As The Otherworldly Oracles, Randall Slavin And Carey Cannon Tapped Into Eternety To Guide Angel Toward His Redemption
 

What happens when you die? Croak? Kick the bucket? When some supreme being asks you, "Is that your final answer," and you say, "I suppose it is."
It's a question that has fascinated philosophers for millennia. Some say we're reincarnated into another form, such as a worker ant or Pamela Anderson's bikini. Others say there is nothing after death; you live, you die, and that´s all you get. Many others believe there is a higher plane of existence, a Heaven, Valhalla, or Pamela Anderson's bikini to which our souls will drift after beginning our dirt naps.
And if eternity were a long room filled with grecian pillars and two snippy omniscient beings? Considering some of the alternatives, maybe that's not such a far-fetched notion.
"Y'know, it wouldn't be bad, if that were what it was going to be,” says Carey Cannon, the actress who brought the female Oracle to life on Angel. "It's more of a waystation, a really great fivestar hotel on the way to eternity."
True to form, Cannon's onscreen brother, Randall Slavin, is inclined to disagree with sis Oracle. "I thought eternity would be bigger," he complains. "I really thought it would."
Their eternal accommodations may not have been up to par, but the scope of the Oracles' role in the unfolding Angel mythology cannot be underestimated. It's true that we never got to see much of them, but that only added to their mystery. When Angel did visit their interdimensional Caesar's Palace, it quickly became clear that the Oracles were his immediate supervisors in the cosmic hierarchy – his project managers in the battle against evil. As such, they were his most direct link to the Powers that Be, and his only hope for interpreting the clues meant to guide him toward his ultimate destiny. Now that they're gone – ruthlessly slaughtered by the demon Vocah in the season finale – it's anyone's guess how Angel will continue to navigate the treacherous path that lies ahead.
Slavin and Cannon took some time just before filming their Angel swan song to chat about the challenges inherent in playing gods, such as getting gold paste out of their underwear.

BUFFY MAGAZINE: SO HOW DID YOU BECOME ORACLES? WAS IT JUST ANOTHER AUDITION, OR WERE YOU EXCITED ABOUT GOING IN THE READ FOR ANGEL?
Carey Cannon: I was thrilled about it. I actually had met casting director Amy Britt when I auditioned for another role on  Buffy, so when this role on Angel came around, they thought of me. They have a great casting team that does both shows.
Randall Slavin: I had read for Angel and Buffy so many times in the past, for various parts on Buffy, and for Spike. I´d gone in for so many parts that when this came up, I knew the casting director. I just auditioned like any other sort of thing. It must have been my sixth or seventh audition for that show.

BTM: DID THEY TELL YOU A LOT ABOUT WHAT YOU'D BE DOING? DID YOU KNOW YOU'D BE OMNISCIENT BEINGS?
CC: I knew I was going to be an Oracle. After looking it up in the dictionary, I had a pretty good sense of what I was going in for. My background is in stage, and I've played one or two goddesses and the queen of the fairies before, so I figured I had some insight into playing an omniscient character.

BTM: HOW DO YOU APPROACH SOMETHING SO OTHERWORLDLY AS A PERFORMER?
RS: It's not too hard, when you have god-like dialogue, to take on an air of entitlement. [laughs] It really happens quite easily.
CC: Anything is allowed. The great thing about both of those shows is that anything is possible. There are no rules. You can basically play anything you like, because you're a god, or a vampire, or a demon. There's no blueprint for that kind of stuff in real life, so it gives you a lot fo permission.

BTM: WERE YOU REALLY ENCOURAGED BY THE PRODUCERS TO TAKE THE ROLE AND RUN WITH IT?
CC: They had a pretty clear idea of how they wanted these beings to behave. When I saw the costume and the make-up ideas they had, and the set, which was so Grecian-temple looking, I could tell that their sense for the characters was that they were somewhat regal. There were guidelines, and the directors were very clear about what they were looking for, too. The producers had a very specific idea of what they wanted with the Oracles.
RS: I think the best thing about the show is that they never take anything too seriously. You have these Oracles, but they're also child-like. It has a real sense of humor to it, very tongue-in-cheek, which I think is why the shows are so popular. It was fun to play a snotty god. I think of the brother Oracle as the great Queen in the Sky.

BTM: WERE YOU THREATED AS GODS ON THE SET?
RS: It was great, because I'd known Glenn Quinn, who played Doyle, for years. We had actually worked together on "Roseanne" years ago, and I met him literally the day he came off the plane from Ireland. He introduced me to everyone.

BTM: YOU ALSO GOT TO BE SNOTTIER THAN CAREY. YOU'RE THE MEAN ONE.
RS: That's much more fun. She's the wise one, and I'm the snotty little brother.

