Pryce Change by Abbie Bernstein
With the small case of an apocalypse taking place in Angel Season Four, it’s a good job Wes has toughened up a bit. We catch up with Alexis Denisof to discuss the major changes in his character…

Characters on Angel go through all kinds of changes – souled to soulless, human to demon, infant to 18-year old – but probably none have undergone such a dramatic alteration as Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. The former Watcher, who started out as a borderline useless, panicky prig in Season Three of Buffy, moved to Angel and, over four years, has developed 007 cool in the face of danger, a warrior’s prowess and a sense of guilt and rage that make him fascinatingly unpredictable.
    Perhaps the only unsurprising aspect of Wesley these days is how much actor Alexis Denisof loves playing him. In contrast to his onscreen persona, Alexis seems relaxed and friendly as he talks about Angel at a party thrown at Hollywood’s Renaissance Hotel by Warner Bros. TV. “When Joss first spoke to me about Wesley joining Angel, back in the summer after Season Three of Buffy, we talked about rounding the character out and deepening it and complicating it and toughening him up, because he couldn’t have remained the Wesley of Buffy, or he would be intolerable. You really wouldn’t care to spend an hour every week with that guy necessarily. It was latent in the character anyway, so it wasn’t that we had to re-invent Wesley, it was simply that we had to evolve him. But I could never have imagined how far that journey would have taken me and the character, because I am as surprised and excited as I hope everyone else is with where Wesley is today, as opposed to where he started. It’s been an extraordinary transformation.
    “Anything could happen,” Alexis exults. “That’s a ball for an actor, to be at a point with a character and the writers where, when I get a script, I just can’t wait to see what they cook up next. Every scene we play could go any direction. I mean, you don’t know if Wesley’s going to pull out a heater [gun] or smack somebody in the jaw or just deliver a witty riposte and leave. He’s kind of capable of anything at this point.”

This season’s “Spin the Bottle” episode, written and directed by Joss Whedon, temporarily turned the bespelled Wesley into his old, supercilious self. Did Alexis watch tapes of old episodes to recall what Wesley used to be like? “Actually, I didn’t. I thought that I would need to go do that. But Joss had written such a sublime script that as soon as you started playing those scenes, its’ just a question of finding the old physicality and the tightness and the internal rhythm that was the old Wesley, and also to hear his voice in my head again. And it was really fun to find him again. Because I do love the old Wesley that was such a goofball.”
    But bigger threats mean bigger dangers – and Wesley has opted for some more modern weaponry in his fight against evil these days: Wesley uses guns from time to time, something Alexis has mixed feelings about.
    “I have to admit, I’m not crazy about firearms. If I had my way, they would be outlawed, or at least handguns certainly would be. There are some episodes coming up where you’ll see some guns. But we’re in the world of storytelling and the stakes have gotten sufficiently high on the show where at times, some form of firearm has seemed to be the solution. So I have had to learn how to use them convincingly. We’re really lucky – we have some ex-military guys on the crew – Adam our focus puller particularly; whenever I get a gun, I always check it with him. He’ll show me the correct way to use it. I’ve learned a lot from him.”
    There are other tools of combat as well, Alexis points out: “We’ve had some tranquilizer rifles and tranquilizer handguns lately that we’ve been using a lot, so there’s a variety of weapons. It had been the trusty crossbow for quite a long time, and of course Angel has his broadsword. Wesley’s kind of stepped up a little now. He’s got the sword and the stake that come out of his arm and he’s developing a pretty nifty arsenal, which will be revealed throughout the season. You’ll see more and more of that as the show goes on.”
    Some of Wesley’s gear doesn’t operate in real life the way it does on the show, Alexis reveals: “They fix a lot of it in post-production. I mean, I hold it and use it and do it, but mechanically, we don’t have a device where the sword comes flying out from the costume. What we have is a brace that fits over my forearm that the sword fits into, so we can shoot everything after when the sword is out, but the sword actually unfolding has to be done as a computer graphic image later on.”
    There’s still some fun to be had – Alexis really did get to slice a demon body in half in the season opener, “Deep Down.” “The head had already been cut off, just in case I didn’t make it all the way through. It was a pre-severed head,” he laughs.
    Contrary to what we see in “Spin the Bottle” with Wesley’s malfunctioning arm shooters, Alexis hasn’t had any actual trouble with weapons so far, but he sounds amused at the prospect. “I haven’t shot anybody in the ass with a crossbow bolt as of yet, nor have I tagged anybody with a tranquilizer dart, but you know what, there’s always a chance,” he laughs. If it should happen, “I hope it’s Andy [Hallett, The Host]. I just think that would be funniest. Andy would be my favourite, then J. – I’d love to get J. with a tranquilizer dart – then Fred – Amy Acker – and then David Boreanaz. I don’t want to tag Cordelia [Charisma Carpenter], because she’s pregnant. In case it caused her to fall over or something, I’d feel bad. But all the others – consider this a warning!”

Although he was born in Seattle, Washington, Alexis has spent so much time in England that he’s not sure whether he considers himself English or American: “Oh, that’s the golden question.” Wesley shows signs of wrestling with a similar question – as he toughens up, his English accent seems to be receding. “I think [the modified accent] just sits on him better. As an actor, it just felt organically that it seemed to fit the way he was changing, and it seemed also to be accurate when you consider the amount of time he’s spent in L.A., that the accent could have softened a little. And since he isn’t surrounded by really upper-crust academics as he was as a young Watcher in the Academy in England, it’s understandable that he is changing the way he speaks and changing his voice, his delivery, as a result of his environment. But I don’t want to lose everything that he is and everything that he was. So let me know if I go too far.”
    Alexis’ personal plans for later this year include marrying fiancée Alyson Hannigan. It’s too early for him to say whether he’ll be acting outside of Angel during the summer break: “I hope so.” Then again, he also enjoys vacation time: “I don’t want to lie on my deathbed feeling I’d missed a chance to do more scuba-diving or horseback riding or trekking in Nepal.”
    As for Angel, “As long as the show stays on the air, that’s what would make me happy, because I think we’re making a good show right now, so I hope it has life after Season Four.”