Lilah’s Law by Joe Nazzaro
Buffy Magazine gets up close with Wolfram & Hart operative Stephanie Romanov (aka Lilah) for a peek behind the inner workings of the secretive law firm…

For the past three seasons, Lilah Morgan, the over-ambitious lawyer at Wolfram & Hart, has hatched countless schemes to destroy Angel and his companions. Thus far, those plans haven’t been entirely successful, even though she’s managed to bring Darla back from the dead, has sprung the monstrous villain named Billy from his Hellish prison, and arranged for Angel’s infant son to be captured.
    Like her fictional counterpart, Stephanie Romanov is beautiful, charming and highly motivated, but she draws the line at working for demons (film and TV executives notwithstanding). And like Lilah, the Las Vegas model-turned-actress has had to work very hard to get where she is today. During a recent break from filming Angel, just hours before leaving for a modelling assignment in Hamburg, Germany, Romanov took some time out to talk about her work on the series.

How have things been ramping up in terms of Lilah’s role in this season?
Lilah is having a lot more to do, and this year, she’s taken over the Lindsey spot and they’re giving her a bit more of a back-story. It’s nothing that they’ve shared with me yet, more than what you see on the screen.

How do you actually see the character?
Now that I see where they’re actually taking her, it’s a little different than how I’ve always thought of her, but still along the same lines. I think I previously saw her as having had some kind of relationship with Angel in the past, and being completely fascinated by him, because she can’t have him. There’s a very thin line between love and hate, so if she’s after him this hard, there must be something there. I always play it that she has a little something for Angel, so whenever I’m in scenes with him, I always try to have my lips be a little redder, and put on red polish, whereas other times I don’t. I try to make those little separations so that it’s not anything that anyone would notice, but it’s fun to do. Also, I feel that she doesn’t really come from much of a family unit – maybe she started as an orphan or was shipped around a lot, so she never created any ties, and therefore it made it easier for her to adapt to the world she’s in now.

Having this backstory in your head must have made it interesting to do ‘Carpe Noctem’ where Lilah has the fling with the possessed Angel.
I thought she should definitely go for it! If she can’t have him, no one can, so she thinks she’s finally got her moment, and then finds out she really didn’t, which pisses her off even more.

It must be nice to know your instincts were on the right track, then.
Or maybe my instincts are why they went that way. Subliminally, the things I did within the scenes when we were together created a tension and a heat that made the writers want to play on it.

Do you know what’s going to happen to your character in advance, or do you have to wait until the next script arrives?
They never tell me, so I have no idea where the storylines are going. And since I’m not in every episode, they don’t send me the scripts I’m not in, so I don’t know what’s happened before. I just have to wing it from what I get, when I get it. Sometimes we don’t get the stuff until the night before, or you’ve got a big scene and you get a bunch of rewrites the night before.

How did you get this role in the first place? Was there a lot of competition?
Gosh, that was a while ago! This is my third season now, but right before auditioning, I’d just seen Angel for the first time the night before, and I got a call the next day that I had an audition for it, so that was an interesting coincidence. I thought it was just for one episode; I didn’t know that it was going to be a recurring character, so they didn’t tell me that would happen when I auditioned. I think what they wanted to see was power, and the way I played it when I actually got the job was more of a seduction with Angel but still powerful. Then they kept bringing me back, so they must have liked my choice. But I definitely made a conscious choice to do it differently than how I won the job, thinking it might make it more interesting to bring me back.

Most of your early scenes were with Christian Kane, who played your competition Lindsey McDonald. Did the two of you click right away?
Christian and I got along great, and I had a great time working with him. I think we both enjoyed playing antagonists to each other, and he always referred to us as ‘Boris and Natasha.’ So even though we were rivals, we were still part of the same team on the show, and personally, we couldn’t have gotten along better.

Do you have the same kind of chemistry this season with Daniel Dae Kim as Gavin Park?
It’s not the same, but we definitely have good chemistry and I like him a lot. It’s a different chemistry because he’s a different person, and that translates to the screen. I felt at first that they were tying to make our relationship similar to what mine and Christian’s was, but it just felt different than that to me. I try to joke around and be nice when we’re not filming, but I like to be pretty focused when we’re actually doing the work.

You don’t get a lot of scenes with the other regulars, do you?
Most of my scenes are either with Gavin or Angel, and in fact this is the first year that I ever had a scene with Cordelia. I’ve just done a scene with Gunn and Fred, and that was the first time I’ve been in a scene with them, but I was only sort of in the scene with them – it was taking place near me, but not with me. Sometimes I’ll see David or Charisma because we’ll be working on the same days but at different times, so I’ll see them but not work with them.

Now that you’ve been with Angel for three seasons, what personal highlights do you have from that time?
That’s a tough question. It’s hard to remember, because I tend to be someone who really lives in the moment. Most of my life is pretty much a personal highlight, and there are challenges and high points and low points. There have been a lot of times where I’ve felt really good about things on the set, and then you see it and don’t like the way it’s cut together. It’s hard for me to watch myself a lot of times, because I’m so dolled up on that show that I hardly recognise myself. So it’s hard for me to say what the highlights are. There are certain guest stars that I loved working with, and who I had fun with within the context of the scene.

Any particular guest stars come to mind?
Keith Szarabajka, the guy who plays Holtz. I had fun working with him, and I really enjoyed working with Jack Conley, who plays Sahjhan. I was actually watching an episode we did last night (‘Loyalty’), and there was one scene that I had so much fun with because I felt I made a different choice in it. That was interesting.
    I wanted it to be business as usual, but I was also playing a chemistry between the two of us, so there were subtle things in there that were cut out, and that was a drag. But it was funny to see her with this monster guy, and they’re kind of flirting back and forth.

Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?
Well, it’s pilot season, and I’m leaving tonight on this modelling job, so you do try to fill things in and do different stuff. I think every actor’s journey is just to keep on working.

Where do you eventually see your work going?
It’s so hard to say, because everything that happens is magic and luck and timing, and you never know when that’s going to hit you. I recently got married, and that changes your life as well. So maybe some kids in a couple of years, hopefully some good movie roles, something that makes me proud.
    The way I live life is basically to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.