Casting Connor

Vincent Kartheiser spoke to the BBC about being cast as Connor:

“When I first got the sides [casting description] for the audition, it was for a role called Street Kid. They did not want to let out anything about the character, but what my agents would tell me is that, “this isn’t the character you’re playing, it is just an auditioning piece and the actual character will be very different from this.”

So I went in and I auditioned for it. It was a very basic scene, and I auditioned for Tim [Minear] and, I believe, Joss and David Greenwalt. They said, “Well, we really liked you a lot, and we’d like you to meet the cast next week.”

I went and met the cast, [who] all seemed very friendly, and then they brought me in for a screen test. They bring in all the cameras and the lights and the set and everything to see how you fit. It’s mainly for the studio, for them to give it the once over.

So I did that with David, and then, right before they told me I made it, they called me up and said, “We want you to know what kind of character this is.” They let me know that I was going to be playing Angel’s son, a demon killer from Quor’toth. I was excited because I’d never even imagined to play anything like that before.”

Vincent Kartheiser

Vincent Paul Kartheiser was born on May 5th 1979 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The youngest of six children, he grew up acting at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. At age thirteen, Vincent received membership in the Screen Actors Guild for his small performance in the film Untamed Heart starring Christian Slater and Marisa Tormei. Since then he has played roles in many other films, including a leading role in the film Alaska, opposite Thora Birch. Before starring on Angel, Vincent made guest appearances on the television shows ER and Sweet Justice. He has also appeared in Barstool Words, Alpha Dog, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Dandelion and Falling Off the Verge.
Vincent majored in history at UCLA.

Connor

Connor was a child born from two vampires: seemingly an impossible event. Unable to physically give birth, Darla committed suicide in order for Connor to be born, leaving Angel to bring up his son alone. Baby Connor became a part of the Angel Investigations family, until Wesley was tricked into believing that Angel would kill his son. After Wesley kidnapped Connor, Angel’s arch nemesis Holtz stole the baby and jumped into a hell dimension.

Connor was raised by Holtz in a terrible dimension called Quor’toth, where time passed differently. Holtz named him Stephen and told him lies about his real father, Angel. Connor grew into an exceptionally strong teenager and learned to despise Angel. Not much is known about Connor’s life in the hell dimension, other than the fact that he had to constantly fight for his life.

Only weeks had passed back in Los Angeles when Connor managed to escape Quor’toth - now a teenager and hell bent on destroying Angel. In order to finally defeat his nemesis, Holtz staged his own death, making Angel look guilty - whilst at the same time making Connor hate Angel even more. Enraged, Connor sealed Angel in a box and sunk him to the bottom of the ocean.

In the meantime, a seemingly innocent Connor lived in the Hyperion hotel with Fred and Gunn. Upon Angel’s return, relations were still shaky, yet slowly improved. Due to his difficult upbringing, Connor found it hard to develop emotional attachments to people, but he formed a close bond with Cordelia. When a demon known as The Beast rose from the ground in the very same place that he had been born, Connor felt responsible and as fire reigned from the sky, Cordelia allowed him to seek comfort in her. Their night of passion brought forth another strange pregnancy - the arrival of Jasmine, a Goddess from another dimension who seemingly brought joy and hope to all she encountered. Whilst trying to love Jasmine, Connor dicovered that he only felt more isolated than before, and mourned Cordelia, who was in a comatose state. He decided to hurt not only himself but to take others with him. In a final act of love, Angel agreed to take over Wolfram & Hart in exchange for Connor having a completely new life with no memories of his time with Angel.

Unknowing of Angel’s relationship with their son, Connor’s new parents came to Angel for help because of his emerging powers. The demon Cyvus Vail forced Angel to let Connor fight one of his enemies: Sahjahn. Connor agreed to the fight, but was outmatched. Meanwhile, Wesley discovered Angel’s deception and encountered him at Vail’s. No longer trusting Angel, he returned Connor’s memories which enabled him to kill Sahjahn. Connor returned to his family and seemingly out of Angel’s life. Before his final battle with the Circle of the Black Thorn, Angel visited Connor for coffee, where Connor revealed that he knew Angel was his father and was grateful for all he had done for him. Connor also showed up to fight Hamilton by his father’s side. As the Senior Partners begin to exact their vengeance, Angel told him to go home and that as long as Connor was alright the Partners could never destroy him.

Late-comers

Vincent Kartheisers’ introduction as Connor in A New World continues the Angel trend of welcoming main characters late in the season. We saw J. August Richards as Gunn first in the 20th episode of season one - War Zone, and Amy Acker as Fred in episode 19 of the second season - Belonging.