Alyson Wonderland
Alyson Hannigan has dyed her hair. It is no longer just bright red; wide swaths of black now stripe throughout. Then, a couple of inches from her shoulders, her tint abruptly goes dark, making the ends look as if she dipped them in Pennzoil. Add motorcycle boots and a smear of black eyeliner, and you'll get an idea of the gutter-naif look the 25-year-old actress is appropriating to play a heroin dabbler and lesbian wanna-be in "Beyond the City Limits," an indie caper flick costarring Nastassja Kinski that Hannigan is currently shooting. But her boyfriend- Marilyn Manson's drum-mer, Ginger Fish-- thinks her dye job makes her look like one of the huggable scamps from "Winnie the Pooh."
"He told me, 'Honey, you look like Tigger!'" says Hannigan, putting to rest any notion that a doom-rocker can't have puppy dog emotions. According to Hannigan, the pair met at one of his band's concerts in March. Their first date? Vegas. "I know, I know," says Hannigan, who estimates that when she first tells people whom she's involved with, roughly half actually gasp in horror (the other half, she reports, say, "That's so cool!").
"We're kind of the odd couple, huh?" Musician boyfriends? First dates in Vegas? Indie caper flicks? This is not the off-camera life that teen America imagines for their favorite bookworm, Willow Rosenberg, whom Hannigan portrays with golly-gee vulnerability on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Still, Hannigan's close pal and Buffy costar Sarah Michelle Gellar says, "Alyson isn't anything like Willow. She isn't nerdy or quiet." Any other dis-similarities to report, Ms. Gellar? "Oh, and she's got a real potty mouth on her."
Hannigan's facility for profanity makes its feature film debut on July 9 in "American Pie," which the critics have positioned as the latest chapter in "Top this!" gross-out humor. Early into the sex comedy, four high school boys vow to lose their virginity on prom night, and for 90 minutes or so, the story's a string of raunchy gags. Towards the end, Hannigan's chipper geek character, Michelle, delivers what everyone agrees is the movie's quip de resistance. At this point, it seems impossible that anything could be done or said that would startle the audience, but Hannigan does. (In fairness to shock humor, we won't spoil it here.)
To play the small but pivotal role of a girl who natters on and on about band camp, Chris and Paul Weitz, the brothers who co-directed "American Pie," wanted someone who could merge shtick and dimension. "Alyson didn't seem to be caricaturing her at all," says Paul Weitz, who loved how Hannigan had not only great timing but an implicit understanding that behind a meek facade often lives an unrepentant party girl. "[She] seemed to be calling upon some sort of natural eccentricity."
There is something charmingly pragmatic about the way Han-nigan talks about her post- "American Pie" career moves. (Basical- ly she is issuing a moratorium on dork roles or bad slasher flicks.) Then again, perhaps the only child of Al, a truck driver, and Emilie, a real estate broker, has learned a few things about show-biz in the past 21 years, having appeared in commercials and print ads since the age of 4.
Born in Washington, DC, but raised in Atlanta, she moved to Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley with her mother when she was 11 (her parents divorced when she was 2). At her public schools, Hannigan found that she was just one of many child actors, absent for weeks at a time when she landed jobs, just like her classmates Mayim Bialik and Omar Gooding. When she was 14, she played Dan Aykroyd's awkward daughter in "My Stepmother is an Alien," and in high school she appeared in a short lived ABC series called "Free Spirit." But mostly Hannigan found herself taking whatever assignment she could get, hitting a low point with an episode of prize-fighter George Foreman's insipid comedy, "George."
"I remember thinking, 'Where am I right now? This sucks,'" says Hannigan. In 1996 she wanted to try out for a clever new series based on the film "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." But the casting team didn't return the interest. "I couldn't get an audition," she mock sobs, which explains why there is a different Willow in the pilot. Some fortuitous tinkering occurred. Within five months, Han- nigan was hired, and the "Willow Rules!" fan mail started pouring in. Three years later, Hannigan's Buffy colleagues have become like family, although hers is a clan that seems a mere step away from inbreeding, "We're a very touchy-feely set, we have no boundaries," Hannigan explains, the wonders aloud how her frisky bunch must look to a stranger. " It would be like, 'He just touched her breast! And she just grabbed his....mmmmm!' And then there is David who is always dropping through."
OK, so she has a wild streak. Hannigan still shares more than a few of Willow's defining traits: There is the friendly gaze, the accommodating smile. Both exude a palpable air of insecurity. (The typical ending to a Hannigan work anecdote? "And then I thought, 'Oh my god! I really screwed that up.....'") But Gellar won't have such self-flagellation from her costar. "Alyson is so talented," says Gellar. "what people don't know yet is that she's really, really versatile. Alyson is a bright comedienne. She can also turn around and make you cry like nobody's business."
A few days after Gellar's rousing endorsement, Hannigan could be found at a Hollywood coffee shop, in the midst of her very own sobfest. "I'm sorry," she apologizes, as tears drip onto her navy blue sweatshirt. She confesses that making "Beyond the City Limits" while doing publicity for "American Pie" has sent her into a state of overwhelm. But after she is handed some napkins, she pats her face dry and seems refreshed from her cathartic unraveling. Soon, she is laughing as she busily conducts a guided tour of her three tattoos. "The tribal dolphins are here," Hannigan says, exposing her ankle by sliding down a lavender sock. "I have a turtle on my foot." She twists around and begins yanking at her faded jeans. "And I have a Japanese symbol here." On the small of her back is a graceful inch-high character that means luck and happiness. She beckons you to take a closer look. In her voice, there is a shiny-happy innocence that is vintage Willow. But the dialogue is strictly Alyson. "Don't worry," says Hannigan, tugging down her pants a little further. "It's way above my crack."
Derived from TV Guide Special Edition, June, 1999
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