Behind the Scenes

THE FESTIVAL CONTINUES

The Angel members returned to the stage to take their seats and discuss the series, their characters and the overall experience of working with such talented creators as Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt as well as the writers and their fellow cast mates with Mr. Batscha as he asked, "Tell us about the origin of the characters and how you decided to do [Angel]." "David Greenwalt and I were working on Buffy," began Joss, "and we had of course Boreanaz on it from the start. He clearly wasn't working out," he joked. "I told him that there was no chemistry there so we had to get rid of him somehow." (laugher) Joss got serious for a moment and admitted that as a performer David impressed them very much. "But we never really put a label on it until we came up with the idea of redemption, of alcoholism as a metaphor. As sort of a period in your life where instead of coming up in the world as Buffy is, you're sort of in the world and you realize that you've done a bunch of incredibly stupid things in it. Once we realized we had that metaphor to work with then we knew we had an actual show to go around this charismatic character."

David Greenwalt was quick to add, "Speaking of charismatic characters, when Joss came to me -- I said, 'We must bring Charisma Carpenter to that show.' You can really notice that with David's dark broodingness she's just big and bright." (applause) He also admitted that he would have done anything with Joss and when asked to do the show together it was the luckiest day in his life. Referring to the episode the just viewed he credits Whedon who 'breaks' all the various stories, as well as, Marti who wrote the Angel and Darla dialogue in the reservoir scene.

Mr. Batscha turned the topic to the cast and asked Joss how they were all pulled together. "We pulled them together because, again, a bunch of lucky people here," he stated as he addressed for example the Rogue demon hunter Wesley to a round of applause. Greenwalt added, "It was fun watching this on the big screen and Alexis just setting those lines up so people could knock them down." Whedon responded with, "One day he'll have jokes of his own on the show," which brought laughs. "It's a matter of balancing out the show and trying to fill all the characters," Greenwalt continued. "You got a guy who's 247 years old and you've got a big, bright, beautiful young lady who wants to come to the big city and make it. And you have this strange fellow from across the sea who . . ." Denisof finished the sentence with, " . . . falls over a lot." Greenwalt conceded laughing, "Who falls over a lot and tries really hard and frequently succeeds and it's just as funny when he falls over and stuff. Towards the end of last year we started thinking about a show -- our three people are possibly complex people, they're not so much of the world as in the world and we started thinking what about a guy who got a band of people fighting the good fight against vampires. And we came up with the notion of Gunn and J. August." Another warm round of applause.

Mr. Batscha asked Joss if he could say something about Wolfram & Hart and the lawyers and in true witty fashion Joss responded with, "They're bad." Once again the crowd laughed as Whedon continued, "The idea was always to view the bad guy as a sort of peignoir. The bad guy just as a presence, a business card, literally. But then when we had these guys come on, Christian and Stephanie, we just kept saying, 'Well, let's get them again.' They just kept coming back and bringing so much to it, sort of humanizing it. But we still feel like the idea worked. We have this vast, unknowable force but at the same time we have these two people that are so personable."

"Let's have the actors talk about their roles," Batscha opened up the stage for everyone to contribute their own stories of their beginnings into this unique ensemble. Reflecting on his appearance in the 'Dear Boy' episode, Boreanaz was quick to comment, "Oh, that was scary. I can't really tell ya, my hair was all over the place wasn't it?" "Mine too," Richards added as he rubbed his slaved head. (laughter) "I've been very blessed and very fortunate," Boreanaz began sincerely. "When I started on Buffy, I only started on 7 out of 12 [episodes]. It was just a reoccurring character for me. We were shooting the season finale, Joss called me in his office and he sat me down and he said he had this crazy idea for this character. At the time I was in period piece and about to go into a convent and do something and I didn't really think much about it. I kind of was so caught in what we were doing at the time and it kind of snowballed and turned into this phenomenal group of people that are up here today. It's a blessing to wake up everyday and say these great lines with Alexis and all these people . . ." Denisof broke in with, "Oh, we don't sleep together!" (laughter)

Whedon recalled the first when he went to David [Boreanaz], "I remember it perfectly. You were like, 'Well, okay that's a very interesting idea, you know, obviously I want to think about it. I appreciate you coming to me with it.' And I went back to David Greenwalt and I was like, 'Well, he's either the calmest person in the world or he doesn't speak any English!' " While he admitted that, " . . . we were jumping up and down hideously." Boreanaz gave credit to Tim and Marti as well for being superb writers. "But it's been a great ride. We average a lot of hours a day, twelve and a half hours a day we average on a television show." Whedon was quick to ask. "Do you ever actually shoot during the day?" "Ah, no," he admitted with a laugh. "When we're inside." Greenwalt contributed that, "It's a horrible job." (laughter) But Whedon defended, "No, not for us. It's fine for us because we get up in the morning and go to bed at night. But for these guys -- we did the whole vampire thing and they can never ever go to bed at night. Every time I see Alexis at five in the afternoon I'll be like, 'Well, have a good evening!' He'll be like, 'Yes, it's time to go to work, thank you so much.' "

