Shiny Happy Angel by Ian Spelling
The latest Angel season has come to an end, various Apocalypses have been avoided, and the show’s leading man, David Boreanaz, now has time to drop in for a quick chat about Season Four as well as the exciting season that can’t come soon enough: Season Five!

David Boreanaz is all smiles. You would be, too, if you were the star of a television series that, after some excruciating and nail-biting moments, just got picked up for a fifth season and was handed just about the best possible timeslot. David Boreanaz and Angel will both be back later this year on the WB, and the network is popping Angel in its Wednesday night, post-Smallville slot, which should result in a ratings boost or, at the very least, some new viewer sampling. But that’s not all David has to be happy about: he’s just won Best Actor in this year’s Saturn Awards; it’s now confirmed that for Buffy co-star James Marsters will lug Spike’s tortured (and currently dead) soul over to Angel and become a series regular in Season Five; Jaden Boreanaz, son of David and his wife, actress Jaime Bergman, turned one year old a few days earlier; and David was enjoying a few weeks of family time before shooting his next movie, The Crow: Wicked Prayer. Angel Magazine headed to Manhattan as the Angel star chatted to the media.

Let’s go back to the start. How would you say that Angel, as a show, has evolved?
The show was a mismatch at the beginning. It was a lonely show. You could see some really interesting things in the pilot, though, that we don’t have as much of now, that I wish we had. In the pilot, Angel jumped into a car and knew it wasn’t his. I loved that kind of humour. I look back at the pilot and I was really pleased. Of course, when you’re doing it you’re so involved that you can’t really take a step back and look at it objectively, for what it is. I looked at it a few weeks ago, though, and I was blown away by what we did, by how we did it in the limited time we had. Everybody involved was great and we had a blast.
    The first season had a lot of standalone episodes. It was about trying to find the show’s voice, which characters fit and which ones didn’t. Seasons Two and Three had a little of that, too. The characters were going off in their own directions, working on cases, developing relationships. Angel was part of the group and then away from the group and then part of the group again. Sometimes it got pretty dark for everyone. And now, after Season Four, I think we’re going to come back [for Season Five] a little lighter and probably with some more humour. I’m excited.

You’ve got to be amazed by the show’s good fortune. It could have been cancelled, and now the show is coming back and doing so in the much-desired post-Smallville timeslot? How concerned were you that Angel might not make the cut?
I really wouldn’t say that I was worried or optimistic. I take every season as a season and when I’m done with the 22 I say to myself, ‘Okay, that’s it.’ I’ve got to think, ‘Okay, it’s over. It’s done.’ And then when we get the order for another 22, then it’s time to focus on the next season. So, sure there’s some anxiety. You’re anxious to find out. A lot of people work on this show and are counting on it for work. I wanted to come back, especially because of where this show started and where it’s gotten to. It’s at a really good crest right now. It’s riding really well. You wanted to see it come back for a fifth season. You want to see its continuation. You want to see it go in a direction that’s good for the characters, that’s good for the writers, that’s good for the cast, and that’s fun for the viewers.

Which Fourth Season episodes were you most pleased with?
I really enjoyed the episodes that revealed to everyone that Cordelia was the Big Bad [“Players” and “Inside Out”] and where you got to see Angelus out of his cage [“Soulless”] He was walking around, free-wheeling, and with the crazy personality that he has. So that was enjoyable. I really liked the season opener [“Deep Down”]. We got off to a really strong start with that. I think the Vegas episode [“The House Always Wins”] had its moments.
    Overall, I think the Faith episodes [“Salvage, Release and Orpheus”] were the best. I really like working with Eliza. We just rip it up on the set and I think that showed on the screen. We had a blast. I thought that Faith fit right into our storyline. That was a testimony to the strength of Eliza’s character, this character she helped to create. And I think Eliza coming back was fantastic.
    I also thought the final arc with Gina Torres as Jasmine was really interesting and crazy. Jasmine prophesised a lot, but she was also this very strong, dark force who brought a lot of change. She was a very free-loving character, let’s say.

You looked as if you were having a blast playing Angelus. Were you?
I enjoy it when Angelus is out of that cage. It was tough to be in that cage for almost two episodes. I physically had nowhere to go and was basically just standing there. I had fun tormenting everyone, and it was okay the first couple of days, but after that I started to get a little stir-crazy standing there in that damn cage. I like it better when he’s out and about and mixing it up with people. That’s when you really see his true colours. To be able to go back and play him is refreshing. But what happens is I’ll play Angelus for a while and miss Angel, because Angel’s got so much to go on. When that Angelus arc stopped I was playing Angel again, and I was playing him in a different light because he’d just been Angelus and because of the circumstances with Faith and Jasmine.

