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:: MAYBE SHE'S BORN WITH IT ::

"It would be great if, when the show's over, it segued into great big movies starring my kids!"

What's the secret of Buffy's power? Magic? Make-up? No, it's the genius of her creator, writer, actor and director, Joss Whedon. We took him out for a few drinks. And then a few more...

* * * * * * * *

Is Joss whedon a vampire? If not, then why, on this brisk LA summer night, are both of his hands swaddled in gauze bandages? And why does he give the excuse of "sunlight" by way of explaining his injuries?

"Well, there were limes involved too," Whedon continues criptycally. It turns out that he has fallen victim to a common American summer tragedy: the photo-reaction of lime juice and sunlight. While mixing tunz, Whedon found himself resembling Spike on a sunny day. "It was like the set from Logan's Run was on my hands. The dome city. I had enormous boils!" Cupping a drink between tender palms, Whedon motions to a quiet corner of this LA poolside where conversation, and alcohol, can flow freely.

So Joss, when's the Buffy movie coming? "It would be great to do a movie. I would love to do a movie." Whedon pauses dramatically, then yells, "I'm NEVER gonna do a movie while the show's on the air." Why? "Because I don't want to do a glorified and put it on the screen. And the show is so hard to make anyway. You know, the movie is just next week's episode. We literally think of it like that. And they're two different entities and they don't co-exist. I think it would be really cool if, after the show's over, it segued into great big movies starring my kids. But at the same time, as I do every year, I will finish the year as though I'm never gonna make another one. Just in case."

It's been a matter of intense disappointment among fans of Whedon's work that he was not nominated for an Emmy Award this year, even though many fans consider this year's submitted episode The Body superior to last year's nominated episode, Hush. "Well, what happened last year was we sent Hush out early," Whedon explains. "This year, everybody sent their shit out early. Last year they sent it in a package that didn't say it was Buffy and that seemed to help people to give it a chance, to avoid preconceptions. This year they did the same, but it arrived at a time when every person on the selection panel received another 400 tapes. So they got one where they couldn't tell what it was. So why would they watch it? I get the thinking behind it, you know, but it didn't cause people to watch it." He looks thoughtful. "Or maybe they just didn't respond to it."

Another issue far fans is that UPN - the network that now holds the rights to broadcast Buffy - and the WB, who still air Angel, have forbidden any crossovers by characters from one series to the other.

"Well let me tell you something," Whedon says. "They may be harsh about crossovers right now. And I get it, because Buffy had an acrimonious parting from the WB. Maybe they're ruled out for now. I assumed that they were, and l'm not working towards them. l'm sorta glad because I want the shows to stand on their own. Crossovers are not that important to me, we do them when they're fun, or convenient. but they can become old."

Which spells trouble far Willow, right? When we last saw her, she was waiting to tell Angel about Buffy's death." That scene was in there far a long time, long before this whole thing happened. The show picks up three months later, as always. It doesn't pick up at the end of that conversation. It was never an issue for me. Willow just stopped by one day three months ago. You get it. You move on. We are picking up three months later and finding out how Angel reacted to the news - how everybody reacted. And how Fred is back in the real world and all that stuff, so we're just picking everybody up."

One option UPN might accept was if a certain set of actors defected from Buffy to Angel permanently. "Well," Whedon begins apprehensively. "What they're talking about is people like Harmony who have appeared on both. And they want them. So it's not like somebody's pulling up stakes. No, they're like, if Harmony's gonna be on Angel, we don't want her on Buffy. I guess that's what they're saying. And we've heard that, but I think that will soften later. It doesn't really bother me. I can choose one or the other. Harmony works everywhere you put her. I love he. She's just great!"

More drinks are delivered. New topic. Chris Carter has said that sometimes he'll just throw a curveball into the plot of The X Files, and let the writers deal with the fallout in subsequent episodes. "I don't do that," Whedon says. "I do stuff that is either self contained or means something. But every once in a while you go back to something you thought was a one-off, and you go 'Oh shit, we can use that!' The fact that Willow's vampire self happened to be kinda gay wasn't planned. It's not like we hadn't talked about it, of course, but at that point, Vampires just seemed to have polymorphous sexuality, and that's what we were playing when we made that funny joke. We've killed the vampire Willow twice, but god, I wanna see her again. She's so cool!"

Speaking of Willow, will we see her ex-boyfriend Oz again? What is the level of Seth Green's involvement with Buffy these days? "You know, Seth walked out on us," Whedon admits tiredly. "He bailed on us. He said, 'I don't wanna do this anymore' and left. And you know, I like Seth - he's a good guy, he's very professional and fun to work with. Maybe he felt his character was being underused, and you know it was kind of one of those situations where we were trying to find how to work a character who is by nature very taciturn and silent - we were sort of struggling with it. And I did feel like we wanted to give him more opportunities. And then he turns around and says he's leaving. And I was like, 'Doesn't he have a contract?!' But he left, and we sort of scrambled to fix that. And when he said 'I'll do a couple more episodes', and we said that he should come back at the end of the year and we can do a thing, and he's like, 'Actually, I just wanna come back for one, I don't wanna do more than that.' So I said, okay, so that one's gonna be about how Willow loves Tara and not YOU ! I realised I only got him for the one, so I had to resolve that plot. And I was pissed. But he showed up for his spot in the dream episode, Restless, which was nice. You know, the thing is, if Seth had wanted to do the show we'd have used him. He's a wonderful actor and a fascinating character. But he bailed on our asses, he really did, and we had to scramble. And out of the heavens came Amber Benson."

