An Interview With Nicholas Brendon

Spectrum Magazine
March 1999
By Craig Miller

Xander the Survivor!

Talk about a quick rise to fame: Nicholas Brendon had been acting for only about a year before landing the role of Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He made his television debut in a Clearasil commercial, appeared on The Young and the Restless and Married … With Children, and starred in a pilot, Secret Lives. Other than that, he played an evil corn follower in a feature film, Children of the Corn III – Urban Harvest and starred in Los Angeles theater productions of The Further Adventures of Tom Sawyer, My Own Private Hollywood and Out of Gas on Lovers’ Leap. He also worked briefly as a production assistant on Dave’s World.

Then he landed the role of Xander, giving weight to a character that is primarily a comic relief part. Aided by Buffy creator Joss Whedon’s oversight and some high-quality scripts, Brendon has fleshed out what started as a simplistic, one-note role to one of sometimes surprising depth.

The first hit came during the sixth episode of the initial season, “The Pack,” in which Brendon turned in an exceedingly creepy performance as a nasty, violent Xander possessed by an evil spirit. In the second season, “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” provided an opportunity for Brendon to display both dramatic and comedic abilities, and he never missed a beat. The current season has provided even more opportunities for Brendon to shine, particularly in “Dead Man’s Party,” the second episode, in which Xander lashed out in anger at Buffy, who had gone AWOL.

Craig Miller interviewed Nicholas Brendon on Nov. 4, 1998. Our thanks to Patty Triplett and Sharron (WB Publicity) and Brendon’s publicist, Troy Nankin, for assistance in arranging the interview, and of course to Nicholas Brendon for taking time out of a busy schedule to talk with us.

Miller: You were fairly new to the acting profession when you landed the role of Xander. How grueling was the audition process for you in getting the part?
Brendon: It wasn’t that bad. It was just boom-boom-boom-boom. I went four different times, and then they told me I had a part on a show.

CM: Had you seen the Buffy movie? Did you know what they were trying to do with the TV series?
NB: Oh yeah, yeah. And then I read the script, and the script was what Joss [Whedon] wanted it to be, which I felt was better than the movie.

CM: Nowadays, networks allow very little time for a series to establish an audience. Considering that Buffy arose from a not overly successful feature film, how confident were you early on that the show would survive without the network axe?
NB: I think being on a network like the WB at the time was beneficial for both parties. And I think that Buffy has helped to launch that network and make it the fastest-growing network right now on TV. You know, I had faith in Joss, and I was rereading the scripts, so for me it was pretty easy. I had faith that the network would actually let us develop the show.

CM: At the time that you came on to the show, how many scripts had been done?
NB: I’m not sure, I mean, he had the pilot script, and we just went off of that, because you shoot the pilot, and then they pick you up off of that. And then after it was picked up, he just went to his writing!

CM: Xander is one of the characters that has deepened more than some others as the show has progressed.
NB: Yes.
CM: How would you describe the difference between the early Xander and the current one?
NB: Not as all-over-the-place. A bit more secure. Not as sexually pathetic as he once was. Doesn’t really want to learn much, but will experience.

CM: Do the writers let you know the general long-term arc development of the character?
NB: Yeah, sometimes, but then it’s getting to the point where it’s kinda better not to know. We’ll have conversations and we’ll say, “What’s going on?” because we just get excited about it. But then you have to realize, just show up to work, do my stuff and go.

CM: Do you have much input in recommending directions for the character?
NB: No. We’ll discuss it and come up with other things, but it’s all Joss Whedon.

CM: In fact, that was my next question: how “hands-on” is Joss in such developments? Some executive producers barely show up, others are there every day.
NB: He’s there every day.

CM: So he’s in control of all the long-term developments and mapping out the direction of the show.
NB: Yeah. He’s got his hand in everything.

CM: Your first great episode in portraying Xander was “The Pack,” where you got to portray a quite different Xander – violent and evil. Recently “Dead Man’s Party” showed us a brief glimpse of a forceful and angry Xander. Do you think the character has an underlying intensity beneath the superficial goofiness?
NB: I know Nick does. Yeah, definitely. I think he’s a kid who’s in touch with his emotions very well, so I think when he’s bothered, he’ll say something about it, and that’s what’s been going on.

CM: You have great on-screen chemistry with all of the female co-stars you’ve been paired up with – Sarah Michelle Gellar [Buffy], Alyson Hannigan [Willow], and Charisma Carpenter [Cordelia]. Talk a little bit about working with each of them.
NB: Yeah, let’s see. Sarah is nice to work with. She’s very professional. She’s been around for a while, so I’ve learned a lot from her. And the same with Alyson. She’s very sweet and gives you a lot in the scene. And Charisma, there’s that whole chemistry thing – she has great timing with her jokes, and it’s nice to work off of that, to work off of somebody like that. You just go bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. It’s really hard to define them in words, so let me sing it for you! [Laughter] No, I don’t have a song for you.

CM: Well, you know, in last night’s episode [“Homecoming”], Xander and Willow seem to renew a tentative romance from the first season. Should we read something into that, or is it a throwaway scene that they want to tease us with?
NB: We kissed. We’ll see what happens.

CM: Your great second-season episode was “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” – that seemed to be the “Xander episode” for the year.
NB: Right.