And how about “Home” the Fourth Season finale? Did you like the way that came together?
I loved the finale. I loved what we did with the characters, how they handled everything with Cordelia and Connor at the end. There was one scene that they cut out, though, which I really liked. It was probably a time thing. We were way over on the show to begin with, so things got cut. There was a scene between Fred and me. I was getting healed up from all the wounds I’d suffered during the long battle I’d had with Jasmine over the episodes when she was on the show. Fred was putting stuff on me and I was talking to her about how Connor wasn’t the same and how he was acting weird the last time I saw him, when he took off. It was a good scene but writer-director Tim Minear cut that out. I’ll have to ask him, but I’m pretty sure it was a time thing. But I really like the episode.
    I loved the whole Charlie and The Chocolate Factory idea. I thought that was fantastic. You take every character and you put them into what they’re best at. Having us at Wolfram and Hart opens up all sorts of opportunities for our characters, and the opportunity to introduce new characters is just phenomenal. Man, I’m ready to run the chocolate factory. I really am.

And now what? You’re in the chocolate factory. What have you not done yet as this character that you want to play before the camera?
I think that with Angel there’s still so much more to do. I say that because he’s got so many deep issues and problems. There’s a lot of shadow with this character. He’s got a dark side and a good side and he’s trying to merge them together. He’s always kept them so separate and now he’s trying to bring them together. It’s like self-therapy session with this guy and you could go on for years with him because, emotionally, there’s so much going on. He’s been through so much and done so much and seen so much that there’s a whole lot more story to tell as far as this character goes. We had that episode that was like Adaptation, where I battled my own conscious. That was really fun, really cool.

Angel has a remarkably loyal fan-base. Why? Why do people love these characters and this show?
The network moves us around and we still have our fanbase that won’t leave us. That’s a testament to Joss and the writers and to the fans and the cult status of the show. People are just so into this show, into these characters. It’s an appealing show to watch. It’s very intelligent. It’s very witty. It has a lot going for it. I think that, looking at it now as a whole, somebody probably said, ‘It would be a shame not to give it another season.’ I really believe that where it is now, at the end of Season Four, is more exciting than where it had been at the end of each of the first three seasons. We’re in a good place to take it to the next level and hopefully increase our fanbase.

You returned to Sunnydale for the last two Buffy episodes, “End of Days” and “Chosen”. What was that experience like?
To work with Sarah again for two shows was great. To step into those shoes and see those characters together again was great, and it was great for the fans, too. The fans wanted to see that. It was a good story and it made sense. Buffy was always about story, and the stories were always so damn good.

And let’s switch to a totally different kind of experience. What are you making of fatherhood?
It’s fantastic. It’s really good. It’s about constant improvising. On a day-to-day basis you’re learning more about yourself. It’s a beautiful experience to see a child learn things and grow. I’m having a great time. I’ve heard people say that I’m a happier guy since we’ve had the baby, and that’s very accurate. I think that the fourth season of Angel was a testament to having a child. It helped my work. You become a better person. How could you not?

Putting the Lie in Lilah by Paul Simpson
It’s not every year that you get stabbed to death, beheaded and then brought back to life – so it’s been a pretty exceptional time for Wolfram & Hart’s Lilah Morgan! Actress Stephanie Romanov discusses her latest Angel season!

Sometimes you meet an actor who portrays an elegant character on a TV show, and they’re the exact opposite of their screen persona. Other times, it’s clear that the elegance came first. With Stephanie Romanov, who has portrayed Lilah Morgan on Angel throughout the show’s first four seasons, the latter rule applies.
    Even amidst the hustle and bustle of the Starfury End of Days convention at Blackpool’s Norbreck Castle Hotel, Stephanie Romanov looks cool and sophisticated. She’s in Britain with her producing partner, Katrina Fernandez, and while members of the public are photographing her on stage at the convention, they themselves are being observed through the lens of Katrina’s video camera.
    Stephanie seems slightly relieved that she can talk openly about the fourth season with Angel Magazine – the rest of the weekend, she has to keep quiet about Lilah’s reappearance in the final episode of the year – and admits that “as far as Lilah goes, the fourth season has certainly been the most interesting.”
    It’s been a year that’s seen her get rid of her direct superior at Wolfram & Hart, bring her rivals to heel, have a torrid affair with Wesley, get killed and then brought back to ‘life’ by her superiors when they hand the firm over to Angel Investigations. Stephanie can’t pick one specific event that’s been more fun to play. “She actually got to have the affair,” she gushes. “She went through this range of emotions. She was evil and backhanded, and then she got killed in such an unceremonious way. You think she’s going to be killed by the Beast, and then Angelus and suddenly it’s Cordelia going bam! in the neck and she’s dead!”
    As Stephanie freely admits, “I only ever expected to do one episode of Angel! I auditioned for a guest starring spot on the show that I thought would only be for that one episode, and then the producers just kept calling me back and calling me back. Everyone around me was getting killed, and I kept wondering when it was going to be my turn. I actually outlasted everybody at the law firm, until this year, when I did get killed. Geez, Louise! They cut my head off!”
    Once Lilah was dead, Stephanie didn’t really expect Angel to figure very much in her future plans. So what did she think when she got the call asking her to return for the final episodes of Season Four? “When they said that they wanted to bring me back, I said, ‘Um… you chopped my head off?’, but it turns out my contract extended beyond death as Lilah. When Wolfram & Hart need my services, they just send me back.”
    In a season full of shocks, Lilah’s reappearance at the end of the penultimate episode of Season Four is one of the least expected. “I loved coming back,” Stephanie says. “There was a lot for me to do. I loved the almost game show feeling of the episode: ‘There’s this… and how about this. But wait, there’s more!’ I thought it was such an unexpected twist. The direction of the show for next year is very interesting.”
    What would she like to see happen to Lilah next year? “Wolfram & Hart were the epitome of evil, and Angel’s nemesis, and now they’re part of the group,” Stephanie muses. “I don’t know what the producers’ plans are and how they’re integrating it all into next season.”

