Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Well at Moonlight Rising I decided to take the plunge (again) and ask Amber for another Kitten Interview and woo hoo because Amber agreed.

As a warning there is some mention of season 7 here but a warning and space will be given before and afterwards.

Please read and I hope you enjoy it

A- Amber T- Tiggrscorpio P- Puff Spuckie L- Laura (a writer who asked some questions after our interview with Amber)

A- Alright ladies.

[Talking about recording the interview]

A- I had two, three no four pieces of toast. I recommend the toast.

P- I recommend eating out.

A- I can’t go though I’m sort of stuck here. But the toast. The toast is fine, any kind of toast, bread good anything else bad. Bad. Evil. [laughter]

P- Ok so we’ll start. You know we always ask strange questions so our first question is what shampoo do you use?

A- It changes, it varies. Usually whatever’s in the shower is what gets used. Although I did buy herbal essences because it’s not tested on animals. Not tested on animals is good. So I have herbal essence’s right now the yellow kind for damaged hair I don’t know , fine hair I don’t know. It smells the best that’s why I brought it. And it’s cheap too.

T- We’d like to know who’s taller you or Aly?

A- She’s just a smidgen taller than me, just a smidgen. I mean we’re like both the same height. But she’s just got that little bit. Maybe because she’s smaller than me she might look taller.

P- What was it like to be in the opening credits of ’Seeing red’?

A- It was sad. It was really upsetting.

P- We knew you wanted to be in the credits

A- I didn’t want to be in the credits that way. I think that... I mean. It was a Joss things, you know how Joss is he likes to toy with everybody. But I don’t know...[shrugs]

T- It was mean.

A- I thought so too.

T- Do you have a most favorite moment and a least favorite moment aside from the obvious?

A- Let’s see my most favorite moment, was probably be just doing the musical that was so much fun we had such a great time. It was basically James and Tony and I and just well everyone else we were just obsessed with it and Michelle she was like can I do another one and she was so good with the dancing.

[nods of agreement]

A- And the least favorite moment was probably my..the day, that last day they brought out a cake [shaped like a tombstone] It had rest in peace Tara Maclay on it. Sarah was crying, I was crying, Michele was crying it was just really sad.

P- What’s a typical day in the life of Amber Benson

A-Gosh, there’s two types of days in the life of Amber Benson the type when nothing every happens when she stays up really late gets up late piddles around in her pajamas all the day and doesn’t even brush her teeth before she goes to bed. Again.

And then there’s the day when it’s crazy and you start out early in the morning, running to auditions or going to work or go go go go go.

P- So there is no typical day.

A- No it varies. My life is a giant variable you never know what you are gonna get. It’s x with you know with no number to it.

T-What’s coming up next for you?

A- Um I’m doing a lot of writing actually Chris Golden and I are talking about writing a horror film and shooting it in Ireland.

T- Cool.

A- Yeah I love working with him so. I think anything that’s working with Chris is fun. And he’s a big hairy lesbian [laughs]

P- Is there anything you would have liked to have seen Tara accomplish and what would it have been?

A- Humm Probably make it through one episode without a stutter, we were gunning for that but I think every episode had at least one. I think. Pretty much.

P- I don’t think Bargaining had one.

A- Really? Then she’s accomplished everything she needed to accomplish then [laughs again]

T- We know what your favorite swear word is but we want to know how many languages you can swear in.

A- I think it’s just two ---- German which is fuck off um and then French I know --- (shit) and English. Oh and I know sign language as well now because this [demonstrates] or this is bad. One of the two I was saying fuck you or fuck me or something in sign language.

P- That hand things that you do. Who came up with that? Because you do this thing when you are Tara when.

T- Yes you’re always holding hands and moving your fingers.

P- Your fingers are always moving.

A- Really ahh?

M- Yes its even written into fanfic because people are observant.

A- I’m touching her all the time? [raises one eyebrow] I must do that subconsciously. I guess it’s just an unconscious thing. I never even knew I did that. It’s so funny. The things you learn...[Voice drops an octave] about yourself. [smiles] That’s weird I’ll have to watch that. I’ll have to go back and look.

T- You do it all the time.

A- Every single episode?

T-You’re holding her hand.

P- In fact if you like the musical you can watch that. And you look down Aly’s top at one point.

A- Do I really? Wow. Do I? I’m trying to remember.

P- Yes when you’re sitting at the table.

A- Oh Oh yeah actually I’m not looking down her top, but I can see how it would look like I was kind of looking down. I don’t know why I was looking down [laughs] What was I looking at? [more laughter] Poor Alyson she’ll be all embarrassed.

T- Moving on. When do you like to write?

A- I like to write at night, late at night. Because no one calls no one bothers you and you can just go until 4 in the morning.

T- And you said in your Q&A that you really don’t write songs or anything so what is your favorite type of writing? Is it screenplays, comics?

A- Hum favorite type of writing. Letters. I love writing letters. Isn’t that odd? I do. I like to write letters. I don’t send them very often but I like to write them when I do. My friend and I used to stay in contact by writing letters. We’d decorate the envelopes. I’d always have to like circle so she would find it and like put stars around the address so they’d know the address, and know that that was where the address was. It would be like covered in like song lyrics. The Cure you know lyrics around. Letters I like letters.

P- Do you have a favorite Tara quote?

A- A favorite Tara quote? Probably the one, the one at the end of Restless. What you are what you do...that whole thing.

T- If you had the opportunity to direct in the world what would it be that you would want to direct?

A- What would I want to direct? I wrote this romantic comedy thing that I really, really like and if I had enough money to do it myself and make it, that’s what I’d do. Yeah. That would be cool.

