Anthony Head

Anthony Head on ’Invisibles,’ ’Merlin’ and a possible ’Buffy’ movie

The Invisibles Anthony Head door Ever since I became a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer some 10 years ago, I’ve wanted to talk to Anthony Head, who played the tweed-clad librarian Rupert Giles in the cult TV show. I finally got a chance to interview him this morning, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. This week, his English crime comedy The Invisibles debuted on DVD in the U.S., and the first season of the BBC series Merlin — a reimagining of the King Arthur legend in which Head plays, in Buffy terms, the “big bad” — premieres on NBC June 21. We talked about The Invisibles, Merlin and that possible Buffy movie that’s been creating an Internet uproar all week so click read more for his thoughts on those subjects, and check out a Merlin sneak preview below.

Head is currently shooting the second season of Merlin, that will air on BBC One this fall, in Compiegne, a French city to the north of Paris. But American TV viewers will get to see the 13-episode first season on Sundays starting next month. The actor says Merlin tackles the Arthurian legend much like the CW’s Smallville deals with the Superman mythos, creating a medieval land where a young Arthur meets a young Merlin. Head plays Arthur’s dad, Uther Pendragon, a ruler who has outlawed any and all sorcery. Of course, Merlin (Colin Morgan) being a magic man himself, he keeps his enchanting ways a secret so he doesn’t get his head lopped off by the king. “I have a whale of a time, I must admit,” Head says about his role, adding that the French castle where Merlin films is as much a character as all the dragons and other creatures running about. “People actually think that it must be CGI because it can’t possibly exist.”

British audiences also got to see Head last year in The Invisibles, which debuted on DVD here Tuesday. In it, he plays a member of a legendary burgler team who comes out of “retirement” when his partner needs to scrounge up some cash, and they join up with the son of another old colleague. “I’m a safecracker who just happens to be a really grumpy old man, and I’m glad to say I had to age up for it,” Head says. “My family would say I was annoying to have at home because a little bit of every character spills over, and I was a grumpy old man, apparently.” Actually, his home life spilled into his professional one, too — his oldest daughter, Emily, guest-starred on two of the six Invisibles episodes as his character’s little girl. In one of Head’s favorite scenes, the daughter — who has no idea her father is a master criminal — finally learns about his past. “You don’t have to act the relationship,” Head says. “The relationship is there, all the love I feel for her is there. And you’re playing a heartbreaking scene where you have to admit to your daughter something that you’ve held back all your life, and all the emotion that comes into play is very real.”

With his appearances on Doctor Who and Little Britain, Head says he’s been lucky enough to have four or five iconic English shows under his belt — “What I always find fascinating is I am all things to all men” — but in America, where he has a home in Los Angeles, he’ll always be famous for playing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sage mentor on Buffy. “Every time I think, ‘Well, everybody must have forgotten it by now,’ there’s a whole new audience. Young kids coming up to me and saying, ‘I love Buffy!’ ” And being so close to the series, which lasted for seven seasons (1997-2003), he understands why there’s been so much fan outrage this week when it was announced that Fran Rubel Kuzui, the director of the original 1992 Buffy movie starring Kristy Swanson, and her husband Kaz were working on a new film without the involvement of series creator Joss Whedon (who also wrote the original movie’s first script).

Doing a Buffy movie without Whedon? “I wouldn’t want to see it, no,” Head admits. “The Kuzuis didn’t do a great job on the movie the first time around. It was Joss’ script at the age of 19, but they changed a lot of it. They said, ‘Look, we know best and we know how to make this movie,’ and it became quite schlocky and high camp.” Head recalls the time when he went to audition for the Buffy series because he loved Whedon’s pilot script so much, and his agent advised him to watch the movie to get the tone of the show before his screen test. “So I did and I went, ‘Oh, that’s not it at all.’ I went in and saw Joss and said, ‘I watched the movie last night!’ And he went, ‘Oh. Did ya?’ I just put it out of my mind. The bottom line is if a movie was ever to be made, it should be made with Joss Whedon, whether it’s a retrospective or not. But it would be madness to do it without him. [The Kazuis] have the rights to because they have the rights to the original movie, but it should be interesting to see. It may be a bit like watching a car wreck.”