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"The
thing is," says James "everyone really enjoys working
with each other. It's past a happy set. It's like daycamp!" JM
"In
college they told me I'd run into a bunch of whiny people (in L.A.),
but I've been fortunate. There are no spoiled stars around here.
Sarah is a complete professional and a wonderful person. People
are so happy to come to work each day and are proud of the work
they do." - JM
"They
are a very tight crew who work hard and are really an inch away
from burning out. They spend half their time on location which is
harder to shoot than working on a soundstage [like Buffy] and they
shoot the living hell out of scenes. Television has a language of
shots, a master shot, over the shoulder, close-ups, but the Millennium
crew shoot so many angles they get twice the footage most shows
do. It was like shooting two hours of television for a one hour
show." - JM
"Buffy
is so much better than any [feature] script I've gotten so far.
I'll read the new Buffy episode and it's brilliant, and then read
these movies and think, 'I don't need that, why step down?' That's
the thing. I came to LA to make a good chunk of money and then go
back and do theater. I didn't want to die poor. I wanted to have
something in savings first, and Buffy has given that to me." -
JM
"Sarah
is unbelievable. Juliet [Landau], who plays Dru, and I were in our
eighth episode and we didn't have director's chairs. The problem
is that if you don't have one of those you don't have anywhere to
sit. So, finally, Sarah said, 'I'll pay for them. Get them some
chairs.' Basically, she makes 22 one hour movies a year and she
always knows her lines. She's in almost every shot. I can't say
enough about her. I like her a lot as a person and a co-worker." -
JM
"I
miss Juliet [Landau] very much. We had a really good working relationship
and I thought the stuff we came up with was very interesting." -
JM
"Joss
said, 'I would never put you out there without a net. Of course
I don't know if logistics will back me up on that, but sure.' I
think he was kidding. He loves to make jokes that make actors insecure;
he thinks it's really funny. He loves to say, 'By the way, you're
fired,' and then he gets a chuckle out of it. Then he says, 'Every
time I say that to an actor, they never laugh.' 'That's because
it's really not funny, Joss.' No security whatsoever. What's wrong
with a boss that gets a chuckle out of making you think that any
minute you could get fired? He's sick, but that's why he's so good
and why he's a genius, I guess. David Greenwalt is off his rocker,
too, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It keeps things exciting." by
Charisma Carpenter (Cordilia Chase) in SFX Magazine (found at To
Shanshu In L.A.)
"I
haven't had as much time filming with the other members of the cast
as you might think," he says. "I'm kind of a newbie on
the set.. It's my fourth year and I'm still the newbie! I have
much
more time off of the set with the cast members than on the set.
And it is such a fun set to work on, but a hard-working one. We
have fun getting it done, but at the same time, if you get off
the
set and you go to the trailers, it's a madhouse. A madhouse in
a good way! Like Pee Wee's Playhouse." JM
(TEXT)
"Tony
Head is the absolute bomb as an actor," enthuses Marsters.
"He is effortless. He is able to give weight to a line without
doing much. He's kind of like Anthony Hopkins that way. Most actors
when they try to be serious, lower their voice and speak in a way
that lets everyone know they should be taken seriously. Tony doesn't
do any of that. It's his job to tell us who the villain is, where
they came from and why we're supposed to care. Exposition is the
heavy lifting. Any stage actor who has that horrible first scene
in the first act, sometimes the second, is potentially boring because
the plot hasn't started yet. Nothing is really happening. It's
back
information, but Tony just hoists that every week effortlessly."
JM (TEXT)
Read
more about what JM thinks about David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle
Gellar
"And
how is working with Michelle Trachtenberg in the Dawn scenes different
from working with Sarah Michelle Gellar?
They're different people. Sarah is a machine. Sarah doesn't
know this, but she's actually a method actor. She is the biggest
combination of method acting but also with the proficiency of the
other side that I've ever seen. She's able to switch gears very
quickly which I'm not. I tend to live in the reality while we shoot.
She can flip in and out. Michelle is a very talented actor who's
still keeping her eyes open. But they're very similar [in that]
you don't realize how much they're doing until they see it on film.
They're very subtle." JM (TEXT)
Question:
I believe SMG is really short - does that make any kissing
or fighting scenes difficult?
JM: No.
