Analysing Anya by Ian Spelling
It’s been confirmed – this is the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the last season for Emma Caulfield as Anya, so, we thought we’d best grab Emma while we could for an in-depth interview about the past four years in the BuffyVerse!

Emma Caulfield is exhausted… and absolutely amazed.
    The actress has been racing around New York City, chatting about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and promoting her first movie, Darkness Falls, during a weekend packed with interviews and personal appearances. And, just moments ago, she stepped off the stage after talking to and taking questions from a full house at a horror convention in Brooklyn, New York. “The convention is surreal,” Emma says. “These people know a lot about me, a lot about the show and lots about the movie. They’ve heard things about the show and the movie, in some cases, that I didn’t even know. It’s amazing when someone out-yous you, you know?”
    At the convention, concerned fans queried Emma not just about Darkness Falls, but also about the fate of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At the time, it still had not been decided whether or not the show would return for an eighth season. Regardless of what was going to happen, however, Emma would definitely not be on hand anymore as Anya, the vengeance demon who’s become a major member of the Scooby family. The actress went public with her decision before the current season commenced, and she’s not changed her mind.
    “My contract is up,” she says. “Really, end of story. I signed a three-year contract about a year and a half into my stint on the show, while my character was still a recurring character. And now I’ve finished. I finished my job. That’s really it. Everyone’s saying, ‘Well, why are you leaving?’ It’s not so much that I’m leaving as I’m just not coming back next year. I’ve been using this analogy a lot to explain it, but it’s kind of like high school. Buffy has been a great education and it’s been not four years, but five. I’ve had an extra year of school. But now it’s time to try something different.”
    Anya was supposed to be a one-off, but it turned into what it turned into. She and Xander fell in love. She got her hands dirtied and bloodied. The team of writers mined Anya not just for dramatic beats, but also quite often for laughs. All of the above met with Emma’s approval. “I’ve had so much fun playing Anya,” the actress enthuses. “She’s been such a delight. I love comedy, and the fact that I’ve been able to do it has been great. I’ve been blessed with the amazing writing that they’ve given me. I’ve been spoiled. It will be hard to go and find another project – which I will – that will be as rewarding as Anya. But it’s definitely reaffirmed my desire to find other great, challenging comedic pieces. I love doing comedy, and it’s really hard. I’ve always had an appreciation for comedy, but after doing it for so many years I can say that doing comedy and doing it even remotely well is by far the most difficult thing I’ll ever do as an actor outside of having to master some obscure accent. I think Anya has been the perfect marriage of inspiration and an idea. As you said, she was only supposed to be around for one episode, and I don’t know why they asked me back, but I was grateful. They then gave me a couple of funny lines and I don’t know that they knew if I could deliver them at all. I guess I did it well enough that they thought, ‘Oh, she sold that joke. Okay, let’s give her some more.’ I think it just developed from there. However, I delivered the jokes, whatever choices I made for Anya, I think inspired them and their lines inspired me and it just developed into this wonderful symbiotic relationship.”

Late last season and throughout this season Whedon and company sowed the seeds of chaos so far as Anya and Xander were concerned, but elected not to pull the trigger. That’s to say that Anya went back to the dark side and transformed herself once again into a Vengeance demon in order to get even with Xander for calling off their marriage. Though she’s given him a hard time about it, she’s not physically exacted revenge, an action that certainly could have upped the show’s scares, drama and even the comedy. “I don’t think Joss backed away from it at all,” Emma says, going into great detail in defence of her boss. “I think it’s probably more true to life, the resolution between the two of them. Anyone who’s had their heart broken wants, in their most dire state, to see the other person hurt or see some sort of justice done. They’re very righteous and kind of out of their mind. But unless you’re truly crazy you don’t seek revenge. You don’t get to hurt the other person. A lot of times, the other person doesn’t apologise and there is no resolution. You’re left kind of holding the bag and maybe having to move on without any sense of closure. It you’re lucky enough to get closure you still have to deal with it like a normal human being. I think that’s more true for Anya, more true for Anya and Xander and their relationship that she sacrifices all the work she’s done to become human to become a demon, to punish him, but that she can’t punish him because someone else has to wish it. I think that’s true. She’s stuck. She can’t harm him, so she’s left to deal with her grief as any other normal human being would, but she’s not human anymore. And that’s also the ultimate irony, which is all Joss. The show is nothing if not ironic. So I think what he’s done with Anya and Xander rings very true to life.”
    The next big issue on the horizon is how best to deal with Emma’s imminent departure. Joss Whedon could very easily kill off Anya, She might depart in a huff or be cast out of Sunnydale. The possibilities are limitless. “I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I want Anya alive when it’s all done,” Emma says. “I don’t want her to die. That doesn’t make me happy to think of her dying. That makes me sad, thinking that.” If Joss Whedon grants Emma’s wish and doesn’t bring about her demise, that would leave open the window for Emma to return in a Buffy movie or spin-off. “I never say never to anything,” she notes. “I don’t have it in my immediate plans to come back, but if something completely inspiring were to come down the pike I’d consider it. I don’t turn down inspiration, whatever form it takes. So if an inspired story came around, great. And if it doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to be.”
    If Emma never reprises her role, what would have gone incomplete? What, if anything, would Emma simply not have gotten to put across the screen as Anya? “Hmm,” she begins, contemplating the question for a moment. “I don’t think there’d be anything. I’ve sung. I’ve danced. I’ve spoken Swedish. I’ve mimed wanting sex with really extreme gestures. I’ve fought with a sword. I think I, as Anya, have gotten to explore just about all the ridiculousness that is Buffy, almost more than anyone. They’ve given me a lot to do with Anya and I’m grateful for that, for the opportunities.”