Angel

Issue 302

ANGEL EYES

Beheaded but not forgotten...but is Lilah Morgan going to return to Angel ? Joe Nazzaro quizzes the show’s sexy siren and discovers why the Wolfram & Hart lawyer always gets her man, as well as the best lines.

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. Okay, strictly speaking, that classic line is actually from Henry VI, Part II, but it could just as easily pertain to this past season of Angel, where the law firm of Wolfram & Hart is basically wiped out by the rampaging Beast. All except for scheming attorney Lilah Morgan that is, who manages to escape with wounds to her pride and torso.

Not that Lilah has an easy time after that. By the end of the season, she’d been fatally stabbed by a possessed Cordelia, bitten by Angelus, and ultimately beheaded by her lover Wesley, thus ensuring that she’d stay dead. But in the Angel universe, death isn’t necessarily the career-ender it used to be. Thanks to a perpetuity clause in her contract, Lilah returns in the final episode to offer Angel and his associates the full resources of W&H’s Los Angeles office.

Needless to say, most of the above came as a complete surprise to actress Stephanie Romanov, who’s played the scheming attorney for the past four seasons. "You never know with them," she claims referring to series creator Joss Whedon and the Angel writing staff, "but I’m surprised that it’s gone on as long it (sic) has. I’ve had a great time doing it over the past four seasons, so I can’t complain about that."

But having been killed off in a fairly gruesome fashion, even Romanov would have been hard-pressed to believe her character would return any time soon. "They were nice enough to call me about a month before, and everybody was so great while we were shooting. The cast and crew were all saying, ’I can’t believe they’re killing you off !’ so it was really sweet to hear all of that stuff as well. On the other hand, there were some interesting ideas they had for where they were going to take the character, and I thought that would have been really fun to play. It just felt like she was starting to get to the meaty stuff."

In spite of her seeming demise, though, the actress admits harboring a tiny kernel of hope that her character might return. "I thought what was interesting was they chopped off her head but you never actually saw the chopped-off head. You just saw the axe come down, so how did we know for sure that they actually cut off her head ? That’s what’s so fun about the make-believe aspects of a show like this : it creates unlimited possibilities."

Over the past half-decade or so, Romanov has had plenty of time to think about some of those possibilities. "There are a lot of places they could have taken Lilah, and interesting places that I would have liked to have experienced with her, but I’m not one of the writers. You definitely have to fill in the blanks, which I liked to do, because you can make up your own thing. You’re not just being dictated to, so you can play it any way you want, and a lot of times, the way you play it dictates how they write it, so I definitely think that happened as well.

"They liked the way I delivered the snappy, funny lines, and as you can see, I got some of the best lines in the show sometimes. So I like to think it was because of my delivery that they kept giving them to me. The way I originally thought of her, during different phases of the filming and different times I would have different ideas because some things would change, of they’d give you a bit of a storyline about this or that."

Are there any particular storylines that come to mind ? "I definitely enjoyed working with Julie Benz and Juliet Landau. There are so many different highlights, because I liked the people. Christian Kane was another fun one, and Daniel Dae Kim as well. It’s hard to give any specifics because I have a lot of fond memories of all of it. It’s all about the moments here and there, like when Lilah was the hero and killed Billy.

"I liked my work on the show. I enjoyed what I played and pretty much feel that I did what I needed to do acting-wise. There were moments where I think maybe I could have done better or why didn’t I do this, but all in all, I feel pretty confident about the work and it leaves you with a sense of accomplishment to walk into another room."

Since her last appearance as Lilah, the actress has been focusing on activities that don’t necessarily involve vampires and dead lawyers. "I’m basically chilling out a bit and looking for work again," she explains. "My husband and I bought a new place, so I’m adjusting to that whole thing. It’s so exciting, we found a place in Malibu, a ranch with 30 acres and a stream running through and 200-year-old oak trees ; it’s amazing, I’m so excited about that. There are goats and chickens and stables, so eventually we can get some horses and throw some children in the mix, so I’m definitely going through a lot of life stuff right now. I certainly love what I do, and I’m just as driven as before, maybe more, because we’ve got to play for the place, but I love country life. I love nature and I love to garden, and it’s a very spiritual place."

With a fifth season of Angel now a reality, it should be interesting to see if Lilah Morgan will be making any future appearances. Until then, Stephanie Romanov is interested in seeing if her work on the series will have any effect on future work. "I think it’s a bit early to tell," she muses, "but I haven’t really noticed much of an impact from it on my career. Whenever I had a good audition or people wanted to see me, I just happened to be working on Angel, so now I have more time to actually get in to some of those doors !"

END

SIDEBARS

ABOUT LILAH Although the nefarious Lilah Morgan had been part of Angel since the beginning, little is known about the character’s backstory even after four seasons. Romanov has plenty of thoughts on that subject, most of which she’s kept to herself—until now, that is. "I always like to think of her as an avatar, who’d been around a long time and who knew Angel back in the day, and maybe even had some type of connection to the gypsies who put the curse on him. I liked thinking that was one of the reasons she wasn’t afraid, because she couldn’t really be killed. That made it much more fun to play as far as the different situations you’re put into. I liked the idea that maybe she’d been around a long time and was basically a survivor, so her fear factor was low.

"And also, she was ruled by power and wanting power. If you make a deal with the devil, you want to get something out of it, so I think she was trying to get ahead, and being a woman in a man’s world, I like the idea that she kept outliving the guys in the firm. Considering they started dying off in the first season, and I died off in the fourth, that’s pretty substantial !"

ROMANCING WESLEY

One of the more unexpected developments in Season Four was the torrid affair that Lilah was having with Wesley (Alexis Denisof), which took most people by surprise, Romanov included. "It was definitely fun to play and gave me another wide of Lilah to tap into, that we hadn’t seen before. I always saw her as a woman you never saw having sex. She had her young boys around or whatever and was definitely a hot-to-trot lady, and then being with someone who’s maybe a little bit more of her equal brought out some of her vulnerability which she had probably kept suppressed for a very long time.

"I think she was trying to tap into his inside knowledge, so if she could get Wesley on her side she’d be way ahead of the game. [note : caption with accompanying pic of AD : "Wesley seemed to like getting tapped"] He’d been with those people for so long, so he had all that knowledge, and I felt that she wanted to use it to move herself up or get rid of Angel. I think the surprise of actually then feeling something for someone for a moment—she’s definitely torn. And also, he’d been a good guy, and seemed to care for her, so that was something else she wasn’t expecting."