Starring in the commercials was a double-edged blessing. Financially it was a boon. “While Taster’s Choice didn’t make me wealthy for life, the commercials did give me the money to have a very nice house, a very nice lifestyle,” he acknowledges. “The money has also put me in the position that actors dream about, which is the luxury of picking and choosing jobs. I don’t have to take a job just to make the rent or feed the kids. And that’s quite nice.”
Professionally, however, it loomed as a potential obstacle. In England, he says, “the commercial limited people’s perceptions of me in terms of what I could do. One of the reasons I chose to do Giles, apart from it being an astonishing script and wanting to do it, was that it was a character role. It wasn’t leading man. It wasn’t leading young man, for sure. It was a character part, and I had a feeling that after the commercial people tended to view me as a lightweight. I wanted them to see that I had range.
“But at the same time it opened up horizons” in the U.S., says Tony. He credits his longtime partner, animal trainer Sarah Fisher, with convincing him to take advantage of the commercials’ popularity in America by coming to Los Angeles during pilot season. “When I first arrived, I was sitting on my ass for two months, waiting to hear if Fox was going to pick up this pilot I had done and biting my nails. I said, ‘It’s driving me mad, why am I here? I want to go home.’ And Sarah said, ‘Do something while you’re out there—go take classes or something; learn how they do it.’ So I did. And the day I signed on at class I got the Fox show called VR.5.”
Studying with drama coach Milton Katselas helped give Anthony a fresh perspective. “He’s this wonderfully intuitive teacher and his premise is basically: The only real barriers are the ones we put in front of ourselves. If you say, ‘My character wouldn’t do that’—bullocks! Ultimately it’s you who wouldn’t say that. Who knows what your character might do?”
VR.5 starred Lori Singer as telephone technician Sydney Bloom, who accidentally hacks into a fifth level of virtual reality that lets her access the subconscious minds of whomever she dials up on her modem line. She can also bring other people into VR.5 and create the setting—but has no control over the outcome. When she tries to use the technology to uncover the truth about her father’s suspicious death, she is introduced to the mysterious Committee, a shadow government agency that wants to own access to VR.5.
When asked if it’s just coincidence that he seems to get cast frequently in science-fiction and fantasy roles, Head admits it’s a genre he particularly likes: “Yes, I do seem to gravitate toward science fiction and fantasy and I do love it. I used to be a serious fan of Ray Bradbury when I was young. It is wonderful stuff and I’ve always been attracted to it. But more than that, as an actor, I’m attracted to good roles. Highlander was a wonderful opportunity and VR.5 was a great series; it was sad that it didn’t go a second season. I think it might have been just a little ahead of its time.”
VR.5 only lasted two months, going off the air in May 1995. Once the series was canceled, Tony headed back to England, where he worked in theater and did a couple of television productions. Then he was sent two scripts for a new television series.
“Joss sent me scripts for the first two episodes of Buffy and they were seriously special,” Tony says. “The timing was wonderful because I had been asked if I wanted to do the series Poltergeist: The Legacy and, to be perfectly honest, I thought it was too dark. I was close to doing it and then Buffy came along, which I much preferred because it had a lighthearted side to it. It just seemed to come from a lighter place, although Joss also told us from the beginning that we were going to be serious about the dark, scary stuff—that it would be real, with no gags. Which I thought was important because I do believe there is a dark side, a black side.”
Tony believes the secret of the series’ success is its ability to incorporate several different genres into one. “Joss has proved that you can have real horror, real suspense, real situations, and yet have real humor. I think it’s amazing that Americans have this unique ability to switch abruptly between emotions. I used to marvel at the fact that one moment you can have a complete farce and then the next moment it turns into a real weeper, and American audiences are right there. It’s something the English have never been very good at doing. Joss has just taken that a step further by adding suspense.”
Although Head is the senior member of the cast by a significant number of years, he says there is no generation gap off-camera. “You always hear actors saying, ‘Oh, we’re like family,’ but in this case, it really is true. We tend to gravitate to each other’s trailers and hang out.”
