Buffy Bytes-XPose, Dec. 1997

Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Alyson Hannigan talks to Judy Sloane about life at school and protecting the Earth...

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alyson Hannigan portraysWillow Rosenberg, Buffy's shy and retiring friend, who turns unwillingly into an assistant slayer when the occasion arises. Happy to let Buffy do the actual slaying, Willow, along with their other pal, Xander, played by Nicholas Brendon, is always available for advice and support.

Unlike her character, the chatty and outgoing Hannigan is a veteran actress at the age of 23, who entered the business at a very early age.

"I was a baby," she tells Xposé. "My mom and dad were still photographers. They had their studio in the backyard, and whenever they needed a baby they would use me. I just loved being in front of the camera. I'd perk right up. When I got old enough where I knew what I was doing, my mom asked me if I wanted to try doing commercials, and I said, 'Yeah!' Doing commercials was so fun. Eventually, I stopped doing the print jobs and I just did commercials."

Hannigan went on to play Dan Aykroyd's misunderstood daughter in the movie My Stepmother is an Alien, and did guest starring roles on many television programs including Picket Fences, Roseanne and Touched by an Angel. Her last TV series was the sit-com Free Spirit.

Despite her vast experience, Hannigan found it impossible to get into the audition for the role of Willow when the pilot was announced. "My friend told be about the part and he said, 'This would be perfect for you.' My agent had a breakdown that he read to me and I think it said something like, 'She's a shy wall-flower who's still wearing the dress that her mother picked out for her.' I tried to get in on it, but my agent said, 'They just don't want to see you.' So they shot the pilot presentation and another girl had the part of Willow. When it got picked up for the series, they recast that role. That's when I got the call to come in and audition for it."

Following 10 auditions, Hannigan found herself in the 'home stretch' with only two other actresses vying for the role. "The final casting process is to go to the network," says Hannigan. "All the network executives and all the bigwigs are there sitting in a room and you read for them. "I went in and read and they had me wait outside. They came out and said, 'We want you guys to come back tomorrow and read with Sarah and Nick.' "The next day it was just me and one other girl. Nick and Sarah were in the room. I messed up so bad because we got a new scene that Joss had just written that had all this technical computer dialogue, and I just couldn't say it. It was a nightmare, but I kept going. "Later on, Joss said to me, 'In your audition with Nick and Sarah you couldn't say the lines to save your life. But the energy was there and a chemistry between the three of you. And that's when I knew.'"

Hannigan was surprised to be cast, because of the disastrous audition and because of the fact that she felt the other actress was perfect for the role. "She's a wonderful actress from New Zealand, but she was faking an American accent. We were completely different. When you read the description, that was her. She was definitely Willow. I don't know how I got the role, but I'm very thankful."

Hannigan admits that she and Willow do have some similarities, but there are also some major differences. "I definitely couldn't hack into a computer system. I'm computer literate, but I'm not a hacker. So she definitely has the smarts on me. But we've got the same sense of humor, and the out-of-nowhere-thoughts! Xander has commented on it saying, 'You have too many thoughts,' which is very funny and true."

Hannigan found that joining the show after everyone else had done the pilot together a little disconcerting. "Not only did they have the bonding of the pilot, they had the whole summer where they were waiting to find out if they got picked up or not. They hung out and did stuff, and I thought, 'Oh man, I didn't get to do that.' Sarah called me to congratulate me when I got the job, and we went out to dinner so we could get to know each other. I had an instant rapport with her. She was cool. The first day on the set I was so nervous, everybody was. Nick and I have become extremely close, pretty much because we are always in the same scenes."

Although Willow is wallowing in unrequited love for Xander, the day Hannigan met David Boreanaz, who portrays Angel, a good vampire, she told producer/creator Joss Whedon, "Angel and Willow - I see it!' David and I have been trying to sell that, but it's pretty much something that I don't think will ever happen. David's so great. He's such a wonderful guy. He's got a girlfriend and I've got a boyfriend. It's just a friendship, but we can flirt through our characters!"

Given many of the most amusing lines in the show, the modest Hannigan always hopes that her delivery does the dialogue justice. "It's nerve-racking, getting such funny dialogue. You read it and you think, 'This is so awesome, I'd better not blow it.' The crew reads the scripts and they go, 'Oh that line is so funny, or that scene is so funny,' and then I get all nervous." In one of her favorite lines Willow berates Angel, saying dryly, "And you, you're going to live forever and you don't have time for a cup of coffee!"

Hannigan has nothing but praise for the show's creator/producer, Joss Whedon. "He's always open to suggestions and always informing us what he has in mind. He's always been hands-on. If you're having trouble with a scene he'll come down to the set, no matter what he's doing, which is a zillion things. A perfect example is, I was having trouble in I Robot, You Jane. I had this terrible scene, and I hated it. It was weird. I was talking to the computer, it was really unnatural. It's not something that you would ever do in life, you don't talk to the computer while you're typing. It really threw me off, and then I worried about every other scene because I felt so terrible about that scene. Joss had episode nine to rewrite and he was directing soon. With all these things to do he came down to the set for every scene that I was in to make me comfortable. It was beyond the call of duty. He would do that for any one of us. That's what makes him so amazing. He's definitely the heart and soul of the show. He's so cool, he's one of the kids! I'll never work for anyone this cool again!"

Although she doesn't have a favorite episode, Hannigan does have a favorite moment from the series. One day she went to the prop room and they gave her some animal crackers to munch on. Joss Whedon's assistant, George, was there and she offered him the first cracker. "It really enhances the story if you know George," she admits, "as he's so expressive. He took the animal cracker which was so stale it was powdery, and he was being so polite in trying to finish it. I was nearly peeing in my pants I was laughing so hard. Then Nicky and I had to do a scene in the hallway where we're laughing and laughing and Buffy's not included, because we're laughing about something Cordelia [an egotistical student] did in sixth grade. It was hard to laugh on command. Joss said, 'If you can't do it, I'll send George down to eat some stale animal crackers!' Instead, Nicky and I decided we would just sugar-up. We had so much sugar before that scene that we knew that when we crashed we were going to be angry people! It was very funny."

Hannigan occasionally surfs the internet for Buffy websites, but although the Alter to Willow site is awesome there's another site that blows her away. "I got such a kick out of the nude photos of all the Buffy girls! They stick our heads on these bodies. There's one of me and Sarah. The bodies really aren't that great. I thought, "That's not me!" I actually think they are on the same body, but it's reversed! It's flattering that somebody would go to that much trouble to see us!"

Projecting into the future, Hannigan muses over how she would like to see her character develop. "A romance would be nice, because that's something that I don't think Willow's ever experienced. It'll be interesting to see what happens as they grow up because they're getting older. I'm having so much fun. I'm not feeling like, "Gee, the character's not going anywhere.' This is the fun-est time of my life."

And of the basic premise of the show, Hannigan admits, "My philosophy is, I don't want to piss anything off that's out there. I don't want them to feel it necessary to prove to me [that they exist]!"

Derived from the December 1997 issue of XPosé magazine. XPosé magazine retains all copyrights.

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