Interview parue dans le numéro 288 (juillet 2002) du magazine britannique Starburst. Interview principalement consacrée à Scooby-Doo mais il y a quelques remarques sur la saison 6 de Buffy. Rien de spoilant.
Jinkies! Scooby-Doo, the world's favourite cowardly hero, has gained a dimension and bounded onto the big screen. Here, Graeme Fowler talks to a dog's best friend, Matthew Lillard and Sarah Michelle Gellar, aka Norville 'Shaggy' Rogers and Daphne Blake...
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THE LONG-AWAITED live action movie of Scooby-Doo opened earlier this month in the US, wowing the crowds and breaking box office records. Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, takes the role of Daphne, the sexy yet sassy red-head, and Scream star Matthew Lillard plays snack-loving hippy wimp Shaggy. The movie opens in the. UK on July 12, so what surprises can we look forward to from the ghost-hunting Mystery gang?
Was It fun, Sarah, to be playing Scooby-Doo's damsel in distress after so many years of girl power in Buffy?
Gellar: Yes, it was. As an actor, you always want to do things that are different and Daphne was about as different - without travelling back in time - as I think you can get from playing Buffy. So, it was a great joy. At the same time, however, Scooby-Doo is one of the longest-running cartoon series ever and there's a certain amount of pressure that comes with honouring that. There are fans out there dying to say, "Well, that's not what Scooby would do" or "That's not how Shaggy would walk."
Lillard: We're all really excited to be a part of this film, especially at the time it's coming out and the amount of support that Warner Brothers has given. It feels good to be a part of a movie that people are excited to see and that we're all proud of. And for me personally it's certainly the biggest movie opportunity I've ever had, and quite frankly, I didn't want to screw it up!
In the movie you have some serlous-looking stunts. Was that a challenge?
Gellar: As an actor, you want to be able to use your skills in different ways. It was definitely difficult to learn the wire routines. I have never worked with the wires in that sort of realm before. They brought in a Hong Kong wire team and your initial thing you're trying to get over is the language barrier. You're trying to learn something that could really be life threatening and at the same time you don't even understand what they're saying to you. So that posed the first difficulty. Once I understood that when they said "girl" they meant me, then I moved forward and started to learn the tricks.
Lillard: That was an interesting time, because while we were shooting a bunch of stuff, for a month Sarah was with the Hong Kong wire team. The sequence was only about five minutes long but it took a whole month's work.
What was it like working with a CGI Scooby, a sidekick who isn't even there?
Lillard: Well, that's certainly the biggest challenge I've ever tackled in my career. So much of acting is the chemistry, the connection between two people. You look at the classic comic teams, Abott and Costello or Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, and it's all about timing. When you're working with somebody that's not there, you're continually throwing energy into a void and having to rely a lot on your imagination more so than I've ever had to do before. But the great thing is that we had a director, Raja Gosnell, that had a vision and such skill that you could put your faith in him completely.
How long did it take you to get Shaggy's voice right?
Lillard: I worked hard and took the whole thing very seriously. I hired two people whom I've worked with for the last five years, and they locked themselves in a dance studio for two weeks and started to break down the character. The challenge was to make a one-dimensional cartoon guy into a three-dimensional person, and how to get the walk and how to do the voice. It was basically a lot of trial and error in front of a mirror.
You say three-dimensional, but the other actors said they embraced the 'one-dimensionality' of their roles.
Lillard: Well, yes, there's a lot of that. Certainly my character is all eat-a-lot and run-for-your-life! So, that's nice as an actor because it's very specific as to your objectives. That was fun, but in the cartoon you never see Shaggy fall in love or get into a fist fight with Scooby and then make up again. Those elements were the challenges. It was easy to know how to run for your life. It was more difficult to know how to fall in love with Mary Jane.
Gellar: I'm definitely more in the Matthew camp. When you sign up for a project, a lot of actors will start working on their character from the outside in. What do I look like? What do I sound like? How do I dress? How do I walk? What are my mannerisms? These things are all predetermined for us, which can be tricky. How do you then take what is this one-dimensional character and make it believable? You have to give them real human characteristics. That was specifically difficult for me in the sense that Daphne is the most underdeveloped character in the cartoon. She gets kidnapped and likes Fred - and that's pretty much it!
The characters don't change their clothes very often. Didn't you get sick of wearing the same outfits?
Gellar: At the start I was totally adamant that Daphne needed to not be in one outfit the whole time. I took it to the other extreme and thought it'd be great if she changed in every single scene. Raja said, "No way!" And I said, "To have Daphne in a different outfit for every occasion and always looking perfect, that's part of who she is." I worked very hard with Lisa Evans, the costume designer, to find all these different concepts for outfits, because, again, it was one way for me to humanise her.
Lillard: It was very funny because I sat down with Lisa Evans for my costume fitting and it was the complete opposite. Shaggy stays exactly the same. He wears the same shirt, the same pants, the same shoes for the whole movie. So there I was, six months later, going, "I'm wearing this shirt again? I don't wanna wear it any more!"