P- Chris [Golden] said you had a great time doing Vamp Tara.

A- I did. I had such a good time doing that. I think that people were like oh if she’s doing vampire Tara then that’s bad Tara but it’s a videogame. To me it’s a completely different thing than the show.

P- Can you give us a sample?

A- I think it was something like, I can’t even remember the words, what she said. But it was very like sexy and you know purry and she made all these like weird noises and when she got killed aaghaa [funny impression that makes everyone laugh] it was very embarrassingly funny and everyone from the Buffy game were just laughing when we did it. It was a lot of fun though.

P- And the final question is do you have any message for the kitten board?

****Warning season 7 mention****

A- To remember that Buffy doesn’t die it continues on. And Tara doesn’t die she continues on. Their relationship continues on even though Kennedy’s... in the way. Threesome. There we go.

T- We don’t talk about Kennedy.

A- She’s so nice Iyari.

All of us- We know that.

P- But they forced the relationship thing.

A- Willow she was like, you know, she just needed. She needed to get laid. Willow needed some relief. [laughs] She needed some girl in there.

[Talk about treatment of Iyari and comparison of treatment of her to Amber.]

****End of season 7 mention****

A- It happened to me with Oz, he went away and I got a lot of people...I was actually at the posting board party in the bathroom and...I’ve meet her since then and we laugh about it. But this woman came up and she was like. How did she do it? It was so funny. She was like you seem really nice but, but Willow needs to be with Oz. She was very like aggressive in the bathroom about how Willow needed to be with Oz and you just have to get out of her, because Willow, she’s with oz. And if not Oz, then with Spike. It was like uh, um Spike?

All of us- Spike? [general bemusement]

A- Scary.

L- Yes because even before Oz, there was Xander. Ok I’m trying to think of a fan type question. What kind of fans do you have?

[Amber looks at us and waves a hand in our direction.]

A- That’s it right here.

[Laughter]

T- Just the three of us.

[More laughter]

A- Um it’s really interesting. Buffy as a show really draws, I mean if you look at the people here, we have a lot of really, really smart people. A lot of thoughtful, smart people and that’s because of the writing on Buffy. Its people relate it’s not just the first level it’s the subtext, the dialogue and the stories, the relationships. And I think that I the people that watch Buffy and those that respond to Tara are really very bright. And then there’s the people that are very shy and they really respond to her. There’s some people that I’ve seen at numerous conventions and signing and things and from the first time I’ve meet them till the last I saw them , they have grown so much. They feel like its ok, I can be shy and I’m trying to not be so shy. And people that wouldn’t even look at you, now look at you and talk to you and it’s really quite amazing. Amazing thing. Then there’s the lesbian population who’s really you know into the relationship. I mean they are so supportive and so sweet of what Aly and I were doing, they were so in our corner. They made it just so easy. So that’s kind of, I get smart, shy, lesbians.

L- I’m doing a survey and I’ve got a lot of responses from fans and you have a lot of young gay teenage boys.

A- Yeah that too.

L- It’s the people in the middle of nowhere the young boys questioning themselves. It’s the young ones in the middle of nowhere that just break your heart

A- Because when you can’t talk to your family and you’re kind of isolated and you’re not in a big city where it’s acceptable to be whatever you are. I mean if you go to Los Angeles or New York you can do whatever. You can dress in drag and walk down the street and no one will look at you twice. That’s everyday in LA. But you know you live in Texas, or Wyoming or even Alabama in some parts and you just don’t have any outlet until you see something on television that says ok. What you are is not bad. In fact its good and you can find somebody that will be your soulmate. And you see that and you realize that it’s ok.

L- There’s one guy and. You should actually know this that said that he was on suicide watch actually in the hospital, somewhere in like southwest Texas. He was like maybe 15 years old. In the hospital having tried to commit suicide and he was watching Buffy and he was like literally it saved his life.

A- It’s so sad that it has to be that way. That the story has to happen period. you know it’s wonderful that it can help people but the fact that we live in a world where people need to have...

L- Exactly.

A- It’s so sad. We live in the 21st century for god’s sake we should be able to be tolerant of other people. I mean God who gives a shit who you sleep with? Who cares? It’s none of my business, it’s nobody else’s business. It’s a private, intimate thing so who gives a shit?

L- But when you’re 15 years old you’re probably not sleeping with anybody?

A- [Sigh]. It’s just frustrating.

L- I just want you to know that more than anyone else on the show and this is a show that’s made a really tangible difference’s to people really were effected by Tara.

A- Well I think Alyson and I both felt that we were doing a really good thing. We were both really glad that we got to walk in their shoes and create that relationship. I mean it was really very groundbreaking, there isn’t anything else. Or there wasn’t anything else like it. Long term. I mean you had Ellen and her chick girlfriends in the house. You know.

L- But there’s not really anything young kids can relate to.

A- Yeah I mean My so called life, there’s one and occasionally you have people popping in and out of it in TV shows. But never anything like this, never. The relationship was the best one out of the whole show. It was the only one that was you know strong.

[Talk about taking photos etc]

A- I’m just glad we got time to do this.

T- We just wanted to thank you to for having the integrity not to come back.

A- Yeah. You know I thought about the video game too but it was like a video game and pretty much everyone goes bad in them and it’s a video game.

P- And the video game was with Chris [Golden].

A- Yeah.

P- And Chris is such a shipper.

A- Oh he’s great. He’s such a sweetheart. And he’s a big hairy lesbian.

All of us - Thank you.

A -You’re so welcome.