Chasing Amy by Rob Francis
We catch up with maker of magical mayhem Amy, aka Elizabeth Anne Allen, for a chat about her character’s most recent developments on Buffy…

After almost three years of cheese and habitrails, wayward Wiccan Amy Madison returned to cause trouble in Sunnydale when Willow returned her to human form in ‘Smashed’. But the fun didn’t stop there. It was thanks to Amy that Willow began her descent into dark magic, and the Scoobies’ former chum soon found herself well and truly shunned by the gang. We caught up with Elizabeth Anne Allen (who is back for more witchy fun in Season Seven) to find out what it was like returning to the role after such a long break, and found the actress happy to discuss her traumatising period as a rat and eager to see some action between Amy and Spike…

How did your return to Buffy come about? You’d been away for a while, but the character always seemed very popular.
I hadn’t been available for the other two seasons. I’d been working on other shows, so it just didn’t work out. For Season Six, I was available and it was Marti Noxon who approached my agents and said, “We’ve kind of got a part for Elizabeth if she’d like to come back.” They weren’t sure what, or how many episodes they were going to do, but would I like to come back and reprise Amy? I said that I’d love to, as she hadn’t been around for so long.

Do you find that Buffy is a different show to the one you left now that Marti has more day-to-day control of it?
I’ve talked with Marti. She’s more apparent on the set. I saw Joss a couple of times, but Marti’s always been on the set. She does a great job, I think, but it still feels the same to me.

Who do you socialise most with on the Buffy set?
Most of the stuff I do is always with Sarah and Aly, so they’re like high school girlfriends to me. It’s like, “Hi, let me see your ring! You’ve got a boyfriend? What’s his name? What’s he like?”

Now that Amy has evolved a darker side, do you think you would want to be her friend?
I think Amy is incredibly loyal. I think that she would go to the wall for her friends. I also think she is dangerous right now, because she has lost a lot of time and there’s a desperate need to make up for it, as well as a desperate need overall just to fit in and belong, to live and savour life. She’s willing to try anything and do anything, and I think that’s dangerous for some people, particularly Willow, who’s trying to stay on a ‘clean’ path. Amy just doesn’t care. She realises life is so fleeting that she’ll put it all out there.

Can you tell us what it was like filming the scene in ‘Smashed’ where Amy and Willow get a little carried away in the Bronze?
It was very funny, because what they did, because of the chaos of the scene, was to film us first and then take us out and send us home. They then didn’t have to worry about the madness and the mayhem of the sheep. So we didn’t get to see anything! I didn’t even get to see the boys in their underwear in a cage. We were so disappointed. I said, ‘Somebody had better take Polaroids to see what mayhem we’ve created!’
    But I think there were too many situations for them to control, so they filmed our stuff, and based on where we conjured, they placed different things.

Turning back from a rat required the obligatory nakedness. How did you find that?
Ha! They’re loads of fun. ‘Oh, it’s naked Liz again!’ No, not really. They’re very tongue in cheek. They’re so used to it now that they don’t even blink.

There’s a lot of nudity on set these days, with Spike working his way through the female cast…
And he hasn’t made it to me! You know, it’s just not  fair! Spike has been around the block – and then some –  but not to poor Amy!

Apart from the big appearances in ‘Smashed’ and ‘Wrecked’, we only saw Amy again briefly at the end of this season in ‘Doublemeat Palace’. Do you think she was utilised enough in Season Six?
I really think you can do a lot with Amy. I just think that there are so many places it can go. Because of the lost time, she’s willing to do anything, adding a level of passion and aggression to the mix, and if they utilised that, it would be great.
    I just go in there, do my thing, hopefully do it well and trust that if they want to do more with her, they will.