Speaking of whom, it was great that she got her brain back in the season finale! Joss laughs. "My lesbian friends were hassling me up to the end of the season, 'Now when Glory dies,' they'd say, 'All the crazy people get their brains back, right?! They were so fucking happy!" he laughs.

Some people who were less happy were the girls and boys with a crush on Marc Blucas' Riley, last seen heading off in a helicopter to return to life as a soldier. Whedon says he would have him back if he could get some time in Blucas' hectic schedule. "He's making Kevin Smith movies, Mel Gibson movies, Gwyneth Paltrow movies. You know, everybody should go to the Mutant Enemy School of Acting. All our esteemed graduates are film stars!

Yet another cocktail arrives, and the conversation changes tack again. Rumour continues to link Whedon's name with a fifth Alien movie, does he have any comment on that? "Did you see Alien Resurrection?" Whedon scoffs. "What was the problem there? I'Il tell you what the problem was. It was because Jean-Pierre Jeunet is the most unimaginative director l've ever seen. I could teach film with that movie, about how not to make movies. It was the most unimaginative directing I have ever seen. It was bad on every single level it could be bad on. Worst experience of my life. I was wanting to bomb France afterwards, it was so terrible. Alien Resurrection! I call it Alien: We Bury the Franchise.

"l'll tell you, I would make Alien 5," continues Whedon, gathering steam. "And I would make it with Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder if I knew they would let me make it. Period. l'm not interested in making something that 19 other people have a piece of."

"I will never ever ever, ever ever EVER, write another movie that I don't direct. But just so we're clear, that's ever, EVER, write another film that I don't direct. Not after Alien Resurrection,Titan AE and X-Men all in a row. That's also why my new deal with Fox is only a TV deal. You know, you think you're somebody when you're making TV. And then you go into the movies, and you realize that you're a tiny floating turd in the world of movies.

"But the Alien franchise fascinates me. So I'll never not be interested. But no, I don't have any plans to do it. I wanna publish a book: The Endings of Alien 4. I wrote FOUR. Count them! Four! Completely different endings, all of which took place on Earth. They ranged from 15 to 30 pages long. I wrote one set in a forest, I wrote one set in a junkyard. I wrote one set in a desert, I wrote one set in a maternity ward. They all took place on Earth. They came to me and said they needed this. And I did them all for that damned movie. Then they said 'Sorry, we don't have enough money to go to Earth'! And it the only reason that I wrote that movie, is so we could go to Earth. Then they went and made every mistake they could possibly make."

Whedon looks out into the night. "I really must be going, " he says, standing unsteadily. He makes it about ten feet across the pool area before he turns, laughing and adds: "I swear to God, I' m going to do a lecture series on that movie. It would be an absolute masterclass on what not to do. It would make me a fortune."

:: QUICKFIRE ::

- How long can the show go on?

The cast and writers are capable of so much, and the writers have so many ideas - and I have so many ideas - so potentially we could run for a way, way long time. But eventually there will come a burnout. Eventually we won't be able to make it. Contracts aren't really the point. It's all down to our energy and ideas, in reality.

- Anthony Stewart Head is leaving. Will you bring in another watcher?

Anthony will be on the show on a recurring basis. We'll be bringing him back a lot because we love him. But the point of this season is that these kids are now entering the grown-up'world. And, of course, they will handle it just as badly as possible. I want that void. So, no, we won't be bringing in another watcher.

- What will we see with the relationship between Willow and Tara?

The one thing you can expect from any of the relationships on the show... trouble. The course of true love never does run smooth, or the show would get really boring. But the relationship is a big part of the show, and it's a big part of next season.

- And what about Xander and Anya?

I will say nothing.

- Creatively, can you do more on UPN than on the WB?

The WB never really hindered us from doing the show we wanted to do. We had some back and forth with them about certain scenes and certain ideas, but it was always a collaboration. UPN stepped in and said, "Make the show the way you've been making it." And I'm not interested in pushing boundaries of smut or gore or anything like that. I'm interested in doing what we've been doing, which is sometimes dark and sometimes disturbing and sometimes sexy, but never, ever exploitative.

- How can you bring back Buffy? Dallas had a backlash after trying the same trick with Bobby.

No. Dallas was lame. That was not a good show and that was a really silly solution - to make it a dream. You have to, as always, make the characters feel the way the audience does. You have to make it difficult. You have to earn it. You have to just get in there and make it very visceral and make everybody go through the experience of "But that person was dead. How do I deal with this?" so that the audience can really relate to what's happening, to the way the characters are. And I believe that we do, in fact, earn it. It's not going to be simple. It's not going to be a dream sequence. It's not going to be a cheat. We did this knowing that we were going to have to bring Buffy back and that we were going to have to do it legitimately and with integrity. It will not be a simple process.

Ian Spelling

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