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Saturday, Oct 11, 2008
"Buffy" creator Joss Whedon talks about why Buffy and Angel couldn't be together, how Willow might have stayed straight, and the end of the series that redefined cult TV.
May 20, 2003 | Not many people can create a cult phenomenon, and few of those set out to do it from the start, so fans of Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" may be forgiven for suspecting the writer/director of possessing superpowers rivaling those of his famous heroine. It would be exaggerating to say that his statements are studied like the utterances of the Oracle of Delphi, but let's just say that after seven years as the genius behind the Buffy universe, Whedon has learned to measure his words carefully.
Salon reached Whedon at his office in Los Angeles a few days before the May 20 broadcast of the final "Buffy" episode. We wanted him to answer a few of our own lingering questions about "Buffy" and perhaps to spill a few hints about the future -- for the "Buffy" characters and for Whedon himself.
How do you think longtime fans of the show will feel about the final episode on May 20?
It will make some people happy, it will make some of them angry, and if people aren't crying at least a couple of times during it, we won't have done our job.
Buffy started out seven years ago as a new kind of hero, one that broke the traditional masculine mold. Instead of deciding that her destiny sets her apart from regular people even though she devotes herself to protecting them, she was always determined to have a life. But lately, she's been acting a lot more like an old-fashioned male hero.
This last season has been about that, taking the idea of how the Slayer is different from other people and really exploring it. The last episode is in fact about that very issue. Part of that has to do with where we want to go with the message of the season, which is really contained in the last episode, deal with the idea of separateness. And honestly, some of that comes from the actors. Ultimately there always had been some separation between the star and the ensemble. You find that bleeds into your storytelling. The way that Giles got hipper and Willow got sexier. Because that's who [the actors] were. You live with these people and interact with them for the past seven years and that starts to creep in. The whole "I'm a stalwart hero who does the job" sort of came from Sarah [Michelle Gellar] a bit.
It also came from "I've come back from the dead!" This is no small thing, no coming out of the shower. You don't buy that back cheaply. Whereas last year Buffy went to a place of dark questioning, which is very much not Sarah, this year was about "OK, I have this power that sort of separates me from the rest of the world," which in a weird way is the life of a star.
She's also dealing with authority, too, how hard it is to be in charge.
That's just me. Everybody has been in a similar position in one way or another, but a lot of that [groaning] "Hey, being in charge is really hard!" is me, whingeing.
Was being in charge harder than you thought it was going to be back when, as a screenwriter and script doctor working on movies like "Speed" and "Toy Story," you weren't in charge?
No, actually, it was a little easier. When you're in charge you really get to do things your way, and ultimately it's better than the other thing. But having said that, it is not a small amount of responsibility and sometimes the weight of it ... the weight of "I need this to be as good as it can be and I need it to send the message I want to send and serve as what the fans want and need, and I need to do that 22 times a year -- no, wait, 44 times a year." There is a great pressure that nobody else is feeling. At the same time, nobody else is feeling the total grand plan. Everybody sees a portion of it. But ultimately most of it has to be seen by me, the panorama, and that changes your relationships. And that's something we explored with Faith. When Faith became the leader of Buffy's group, she had to become the leader. It's different from, "Hey, I'll just run things for a while."
That said, everything in my power is done to show off other people as much as possible and to share power -- and to get out of things.
You're known for having that master plan, for having mapped out the whole arc of the story, not just within a season, but also from season to season. But there must have been changes to that plan over the years, stuff you couldn't help or that you realized as you went along would be better if you did it another way. What were some of the big changes from your master plan?
The master plan does not have a master plan. Television ultimately finds itself, and after it finds itself, it finds itself changing. I'd have a year plotted out, maybe two years in advance. And I had the major points that I knew I needed to hit and they would serve as anchors and we'd get from one to the next, and that was great. But the rest you deliberately don't have a master plan for, because you don't know what's going to happen. Apparently people seem to be responding to this Boreanaz fellow [David, the actor who plays Angel]. Apparently Seth [Green, who plays Oz] is gone. Apparently this villain isn't working out and this one's popping like crazy. You need to improvise, you always need to.
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