Once the new year was confirmed, Stephanie adds, “I’m not surprised that Angel got picked up. The last episode of last season felt almost like a new pilot, with grand shots and some amazing sets. I’m not sure – as usual – what Lilah’s role is going to be. I think it would be fun to explore other options as a dead/undead character. I think it would be fun to show a bit more chemistry between Angel and Lilah – there’s definitely a lot the writers could do with that relationship.”
    But Stephanie feels that the relationship between Lilah and Wesley “has come to the end of the road. They learned what they needed to from each other.” Unusually, Stephanie had been told at the start of the fourth year that Lilah would be involved in a big arc with the former Watcher. “Normally, they never tell me anything,” she points out. “But they did tell me that I would have the six-episode arc with Wesley. Normally, they’ve just called me beforehand and asked whether I can do a particular episode or not. They’ve not been really big on calling me in to let me know what their ideas are. But,” she adds with a smile, “they did say that there would be stuff for Lilah to do next year!”
    The relationship with Wesley extended well beyond the opening six episodes of the season, with resonances right up to the scenes in the final episode where Wesley doubts that it really is Lilah who’s returned to make the offer. Stephanie thinks that the relationship developed in unexpected ways. “In the beginning, I felt that she and Wesley were using each other,” she says, “but as I went on, I found it interesting that she fell for him a bit. I thought that brought out a more vulnerable side to Lilah that she hadn’t allowed out for a long time. But she’s still the kind of girl who’s interested in the bottom line. There was something compelling to see these two people actually start to fall in love, when from the outside, it was clear that that was a situation that neither of them had intended. The relationship was doomed from the beginning, so theirs was almost an unrequited love.”
    Immediately after her death, Lilah comes back to haunt Wesley – or at least, that’s how it appears initially. “As she says, ‘I’m not even here, lover, this is you,’” Stephanie points out. “I like that line – she’s saying to him that it is his psyche talking to him, that Lilah’s not really there. But that was Lilah in great form – she’s telling Wesley that it’s okay to cut her head off, and being very supportive. ‘You’ve got to do that and it’s okay’.”
    Since Stephanie was in the scene as the dead Lilah and as her ‘ghost,’ the actress had to perform some scenes twice. “It wasn’t any more difficult technically than most scenes, because a lot of the time when I was walking around the table it wasn’t really me on the table. We had someone who kind of looked like me, but there a few close-ups which had to be me.”
    When Lilah returns, there’s still a frission between her and Wesley. “When they brought me back, I had a little scarf covering up the scar from where Wesley cut my head off,” she recalls. “When I’m offering them Wolfram & Hart, Wesley doesn’t believe it’s me, and Angel uses his vampire senses to confirm that it really is me. Then I show Wesley my scar and say, ‘It’s okay, lover. I never felt a thing,’ and he says something like ‘I don’t doubt it!’. There’s a moment of hurt then where he’s thinking ‘I didn’t mean that’ and I think it’s cool that the producers decided to play it that way. When I went in to do some looping, I saw that they had used that moment to show the hurt between them. She was trying to make Wesley feel okay, and he’s trying to be okay with it – and the she gets on with introducing them all to this big opportunity.”

Lilah certainly made the most of her own opportunity to run Wolfram & Hart at the start of the fourth year. “I loved playing that,” Stephanie says.. “It’s fun to play power. Lilah was given a lot of interesting things to do, rather than the same old stuff. I liked the scenes with Angel, particularly the chemistry between David and I when we were doing scenes. I thought there was a fun element, like there was a little tennis match going on. You saw her vulnerable side in the scenes with Wesley, and then she had the corporate scenes with Gavin. I also liked the time when Connor came in, and she’s saying, ‘Yes, let’s figure out who and what you are’ and thinking, ‘and then we’ll cut you open and poke around!’. I got to play a vast array of emotions as the boss.”
    Stephanie can see the possibilities inherent in the new season’s format. “I came back in a physical body, so presumably a relationship could be possible,” she muses. “But I don’t think I have the freedom to come and go, because I’m not a live human. I’m at the mercy of the Senior Partners, and when they allow me to come and do certain things, I’m there. I’ve been wondering what the producers might do with this – Angel can’t kill me now, since we’re both dead. There’s not really a lot you can do to me, although I guess that if I’m in physical form, there are still various tortures that could happen. Maybe that wouldn’t be much fun even though I’m already dead.”
    In the hiatus before Angel starts shooting its fifth year, Stephanie is attending a few conventions, developing a couple of movies with producer partner Katrina Fernandez, and has just been cast in Robin Williams’ new movie The Final Cut. “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world,” she says. “I’ve got my dream husband, my dream property, my dream job and my dream producing partner. What could be better?”