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Julie Benz - Darla - Interviewed in London - November 2001

All time high
  What has been the highpoint of playing Darla?

I think the high points of playing Darla have been definitely the love scenes. (laughs) I’m kidding. I think the most fun I’ve had playing her is doing all the flashback work. I especially love the stuff that we shot in the Boxer Rebellion. That was definitely my favourite.

She’s just an amazing character. She’s so epic and there’s so many amazing things she’s gotten to be. She was human and a vampire then human again and a vampire again. So just all of those elements combined, I don’t think there’s a better character out there to play.

Double Trouble
  How much of Darla's stunt work do you perform?

I have an amazing stunt double, Lisa Hoyle who looks exactly like me. She’s just brilliant and fearless and she does about 90 per cent of the stunts.

When it comes to the fighting, they have us learn the fight and we shoot it for close-ups, so they can tie it into what the stunt doubles are doing.

I think part of the element of Darla is how strong she is and how fierce she can be and Lisa definitely adds to that element. I would be a doing huge disservice to Darla if I didn’t allow her to do the work that she does and to help add to that element that’s so important to Darla, which is her strength.

David [Boreanaz] is so tall - he’s over 6 feet tall - and broad shouldered and very strong-looking, and I’m dwarfed by him. It would be very unbelievable then if I didn’t allow Lisa to do the work that she does and to help add to the strength of Darla as a character.

Fashion Victim
  Is it true that you’re a bit of a shopaholic when it comes to clothes?

Oh God, that’s so embarrassing. I’m not that much of a shopaholic. I just know what I like and I tend to buy it a lot.

Does your fashion sense impact upon Darla?

I think the most important thing about Darla’s sense of fashion and the influence I’ve had on her is [that] throughout the time period Darla’s always been dressed to the nines and she fully goes after a certain look. If she’s going to be living during the Boxer Rebellion time, she’s got the big Gibson Girl hair style and the beautiful kimono-style clothes.

It’s almost like she’s an actor herself and dressing the part. And in the beginning of the Buffy series when she was trying [to look] like a High School student and wearing Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. It wasn’t just enough to wear a regular school uniform. It had to be a Catholic schoolgirl uniform, you had that little twist and that little flair to it.

Myself, I think I influenced Darla fashion-wise in the second season of Angel where she was a little more classic-looking, a little more interesting colours, no prints, tailored [She] then eventually moved into the leather pants and the little hipper look when she became a vampire. That was collaboration between myself and the costumer designer.

That’s probably more how I dress myself, which is very classic. You’ll never see me in a large, heavy print. I just can’t pull it off, I wish I could but I can’t. I’m more of very classic lines, with a little bit of a flair - but not much.

The pilot
  Tell us about the Buffy pilot episode.

Any time you shoot a pilot, whether it’s a full pilot or a pilot presentation, it is in order to give the network an opportunity to see the potential that a new show might have. What it would look like and how the cast would be - in the hope that they would buy it and pick it up for a certain amount of episodes and the show would get made.

That’s the general idea of a pilot presentation or even a full pilot. That’s its job, that’s why you do one. Doing the presentation of Buffy, at the time the WB was a very new network. I think it was the first or maybe the second year it was in existence, so nobody really knew the actual influence that that network could have on a lot of careers.

The WB has been very influential in creating a lot of stars and their shows have been some of the most watched shows amongst a certain age audience and it’s amazing what they’ve done. Back then when we did Buffy I don’t think people realised that. Nobody really knew what was going to happen, it was kind of like "Nahhh..."

I saw the potential in the script when I read the script. I thought it was a great idea. I never saw the movie, so I didn’t really know anything about the movie, I just knew when I read the script that it seemed like a really cool script and a really great idea. Doing the presentation, Joss was very involved in every element, creating the whole world. He’s always been very involved in every aspect, from wardrobe fittings to what purse you’re going to carry in a scene to what props you’re going to use, to what he wants you do as the character.

He’s extremely involved in creating the whole show and the whole look and feel of it. I think the minute you meet him, you realise that this man is a genius and that he’s brilliant. From the first moment I met him I was like, "Oh hey he’s got a very clear vision about what he wants."

It’s comforting as an actor to walk into a situation with the creator of a show who knows exactly what he wants and can explain it to you and describe it to you and everyone fully understands exactly what he wants and how he wants certain things to look. You have a lot of confidence in the project then.

