Could you tell us how you came into Angel?
I knew pretty early on. We wrapped up season three of Buffy and Angel went into production for their first season earlier than most shows during that summer. That was when I went to England and did Randall and Hopkirk and a small movie here, Beyond the City Limits.
When I came back from England there was a call waiting for me from Joss. By then they had made up their mind and resolved that they wanted to bring my character onto the show, but they just weren’t sure how or when.
Joss is a pretty brave and risky show creator and he likes to keep people on the edge, so they did away with a regular character. I think [it] makes us all feel a little bit more tenuous with our time here with these show.
You tend to be much more punctual and learn your lines when you know they really are going to kill you off if you don’t. There’s a lot of incentive there when they start doing away with characters around you.
The trouble was how to fit him into Angel, so they needed some time to get Angel up and running as a show and figure out the dynamics of the characters before they knew exactly how Wesley would appear. Once they got into the writing groove they came up with the idea that he’d been away on his motorcycle being a rogue demon hunter.
He rolls into town and bumps into Angel and underneath it all he is desperate to find a paying job so that he can settle down and get some work, but plays it all off as being that he’s come to their rescue.