Joss also hosted get-togethers, where Tony and other cast members read Shakespeare: “Then we’d have a few tequilas, sit around the piano and sing.” In fact, it was one of these sessions that first inspired Whedon to write the sixth season’s musical episode. “This bunch is really, really talented, and dedicated and nice people,” Head says. “I’ve been very lucky, because in the twenty-one years I’ve been working, I’ve rarely come across egos that have gotten in the way of stuff. I’ve been really lucky with the people I’ve worked with, and this is no exception.”
Which is not to say there haven’t been occasional creative disagreements. “We’re very faithful to the scripts,” notes Head. “I see a gag and I’ll try and play it, and Joss says, ‘No, there’s a time and a place for a gag and this is not it.’ We’ve had our run-ins, but invariably he’s right. I think Giles’s journey has been fascinating. I think that’s what made it such a joy to play. The character was never static; you never knew what his deal was. And you still don’t know what his deal is. The conflicts I was given to play are not soapy; they’re not silly things or huge story arcs.”
Despite the affection he feels for the cast and his enjoyment of playing Giles, Tony was getting tired. “There’s a slight feeling when you’re doing twenty-two episodes back-to-back of, ‘Heads down, see you at the end.’ There is a point two-thirds the way through, when everybody’s kind of got a sick smile on their face because they’re just shattered because once it’s up and running it’s unstoppable.” He was also homesick.
He and Sarah have two daughters, Emily and Daisy, and working on Buffy meant he only spent four months a year with them. Ironically, it was his kids who had second thoughts about his leaving the show. “It’s always been a family decision as to how long I’d be out there, so when I first asked them what they thought of me leaving, they said, ‘Please don’t. It’s a really cool show and we like you in it.’ When we eventually agreed that I’d become a recurring regular rather than a series regular, Emily found it especially difficult to come to terms with the fact I wasn’t in the opening credits anymore.”
Whedon was equally distressed when Tony told him he needed out. “At the time he went, ‘Oh my god, where the hell does that leave me?’” Head recalls. But in fact, Giles’s departure actually propelled the series forward, forcing Buffy and the rest of the gang to become more self-reliant, just as when Seth Green opted out in order to pursue film work and Joss took the opportunity to explore Willow’s sexuality. The result, Head says, is that the sixth season is “definitely about taking responsibility.”
Since moving back to England, Head has co-starred in the BBC2 series Manchild, opposite Don Warrington, Ray Burdis and Nigel Havers. In it, he plays one of four middle-aged male friends who spend their days living out their fantasies. “He is a millionaire, he’s divorced from his wife and left his children, and he can’t get it up,” Tony says of his character. “Basically, we have all the toys that men apparently think they want, and this is the lifestyle that they would like to pursue. And ultimately, the success of the series is the fact that you see the life we’re crowing about, this misogynistic, hedonistic wild time, you learn quite quickly that it’s a very, very hollow life indeed. These guys have the cars, the babes, and the money, but what’s missing from all their lives is reality. They don’t have their feet on the ground and they don’t know who
they are.”
Also in the works is the long-planned Buffy spin-off called Ripper, which would be a collaboration between Whedon and the BBC. Like Manchild, Ripper would be a typical “short-order” British series of eight episodes. Head describes the drama series as “Cracker with ghosts.” Tony is hoping it will be filmed in the West Country “because it’s where I live and because it’s steeped in myth and tradition.” In the meantime, Head will appear in BBC1’s drama, Spooks.
In the seventh season of Buffy, Giles is more a part of the Slayer’s life again, with Head appearing in at least ten episodes. Having managed to find the right balance in his life, Head says he feels as if he’s got the best of both worlds and that his life, both personally and professionally, is on a steady course. “There’s nothing I can think of that isn’t already under way or in hand.”
Nicholas Brendon
Like a surprising number of actors, such as Jack Wagner and Dean Cain, Nicholas Brendon actually started out wanting to be a professional athlete. Nicholas—called Nicky by friends and family—grew up dreaming of being a baseball player. His goal was to play ball in college and, hopefully, get signed with a big-league team.
