earning an Emmy for her role before she left. Not long after, Sarah auditioned for Joss Whedon, who was launching a TV series based on his film Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Though she nearly ended up as Cordelia, subsequently played by Charisma Carpenter, Sarah took up stakes as Buffy Anne Summers, a.k.a. the Slayer, and she’s been kicking butt and winning kudos – not to mention Saturn Awards and Golden Globe nominations – ever since, evolving into a major star in the process.

For all her accomplishments outside of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, some might argue that the show prevents Sarah from pursuing even more big screen opportunities. But to her credit, Sarah doesn’t really see it that way. “When I was a teenager, there weren’t that many roles that were interesting,” the actress reveals. “There was no Ally McBeal, Felicity or Alias. It was sort of nerve-wracking to come into that time in one’s life as an actor, because you’re too old to play the child in the movies, but you’re certainly still too young to be the girlfriend or the wife or the mother. But all of a sudden, television took this amazing, revolutionary turn and made all these female empowered character-driven shows that never existed before. It was such a challenge. I’ve been fortunate to play characters like Catherine in Cruel Intentions and Daphne in Scooby Doo, but that other stuff at this point in my life still doesn’t afford me opportunities like Buffy does. Until I’m a bit older I’ll never get the opportunities in feature films to do what I can do every week on the show.
    “I’ve never regretted staying with the show,” she explained. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, I wish I could be doing this movie or that movie,’ because my opportunity right now is really here… When I got Scooby Doo I was really nervous because there was no reason why the show should let me go to Australia to make it. In my mind, I’m thinking I should be grateful enough to be there. Why would they rework the entire Buffy schedule so I can fly across the continent and do a movie elsewhere? But Joss was really understanding in knowing that part of what keeps me here is the fact that I get the opportunity to do other stuff. Usually by the time you get to the end of the season you’re burned out and exhausted and counting down the days, but instead I found myself the exact opposite. Doing Scooby Doo only enthused me more to come back. I wanted to try this and work that and I thought of Buffy while I was there. I made it that much more exciting to do both.”
    It probably didn’t hurt that Sarah’s co-star in Scooby Doo was none other than her off-screen husband, Freddie Prinze, Jr. The two met and became friends several years ago while making I Know What You Did Last Summer, but they didn’t become romantically involved until 2000. They got engaged last year, and were married this September.
    Back on the professional front, production is now underway on the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It could be the show’s final year, or conceivably, the final year with Gellar on board. Geller herself isn’t sure what the future holds. “When I got the pilot, my best friend at the time turned to me and said, ‘”Don’t worry, you’ll get another pilot next season!’, pitying the poor girl that got the midseason show on the WB. I never thought we’d get past the pilot. Then, after the first show aired, I thought, ‘Well, it was fun and maybe I’ll get another show next year.’ It kept progressing and was a surprise to all of us. So it’s hard for me to guess how much longer I’ll carry on doing it because I never thought I’d still be here now. We are contractually obligated through this year, but honestly, right now, I couldn’t even guess what then.”

The Pryce is Right by Abbie Bernstein
In the downtime between Angel Season Three and Four, Buffy Magazine catches up with Alexis Denisof to discover the troubles the writers have Put poor old Wesley Wyndam-Pryce through in the latest year, and to find out what lies ahead…