CM: Do you have any comments in particular about the filming of that episode?
NB: It was fun to do. It was nice to be busy; it was nice to have a lot to do. And I like the episode a lot. I thought it came out really well. Other than that, uh, I just got to play a lot with the comedy and the timing and just the whole – like a ribbon wrapping around a pole. [Laughter] I had a lot of fun doing it.

CM: And it was great to see the return of Amy [Elizabeth Anne Allen] from the first season.
NB: Yeah. It was nice. They’re very good with that kind of stuff.

CM: It was a little surprising to see Xander blackmailing her – although she uses the word before he does. There’s a little more to Xander than we may have guessed before!
NB: Yes. Exactly.

CM: He doesn’t seem to have many qualms about doing whatever he thinks he needs to.
NB: No, no. He’s a survivor.

CM: Will the series continue to move along more or less in “real time,” or will you guys stay in high school for ages?
NB: No, it’s real time. We’re in college next year. Yeah. This is our senior year.

CM: Maybe I’m making too big a deal of this, but your hairstyle changed between seasons one and two. You had bangs at first, which made you look younger, like you belonged in high school. Then it was brushed back, and you looked like a college guy. Whose choice was that?
NB: Yeah. In the beginning my hair was long, and I liked it that way. But the network wanted me to cut it because they couldn’t see my eyes, and now pretty much every day it’s changing, because I’m not really a fan of short hair. So it was the network’s idea initially to cut it, but I would like to have it long again. You know, it is what it is. It’s just hair. And a kid in high school is going to have a different hairstyle every day!

CM: The new issue of Entertainment Weekly calls Buffy “as dramatically satisfying as Homicide, ER, and NYPD Blue,” which is pretty high praise right there. Do you have a preference for the humor- or the drama-dominated episodes?
NB: I think the balance is what makes the show work. You need the comedy; you need the drama; you need everything. It’s like the puppet master – pull the string, pull the string. It’s like The Truman Show -- okay, intercept, intercept! It’s just a very, very delicate mix. But we’ll have story arcs where it needs to become more dramatic. And you go through that, like a five- or six-episode art, and then boom! Because in TV, things don’t heal. At least on our show, things don’t heal the next episode. There’s a carryover factor, which is nice. But I like the comedy a lot, since that’s my part.

CM: Twenty years ago it was rare to find a TV series that mixed comedy and drama, but now more and more series are doing it -- The X-Files, Xena, and others. Buffy does a lot of it, and you really don’t know when you tune in whether you’re going to get comedy or drama, and it makes it kind of exciting.
NB: It’s great, and we’re kind of a pathfinder in terms of TV, and it’s nice on a show that is original. I think we’ve got some amazing writers, and Joss Whedon’s been nominated for an Oscar. I don’t like to see the Emmys being scared off. We’d all be proud if nominated, but I think with being neither [exclusively] a comedy nor a drama, I think our show gets overlooked because of that. We’ve got a lot of critics, and a lot of magazines and newspapers and everyone else, saying it’s one of the best shows on TV, and it’s kind of weird to have that happen.

CM: We’re huge Homicide fans, but we wrote that the Buffy episode of “Passion” at the very least deserved an Emmy nomination. I think you guys got nominated for a couple of technical awards.
NB: Right, technical, which is great! But, you know, we all, and the writers, and Joss, work their asses off. Not that they’re working for an Emmy, nor have they even discussed this with me [laughter], but it would be so nice for someone to say, “Wow, you’re doing a good job.” Or a Golden Globe for that matter. Maybe it’ll happen one day, and I’ll be very, very, very proud of the guys.

CM: You worked for a short time as a production assistant on Dave’s World. Do you have ambitions to work behind the camera in some capacity down the road?
NB: [Pause] In some capacity down the road, perhaps yeah. [Laughter]

CM: I didn’t know whether you had background training in direction or something?
NB: No, no.

CM: There’s been talk of an Angel series next year.
NB: Yeah, there is one.

CM: Are you going to be part of both series, or just Buffy?
NB: Buffy.

CM: Being in a weekly TV series can be somewhat of a grind. Do you plan on staying around for a while?
NB: That’s out of my hands, but I would like to stay. It’s fun, a lot of fun. I guess just see what happens. You never know. Death can really up ratings! [Laughter]

CM: Joss does seem to have this tendency to eliminate fairly regular characters, such as Miss Calendar last year!
NB: He loves that. He likes to go against the grain, in a sense. And he knows what people want – or don’t want, for that matter, but they don’t want it so badly they want it.

CM: Well, let’s hope Xander stays around for a while. Or even if they do kill him off, he could pop up the next week as a vampire – a whole new life as a different character. I thought they might do that with Calendar.
NB: Hey! Exactly!

CM: I guess you can never be completely dead on a show like Buffy.
NB: True.

CM: Do you have any non-Buffy projects lined up?
NB: It’s been nine months of this, so I’m just going to do this and see what happens. Things are kind of in the works, but you just never know what’s going to happen in this wacky, wacky, wacky town.

CM: Anything else you’d like to say about you, or the show, or your character, that I didn’t cover.
NB: Um, let’s see here, uh, no! [Laughter] I think Calista Flockhart’s pretty, I see her in a magazine here. Pretty girl. Leave her alone. You can quote me on that, by the way.
CM: You don’t think there will be any backlash?
NB: No backlash!