Dollhouse

At the end of my interview with Joss Whedon, he said, "That was really fun." That’s got to be the best review a journalist could ever get. The creative talent behind Buffy, Angel, Firefly and the new Dollhouse, who does thousands of interviews in his line of work, thought my interview was fun. He keeps things pretty interesting for us too. Crave Online: With the nature of the show that they can have new personalities each week, can Dollhouse be more episodic than the continuing narrative your other shows have been?

Joss Whedon: It could be both and it was always designed to be both. What ultimately the network asked for was at the beginning we do several episodes in a row that are very much concentrated on the different personality every week rather than on the workings behind the house. The workings behind the house are kind of the soul of the thing because the adventures she goes on are going to be as interesting as we can possibly make them and it’s fun to see Eliza do all these different things. The machinations of those plots is really fun but ultimately, the person who’s experiencing them and/or forgetting them and the world that creates that ability to have that experience is what separates the show from every other show it’s being, whether it’s being an action show or a procedural or a mystery or a romance. Whatever she’s doing, the questions it raises by the fact that she’s only doing it this one time is kind of what I think grabs you the most.

Crave Online: I might be getting way ahead, but could you explore what would happen if one of them maybe wants to keep a certain personality?

Joss Whedon: We’ve talked about that very thing. You’re not getting ahead of yourself, or if you are, we are too. There are a lot of ideas, we’re like, "You know what would be cool in season three? Yeah, let’s do that now. Later on we’ll give a slight clue as to… No, let’s just tell them now." Partly because we’re basically firing all our ammunition because the premise is so rich, we know we can always reload. What we don’t want to do is tease people so much that after 13 episodes, they go, "Well, I still don’t know anything so maybe I won’t bother." We’re definitely rolling out more information week to week and more twists on the premise that we would necessarily have done just to get people really excited, because ultimately you can shift this paradigm around a lot of different ways and still have the same issues to deal with.

Crave Online: Could these be the most vulnerable characters you’ve written so far?

Joss Whedon: Yeah, I would say without a doubt. And that’s something we play on, the fact that when they’re in their doll state, they’re not just child-like, but they’re kind of naïve and trusting and optimistic. Sometimes things are just sort of, when they’re bleak, their optimism is kind of beautifully sad. When we realize that things are not going well and they don’t, it’s kind of heartbreaking and then when they begin to realize, they begin to think beyond what just a blank slate, then it takes on a different kind of poignancy.

Crave Online: How do you go about creating these total mythologies in your worlds?

Joss Whedon: You know, I don’t think I have a show until I have that. I think the same goes for a movie. I think that’s one of the things that’s sort of a science fiction thing particularly. You go into it creating a world. Obviously, everybody creates a backstory for their characters but when you’re doing something that’s science fiction, you really do have to lay down a whole bunch of rules about how this universe works, even though this is very five minutes in the future kind of science. It’s more Gattaca than Firefly. It looks like now and it is now except with a twist. But if you don’t have that whole world, you just have the character, you don’t really have a TV show. I like to do it for everything I write so there’s real life, so that it breathes behind whatever seed it is but for a TV show, you categorically have to because every question you can be asked will come up at some point. In a story meeting, one of your writers will turn to you and say, "Well, how does? And when did?" And you have to have an answer for that, or have left it open to create an answer for it.

Crave Online: Is it like a reclusive brainstorm session when you start out?

Joss Whedon: Yeah, there’s a lot of those. When the show is first picked up, I spend a lot of evenings in my study just pacing and jotting things down on different notebooks and on my board. Just every idea I had and pursuing some, just building on the world and finding the moments and insights into that world that will really open it up for the audience, some of which obviously have changed since we went into production as they always do, but a lot of which are in there right now.

Crave Online: Where do you feel this show is new territory for you?

Joss Whedon: For me, it’s not nearly as silly as my other shows, I’m sad to say. It still has a lot of humor in it but it is kind of a straightforward premise. It doesn’t have the ability to do as goofy as Buffy could be or Jaynestown. We definitely bring the silly because as writers we’d get bored if we don’t. I also just think that that’s part of how people exist is through humor. But it is very much a straight ahead kind of dramatic premise. Even though it has this science fiction twist, it’s really just okay, these are our characters. They don’t fly. They don’t come back from the dead. They definitely go through something strange but there are fewer bells and whistles. It’s more just people.

Crave Online: What actually happened with Wonder Woman? It seemed like a great idea to have you do that.

Joss Whedon: You know, they didn’t like what I was doing and they never told me why. So I liked what I was doing but I don’t know what they were looking for. When Joel Silver said they’re not happy with the new outline and I said, "Well, do they know why? Can they tell me what they want that I don’t have?" He said no. So I said, "Okay, I think I’m going to leave now." It was a weird experience.

Crave Online: On a happier note, I’ve seen the YouTube clip where you give all the different reasons you write strong women. Have you come up with any more since then?

Joss Whedon: Ironically, I did a whole fundraising thing for Equality Now after that, and at the end of that weekend that I did that, a reporter, I did a thing at Comic Con and at the end of that, the last question the reporter asked me was that, with no irony at all. And I was exhausted after three days. I just looked at him like, "Are you kidding?" Ultimately, I don’t remember if I gave the one answer that I don’t really think I understood at the time, was that I do it to help myself. That that is my identification figure. Those characters are the person that I am in my fiction. They’re like my avatars. I really hadn’t realized that and it’s weird for me not to. All those years of writing Buffy, I’d say, "Well, I relate to Xander." And it was always Buffy. Buffy was always the person that I was in that story because I’m not in every way. Why my identification figure is female, I’m not exactly sure but she is. So it was a true kind of therapy, a real autobiographical kind of therapy for me to be writing that particular character, that strong woman. I don’t know why.