Gellar: When we started filming in my miniscule outfits, it was summer in Australia and I would laugh at Linda Cardellini [who plays Velma] and Freddie Prinze Jr [who plays Fred] going, "Ha-ha, you guys are wearing your sweaters. It's 90 degrees and I'm nice and cool." That one came back to haunt me when six months later it was winter and we're doing all the outside scenes and it's 15 degrees and I'm still wearing the same little miniskirt and go-go boots while they had their nice warm sweaters. A good lesson I learned on this film, don't make fun of your cast-mate's costume!
What did you think of Freddie Prinze Jr. as a blond?
Gellar: I think he looked like Fred Jones and I think it was great that he had to get his hair coloured every eight days and I didn't have to get my hair colored once that whole production. Which sure makes a change from being Buffy!
Whose decision was it to move Daphne on from the helpless heroine in the film?
Gellar: In the cartoon she always gets captured. The thing is, why? Why doesn't she ever get to help out more? Why doesn't Velma ever get captured and Daphne come up with the plan? So I think when James Gunn [the scriptwriter] and Raja were coming up with ideas, it was important to give Daphne a new voice. It starts out she's just your typical Daphne, kind of a whiner, and she feels very useless in the group. Throughout the movie I hope you see how, like a lot of young girls, she finds her place.
Did you get a buzz from making a kids' movie?
Gellar: Family films are so important and Hollywood has a tendency not to really pay attention to them. First of all, children are our theatre-going audience of tomorrow - they're uur future ticket buyers. You have to instill a love of going to the movies in them. I remember being five or six and seeing ET or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and just falling in love. To have movies where the entire family can go together is such a healthy thing.
Lillard: I will never forget walking out of my trailer on the first day of filming and one of the crewmembers had brought his son and daughter. It was the first time that I was actually in full wardrobe, full hair and ready to go into Shaggy mode. I walked out and these two kids were looking at me. I said, "Like, man, have you seen Scooby-Doo?" These kids with their big eyes were like, "No." The look on their face was so cool it made it seem so worthwhile.
So, are you ready to be Shaggy for the next six months wherever you go?
Lillard: I hope it's only for six months. If so, I'm really lucky. There's a good chance for the rest of my life, anywhere I go, it's going to be, "Shaggy! Do Shaggy!" I'm going to charge them a quarter a time!
And what about Scooby-Doo 2?
Lillard: I'm just happy I didn't die in this one! We may actually get a sequel for once. I think that we all look at it and realise it depends if people buy the tickets. We're hoping that they will. We're all holding out and praying for a sequel, but we try not to put the cart before the horse.
In the meantime, are there any more Horror movie projects in the pipeline?
Lillard: I've actually only made two Horror films; Thir13en Ghosts and Scream. They just happen to also be the two most successful movies I've ever done. I do like Horror films. I like big, exciting things. The horror genre really fits my bill and floats my boat. Having said that, I don't seek them out and I don't think I'll do one again for a long time. It took me five years to do one after Scream, so hopefully it'll take five more years to find the next decent one.
Sarah, would you do another Horror film?
Gellar: Absolutely! Sometimes Horror really does offer the best parts and the most juice. There's always comedy in them now, so you get that aspect too. There's always some sort of action, whether you're running away or falling down stairs or fighting back. You usually get a part you can really get your teeth into.
Is there anything you're looking forward to exploring next season on Buffy?
Gellar: I feel like we've been very dark in the past two years and I understand the thinking behind it. Maybe it was hard for me to relate to because I never went through that period of being 20-something and graduating from college and not knowing what I wanted to do in life. I happen to like Buffy better when she's a little lighter and funnier and when the storyline revolves around the central cast. So I think we're going to be moving back to a little bit more fun in Buffy soon and enjoy more of the comic episodes. Sometimes I think that's where the heart of the show lies. I'm looking forward to getting back to that kind of feel; something a little more like the early days.
The rumour keeps resurfacing that Britney Spears is going to be in Buffy...
Gellar: No, that's not true at all. It's really funny because somebody showed me a bunch of Internet rumours the other day and every single one was untrue. Unfortunately, it's hard to govern certain aspects of the Internet and so once something is put out there, it's often taken as fact without actually being fact.
Still, doesn't the Internet play a big part in helping market Buffy?
Gellar: Our true fans that have been on the Internet and on the website and helped keep our show on the air, we are so grateful to them. In a way that's what makes our show cool- we love the fact that we're sort of the underdog. At least I do. I shouldn't talk for the producers because they disagree with me on the subject of awards, but I love the fact that we never win any awards. We do our show for the people that watch it, not for a voting panel we've never met.
What's next for you in your careers?
Lillard: I think certainly being on stage is a rush that I've never quite topped. Doing theatre is something that, for me, adds the balance to my career. You do a movie like Scooby-Doo and that satisfies financial responsibilities and career ambitions. Then you go off and do a play where you're speaking great words and you're on stage and there's a relationship between you and a group of people. It's hard to explain, but it's certainly one of the greatest feelings ever.
Gellar: My life is really good as it is. I have nothing to complain about. I have a great job, I have a great family, I have a great fiancé. I'm very happy. And if I get tired, there's always caffeine, so it all works out pretty well!