A Watcher’s Counsel by Rob Edgar
Anthony Head is enjoying the best of both worlds. Since stepping down from his regular role as former librarian and Watcher Rupert Giles on Buffy, the British actor has been free to return to the UK and embark on new projects while remaining an important player in Joss Whedon’s supernatural drama.
    Giles’s departure from Sunnydale at the start of the show’s sixth season left Buffy and her friends to face the trials and tortures of adulthood with disastrous consequences, as Willow was consumed by the power of dark magic. Fresh from returning as Giles for the emotional season finale, ‘Grave’, which saw him locked in a tense showdown with Alyson Hannigan’s grieving witch, Head discusses the show’s current controversial developments…

You made a dramatic return at the end of Buffy‘s sixth season. Had you missed being a regular part of the show and did it feel strange coming back?
No, it felt fantastic! I kicked butt, until I got my butt kicked! It was an emotional return. There were a lot of hugs, and it was good to see people, and it was lovely to work with Alyson. She’s a consummate actress. She really is a wonderful actress. And there was some nicely written stuff. Good fun. Great stuff to play.

Was it strange or difficult having to act out the rather dark, unpleasant confrontation between Giles and Willow?
No, it was cosmic. We set that up earlier in the season, and this was the pay-off.

What was your reaction to the death of Tara, and Willow’s subsequent turn to the dark side?
It was always planned, and as with all of Joss Whedon’s decisions, it’s never personal, so you know that it’s going to advance the plot. He’ll kill somebody off at an optimum moment. I remember when he said that Joyce was going to be killed off, and I thought “Oh, wow, that’s strong stuff!” And then it didn’t happen. She had the brain tumour and you kind of went, “Oh. I thought he was going to kill her! Oh well.” And he said, “It’ll happen just at the end of a very funny episode. We’ll pull back in and she’s dead. Yeah, it’s an aneurysm, it’s quite common.” So he just knows how to wring the most from it, and basically Tara died in order to push Willow’s character onto that next phase, and that was always the way it was planned.

How do you think the events of the finale were handled – in particular the showdown between Giles and Willow?
I loved it! I loved the idea of bringing me back in. They called and said I might not have a credit at the beginning so that people didn’t know I was coming on. I thought it was great. And I liked the fact about the old Trojan Horse thing – that he’s actually bring heavy spells with him – and the idea that he was the catalyst for the way through it all. I just thought it was a really clever piece.

Will the ramifications of Willow’s actions be carried through into Season Seven?
Obviously there’s going to be some fallout. That’s what I think still makes Buffy one of the strongest shows around – the fact that there are always ramifications. For every action there is always a reaction, and there is always something somewhere down the line. Nothing comes easily and nothing leaves easily.

In the early days, Buffy had to contend with a lot of adult authority. Do you think Joyce Summers, Principal Snyder and Giles’ absence has changed the show’s dynamics?
It’s given it a new set of conflicts. There’s absolutely no point in continuing something just because it works. You have to move on, and the whole thing about good writing is that it’s based on conflicts, and in life there is a period where your main conflict is no longer just about how you relate to adults. It then becomes about how you relate to life, and how you fit into life. And that has to be examined and has to be examined in Buffy. I don’t know yet where they’ll take that in Season Seven and where I’ll fit in with that.

The sixth season was very much about the young characters becoming adults and taking responsibility. Was this prompted by your character’s absence, or was it just a timely coincidence?
It was time, and Joss recognised that, but at the same time Joss said, “This is the time when you should be standing by Buffy, because she’s at a loss; she’s really hopelessly at sea,” and you’re going, “What the hell am I going to do with that?!” But my going threw Buffy into conflict, and the way he worked it made perfect sense. I had to force her to stand on her own two feet otherwise she never would. She was relying on me… It was perfect, absolutely brilliant, and the fact that Joss used the musical episode to break that was really cool.

Buffy‘s sixth season also provoked some criticism from fans upset at its tough, dark tone. How would you address those criticisms?
Well, the show’s always been dark. I mean, I don’t think season three was particularly jolly. The whole Angel thing was very dark – hugely dark. I think people tend to shy away from change. They don’t like change. They like things that they know. People criticised Season Four… I don’t think it’s the strongest season, but I think it’s a very interesting concept, and I think for various reasons it didn’t fully succeed, but it was a great way to go. It was a really interesting season, and there are some great standalone episodes in Season Four. But to look back on Season Six and go, “No, no, it’s too dark and too introspective.” Bur it was about the people looking into themselves and saying, “Who the hell am I?”, and it worked for me.

In the Season Five finale we saw Giles cold-bloodedly killing Ben/Glory. What was your reaction to that development? Did you feel it darkened the character?
Yeah! Didn’t you? He did what he had to do, and no one else could really do it. Things like that make for really, really interesting character development, because you go away and think, “How does that affect me?” And yes it was ‘righteous,’ but I’ve nevertheless killed someone, and the person I’ve killed was pathetic and struggling, but I had to do it. So it’s a gift to an actor. You’ve got this really, really, rich kind of dark underbelly of stuff that you can work with. It doesn’t even have to appear; you just know it’s there.