Joss Whedon

Veronica Mars producers hope Buffy creator’s cult-hero status rubs off on them

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon is a writer, not an actor. But tonight he can be seen in front of the camera, playing a difficult car rental manager who causes problems for the titular teenage sleuth in Veronica Mars.

Could this be the start of a new career for Whedon? He isn’t counting on it.

"Douglas the Car Rental Guy is really going to change the way we think about television," Whedon says, and pauses to let that sink in.

"It’ll make a lot of people want to turn it off."

Similarities Maybe, but Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas is betting on just the opposite. He’s hoping Buffy faithful will tune in to catch Whedon, whom many fans consider a genius. Like Buffy, Veronica Mars is about a resourceful, precocious, willful, plucky young woman in a high school where death and other horrible things are just part of the curriculum.

"Joss has legions of fans, and they are a lot of the same people we think would like Veronica Mars," Thomas says. "If we could ever get the (ratings) numbers Buffy had, we would be a hit show on UPN."

Besides, Thomas says Whedon’s acting isn’t bad, though he admits, "It made me a hair nervous. It’s a two-page scene, so it’s not insignificant. (But) he’s very good in it."

It’s a common marketing ploy to use a guest star from a similar show, but usually it’s the other show’s star, not its creator.

"I still don’t know why they asked me to do (Veronica Mars)," Whedon says innocently. Of course, he does. Whedon has become a celebrity, a bigger star to some fans than Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) or Nathan Fillion of the recent film Serenity, which Whedon also created.

Behind the lens Once in a while a filmmaker captures the audience’s imagination as much or more than his movies: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino come to mind. Whedon is the latest.

"I think I just got lucky in the timing," says Whedon, who is also a main writer of his shows. "I entered the field at a time when people were becoming more insider (knowledgeable). The idea that the actors make up what they say, and there are no creators, has fallen by the wayside."

That’s especially true among science fiction, horror and fantasy genre fans. For decades they have been interested in how shows are put together: special effects, scripts, makeup. Star Trek alone generated shelves of books and magazines on what goes on behind the camera.

Web talk The Internet made the process easier and faster. Fans of even obscure shows can instantly get together to talk about their obsessive interests with people of like mind. There are several fan Web sites devoted to Whedon such as whedonesque.com and whedonsworld.com.

"I like to go on the internet and deal with the fans, because it’s fun and you can learn a lot about what they are responding to and what they are not," Whedon says.

Fans obviously like that Whedon is interested in their opinions. It doesn’t hurt that he has a boyish, nonthreatening look and manner and a sharp sense of humor.

Charm won’t make people watch your show if it’s not compelling. Whedon’s shows are. Characters are quirky, there’s lots of violence and romance - sometimes teasingly indirect - and tension. As Serenity and Buffy fans learned, you can’t be sure some favorite character won’t get killed.

Also in Whedon’s favor are his take-charge women characters.

"Joss might start off with an archetype - that’s mom, that’s sis, that’s the whore next door - but he doesn’t live there," says Gina Torres, who plays the very tough Zoe, second in command on Serenity and its TV version, Firefly. "You think you know who they are, but they’re not. As an actor, that’s always great to play and flesh out."

Whedon seems to take the neo-cult status in stride.

"Adoration is less tough to deal with than you think," he says. "Except once when I was really tired and somebody called me a genius. I just started crying."

Taking a rest from TV He still gets constant questions about future TV projects. So far he doesn’t have anything immediately planned for the small screen.

He’s set to write and direct Wonder Woman for Warner Bros. for release possibly in 2007, and Goner for Universal, about a young woman having to deal with horror and heroics.

"TV welcomed me in (with Buffy), then kicked me out (with Firefly). I’m very excited to be working in movies for a while. I do have some ideas for TV shows, but I am not as fierce about pursuing them right now."

And if movies fail him, he can always fall back on acting.