Poor Wesley Wyndam-Pryce has had one rough year. First, his beloved Fred chose Gunn over him. Then he was fed a fake prophecy by a giant talking hamburger, which led him to believe Angel’s infant son Connor was in mortal danger from his vampire father. He therefore kidnapped Connor, only to be almost fatally wounded as the infant was stolen from him. After barely surviving the wound, he was nearly suffocated by the infuriated, unforgiving Angel. Finally, even in a universe where Slayers have affairs with vampires, Wesley gave new meaning to the concept of ‘sleeping with the enemy’ in his relationship with ruthless Wolfram & Hart lawyer Lilah. No wonder the man is so tense these days…
    In contrast to the character he plays, actor Alexis Denisof seems relaxed and friendly as he chats at a Warner Bros. TV Press Event for Angel on the FOX lot. Alexis turns up clean-shaven, but reveals that Wesley’s scruffy beard will return in time for the start of filming Angel‘s fourth year: “I think we’ll probably stick with the rougher Wesley for a while.”
    Alexis views the evolution of both Angel and Wesley with great enthusiasm. “I think we had a really good season,” he asserts. “Everything came together – the writing, the acting, the technical side – it’s all Just been gelling in a really great way. The storylines that have been coming in are fantastic, and I think we’ve all been enjoying ourselves tremendously. The show’s getting better and better.
    “We definitely have favourite shows,” Alexis reveals. One of these was the Season Three episode written and directed by Joss Whedon, which found Fred falling for Gunn and consequently breaking Wesley’s heart. “I think J. and I agree that ‘Waiting in the Wings’ was a blast, because that show had everything for all of us. And then I personally loved ‘Billy’, he says of the episode in which a man’s touch causes Wesley to become a violent woman batterer, “because it was the first real dark change in Wesley to experiment with.
    “And then there are show we admire as viewers. ‘Are You Now or Have You Ever Been’ is, I think, an amazing hour of TV, both in what it handles and the way it handles it. You could go through every season and pick out a few real choice episodes that everybody associates with and feels proud of.”
    Like all characters on Angel, Wesley does a fair amount of fighting in the show. How far is Alexis involved in the action? “As much as I’m capable,” he laughs. “I mean, without landing myself in hospital, I do what I can. But we have very skilled professionals who, I’m happy to say, take most of the grunt work.”
    More difficult than stunt work, in Alexis’ opinion, are the love scenes – if that’s the right term – between Wesley and Lilah. “That was just hot sex – that wasn’t romance,” he observes with a laugh. “You’d be amazed how much choreography is involved. It’s so much more detailed than any fight scene. You’re like, ‘All right, get your shoulder there… No, no, three centimetres higher so we can see the eyebrow and the nose and the hair and the shoulder – don’t move! Oh, my God, we just had a breast! Put your shoulder back!’ It like a bio-physical-mechanic scientific experiment while the camera’s are rolling” With all this going on, Alexis and Stephanie then have to act the scene: “Pretend like it’s sexy!”
    Working with the infant Connor was also complicated. “It’s a challenge,” Alexis acknowledges of working with babies. “It changes the way you shoot a scene. You have to do everything in favour of the baby, because you only have him in the studio a couple of hours at a time and babies can only be on set for a few minutes at a time. You have to really focus your attention and get your work done very rapidly and in a specific window. Otherwise it’s too late and they have to move on.”
    According to Alexis, recent character transitions, such as Wesley’s alienation from the team and and the difficulties which have befallen Angel and Cordelia, have been exciting for everybody involved in Angel. “I think the changes actually help us to hit our pace. When the characters are forced into new, challenging situations or conflicts within the group, it causes us as actors to work at a deeper level and it forces the story into new and dynamic areas, so I think that’s part of why last season was a strong season. And I think that that’s going to be one of the features of the coming season – continue the pressure on all the characters so that they don’t always respond according to what you expect.”
    As if things aren’t fraught enough, Alexis confirms Joss’ prediction that Angel Investigations is due to be visited by a character who’s guaranteed to make life Hell for everyone: “I think the tension is going to be wound ever tighter with the reappearance of Angelus,” he acknowledges.