Obviously the humor is not lost among these incredibly talented individuals and if their banter here was any indication of what a typical day is like, these people truly love each other and their much demanding jobs. "I remembered the day he side barred with me," Charisma Carpenter called. "[He] asked to speak to me and go for a walk, and I said, 'Oh fuck, I'm fired!' and then he gives me a new job and I said, 'Hell yeah!' " (laughter) But Charisma did admit to having initial concerns before accepting the offer. "I did have concerns because I was so spoiled with the writers on Buffy that if that wasn't going to be the same on Angel I wouldn't be comfortable being out there without a net, without these guys. (referring to the writers present) When you are with these guys and they give you in one episode an opportunity to be dramatic, heroic, vulnerable, possessed, pregnant. (laughter) Once I was assured that that would be the case, 'Oh yeah, no problem.' "

"I guess I've been doing the show since the beginning of the first season," recalled Elisabeth Rohm. She also talked to Joss before coming aboard. "I didn't really know what they were going to do with this character. They wanted to do this dark, troublesome woman and . . ." "Hook-er-ish, but a cop," Whedon offered as the audience responded with laughter again. "I remember my talk more with Joss because there was no script," Rohm continued, "and I started talking to this Dr. Suess-ian person who has this world of metaphors, delves much deeper than you might think with demons and vampires, vampire. But it's been incredible for me because I tend to show up from time to time and they've given my character this just fantastic arc. From being madly in love with Angel to hating his guts then of course most recently thinking that my life was to come to an end and wind up saving me. But it's been... everybody's become a friend and the writers and producers as well. The character rocks!" Whedon joked that Rohm was the only one who had the guts to go and get another series. Referring to her parallel role on the TNT production of BULL. He added, "Whenever you've been available, it is really lucky for us. There's really so much we can do with her."

"I remember reading," J. August Richards recalls his audition. " My manager was telling me they were casting a part on Angel and I wanted to go in for it. I remember the casting director thought I was too clean cut for the role, which I was a pretty clean cut guy. I remember I said, 'I'm gonna show them clean cut.' So I died my hair red and I went into the audition with this big, bright, red hair and hopefully did a good job. And I remember thinking after I got the part, 'How did they take me seriously with all that red hair?' How did you take me seriously?" asking of David Greenwalt. "Very seriously," he responded. "Part of me liked the red hair. I was gonna have you keep half of it." Richards continued, "But after a few conversations with James Marsters I'm happy I didn't dye my hair! (laughter) But I'm having a great time. I'm enjoying playing the character a lot, I think he's growing."

"Well, my character's just pretty much just pissed off all the time," admitted Christian Kane about his role as Angel's nemesis Lindsey. (laughter) "I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a method actor but I really don't like suits and so as soon as I put the suit on and the tie, my demeanor changes and I'm pretty much in a bad mood. It just seems to bring up the attitude." Greenwalt was happy to inform everyone that, "I'm sure that a lot of people don't know that Christian is a hell of a singer and he's gonna sing on Angel in [an upcoming] episode." On the other side of the attorney's table, Stephanie Romanov compared Lindsey and her character of Lilah to famous cartoon villains. "They're like Boris and Natasha! That's what Chris dubbed us. We're not bad, we're just written that way. (laughter) When I first did the show I was just brought on for the one episode and I didn't really - I had just, for the first time seen Angel and really liked it. What I found exciting about playing Lilah is being able to work with Christian because of the combativeness. And she's funny, she's mean, she's sexy, she's deceitful, she's bad!" said in a sexy, evil voice that received a laugh from the audience. "That's why it's been a fun experience. They never talk to me or tell me anything, [forth coming plot wise] which is nice because it keeps ya guessing." Kane agrees, "That's the best stuff about working on the show is the writers. The team of writers that they have."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Alexis Denisof comes to attention, "What was the question?" (laughter) "You're supposed to know," retorts Joss. The final member of the Angel cast ensemble present, Denisof adds his contribution about Wesley to the mix. "Wesley came on to Buffy as a temporary character," he begins, "then they couldn't seem to get rid of him. He would focus while everyone was sitting there and wondering, reading his books. And I got my feet wedged under the table, so far they just couldn't get rid of me. The rest of season three of Buffy slid by with me making the occasional appearance. Thank goodness they decided to include me in the world of Angel Investigations. I'm certainly delighted, we have a great time, it's a great team. I owe everything to this very distinguished panel here." He finished with a quiet flare which drew a laugh from everyone.

