Angel : Aftermath

With a music video, a documentary, a video game, an animated TV show, and a feature film all in the pipeline, Juliet Landau is easily the hardest working former vampire in Hollywood. But it’s her return to Angel, this time as writer of IDW’s monthly comic book, that has horror fans most excited. We caught a few moments with the wildly busy Buffy alum at Comic-Con yesterday to get the skinny.

On how she came to write Angel…

Chris Ryall, editor of IDW, and Brian Lynch approached me and said, "Are you interested in doing a two-issue arc," and I said, "Absolutely." That was the inception of it. Literally, I hang up the phone and I’m in the editing bay – because I co-directed a music video with the band Godhead called "Hero" – so I was editing that and immediately I got the idea for the story and talked to them about it and they loved it and I got it into script form and Brian Lynch and I went to work. It was a really interesting process because I wrote it in Final Draft, sent it to them and they absolutely loved it, Brian Lynch sent me a synopsis for issue one, I reworked it, sent it back. We did the same thing for issue two. He wrote the first five pages, I got them, reworked them, sent them back. We did the same thing for the first thirteen pages and then I got to the full 22. Then I rewrote the synopsis for issue two because I had a real moment of clarity about how I wanted to open it up. So Brian wrote the first five pages of that one, sent it to me, I reworked them and then said, "You know what? I’m just going to continue. And I just went ahead and wrote on to page 22, sent it to him, and he said, "I think we’re good. I think that this is fantastic." So it was a really fun process.

On whether or not she’ll write more comic stories…

I’ve been approached on some other things. I really enjoyed it, it was very creative, and I was also involved in the visuals and the art. I brought a couple artists in as well as working with [them] on the inhouse art. I would definitely be interested, I had a great time.

On whether she’ll provide the creepy girl voices in Bioshock 2…

I did some other characters on Bioshock 2. I didn’t do the Little Sisters in Bioshock 2 [like I did in Bioshock 1], I did a character named Eva Tate who’s a French movie star. It’s actually a really interesting character and voice. And I also did another character, a female revolutionary, very tough and angry and passionate character as well.

On her role in the Green Lantern animated film…

I play a character named Labella [in the upcoming Green Lantern]. It’s beautifully drawn and it’s a really different character, and a very different sound than I’ve ever done before. She wasn’t in the original Green Lantern; they created her for the film. She’s a character that Hal and Sinestro come to investigate. She’s an alien with a little bit of an Amy Winehouse kind of thing going on. When they sent me the script I loved the character and the drawing, and the voice just came to me.

On her other upcoming feature film…

I’m shooting an adorable kids’ movie. It’s called Monster Mutt, created by Drac Studios. I’m playing the slinky, blonde, Russian baddie. I’ve been slinking around in cat suits and being evil.

On her directorial work and music recordings…

I directed a short documentary film about Gary Oldman that’s called Take Flight. We’re in talks and figuring out about getting it out there. After the "Hero" music video, I’m recording like four songs with Jason Miller, the lead singer [of Godhead]. We had an appearance in Florida where we showed the video and the behind-the- scenes, and then he had a concert and I sang two songs with him and it was really fun. So we’re gonna co-write and do four songs and sell it on iTunes. This other artist, Jude Rawlins, of the Subterraneans, he wrote an incredible song that was based on Drusilla – Spike and Dru – so he wrote this new song and said, "I don’t know if you’ll be interested in this…" And I loved it, so we’re going to record that together too.