Not at all. It's just that she makes me look tall... which, you
know, I love that! When she was paired opposite Angel and Riley,
she had to stand on an apple box to kiss. Also, Marc Blucas is
a
very handsome guy but because when you shoot from each character's
perspective, but when you shoot Marc, you shoot from Buffy's perspective,
which is right up Marc's nose! So, he's like, "My nostrils!
there's my big nostrils again!" He hated that because it's
called being shot high-to-low and it makes you look taller. They
often shoot me high-to-low to make me look taller... oh, by the
way, I am 6'5". (laughs hysterically) Yeah, but they have
to accentuate even that enormous height.
(The
Realm)
Question:
Do
you think it's a little weird that David Boreanaz is scared of chickens?
Does anyone else in the cast have weird phobias?
JM:
I
didn't believe that David was scared of chickens. Someone mentioned
it to me and I thought it was a joke! I did not know that. You
say
that Emma [Caulfield] told you that she tied frozen chickens to
David and made him cry? I would never tie chickens to David. I
love
him too much. I mean, I would never really have thought to tie
chickens to him anyway, but now I know that I will really steer
away from
it. Of the rest of the cast, Sarah doesn't really particularly
like graveyards. It makes it tough. She has to overcome a real
fear every
time we shoot graveyards... which is all the time. That is my definition
of courage, overcoming fear and the hero is not a hero because
he
doesn't feel fear, that's an idiot. A hero is someone who is afraid
and acts anyway so she heros it up every Friday night when the
tombstones
are out and we're walking around. She has to get buried under earth
sometimes in a graveyard where the decomposing bodies have been
seeping into the soil for hundreds of years. It's a freaky thing.
(laughs and shakes his head). chickens.
"David
[Boreanaz] and Sarah [Michelle Gellar] are not ego-driven as actors,"
he defines. "They care about the work. They don't like to
screw around; they like to have fun working, which is what I like.
I do
have enormous fun working, and if I feel we're just screwing around
and telling jokes I get antsy. I think a lot of people take their
cue from a lead in a series and if the lead is a good actor, if
the lead is professional, turns up on time, knows their lines,
then
the work becomes focused. What struck me more than anything was
the professionalism on both sets.
"I'll tell you a story about David. In the episode I was in
he was actually chained up [in the studio] for 15 hours. Right before
that he had been rushed to the emergency room because he got rear-ended
on the freeway. Somebody hit him at 50 miles an hour. The man would
not admit to being in pain. He is like a stunt guy; he could have
his ribs broken and he would say, 'I'm fine, let's get this shot'.
That's David in a nutshell; I only knew he was really in pain because
I saw him wince when he thought no one was looking at him." JM (The
Realm)
"I've
enjoyed working with these people enormously, especially Tony
Head,
who I consider to be one of the better actors that America has
right now. We would do well to keep him around and not let him
go back
to England. He's really fabulous!"
"If you are fighting Buffy or kissing her, you know you are
in the middle of things!" reasons Marsters. "Getting to
kiss Buffy was great. I got the script and went, 'Oh my God!' The
problem was I was still smoking cigarettes at the time and Sarah
hates smokers' mouths. So I was feverishly brushing my teeth in
my trailer at all times." JM (The
Realm)
Question: Joss mentioned last night that when he was directing
tomorrow's episode, it was very terrifying. What is your view on
it?
JM: I think it was a profoundly brave thing to
do. One of the strongest things about the show is the dialogue.
He is one of the best writers
of dialogue I have ever worked with, and to completely abandon
that is the mark of an artist that will be around for a long time.
I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard it is remarkable. I think
artists who challenge themselves and go in different directions
are the ones to watch. (Source)
"The
thing that I appreciated about Joss Whedon before Hush was the dialogue,"
says Marsters. "I think you'd have to go back to the 1930s
to find dialogue that sparkles like that, frankly. Something interesting
is said with such frequency on the show that you, in fact, miss
a lot of it. It starts to bubble and has effervescence; right on
the heel of something interesting, something else happens.
"I thought that was the man's strength. I think he showed everybody
that he has a lot more in his pouch of tricks than just the dialogue.
He knows that the show is known for the dialogue and the quipping
so he went, 'Hey, let me flush it! Let's just drop it and show
you what I can do without it'."
Given that there were actually few words spoken in Hush, was
the script noticeably shorter than the rest?
"Oh no, " Marsters corrects. "There was actually
a lot of description of exactly what is happening every second.
The same kind of care that was in the language was in there. Joss
is very specific." JM
(The
Realm)
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