Angel

Andy Hallet is a little dazed, his conversation is wobbling like an unstable gyroscope. One moment he’s almost as smooth as Lorne-the demon he plays in Angel-the next he’s distracted by a huge soup tureen. He could be schizophrenic. Either that, or he’s just been out on the town.

"You can hear it," he says, gesturing at his throat, from whence an unusually husky voice issues. "I’ve been screaming for two days and partying hard. I mean, we party a lot, but London wears me out!"

If this sounds like deja vu, then you’ll remember last time SFX interviewed Hallet in England, at the Nocturnal convention in 2001. Then he’d just taken a nosedive down two flights of stairs after boogeying all night. Two years later and we’re in another swanky hotel. We’ve just asked him which route his career will take-music or acting, hence the comment about his voice. He insists he’s not too confident about it.

"I never want to be one of those people that does both," he says. "Those that the audience watches and goes, ’Oooh, would he stop doing that!’ Like Mariah Carey. I love her, I think she’s a wonderful person, but she’s a singer. She’s a multi-platinum selling artist, she accumulated literally a fortune from her music sales. Then she did the movie. Unfortunately it didn’t work out and everyone was dogging her. I don’t want to be one of those people."

He shouldn’t worry. Angel’s audience is very vocal and aren’t afraid to point out what they hate. And they certainly don’t hate Hallet, who has gone from a one-off appearance to having his name in the opening credits. So, when pushed, he admits he’d like to persue acting. "I think that I could experience a more stable and, hopefully, longer career with acting".

Hallet’s a happy-go-lucky, nice kind of guy. he loves his job, and is genuinely thankful for it. He’s full of praise for his co-stars and constantly tells stories-J August Richard’s excellent singing voice; David Boreanaz’s "Mandy" rap; Mark Lutz and his bizarre conversations....

"The goose is moving, the goose is moving with a twisted ankle," he quotes, speaking into a pretend walkie-talkie. "When we’re in make-up-we always say that, ’The duck is heading westwards!’" He catches my slightly puzzled expression. "Er, which means nothing..um, I don’t really remember what I was talking about because I’m rambling on about ducks."

He’s full of these anecdotes, slightly scrambled today as he’s partied-out............... It doesn’t help that some men at the back of the room have started fitting carpets. The room is full of fumes. Worse, they give Hallet flashbacks to helping his dad, himself a carpet layer, as a kid. He sniffs.

"I’ll never forget that smell. They’re seaming together two pieces...I used to do that with my dad on jobs. It was the worsy smell in the world, so I’m about to burst into tears." Then he’s off again, this time relating his enormous respect for Joss Whedon.

"I was with Joss at his beach house," he explains. "All his family were there, me and my friends and some of my family. And he was inside while we were all outside playing on the water. He had this upright piano in the corner. All summer he would be there and I would say, ’What are you playing?’ and he’d say, ’I don’t know, O can’t read or write music; I’m screwing around.’

"Well, when they did the premiere of the Buffy musical, it was unbelievable," Hallet grins, reliving his amazement. "This was the guy over in the corner while we wree on the jet ski, this was the guy saying, ’I can’t write music’. And he wrote a f***ing musical!

Afterwards there was a cocktail party and everyone’s praising Joss. J August and I look at each other and mouth: ’Angel musical!’, because all we could think about was us!" He collapses into giggles. "he and I are both microphone whores-we try to get them as much as we can."
Sounds like he’d loved to have done it. "Oh I was plucked that I didn’t get to do a piece in the Buffy one," he moans, using his favourite word for "miffed". Apparently a cameo was on the cards, but inter-network politics rendered it impossible. Shame.

Time is called on the interview before we’re all gassed ("God, that smell is killing me," he gasps). There’s time for one more question. Do, we want to know, is Lorne gay?

"It’s ambiguous. He calls Angel ’cupcakes’, but he says that to everybody. At first it was to the gals, ’Hey sweetheart, baby, darling’, and then it was to Angel. But I never meant for it to be gay. I never meant to be, ’Hi, Angel cakes!’"

He paws my arm lasciviously and waggles his eyebrows. "I know I wasn’t that butch with it, but...I think we’re going to die from this!" He sniffs again, eyes watering. The air is now full of acrid blue smoke. "Lorne’s got a lot of love for everybody. And I don’t know this, but if he ever gets a love interest I’ll bet you anything that it will be another ambiguous character. Demon, human or...I’m sorry man, I can’t cope with this smoke. We gotta go!"

This must remind him that he could always fall back on a career in carpet fitting. "Yaeh! And I was getting pretty good at it. Damn Hollywood!"