Behind the Scenes

"... she’s ‘really’
not comfortable
playing that or
trying to be sexy.
But I think once
she was in
rubber..."

You can’t work on a show like this and not have a funny story. So we went back to last season on Buffy to give you this tidbit. John offers this amusing story from the episode ‘Dopplegangland’. "I think what was really fun was doing Willow and Xander as vampires. We had absolute directive, ‘They have to be sexy!’ (laughter) ‘That’s a big part of it. You can’t make they ugly, they have to be very sexy vampires.’ "Well, the funny thing was just watching her (Alyson Hannigan) transformation because she’s just really, I mean if you’ve talked to her at all you must know that she’s very much like that character! (laugher) She’s very soft spoken, very childlike, very charming girl. She’s not like that. She’s very sweet, very childlike. I don’t mean childish but just has a childlike quality and she’s ‘really’ not

"We had absolute directive; 'They have to be sexy!'"-- John speaking of Willow and Xander as vampires.

comfortable (laughter) playing that or trying to be sexy. But I think once she was in rubber and had the forehead on and the costume and all that. I think somehow, it’s like you’re wearing the disguise and I think it’s another one of those elements that you see what makeup can do is kind of free somebody up to not be themselves. I think that kind of helped her. She’d probably be a better judge of that than I was, I haven’t really heard her say that but just by watching her actions on set I got the impression that this little bit of anonymity that the makeup helped free her up. Because I know the other scenes they’ve tried to get her to play that up when she wasn’t in that character I think it was really hard for her."

Special Effects are a big business in Hollywood and there are people and companies you compete against and admire. John looks at a few of them for us whom he looks up to. "I think, I mean there are some obvious ones, like Rick Baker, he’s one of the best or ‘the’ best. Greg Kanum, a three time Oscar winner that I’ve worked with for three years that I really learned more from than anybody I’ve worked for. I think as far as people I would consider the next person down, I wouldn’t quite consider my peer but we go up against each other a lot of times, but I think he’s in a higher category than we are but I guess I would aspire to him would be Steve Johnson’s X-FX. We seem to kind of go in a lot for the same interviews and steal projects from each other left and right. But we actually hang out and go to parties together and we all go out to dinner and we have a really good cordial relationship. Which always seems to surprise him, ‘You know, we’re competitors and we can be friends.’ ‘Well, you know I don’t want to hate you because I have to compete with you.’ But I think esthetically his work’s brilliant. And he’s done a lot of work in TV, probably next to us he’s done the most work on TV. Just always consummate work, really strong design element and very inspiring. Rob Odean, I like his work a lot also."

My last question to John was a loaded one, simply, how would you like to be involved in a Buffy movie? "I would love to be involved in that! (laugh) Yeah, I’d love to and hopefully they’ll run with it and do some amazingly elaborate stuff." And what ideas would this talented company flow forth with for Joss’ midnight approval? "I have no idea, there’s not necessarily any kind of wish list of what I’d ‘like’ to do but I’d love to see what kind of challenges they come up with. And I’m sure if Joss has got a little bit more money and time and kind of let loose I’m sure he’ll come up with some insanity and so hopefully we get the opportunity and they give us a chance to do it, I would love to be a part of it."

Written by CoA Head Writer, Kristy Bratton

The CityofAngel Council would like to thank John Vulich for his time in this interview. We look forward to seeing more of his amazing work next season, but for the summer he confided in me that tanning and poolside is where his demons reside! ;)

Also, thanks to Carrie at Optic Nerve for making this possible and being so willing to help.

If you have any comments for CityofAngel.com regarding this article, we would love to hear from you. Just email us at: comments@CityofAngel.com

There were too many cool things in John’s interview, (though not relating to Angel) that we are offering a special full transcript that you may download here.