Wesley has been through quite a few shifts since he was first introduced in Season Three of Buffy as a naive, ineffectual Watcher. Since surfacing in Los Angeles as a rogue demon hunter in Angel‘s first season, he has acquired wisdom, strength – and bitterness. Is there any one incarnation that appeals to Alexis more than the others? “He’s changed a lot,” he admits. “It would be hard to say that there is one particular phase of his character development that was my favourite, but there are just things that have happened during the course of his life that I really enjoy, like when he pretended to be Angel. That’s something that, when it happened, was so appropriate. If that were to happen now I don’t think it would be as funny or as enjoyable. I still like it when he first was in LA and was so anxious to be a tough, rogue demon hunter but was clearly a kind of soft puppy dog. He was very innocent. And he’s getting a little rougher now, a little tougher, because of all the things that have happened to him. I can’t say there’s anything I like better than one or another – it’s been so fortunate for me how they’ve developed his character and kept it alive and interesting, and I’ve really enjoyed every phase of it.
    “When Joss first told me the idea that Wesley was going to take the baby and all hell would break loose as a result, I was like,” he adopts an apprehensive tone. “‘Ooh, no, I’m gonna be bad!’ But once the scripts started coming in and we started shooting the scenes, I was like ‘Oh good, I’m bad‘,” he grins gleefully. “It isn’t just he’s purely bad or purely good, it’s just that we’re discovering a deeper and more complicated area of the character where good and bad aren’t as clear, where Wesley does something motivated, he thinks for the good of all – i.e. saving Connor and relieving Angel of the responsibility of murdering his son – and in so doing creates the situation in which the baby could be kidnapped, Angel loses his son and Wesley has his own throat slit for his trouble. So it’s grey rather than black and white – or rather, it’s black and white, rather than one or the other. So I was really excited with those scenes.”
    He’s also thrilled with the startling turns in Wesley’s personal life. “I loved the chemistry between Lilah and Wesley, because those are the last two characters that you would expect in a room together, let alone in bed together. I think that from my conversations with David Greenwalt and Joss, we’re all interested this year in continuing where we left off with that journey, that exploration of the more complicated interior of the character and how he acts from that place, rather than from the moral high ground, which was really his modus operandi from the beginning. So it’s always been a long-term goal to continue to humanise him.
    “That’s an interesting aspect to the show – you’ve got this central character Angel who on the one hand is entirely supernatural. And part of how we as a supporting cast frame that and tell that story more clearly is with our deepening humanity. So the more complicated and the more real our journeys are, the more extraordinary the exploits of Angel become.”

Sachs Talk by Kate Anderson
Ethan Rayne proved to be a veritable thorn in Giles and the Scooby Gang’s side in early Buffy episodes, including such classics as ‘Halloween’, ‘Band Candy’ and ‘A New Man’. Buffy Magazine caught up with the charming British actor beyond the villain, Robin Sachs, to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane…

Sorcerer Ethan Rayne inflicted much mischief and mayhem whenever he paid a visit to Sunnydale. Last seen in Season Four’s ‘A New Man,’ Rayne’s current whereabouts are unconfirmed – although he is believed to be held at a top-secret facility somewhere in Nevada, courtesy of the Initiative. However, Ethan’s alter ego, Robin Sachs, has remained popular with Buffy fans around the world despite his two-year absence from the show, making regular appearances as a guest at conventions in his native UK and elsewhere. It was at one such event that Buffy Magazine had the fortune to track the actor down for a chat about his time in Sunnydale…

You’ve become something of a convention regular. How do you find them?
I’ve never done any of the huge conventions. These are great fun. Everybody’s sweet and everybody’s charming, It’s fun. It’s always fun. You just answer questions and [grins] get a little dirty.

What do you think about your work on Buffy now, looking back at the experience?
Buffy‘s one of those shows which is not on a studio lot, it’s on it’s own lot. So it sort of has an autonomous thing going there. It all comes down from the top. Joss Whedon is a wonderful producer, very witty. And there’s a family atmosphere that works so well. It’s a total joy working with everybody there. It’s a total joy to do.

Out of all the Buffy cast members, who did you most enjoy working with?
I worked mainly with Tony and Sarah, who are both great. Tony’s easy to work with and Sarah’s a doll.

The episode people probably remember you for the most is ‘A New Man,’ the last episode you filmed. What was that like to shoot?
That was a lot of fun to do. Tony and I had a great laugh doing the drunken scene in the bar. It was a lot of fun.

How did you actually get the part of Ethan?
They asked me in, I did one audition and they offered me it.

You starred in the 2000 science-fiction blockbuster Galaxy Quest. Was the film as much fun to shoot as it was to watch?
Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Except wearing 84 pounds of costume for 17 hours a day is a bit tiring. You walk around in your own sweat.

How long did it take to put on the make-up which transformed you into the evil Sarris?
It was anywhere between three-and-a-half and five hours between me arriving there and getting on stage to film. But again, it was a lovely cast and it was fun to do. Except it would have been nice to have not been in quite that much latex.

Has there been any talk of a sequel?
They haven’t talked about it, so I would imagine not. It’s probably a bit late now. But who knows. It sold very well. It would have sold better if American Beauty hadn’t come out at exactly the same time. But it was a slow burner and it stayed in the charts for god knows how long. I think it was 10 weeks or something like that.

So would you return if Joss Whedon called you up?
Oh, anything they want. Anything Joss does and wants me for I will do. I love the way the productions are set up. And I think he’s a very clever man with a great wit. If they asked me, I’d go back.