Tony Heads Off by Rob Francis
After seven years as TV’s most famous ex-librarian, Rupert Giles has uttered his last incantation, polished his last pair of glasses and brewed his last cup of tea on Buffy. As Anthony Stewart Head looks back at his work on the show, Buffy Magazine wonders if he’ll now be heading off to that Hellmouth in Cleveland, or perhaps paying the new management of Wolfram & Hart a visit…

What originally appealed to you about Giles, and how the character was written?
The first time I read Giles was after I’d been out in Los Angeles for a couple of years, and it was the first role for an Englishman I’d read that wasn’t arch. The guy was just English. He was funny and he was screwed up and that’s what attracted me to it. I made me laugh out loud. The script was fantastic.

How did the first episode of Season Seven, ‘Lessons’, come to be filmed at your home near Bath?
Basically, Joss had always wanted to shoot in Britain and he announced that he wanted to shoot some scenes with Willow in England. I was very excited, because it’s my neck of the woods and it meant I could stay longer with my family before I went back to the States.
    Joss wanted to shoot in and around Bath, because if we ever do the Ripper series, I’d pitched Bath as an interesting environment, a good backdrop because it’s a cool place. Somerset is just riddled with myths and legends and folklore – Ley lines and all sorts of things – it’s very spiritual. Joss had always said yes to that idea.
    When iy came to shoot Giles at home… I don’t know how the idea of my home came about I think Joss just said, “Can we do it at your house?” I thought I’d better ask my partner, Sarah, and she said ,”Go on.” I said, “Yeah, but a film crew?” and she said, “Get over it, it’ll be fine!” And, actually the house loved it. It was very ‘smiley’ – it loved having all the attention. It’s a lovely house.

Seeing as you keep a lot of animals, did you ride one of your own horses in the episode?
Yes, we’ve got nine, and Sarah works with 22 at the farm now. The horse’s name is Otto, by the way.

Looking back on the Buffy series, did you approve of the way Giles developed – particularly the way he became more liberated from the fourth season onwards?
It started with the premise that when you move away from home and you go to college, at first you cut your ties with the adults that have been in your life, because you are becoming an adult yourself and have sex a lot. You experiment with becoming an adult and you find that friendships that were readily forged when you were at school suddenly change because everyone is going through changes.
    When I finally realised that every character was going through the same change I thought, “Oh my God.” You have a new-found freedom but that freedom has its repercussions and every character found freedom in one way or another, including Professor Walsh. Then my girlfriend was presented to me at the first episode, and it was like, “Oh well, Giles is going to get sex too!”

Giles got his first chance to sing around that time too…
The music thing came out of the blue. Joss just said one day, “You’re going to sing in the next episode.”
    The writers just kind of thought it would be fun for him to do something that takes him back to his past – which is what you do in a mid-life crises. You want to go back. So it was then a question of finding the right song. We wrote the one for ‘Restless’ that was great fun. It was originally just going to be me and a piano, but Joss said, “No, you’ve got to have a band.” So Buffy composer Chris Beck was on keyboard and Four Star Mary was the band!

Tell us about your final day of filming the Buffy series finale. Was it an emotional time for you?
It was really, really weird. I was in pretty much the last shot of the day, and I systematically watched them say goodbye to Tom, to Emma, Alyson. My scene was with D.B. Woodside. I’d been thinking, will I cry? What will I do? It was such a “Huh!” (gasps) moment that it kind of went by in a flash, and I said “Can I do that again please?” It was really strange.
    They were a lovely bunch of people, a really good bunch of people – the crew and the cast – that is hugely sad. And yet, at the same time, my kids were there for the last week because they were on half-term, so we flew them out and it was lovely. I think that helped a lot with the introspection and the “It’s coming to an end!” stuff. They were there and I was able to take care of them – it was about their stay as well, and them saying goodbye to everyone. So it kind of diluted the pain…

A lot of the Buffy props were sold off by FOX on eBay shortly after the series ended. Did you grab any mementoes before they were all gathered up?
We were sent a directive from FOX the week before we finished, saying that the props were the property of FOX – do not steal them! My briefcase from the first season went for $6000. Alyson, Nicky and I were all sitting in Buffy’s living room after the last scene we’d shot in there. We all shed a little tear, and then were looking around for what we could nick! Ultimately you could nick something, but I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted.
    There was a picture of Buffy, Xander and Willow that they’d taken years ago which I would have liked. But I never got to talk to the set dresser to see if they could put it aside. But no, I didn’t take a shingle off the front. I didn’t do anything!

I hear Alyson got the ball on top of the stairs in Buffy’s house…
Yes she did. That thing, that hideous thing, got knocked off so many times; it was battle-scarred by the end. It was so incongruous. I think the staircase originally didn’t have it on – it was designed without it – and I think some gag that required a ball on the top of it so they glued on this horrible thing. And so Alyson said, “I’m having that!” and wrestled it off.

Summing up, what do you think has been Giles’ finest hour in these past seven years?
He had some good moments. They are so varied and there are so many of them. Perhaps when I was in a Mexican hat with a chainsaw…

Do you think we’ll be seeing you on Angel later this year?
When Tim Minear was still on the show, he said “Now, this year, I definitely think we could get Giles in there, because Wesley has found his niche and has pretty much settled into it, and it would be great to then throw Giles back in to stir Wesley up. Now Tim’s gone to another show, Wonderfalls, and David Fury is there, I don’t know what the feeling would be. I know that James is now a regular, but I don’t know what they’ve got in mind. I will talk to them shortly to see if they’ve got any plans in place already for September, so if it happens, it happens. I’d love to do it.

I guess it could be getting a little crowded over there at the moment?
What I don’t want to do is crowd the regulars. I know what it’s like being on a show like that when the more people they introduce… Everybody has to have their voice, so you shouldn’t have so many regulars on the show that the regulars don’t have their voice. At the same time, you can understand writers want to bring in fresh ideas, fresh stuff. It’ll be what it will be, and if they need me they’ll call me.