Willow Power by Abbie Bernstein
In the magazine’s first chat with Alyson Hannigan since early Season Four, we caught up with the actress – at the Buffy wrap party, no less, where she told us all about the end of Buffy, appearing on Angel and getting married on the big-screen in the third American Pie movie…

When asked whether she ever realised that Buffy the Vampire Slayer would become such a cult phenomenon, Alyson Hannigan exclaims, “Oh, I had no clue!” She goes on to explain, “I just remember the first season. Nick and I, and Tony would run up to the production offices just to try to watch whatever they had edited together, and we were like, ‘Wow, this looks even better than we thought it was going to!’ The first episode we saw finally cut together was ‘Witch’, which I think was episode two or three, and it was just phenomenal, and we were like “This is so cool.’ I was so excited for my friends to see it, which is how I sort of gauge projects: My friends are going to love this,’ I like that.” And what does she think the key to the show’s success has been? “The writing. That’s what’s so amazing. It just gives you everything.”
    Born in Washington DC, Alyson began acting at the age of four in TV commercials. Some of her early professional acting roles brought her into contact with people she’d work alongside later on Buffy – in the 1988 feature film My Stepmother is an Alien (Alyson plays the daughter to Dan Aykroyd, who marries extra-terrestrial Kim Basinger), one of her playmates is a young Seth Green (Oz), and in the 1996 telefilm A Case for Life, she appeared with Richard Herd (Dr. Backer in ‘Killed by Death’). She also made a guest appearance on Roseanne the season after Joss Whedon had been on the sitcom’s writing staff and just a few episodes before the late Glenn Quinn (Angel‘s Doyle) began his recurring role on the show. Alyson was also a regular on a TV series prior to Buffy – in 1989/90, she co-starred as Jessie Harper in the short-lived Free Spirit. Other TV work includes the telefilms Switched at Birth, The Strange Beside Me, For My Daughter’s Honour and Hayley Wagner, Star, guest shots on Touched by an Angel (where her mother was played by ‘Gone’ guest star Susan Ruttan) and Almost Home, and four stints, so far, as a host on the MTV Movie Awards. She also appeared in the feature comedy Dead Man on Campus, not to mention the blockbusting American Pie series of films.

It’s surprising to find that Alyson’s normal speaking voice, while not actually taking on a whole different nationality (a la Alexis playing Wesley) is somewhat different to Willow’s distinctive tones. “Right,” Alyson acknowledges. “Well, she does sort of infiltrate my vocabulary sometimes. I sort of got her voice when I was auditioning. I was sitting in the parking lot, looking at the material, and I just didn’t have it – I didn’t have it. And then there was one particular line in which I heard her voice, and from then on, I was like, ‘Okay, I know how I want to play this character.’”
    Actually there have been several sides to Willow over the years, including the apocalyptically angry version at the end of Season Six. “The dark side was all right,” Alyson allows, “but I prefer the lighter side of  Willow.”
    For one thing, the lighter side was less physically painful. Soon to be husband Alexis Denisof reminds her: “They put you on a crane for that window shot of the prison and all that, remember?”
    “Right,” Alyson recalls, “and sometimes there were wires. But not often,” she adds, thankfully.
    “Yeah, that put your back out,” Alexis notes.
    “Oh, right,” Alyson laughs.
    The two actors originally met when Alexis was introduced as Wesley in Season Three of Buffy, but the BuffyVerse isn’t the only place they have appeared alongside each other. In 2001, they starred together in the feature film Beyond the City Limits with Alyson starring as a drug-addicted robber in a gang, which Alexis plays a Russian criminal. Earlier this year their paths crossed again when Alyson guest-starred in the Angel episode ‘Orpheus,’ in which Willow and Wesley share a scene where they diffidently compare their respective evil sides. “Oh, that was the best,” Alyson reveals. “We had a lot of giggling moments.”
    “That was really fun,” Alexis agrees.
    And since they had such a great time, is there any chance that Willow might return to Angel? “There could be guest appearances, yeah,” Alyson says. “It was fun.”
    “I hope!” Alexis adds.
    The finale of Buffy and the end of Angel Season Four meant that Alyson and Alexis finally had the time to make some plans for their own wedding. “We’ve had a chance now to figure it out,” Alexis says. Alyson elaborates: “We were sort of waiting for our shows to wrap so we could really focus our attention.”

As all Buffy fans know, one of Willow’s biggest guilty pleasures was indulging a little too much in magic, but does Alyson have any guilty pleasure herself? “Candy, by far,” she confesses, “I’m a sugarholic, I swear.
    Alyson will presumably be taking with her some fond memories from those last days on the Buffy set, so what was the mood like on that final day of filming? “Oh it was very bittersweet. An emotional day for everyone. Lots of tears. Lots of hugs. It was great.”
    Obviously, the whole Buffy experience will have provided many happy memories, but does the self-obsessed shopaholic have any other particular favourites, that aren’t Buffy related? “I do remember being a really young child in New York, and I think it was Saint Patrick’s Day, and there was a parade, and there was green confetti coming down from the windows and I don’t know [laughs], I asked my mom if God was sending green confetti down. “Did God do that?” And she of course has reminded me of that time at St. Patrick’s Day. It’s like, ‘Remember when you were four and you asked if God..?’ ‘Yeah, Mom…’”
    So, after all the highs and lows of the last seven years, is Alyson Hannigan happy with the way Buffy ended? “Very happy, yeah. Thrilled. And I think the fans will be, as well.” Not only that, she also thinks it was a fitting end of her popular alter-ego. When asked whether she thinks Willow Rosenberg is happy with how her days in Sunnydale ended, Alyson smiles. “Yes, definitely.”

Below
Before and After: Willow Rosenberg;
Writing Willow by Abbie Bernstein;
Busch on Playing Willow by Abbie Bernstein
Episode Spotlight: Two to Go / Grave.