But first he had to get through high school. Nicholas and his identical twin brother Kelly were born April 12, 1971, in Los Angeles. They have two younger brothers, Christian and Kyle. Unlike co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas did not attend private school. Instead he was educated at public schools.
“I went to L.A. Unified, which was a very scary experience,” Brendon says, referring to the notoriously troubled Los Angeles school district. “I learned a lot of lessons but it was a horrible experience. High school isn’t really great to many people. It’s like a mandatory prison sentence. In Israel they make you join the army, in America we go to high school.”
The normally traumatic high school experience wasn’t made any easier by Nicholas’s introverted tendencies and a terrible stutter that plagued him throughout his youth. “The sad thing is, there is no cure for it. I will always have a stutter. In fact, it still comes up to this day, when I am at auditions or speaking in front of a group of people. I just hide it better now. But rehearsing and practice definitely changed it. I feel really fortunate. I think having a stutter is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a young kid. I was very shy in high school. I wouldn’t even talk to people.”
The experience remains a vivid one for Nicky, which is why he has spent time volunteering for the Stuttering Foundation of America. “We’ve gotten a lot of letters,” Brendon said on the WB.com Web site. “I guess it reached out and touched a lot of people.”
Because he was so shy, Nicholas says, “One of the scariest things about going to high school was dealing with girls. My first kiss happened in eighth grade but it was awful because our friends were spying on us. I was so embarrassed at being caught that I had to break up with the girl and that started a long dry spell.”
Once he was through with high school, Nicholas went on to college, but his plans for a baseball career ended abruptly after he broke his elbow while playing. Adding to that disappointment were problems at home.
“I went through a rough time back in my early twenties,” he explains. “My parents were going through a divorce. I felt really lost. One night I went to the backyard, and I was talking to God, asking for direction, and acting was the answer I got. That was pretty terrifying, because I was not a confident kid. I had a stutter. I had ears that stuck out, and acne. I was definitely not cut out for acting. The thing is, even though I was shy in school, with my family I was the entertainer and I loved making everyone laugh so I decided to chance it. So I just talked to God because talking in front of one person, much less thousands of people, terrified me. But I just decided to take the challenge.”
Acting was a family business, of sorts—his mom is an agent. “My mom sent me out on stuff, so that was a help. My first job was in a Clearasil commercial.”
Although he appeared in the play Out of Gas on Lovers’ Leap at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1991, he still needed to scramble to support himself. So while he waited to get back in front of the cameras, Nicholas worked behind the scenes, which ultimately led to his first break in prime time.
“What happened was, I was a production assistant on the sitcom Dave’s World and they allowed me to audition for a guest spot—and I got it. After I taped the episode, they fired me as a PA, but told me they really liked my acting and that I should pursue it full-time. That was pretty much where it started.”
Other small parts in television and movies followed, such as being cast as “Basketball Player 1” in the 1994 feature-film gorefest Children of the Corn III, and making appearances on The Young and the Restless and Married … With Children. Nicholas continued to be active in theater and starred in Los Angeles productions of The Further Adventures of Tom Sawyer and My Own Private Hollywood, both Equity Waiver productions, in which the theater is required to have ninety-nine seats or less, and paying the actors is optional.
But an odd job here and there, especially in small theater productions, is not enough to pay the bills. At this point Brendon really was just acting for the love of it. His first big chance to break through came when he was cast in the television pilot Secret Lives, but the show—which presented dramatizations of real-life marriages—was not picked up as a series. “I also turned down a part because of nudity once,” he says. “It was one of the Friday the 13th movies, something like part eight or nine. That was a line I wouldn’t cross.”
Although acting had become Nicholas’s passion, he also realized he couldn’t stay an unemployed actor forever. “There was a time in my life when I almost gave up acting completely,” Nicholas admits. “I gave myself one year and told my family that if my career still hadn’t gone anywhere, I would quit and go back to college and study medicine.”
