Head Start, Summer 1997 (Special #1), by Judy Sloane.
As the Watcher Giles, Anthony Stewart Head confronts the forces of darkness and Angst ridden teenagers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
On the surface, Sunnydale, as depicted on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appears to be a quiet Southern California town. But the Spanish, who first settled the area, dubbed it Boca Del Infierno which, roughly translated, means, "Hellsmouth"--a supernatural portal which, when opened, will eclipse the world with the demons that used to freely roam the Earth. Sixty years ago, a master vampire arrived in Sunnydale planning to destroy the reign of man, but he was swallowed up, along with half the town, following a devastating earthquake. But...he's back.
For each generation there is only one vampire slayer--for this generation the slayer is Buffy Summers, a 16 year old high school students. The school's librarian, Rupert Giles, immediately recognized Buffy's destiny--he should, he's a Watcher.
Anthony Stewart Head, who portrays Giles, explains, "The Watcher is the mentor, the person who finds the slayer, trains her and looks after her. It's my job to tell her what her duties are and expect her to freely accept them with as much enthusiasm as I have. My personal premise is that I come from a long line of Watchers, that my father didn't see much action, and that is had all been a bit academic. I've got everything I know from books. I turn up at Sunnydale, in this job, hoping I am going to meet the slayer, but when it actually falls into my lap, it's like, 'What do I do now?' I wasn't quite counting on the 'Hellmouth'...nobody was!"
A native of England, Head has an extensive career on stage, screen and television. He was a regular cast member of the sci-fi series VR.5, and is widely recognized for his infamous Taster's Choice commercial which spotlights the running relationship between two coffee-lovers. But it wasn't the notoriety of that ad that landed him the role of Giles--Head auditioned for the show like any other available performer. After reading the script, he consulted with the show's creator, Joss Whedon, about this personal take on the character of Giles.
"I said, 'This is a mixture of Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman--which way do you want me to go?' And he said, 'Do you own thing on it.' I played it in the middle, and Giles grew from there. Joss said that as soon as he saw me, I picked up the part and walked away with it under my arm, bless his heart. He didn't know anything about VR.5. He didn't know anything about the dreaded coffee commercial either. It wasn't until my picture went up in the office, and a couple of girls went, 'Oh my God, it's the Taster's Choice guy!' that the penny dropped!"
When he secured the role, Head's agent suggested that he see the movie on which the series was based.
"It was a slightly different concept," says the actor. "It was very light and very frothy and missed all the darkness that I thought was in the television script. Also, Joss's humor is less slapsticky and more witty. I thought, 'Oh, that's not how I pictured it.' I saw Joss and he said, 'That's the way the movie went, and that's why I'm doing TV, because I feel it can go further.' The film worked on the level it was made, but I think the series succeeds on more levels."
In the motion picture, the Watcher was portrayed by Donald Sutherland, of whom Head acknowledges, "His role was the only serious part of the movie. Not that I don't play Giles seriously, but the juxtaposition of the culture between him and Buffy is important and, I think, there's a lot of humor derived from that."
Head admits that he and the rest of the cast walk a fine line between the show's humor and drama--although it's a line that sometimes they mistakenly cross.
"There are times when we've all said, 'There's a gag here,' and I'm the worst with that. I'll find the funny side of anything. Joss'll say, 'Now is not the moment. Yes, it's a very funny gag, no you can't do it. Now it's tension time.' He's very sure about what works and what doesn't work, and I think the success of the series falls very largely in his lap. He knows exactly what he wants and he knows what he wants from his writers. If he hasn't written an episode, you can always feel his touch when he was taken a script and re-edited it. We can always feels where he's tweaked it. His humor is wonderful and he can write on so many levels--Xander's humor, Buffy's humor, Willow's humor, my humor and Cordelia's are on completely different levels, and each one works and contributes to the others."
Contemplating the fact that he has accepted a role which could occupy his career for the next seven years, Head enthusiastically declares, "There is an infinite variety within Giles. He's basically from another age. When we first started talking about costumes, the girl who designed costumes for the last season used to look in books on 1940s designs, because that basically sums him up. The [Buffy cast] couldn't believe for the first season that I smelled so bad because when I was looking for a smell for Giles, I suddenly came up with mothballs. I used to load my jacket down with them. Alyson, who plays Willow, used to reel when she would come up to me in the morning, and say, 'Can we lose the mothballs?' She got me some Old Spice, which I took as a present from Willow. I wore the Old Spice, but it didn't cloud the mothballs! It's very interesting. When you put on a smell, it's like icing on a cake. If it's a smell that you don't associate with yourself, then you can see someone different."
As the Watcher, Giles must let Buffy face the vampires alone without his assistance.
"It's interesting that Giles can't, by the very nature of the show, get involved physically," says Head. "Buffy is the slayer, she has to see it through, she has to be the one that finally conquers the vampires. I think [if I were more hands-on] it would be a disappointment. I made a very bad film a long time ago which was about a musician who was lost in the midst of an espionage plot. What I liked about it was, it was refreshing to see somebody who was normal and real thrown into the deep end. The fact is, we aren't all Rambo, we aren't all physical, for want of a better word. It's refreshing, every once in a while, to find somebody who can't [be physical] and leave it up to the 16-year-old who's extremely gifted in that department."
Head gets the thankless job of explaining many of the plot developments in each episode, but the actor doesn't seem to mind.
"It's down to me to move the story along and tell everybody what the hell is going on. It's not difficult for me to make it real. That's an actor's job anyway, to make what's on the page come out of the mouth as if you just thought of it. Before I did Buffy, I was offered another thing that was all about evil
[Note: I'm missing the rest of this article. Does anyone have a complete copy of this that I could buy or borrow? Thanks.]
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