Heavenly Body

(aus Starburst, Februar 2001)

No longer hiding in the shadows as vampire Angel in Buffy, David Boreanaz steps into the light with his own show. The actor talks candidly to Starburst ....

Even though it's a day off from his gruelling schedule as the star of Angel, actor David Boreanaz is anxious to share his insights into his character and reveal the same about himself! About the show, he says, "The first season kind of started off with an understanding of trying to figure out where the character was heading. We had a lot of experimenting in the first seventeen episodes and within that time we found ourselves experimenting with different other characters who came on the show. Whether they were demons or love interests for myself from other areas of the universe." Of course, it was the popularity of the character Angel, as well as his own, that brought him to where he is today.

"It was the popularity, yes," he says "I think that it came after the beginning of the second season on Buffy. I think after Angel's first evil arc followed by being shown that this character was, you know, two-sided. There were two personalities within his range that he could play. He wasn't just a burdened guy being romantic with Buffy saying maybe eight lines and then walking away in the shadows. "

"I was given the ability and the opportunity to play an evil character and for which I tapped into," he says. "I enjoyed tapping into him and I think there was something unique within this character. It then just kind of snowballed."

Flying solo

Indeed, not that Angel overshadowed Buffy, but it was quickly evident to the network and the show's producers that David's character had a chance to stand on his own.

The obvious question is whether he felt the pressure of being the star of his own series. "I think I kind of kept it at bay," he says. "I mean, I understood what it was and what the possibilities could be, but I kind of looked at it one step at a time. I don't really look into the future of things and say, 'This is going to be a success. This is going to be a failure'. I kind of live life to its fullest at the moment, so I think that helps take the pressure off."

Part of his living for the moment philosophy entails a truly unique quality about him as a person. That is, his loyalty to the fans of the series. In fact, he admits that it's not been uncommon for him to actually telephone a fan in response to a letter! "The fan mail has been quite an array," he says, "and you do get the occasional fan mail from prisoners. But otherwise, it ranges a lot with lots of different letters They [the fans] all want different things."

Fan offerings

"Somebody wanted a pair of socks from me because they were doing a project at school about odour," he explains with a hearty laugh. "I mean, these are the strangest kind of things that you do get. And you read these letters and you kind of put them in order of okay, 'here's the crazy, insane prisoner maybe, and here's the sweet person who just wants a picture or an autograph or some kind of response.' But what I found, which is interesting, is out of the mix of the fan letters that we do get, you cannot respond to every one personally. But what I do like to do sometimes is I pick a letter, maybe ten, and call the person up out of the blue and hear their response".

"I do chat because without the support of the fans in a show like Buffy and Angel, I think the show thrived off its first season by having that cult following. These fans staying with the Internet and the website and saying, `We're interested in these cult characters. They helped us grow to where we are today´. "So it's because of the fans that I sit here and I'm talking to you," he says honestly. "It's definitely feedback. It's give and take."

And what do the recipients of these impromptu phone calls from a television star do or say when he calls them? "Well, they're kind of perplexed and they don't believe you at first," he admits. "Then you tell them about the letter that they wrote and you give them the insight into it and they don't say anything or they get into asking me questions. So it's actually a thrilling experience. "

What he's also found is that there's an age difference between the fans of Buffy and those of Angel. "It ranges from somebody who is six years old to a 32 year old," he suggests. "But I think the age range with Angel has increased from Buffy´s demographics as far as being from 18 to 34. Because we take place in Los Angeles I think the demographics are a bit older. "

Blood relations

While the actor's quick to acknowledge that he's turned to his dad for guidance in dealing with his fame, he also talks to someone else who has been and perhaps remains special to him, his ex-wife Ingrid Quinn. "I talk to my ex-wife, yes," he says without any reluctance.

"I talked to her last night. It's a relationship that didn´t work out but we're still close, I mean, we talk to each other almost three, four times a week. When I was going through the divorce last year it was a very tough time for me," he says seriously. "I had started the show, the first season of my show. I had filed for divorce so I was living outside of my house. I was living in various houses in Los Angeles while I was holding down my television show, and I think that the work just kept me pressing on. And the strength of my friends and my father. And my brother-in-law was there for me every day with his smile and his friendship, which helped me get through the day and pain of it."

Still, he admits that it's taken time to even contemplate attempting another relationship or marriage because in the aftermath of his divorce, "I had become disenchanted a little bit about that whole process. Now, however," he says. "I am becoming more and more enchanted about it again. I'm a big romantic, always have been a romantic. When I found my one who I was married to who I divorced, when I went through that process I thought of it as a Romeo and Juliet experience, a tragedy.

"However, I'm finding myself more and more enchanted with the idea of it. When the divorce happened I pushed myself far away from marriage but now I'm understanding it a little bit slower and slower each day. "

For the time being, however, he keeps himself busy deeply involved watching American football, playing golf, riding a mountain bike and occasionally going on a hike with his two dogs. "l have a black Lab that I rescued from the pound and I got a Border Collie from Ireland that was a gift from my ex-wife two years ago Christmas," he explains. "Searcher is the Border Collie, which is Gaelic for freedom. And Berta Blue. It's just Berta Blue!"

Soul searching

He contemplates his next comment before continuing. "This past summer, right before I shot the movie, Valentine. I went to Hawaii for ten days and I kept asking, 'I'm looking for myself. I'm trying to find myself. Who is this person inside?' And I played a lot of golf." he adds. "I must have played 36 holes a day and I had days where they were really great and days that were really frustrating. And I found inside of myself that there's a really stubborn bastard, a selfish, stubborn bastard that can, at times, just go into his cave and shut everybody out. Then there's the other side of him that loves to go out and enjoy a good time, be vulnerable," he adds. "How I balance those two, I'm still trying to figure it out. And I think I'll always be trying to figure that out, but one thing that struck me is when I was at the ninth hole there was a cookie jar there. A real jar of cookies. Well. I bypassed it the first time I played but the next time I said, 'I want one of those cookies'. I set the ball on the tee for the tenth hole and I took a bit of the cookie and I said, 'This is the best cookie I've ever had,' so I get back in the cart and went back and I took six cookies!" He laughs aloud before adding. "That's the type of kid that I was when I was growing up. That child that's inside of me will always be with me. And on the other hand, there's that other person who can be very serious and stubborn. So I've learned to balance those two and look at them. That's what I've been learning."

- Jean Cummings