The year had almost gone by and Nicholas was still praying for his big break while waiting tables at Kate Mantilini restaurant, a longtime celebrity hangout known for its mashed potatoes, located on the edge of Beverly Hills. Then his agent set up an audition for a series being cast at the WB called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
“I was surprised they were making the movie into a show,” Brendon admits, “and then pleasantly surprised when I read the script. The writing was so intelligent. I really have to thank Joss for hiring me because I don’t know where I’d be if he hadn’t.”
After filming the episodes, Nicholas—now more financially stable—went home to the Hollywood Hills home he shared with his brother, and waited for the series to air. He passed the time going to auditions, reading, and playing his guitar while sitting on the balcony in his rocking chair. Then, once Buffy debuted to rave critical reviews, Nicholas soon found himself a new TV heartthrob. At fan events, girls and women lined up to flirt and it made him a little uneasy. “It’s weird to hear myself referred to as being hot or cute because I don’t see myself that way. It makes me feel really shy.”
But Nicholas seems to genuinely enjoy interacting with fans. At one fan-fest gathering during the first season, Nicky even treated the cheering crowd to an impromptu exhibition of Xander’s gyrating dance moves. Overall, except for the time he was groped by an overzealous fan, Brendon enjoys interacting with Buffy fans. “Fans are the main reason I do what I do,” he told WB.com. “I have been given this opportunity to reach out to a lot of people. And I love being able to entertain somebody, even if it’s only for a few minutes; someone who otherwise might be having a really bad day.”
The first few seasons the show was on the air, Kelly Brendon says he was frequently mistaken for his brother. “As we get older, we’re starting to look different. Even our faces are changing a little bit. But people still mistake me for Nick. If a little kid comes up, I say, ‘Yeah.’ But if an adult comes up and asks me if I’m the guy on Buffy, then I say, ‘No, we’re twins,’ although once people threw French fries and napkins at me when they didn’t believe me.” Kelly has appeared in Buffy as
the confident half of Xander’s personality in “The Replacement” and has also worked as his lighting double.
Unlike Xander, who left Anya at the altar, Nicky has no fear of long-term commitment. On September 1, 2001, he married actress Tressa DiFiglia at her parents’ ranch in Carlsbad, California, in front of three hundred guests. “It was just an awesome wedding. I can’t describe how great it is, how I wasn’t even alive before I met her.”
Unlike his co-stars, Brendon hasn’t made the jump into much film work. Psycho Beach Party was a film-festival favorite but earned less than $2 million at the box office. Nicky and Tressa spent a month during the summer before the wedding in Europe, rather than on a set. “I like my sanity so I’d rather not sit in a trailer for three months during my time off,” Nicky says. “But I would love to get my hands on a decent script sometime soon. It’s tough, but they are out there. Ultimately I would like to do a dramatic, emotional film. I have a lot of that inside if me, and that would be a great way to get it out.”
He’s also thankful that Buffy came along when it did, because he’s the first to admit that even had he gone back to college to pursue a different career, his heart would have been elsewhere. “If I wasn’t acting, I’d be wishing I was acting. What I’ve learned is that if you want to do something, do it. The last thing you want is to be forty and be saying, ‘I wish I had done that.’ To me, acting is a blessing and I hope to be able to entertain people for as long as I possibly can.”
Alyson Hannigan
Sometimes it’s hard for fans to separate the actor from the character. While Willow may prefer to spend her time behind a computer or trying to expand herself spiritually—especially since flaying a human alive—Alyson Hannigan is much more of an earthy spitfire.
Case in point: During the filming of American Pie 2, she was annoyed to find out the male actors were spending much of their off-time at local exotic-dancer clubs without asking the girls to join in the fun. “The boys are the boys and they really have their little group and they didn’t invite the girls to the strip club, so I was in my trailer reading,” she recalls. “I like going to strip clubs. They’re fun. I think most of my birthday parties have been at a strip club. They have the best music there.”
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