Back to doing the presentation, we had some different cast members. It was definitely a thrill to be one of those taken from the presentation into the series. Not every person who played a vampire victim survived, not even every actor. We had a different Willow even. But the experience was still pretty much the same. It was still pretty much working with a genius like Joss Whedon, who really knows what he wants and doing it.

In a spin
  How would you envisage a Darla Spin-off?

I don’t think it would be possible to spin-off Darla because I would want to take Angel and, you see, Angel already has his own show... unless they spin Darla and Lindsay off onto their own show.

Then they’d have to take Lila too, because I absolutely adore Stephanie Romanov… and then I’d have to take James who plays Spike, so really I don't think it would be possible, because I would want all the other cast members. I don’t think it’s a possibility.

Wigs, wigs, wigs (spoiler)
  Do you want your own action figure and what accessories would it have?

I actually just got fitted for doing an action figure of Darla. What accessories? I think Darla is going to be an amazing action figure.

I would love for her to be able to have different dresses that she could put on that cover the different time periods, a pregnancy pad and a vampire face and different wigs for her hair. Everything that Darla embodies. It would be really great if she had that. And longer legs.

Where and when
  If you had a choice to live through any particular period of history in any particular part of the world, where would you choose?

I wish I could have lived in England when Queen Elizabeth I reigned. I’m fascinated with that time period. I’m also fascinated with Josephine Bonaparte and what was going on in France during that time as well, and then I’m also fascinated with the 50's in America.

So, if we could somehow find a time machine where I could go back and forth to all those different time periods, that would be kind of cool.

Roswell
  Tell us about your experiences on Roswell.

Oh God, I loved working on Roswell. It was such a joy to be a part of a new show like that. Once again it was a character that was just supposed to be on two episodes and then it blossomed into so much more. It was really an amazing experience for me.

I had been away shooting a movie that summer. I came back and had an audition the next day for the show. I remember reading the script and going, "I can’t play this, an FBI agent. Who’s going to take me seriously as an FBI agent?" I found out that David Nutter was involved with it and that he had actually requested for me to come in because he had remembered me from an audition I did for him for something else.

They had supposedly hired somebody and she’d gotten fired. So I came in and read for Jason Katims and there was a concern that I wasn’t old enough - in comparison to the kids - to play this FBI agent next to them, but they decided that they really liked me and they just changed the age on the character. She was supposed to be a lot older and they made her a little bit younger.

It was really a great experience working with Jason Behr, Sheri Appleby, Katie Heigl and Colin Hanks - who I just absolutely adore - and Majandra Delfino, who I had done a movie with before and so I’d known her from previously and Nick.

My favourite [was] Bill Sadler, just an amazing actor [who] just raises the bar for every other actor on that show. I loved playing Agent Topolski. She was a challenge in that she wasn’t 400 years old and she wasn’t classified as a villain or as a good guy. In the beginning you had no idea what she was and just to play her very straight, with no spin on the ball...

I wasn’t allowed to make her good or evil, she had to be very neutral, it was a challenge for me. I’m so used to playing characters who are either very, very evil who you want to kill or very, very loveable, so to walk that fine line of good versus evil and allow the audience to put onto her what they thought about her was very difficult for me but a great challenge and a lot of fun.

I would love to go back. At this point I think they’re so far removed from the story that it wouldn’t be possible. I always had this vision though, always made this joke that Topolski was living in Venice. She survived the fire and she went into the Witness Protection Programme and she’s living in Venice Italy. The kids of Roswell go on a class trip to Italy and there she is sitting in the big piazza drinking Espresso and they convince her to come back and help them out. I was just trying to get the show to go to Italy, because any reason to go to Italy is a good reason. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Taking it seriously
  What do you make of Buffy and Angel conventions?

I’ve done some American conventions. I mean, I’ve done signings. I wouldn’t really say they’re conventions as well run as this (Starfury: Bad Girls) in that [this is] a whole weekend and you do talks and you take pictures and you sign autographs and you interact with the fans.

I love coming over here and doing these conventions. I find the fans in England really take the show very seriously but in a very smart, intelligent manner. They bring up some really good issues and really good points about the show and they intelligently talk about the characters.

It’s not just "Oh I liked your hair in episode three", it’s on a much deeper level than that and it is a lot of fun to be able to come over here and interact with our fans, especially at the smaller conventions where there might not be as many people. It’s a smaller group, and you can have more one-on-one interaction with everybody. They probably feel nervous meeting us, but we’re just as nervous meeting them.