Featuring...
Karen Sheperd
Stunt Double for "Faith" played by Eliza Dushku

Into The Buffyverse and Beyond!

It's a rather unique gig in itself wouldn't you say, vampires, demons and well, yeah, someone to slay them. Karen told us how she got chosen to be a part of this distinctive ensemble. "Well that was a pretty cool story," she begins. "Actually Jeff Pruitt was the stunt coordinator on a movie that I starred in called 'Mission of Justice'. That's how I met him, he coordinated my fights in that movie, and he knew who I was through the martial arts community. I went to see him and Sophia Crawford on the Buffy set one day just to say hi and I hadn't seen them for a really long time and didn't really think anything of it. Then I just mentioned to him that if he ever needed (anyone) because he's like exhausting the supply of really talented fighters in Los Angeles. He asked me if I would be interested in doing any fights for the show and I said, 'well sure'. So I didn't hear from him for a long time, like almost a year. He called me up out the blue one day and he said, 'you know I've been thinking about you almost every day' (laugh), he said 'I didn't want to just bring you in to do a fight here and there' that 'I've been saving it because I knew that something special was coming along. We have this new character coming aboard, Faith, and she may be doing about 10 episodes and she's got to fight like a demon, she got to be a really, really rough, street fighting

Sophia and Karen come up with
the best plan of attack!
animal.' And he said, 'I know you can do it. You're my first choice will you do it?' and I said, 'sure, why not.' So he brought me in to double Faith and I did all of the fights and all the stunts. And that's how it happened. Then, of course, the Angel episode came up and then Spiro Razatto that coordinates that show knew that I doubled her on Buffy and asked me to come work on Angel."

Sophia recently complimented Karen in an article about the work they did on Buffy's finale of Season III, Graduation Day Part I, listing it as one of her favorites. Agreeably, not only is the length of the fight impressive, it is one of the most innovative, imaginative and down right brutal at times, sequences to date. "Yeah, we had a blast. Jeff is really creative when he puts those fights together and Sophia, she's just great to work with. There's just very few woman that I enjoy fighting with. There's very few people I enjoy
"It's really just a
pleasure when
you can just haul
ass in a kick..."
fighting with. Stunt fighting is a real art and a lot people don't realize just how technical it is. It's really a pleasure when you can haul ass in a kick and you can just go for it and know, pretty much, you're gonna be safe with this person and really sell these fights, it's so much fun." Since the two of them have worked so long and well with each other they can go that extra edge to get a more realistic feel knowing that they won't hurt each other. Karen agrees, "Yeah, pretty much. To make it look real but not hurt someone, that's the real challenge. To put the kind of power behind your moves to make them look really, really deadly but yet to have enough control, that's a tough thing to do. When you have someone that you feel pretty good about most of the time (laugh) it's a pleasure. She and I really let each other have it because we have quite a level of trust. That' really important. That doesn't mean we don't get hurt, sure. But there's a difference with getting hurt by someone who's really, really good (laugh) and it's an accident as opposed to someone who is totally out of control. That's real scary. Granted we make it look real, but sometimes it is real. Yeah it hurts, it's fun."

Again with the fun! But does anyone ever ask Jeff when he comes up with this stuff, 'dude! What are you thinking?' "For the most part you look at what he comes up with and you go, 'okay, how do we make this safe?' So you attack it from that angle and if it's something that's totally impossible - I'm trying to rack my brain. I don't ever remember telling Jeff, 'we're not going to do this it's too crazy.' We try our best to make it happen. It may get modified sometimes, for instance I'll give you a real good example." Karen recounts a scene from the episode, Who Are You. Buffy comes crashing in through the window on top of Faith in the bedroom as Faith has Buffy's mom tied up on the bed. "Sophia and I had to modify (stair fall) a little bit because Jeff and the director and everybody wanted us to tumble head over heals and summersault all the way down. But it was not a normal stair case for one thing. It was really, really hard wood and it was very, very narrow. So it's for TV, it was like, fake staircase. It was just meant for one person to walk up so it was really impossible to do the stair fall the way they w

Sophia crashed thru glass
in This Years Girl.
anted to do it. The cameraman was right underneath us, so we couldn't hurt him and we couldn't hurt the camera. (laugh) They don't care about us, it's usually the equipment. So she and I got together and we came up with a plan (laugh) that we were just going to dive head first as fast as we could down that stair case, wrapped in each others arms because there was no room to do any tumbling and the banisters weren't really that strong."

"That's just one example of how you have to go, 'okay well, it's just not going to completely work the way you have it in your head, but let's make it work this way.' They shot it well so it did look good and it hurt really bad! (laugh) We had pads but not that many and because of the costuming. The wood on the stairs was so incredibly hard and my back hit the banister post, took that out at the bottom and totally bruised my whole back up. Just imagine diving down some cement stairs, it was that hard. It was a wild ride." Another wild ride and another injury came in the following scene when Buffy threw Faith over the dining room table. "Yeah, (laugh) Who told you that?" Karen recalls, "We rehearsed that one and it didn't look fast enough for the director. So Jeff cleared the table of all the dishes and he shellacked the tab

Faith (Karen) shows Angel (Mike Massa)
who has the upper hand.
le, with some of that slippery stuff. And I mean, the minute we hit that table it took out all of the glassware on it, there was no way to stop. There was absolutely no way to control the landing and I just flew into a bureau behind it. The chair had tipped over, I had taken it out on my way down and then my back landed right on top of the leg of the chair and almost knocked me out. I was seeing stars!" (laugh)

Jeff and Sophia are not the only ones who hold Karen in high regard. Mike Massa (stunt double for David Boreanaz) also delivered her a bit of praise for her work on the cross-over Angel episode entitled, Five By Five. Karen returns the compliment. "He's great," she says, "talk about talented. He's a real dare devil. He's a very good stunt man, very good stunt man!" In the apartment sequence of that same episode, when they're shooting 10-14 hours and memorizing 45+ moves, you have to wonder how they maintain their energy level and the flow of the scene. "Well, luckily that fight scene was broken down quite a bit," she begins, "because of all of the wire gags, the ratchets and the air rams that had to be specially rigged. It wasn't all just fist fighting and feet fighting for 45 moves, it was involving special effects. But that's really the biggest challenge when you're doing a fight scene is maintaining your energy level because there can be a couple of hours that will go by where they're waiting to rig a wire gag and all of a sudden they go, 'okay, let's go we're ready.' And you gotta just pick it up and act like no ball is dropped, that the pace hasn't changed. You just have to muster up all of the energy, that's one of the hardest things."