Joss Whedon

FilmFocus Film of the Year Award winner Joss Whedon is jet-lagged. He’s come into London especially to talk about the DVD release of Serenity and he’s had a terribly restless night. Nevertheless, he’s on fine form, perking up as soon as we present him with his award and making plans to head down to Forbidden Planet after lunch to pick up a copy of his Astonishing X-Men issue 13, which has just gone on sale today. The staff there will be in for a surprise, but we checked and they’re well stocked up and proudly displaying the comic on their bestsellers shelf.

Whedon’s Serenity is a testament to the power of quality to win out, the movie resurrected from the ashes of his wonderful series, Firefly’s, premature end by Fox television in America. Strong DVD sales of Firefly inspired Universal to take the shot on a big-screen outing for Captain Mal Reynolds and his crew, and so all eyes are on Joss as the Serenity DVD looks set to sweep up again. We put your questions to him but first, one from us.

Still from Serenity FF: So apparently Brett Ratner’s using some of your Astonishing X-Men ideas in X-3...

Joss Whedon: Yes. Apparently. I was just talking to Avi Arad and he was like, "Aren’t you excited that we’re using some of your stuff?" Umm... "No... Am I getting paid? Is it gonna be awesome? I don’t know."

They’re using at least one character and the mutant cure concept. But, you know, that’s Marvel, if you do it, they own it.

FF: You had some run-ins with them with the original X-Men script too, didn’t you?

JW: I did a major overhaul of the script which they did not use and there was much furore about it. Nobody informed me that they’d dropped it until I was due to turn up at the read through. Luckily I’d found out that they’d thrown out the script just before I was to go to the read through, so I didn’t go. But let’s say I was ungentlemanly about it.

Actually, on this very couch. I was here doing an interview with some little website - which I thought was for some little fanzine or something that goes out on a photocopier - but it was actually on something that you kids like to call, "The internet." So I was really tired and really angry. Things were said and the executives at Fox heard about them before I got back to America... And that was my introduction to the internet. Oops.

FF: Our users have been sending in questions and the most popular one, by far, is; Are we going to be seeing anymore of the Serenityverse?

JW: It’d be sweet, but, you know, nobody’s calling right now. The movie did not make a lot of money - the DVD will do a lot better I think and that’ll certainly help - but it’s going to be a long time before the powers that be start scratching their heads and by then who knows where everyone will be? I don’t like our chances but I’ll certainly give it a shot if I get the chance.

FF: Your cast seem to be blowing up at the moment, don’t they?

JW: Yeah, well, not as much as I’d like. I see all these layouts of actors and things in magazines and I keep thinking, "Where are my guys? Where are my guys?" They’re awesome and they’re really good-lookin’... And you usually just have to be one of those things.

F: They are really good looking... I mean Nathan is... Where were we?

On the subject of Nathan’s good looks, Mal seems to be very-much the pinnacle of a hell of a lot of thinking about leader characters in your work. How have your leaders evolved as a result of your own experiences with show-running and directing?

JW: It’s something that’s become more interesting to me because I’ve spent a lot of time on shows, directing and executive producing. I’ve learnt a great deal about leading and there’s a removal from people that has to take place that I didn’t understand at first. The first year of Buffy was like, "We’re all best friends!" and then I found that I’d completely lost control of the set. *laughs* Because, you know, we’re not best friends - I’m their boss. You have to fire people and you have to shut people the hell up. You have to fight the network and be difficult and you have to be tough.

If you take that to someone like Mal who’s been in a war, or you take it to Buffy who was in her way in a war, you get somebody who is at times unlikeable and at times untrustworthy. There was a line, actually, In Fray which was the first comic book I wrote, "You will be a monster and worse you will be a leader." Because there’s a kind-of chameleon-like quality that you have to have and you have to be bigger than life but it’s not a guy that you’re being it’s something else.

It is kind-of interesting to me and ultimately I don’t trust most leaders. I certainly don’t trust anybody who’s leading my country right now, *laughs* but there are things that they all have in common that is a different kind of difficulty.

When I was younger I was not taken very seriously and did not think much of myself. I never thought I would ever be a leader so when I was actually called upon to lead it was a huge adjustment for me. And, you know, I discovered I like it, but it was something that became increasingly fascinating for me so that’s why Buffy had it so badly towards the end of the series when she was actually voted out of the Scooby gang. There’s that Zoe has in Serenity, "A hero is someone who gets other people killed." And I find that that is inevitably true. Heroes and leaders are people who are willing to throw other people in the line of fire.

FF: It’s certainly something that’s become more prevalent in your work as you’ve gone on.

JW: Well you can only be the strappy little underdog for so long before you become the other thing. And then you wanna terrify the other thing and look at that. With Angel I was constantly undermining that character. He also got fired and came back. Or quit and came back and had to work his way back up again.

Because I’m deconstructing that person who’s got that sort of deadly remove. It’s not always deadly when you’re on a set but there is a remove and that’s a weird thing to witness with humans and in times of crisis.

FF: But Goners seems quite removed, will you be exploring a similar theme there?

JW: Goners is more in the Buffy-mode of discovering strength than in the sense of "I’ve had strength for so long that I’m losing my sense of people who don’t."

Wonder Woman is the script I’m about to finish and that may be the next thing now. But we’ll see.

FF: We’re already confident of your answer but on the casting of Wonder Woman - should we be betting our life savings on Morena?

JW: Another question I just can’t answer! *laughs* I’ve given no thought to casting. I’m just desperately trying to write the woman right now!