Joss elaborated on Alexis' sense of comedic talent. "When he came on Buffy he - there comes a point in every actors tenure on one of our shows where they're like, 'When do I get to be really cool? When can I say quips and stuff?' And I told Alexis, 'You can play this cool or you can sort of go broad' and he's like, 'Can I fall down? Can I make an ass of myself?' (laughter) The finale of season three [Buffy]where he's there by Angel, living to fight the good fight, I'm like, 'Okay, I can shoot this,' actually Charisma asked, 'Can I kill a Vampire?' And she was being really sweet that day and I said, 'Okay, you can kill a vampire.' And I said to him, 'Do you want to get in there? We can do some stuff, we can work out a thing. He was like, 'Oh no, I want to get knocked out right away!' " (laughter) Denisof was quick to defend his position, "There's a good reason for that," he insisted. "First, it's very funny and secondly, shooting a fight scene takes forever!" (laughter) "No, actually it was ethereal because I really love fighting and I've done a lot of fencing and I thought, 'Wow, I'm sure I can get lots of vampires to kill but it's so much funnier to just - I have this character with all these hopes for this greatest kind of St. George entrance to the dragon and then . . ." [smack] he motions with his hand that Wesley just falls over and the audience responds with a laugh.

"Obviously on Angel," Joss takes up the story, "when we were looking for the right mix and we thought about Wesley. We knew that he was pretty much mom and dad but he couldn't stay quite as much of a caricature and that we would find the bravery within and he'd be falling down on the ground allows us to play both levels because he can do it in his Sean Connery/James Bond thing." "Yeah," admits Denisof, "I kept waiting for that eyebrow thing to go back down. I remember our first chat and we talked about it. Very early on -- the writers will take the time to grow him up and out and what have you. I said to Joss, 'We could have this eccentric English guy riding a bicycle around downtown LA. Then the first script arrives . . . big-bad-dog-bike!" (laughter) "With leather pants too!" Carpenter chimes in. "If it was me," explains Alexis, "it'd be 'little English tweeds on a little bike' but no! So it's the genius prevailed of course. Without, easily guiding the character we'd all be in turmoil."

Robert Batscha's final question was, "What is it like around the writers table?" And without a moments hesitation, Greenwalt replied, "Despair. It's very dirty, both figuratively and literally. It's a vile room. If you're one of the writers and you say something vaguely off color, each one of them will have to top you." Marti Noxon agreed, "It's good. Sometimes I go to family functions and I'm like, 'I'm a whore!' " An evil laugh from Marti brought more laughs from the crowd laughter. "I've been on the staff four years running now and sometimes the wall breaks." "The greatest thing about Joss," Greenwalt offers in defense, "other than the fact that [Joss's] brain is larger than normal sized people is he's never satisfied and he will wait, sometimes I think that he waits until we're already shooting. He waits until its right. We are closing in, between Buffy and Angel -- when I say we it's I worked on Buffy for three years, 'I consult' is just a fancy word for 'I'm downstairs looking at Angel on TV.' So we're closing in on 144 episodes in five years and that's a lot of dang stories and he will just wait until its right and it's a great lesson." Joss adds. "Well, there's long stretches where we need a few more words and then we think we have something and we latch on to that and there's a few days of that and then we realize it's nothing."

"One of the good things though is that Joss likes to sometimes," Noxon offers as an example, "when we've got nothing [he] takes us to some of the best restaurants in the city to have nothing. And so you'll be sitting next to some couple that's getting engaged and we're like in our sweatshirts, we smell, we've got our tablets and stuff. Everybody else in the world is having the most important, elegant dinner in their lives and we're like, 'We've got nothing!' Then we eat well." Tim Minear agrees, "It's the most fun ever. I don't know how much time is actually devoted to 'breaking story', I suppose in some way all the 'having fun' is about getting the breaking story. But it's definitely the most fun ever." "For me also, the fun of working with young Joss over there," Greenwalt explains that, "Years ago, if you came to TV from movies you were immediately cast as dramatic writers, you're doing one hour and it's all the same or you're doing half hour and its all the same. And the great thing about Joss's work as Charisma said, it's got everything and I think all of us feel that we get fully used under his privilege." "I feel used!" Tim states and draws a big laugh.

Charisma adds to the feeling of being used as she offers up a bit of inside information to an up-coming episode. "Yeah, I'm really excited about the next episode. I have to wear a bikini." Although this draws much applause she goes on to explain that, "The actually script said, 'bend over more.' " Now with the audience in a fit of laughter over her plight she pleads with Joss, "I mean, can I wear a sarong?" Boreanaz quickly comes to her support, "I'll wear a bikini! And sing Karaoke until I'm blue in the face!" to which the house erupts into laughter and cheers.