Amber Benson

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon came to the conclusion that Tara Maclay would die midway through season six, the lesbian community was angry, frustrated, sad... so was Amber Benson, who portrayed one half of science fiction’s most visible lesbian couple for more than two seasons.

Not so much because it meant the end of a lucrative and creatively satisfying TV run-more because she knew what it would mean to Buffy’s die hard lesbian fans.

Four years later, Buffy may be off the air, but die hard fans of Tara and Willow haven’t gone anywhere. Message boards and Web sites devoted to their relationship continue to flourish, and Benson is beloved by lesbian fans everywhere. We caught up with the young actress to talk about her latest film, Race You to the Bottom, her blossoming career as a sci-fi/fantasy writer and all those pesky Buffy rumors you’re dying to get to the bottom of.

LesbiaNation: Race You to the Bottom deals a lot with sexuality... you wind up having an affair with your bisexual best friend. What about the film and subject matter attracted you to the project?

Amber Benson: When I first read the script, I really related to it because I have these gay male friends, and... you can have these intense feelings for each other but they’re not sexual. And you think, ‘Why can’t I find a heterosexual man who dresses well, treats me well, has a real career? Where are they?’ So you get these little crushes on your gay friends. I thought it was interesting to read a script that hit that taboo area. It touched on all those things I’ve always wondered about-what it would be like to be a straight woman who was with a man who was uncertain, or was certain, but liked me.

LN: Makes sense. The tag line on Race You to the Bottom is, “Maybe their boyfriends should worry.” To me, the relationship between the two characters goes way beyond sexuality. What do you think connects them?

AB: I think they’ve really confused friendship and love with sex. Both of them are desperate to find somebody who makes them happy, and they make each other happy, but not in the way that a relationship makes you happy. I think they really care about each other and they want it to be something special, but it’s not sexual. Even though they make it sexual, that’s not what this relationship’s about.

LN: Having done a number of your own indie projects (Amber has written and directed three films), what is it you look for in a project like this?

AB: You do them when they move you, when it makes you think. You do things that you can respond to. Sometimes you do things for the money... I’ve done a number of those. But with Race You to the Bottom, it was about the fact that I really responded to Russell Brown (director). I just thought he was awesome. And I responded to his story.

LN: You’ve worked on this film, Latter Days and I know you just wrapped C. Jay Cox’s new movie Kiss the Bride (playing Tori Spelling’s sister). What keeps bringing you back to gay themed films?

AB: What attracted me to Latter Days was the idea that this was finally a movie where two men fall in love... Neither one has AIDS, no one is dying. It could be about a man and woman. It could be about two women. It’s just a beautiful love story. And I felt the same way about Kiss the Bride, it was sort of this unconventional love story. Gay cinema is taking a turn. It’s not just about dealing with coming out or with AIDS anymore. We own our sexuality. We don’t have to sit there and fight for it-not to the same extent. We can start addressing other things now.

LN: Of course, the gay community is always going to be in your corner because of Buffy. When you first signed on to play Tara, did you have any clue the character would get such an overwhelming response?

AB: Not at all. Originally, when I got the part, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara were just friends. It was only as the whole thing progressed that Joss Whedon was like, ‘You know ladies, I gotta tell you something. You’re actually going to be a couple.’ And both of us thought it was really cool-it was something different. And I’m really proud I got to be the one to walk in her shoes, that I get to stand up and say, ‘Everyone needs to be treated with compassion and equality.’

LN: The ladies were truly heartbroken when Tara died.

AB: I know. I was too.

LN: And, you know, I’ve read conflicting things that they wanted to bring you back as an evil twin, and you weren’t having that. What happened with the death of Tara?

AB: Joss was all excited one day... He was like, ‘We’re gonna kill you.’ I said, ‘ You’re gonna what?’

LN: Yeah, that’s so great!

AB: (laughs) So, I got used to idea that she was going to pass away. It wasn’t something that I would have personally chosen... you can’t give something to a marginalized community and say, ‘here’s this beautiful gift,’ and then just crumple it. I understand story wise why he did it, and from that point of view, it makes sense. And that’s where he was coming from. He wasn’t thinking on this grand scale. I don’t think he realized the impact he was going to have on the lesbian community, which is still striving to have some sort of identity. So she died, and I was approached to come back and they wanted her to be bad, and I was like, ‘I really don’t want her to be evil.’ I just felt that after all the crap we’d put the fans through, to do that was kind of hurtful. And then it ended up that I was doing something for the BBC and it conflicted with the dates, so I took that as a sign. I wasn’t supposed to do this.

LN: Playing Tara, did you start to feel any sort of responsibility as a role model and a voice for the gay community?

AB: Oh my God, yes. I had no idea. I thought I was on some science fiction show. I had no clue I was going to have some sort of impact on a whole group of people. And I’ve got to say, I wish I was a lesbian, because I would get lucky every night of the week for the rest of my life. It’s so ironic and not fair. (laughs) But yeah, Alyson and I would get letters, and you don’t realize the impact you’re making until you really start thinking about it. When kids come up and say, ‘I didn’t kill myself because of Buffy and your relationship,’ it blows your mind. It wasn’t about two women making out. It was about two women who fell in love with each other and happened, just happened, to have the same genitalia.

LN: If only we could convince the politicians of that. Moving on post Buffy, I was impressed to see how much you do behind the camera. Writing, directing, producing. When did you first realize your career was going to involve more than being in front of the camera?

AB: When I realized I had a brain and acting wasn’t exercising that brain enough. (laughs) I love acting and I’ve been very blessed to be able to do what I’ve done. But you’re really a pawn in someone else’s chess game. You’re regurgitating other people’s lines, and as lucky as I was with something like Buffy where they have an impact and it says something-most of the time, you’re not on those shows. So I decided I wanted to do something for myself. I felt like I had all of this creativity bottled up and I was going to explode if I didn’t get it out.

LN: Well, um, you got it out. Writing and directing films, you’ve written books... the books, my God, that’s so impressive to me.

AB: Those have been really fun. We have had such a good time with those books.

LN: So they’re in kind of a Buffy vein, right?

AB: Yeah, they’re definitely in that vein. Basically, what happened is this. This guy Chris Golden, who has written some Buffy books and he’s written a bunch of comics, some young adult fiction and horror fiction-he approached me about doing a thing of Buffy comics. And so we did these Willow/Tara comics. And then the BBC approached us about doing a show for them, so we created Ghosts of Albion as an episodic drama/flash animation show. We did two of those, and they did very well, and then Random House approached us to novelize them.

LN: Was it intimidating to step in and start working with an established writer like this?

AB: It was a crash course. I took the Christopher Golden School of Writing course. I learned so much from him. He’s so giving, and he wants you to do well. We have a good time. We each take a chapter and we go back and forth. I just sort of did it to do it.

LN: And hey, now you’ve got this little side career.

AB: Yeah, it even pays my bills sometimes, which is quite nice. It lets me do my $100 a day independent films.

LN: Like Race You to the Bottom.

AB: (laughs) Exactly.