BTM: SO DID YOU TRY TO DIVINE ANY STOCK TIPS OR LOTTERY NUMBERS WHILE YOU WERE PLAYING THE ORACLES?
CC: I should have. I'm gonna shoot the last episode shortly, so maybe I'll try it then. When I'm in all the makeup, maybe I'll have some sense of what's going on. I could predict the presidential race or something.
RS: I should have run to Vegas. I was busy just having to use my dictionary to look up certain words I had to say. Like "fealty." I enjoyed learning the word "fealty," which now I try to use in casual conversation as much as possible.

BTM: THAT'S A GREAT WORD.
RS: It is. It's paying tribute to the gods. I enjoyed that.

BTM: HOW DO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY REACT TO YOUR NEWFOUND GODLINESS?
RS: Randomly they'll scream out, "Speak, brother Oracle,' and I will have to expound with some great knowledge or some great prediction for the future. I lay down the law. And they enjoyed that I was painted like the Telefloura guy.
CC: I have some friends who are really big fans, so they were excited, regardless of what I was going to be playing. I have one group of friend who I gave the wrong airdate for my first episode. They watched the entire episode and called me afterward and said, "You were great!" Of course, I hadn't been on the entire episode. They thought I was one of the random demons, and that I was covered in so much makeup that they wouldn't recognize me. But they wanted to pretend they had seen me.

BTM: HOW'S THE MAKEUP EXPERIENCE? DID THEY BASICALLY DRENCH YOU IN GOLD?
RS: I found it to be torturous. It's two hours of standing there in your underwear, having strangers paint you. Then it's all in your mouth, and you can't eat or anything like that. You can't lay down and go to sleep. You also feel odd because everyone's staring at you. But when we're walking around the set and I'm all dressed up, I feel like when I was a kid and I used to watch movies, and they'd have a movie-within-a-movie and there´d be all these crazy characters walking around the movie set. You'd have a cowboy and an indian talking and walking down the street on this backlot. I feel like one of those. I feel like I'm background in someone´s movie-within-a-movie. They film that right next to "Star Trek: Voyager", so there's all these demons hobnobbing with Klingons. It's very surreal; they're all sitting around smoking outside.
CC: Their crew is amazing. They have pictures all over the makeup trailers of every actor who's been in, from the stars to the extras, and they have a "before" picture and an "after" picture. It's almost like a museum. But it's time-consuming. You have a lot of skin, and they have this gold powder, which is kind magical. I had images of Goldfinger, where they painted that woman and nearly asyphyxiated her, but makeup´s come a long way since then. It's fun.

BTM: TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUNDS. WHERE DID YOU EACH GET STARTED AS ACTORS?
RS: I started acting because I was a miserable musician. In other words, I couldn't play anything. I think all actors want to be rock stars, and all rock stars want to be actors. I started trying to play all these instruments and I just couldn't do it, so it seemed like the most logical step. About six years ago, I started taking classes, reading and watching great movies with a different viewpoint. I did a play, and an agent saw me, and that led to an agent and a job, and then a better agent and a better job.
CC: I started in a high school show, and from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to do it. I'm from New York, so I thought I'd live on the east coast. But I have some friends who are out here, so I thought I'd give it a try here. My background's really in theater, and I went to Carnegie Mellon in their theater training program, so I had no experience in television of film until I hit L.A. less than a year ago. It's been a real revelation – it's a very different, exciting town to be in.

BTM: WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST SHOW IN HIGH SCHOOL?
CC: I played wheat. It was about the four food groups. That was my first show. That started it all.

BTM: IT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY JUICY PART?
CC: Y'know, you're supposed to eat more servings of grain than anything else, so it was a major lead. It was a big coup. Wheat only came on towards the end. Acids and sugars didn't have much of a role. But wheat was all over the place.

BTM: YOU WERE AT THE TOP OF THE FOOD PYRAMID.
CC: Absolutely. It was quite the informative play.

BTM: I LEARNED SOMETHING RIGHT NOW JUST TALKING TO YOU ABOUT IT.
CC: See? Theater can teach.

BTM: DO EITHER OF YOU HAVE ANY ACTUAL BROTHERS OR SISTERS? DO YOU GET ALONG WITH YOUR SIBLINGS ABOUT AS WELL AS YOU GET ALONG WITH YOUR FELLOW ORACLE?
RS: I have an older brother. I think I get along better with my real brother than my sister Oracle, but she's very sweet.
CC: I would say my sister and I get along a little better than my brother Oracle and I. They've written them with a little bit of tension, which is fun.

BTM: DID YOU GUYS START FINISHING OFF EACH OTHER'S SENTENVES OFF-SET AS WELL?
CC: I think actors do that all the time anyway. They don't have the patience to let you finish a sentence. If you spend enough time with anybody, you start doing that. So I guess we did, to a certain extent.

BTM: YOU DON'T NEED TO BE AN OTHERWORLDLY BEING …
CC: … to finish each other's sentences? No, you don't. See?
 

Source: Buffy Magazin
von: Nadine