Demon on heels Summer 2001



Emma Caulfield has guided Anya from her earliest days as a vengeance demon to the wacky love of Xander’s life.

She’s romantic. “It’s ludicrous to have these interlocking bodies and not…interlock. Please remove your clothing now.”

She’s thrifty. “I like my money the way it is…when it’s mine.”

But never with compliments. “He’s a Viking in the sack.”

And she’s an excellent driver. “I think I’ve figured out how to steer by gesturing emphatically.”

Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins is a great many things. But the one thing she isn’t is the least bit predictable.

Buffy fans probably could never have imagined that she’d become anything more than a demon-of-the-week after her first appearance, way back in the third season episode ‘The Wish. Yet the show’s writers-and Joss Whedon in particular, who brought Anya back for “Doppelgangland’ and sprinkled her into his third-season finale episodes quickly took a liking to the quirky ex-demon and her confused perceptions of our dimension in the late twentieth century.

“Anya is me:” Buffy producer Jane Espenson says. ‘She’s perplexed by a lot of human things that we take for granted, but when you really think about them, there’s no reason for them. Why does everybody coo and smile at babies? Babies don’t care. Anya gets that, and I get that.”

Emma Caulfield is the actress who has managed to keep Anya balanced on the tightrope between her caustic disregard for humanity’s niceties and her emerging attachments to her friends. And as much as it’s been the writers’ devotion to Anya that has allowed the character to grow. it’s been Caulfield’s endearing performance that has earned Anya a special place in Buffy fans’ hearts.

Caulfield’s pre-Anya career consisted mainly of television guest spots, ranging from work on Nash Bridges and General Hospital to an appearance alongside Dustin “Screech” Diamond on Saved by the Bell: The New Class. But television junkies might best recall her from her full season on Beverly Hills, 90210 as Susan Keats, Brandon Walsh’s college sweetheart. Upon arriving in Sunnydale to begin her Buffy stint, it was the writing that most impressed her about the show, and continues to amaze.

“A lot of pilots for TV shows are so banal, so completely void of any originality or character,” Caulfield says. “I’m lucky to come here and week after week work on a show that continues to redefine itself and continues to surprise you.”

We last spoke to Caulfield for the first Buffy’ yearbook, when Anya was little more than a recurring character and a gleam in Joss Whedon’s ever-plotting mind. She’s now earned a spot as a series regular and the faithful girlfriend of Xander Harris. A catch-up chat with Caulfield was long overdue, so one afternoon on the Buffy set, we sat down with Caulfield after a long day of shooting and some Scrabble trash-talking to a visiting Marc Blucas. It quickly became clear that with such a savvy and funny actress behind her, Anya will continue to confound and entertain the Scooby gang for some time to come.

Quiet! You’ll miss the humorous conclusion.

BTM: DO YOU EVER WISH YOU COULD TALK LIKE ANYA, AND JUST SAY WHATEVER COMES INTO YOUR HEAD?

EC: All the time. Especially when I’m in the car. I’m a completely different person in the car than when I’m just hanging out here. I’ve especially been trying to make a concerted effort to stay calm and stop screaming. I’m like a bat out of hell, swerving in and out of lanes. I guess to some extent, too, it’s helped me practice how to speak in sound-bites a little—doing the red carpet thing, or a brief interview where I have to come up with a couple of quick remarks about something. I’m playing a character who speaks with such precise definition; everything’s very to-the-point. Playing somebody that’s so blunt can’t help but rub off on you. It sharpens your skills at being able to come up with something off the top of your head. I don’t think she’s rubbed off on me in any other way. It’d be scary if it did.

BTM: IT WOULD. DO YOU ENJOY HAVING TO DO ALL THAT RED CARPET STUFF?

EC: I really do hate it. I’m trying to learn how to view it differently, and it’s working. The only reason I know that is I’m actually going to more of these things, and I hated it so much for such a long time that I avoided anything at all. I just went to work and that was it. I had to shut it off. But I realized that is as big a part as anything else in this business, to be seen outside of who you are on the show, and let people get to know you a little bit. I’m approaching it differently now. Also, it depends on what it is I’m doing. With premieres, unless it’s something that I’m in, I don’t see the point of doing the interview portions. It’s really not about you. The picture thing is fine. It’s just about finding what you’re comfortable in. But it’s so surreal.

BTM: WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU GO TO A PREMIERE? DO YOU JUST GET OUT OF THE CAR AND WALK DOWN? DO YOU EVEN GET TO GO TO THE MOVIE?

EC: Oh yeah. You can go to a premiere any number of ways. You can go with the full-on car and get out right in front of the cameras. I don’t know anyone who does that unless they’re in the project. You just find where the entryway is, you park, and you walk. You go down the carpet, and you stop, and you smile. You keep going, and then you stop, and you smile. If you answer questions, you stop and answer questions. You go in and see the film, and you leave, and the press isn’t there anymore. You go to the after-party and everybody’s talking about what they just saw, and it’s all very boring. I’m sure it’s very interesting for some people. It is what it is. It’s like having to be “on.” You go to work and you’re “on” all day, then you go to that and you have to be “on” again.

BTM: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ASKED ANY REALLY STUPID QUESTIONS BY AN INTERVIEWER? OTHER THAN AT THIS MOMENT, OF COURSE.

EC: I’m sure I have, and it’s been so stupid that I’ve just blocked it out. Usually, the questions are topical. There have been random questions that have had nothing to do with the project, for a piece on something else—they ask a hundred different people who the sexiest men are in Hollywood. I’ve sometimes been asked stuff like that.

BTM: THIS IS PROBABLY A TOUGH QUESTION TO ANSWER, CONSIDERING THERE ARE SO MANY NOW, BUT DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE ANYA MOMENT?

EC: There are so many great one-liners with her. It’s impossible. I got a great fan letter the other day. This guy was kind enough to type out his favorite Anya one-liners. There are probably four pages of these great quotes from her. So many of them I’d completely forgotten; I started in season three, and it’s season five now, so there’s been a decent amount of time to accrue a litany of Anya-isms. I loved the Thanksgiving episode, where she talked about Thanksgiving being a ritual sacrifice with pie. It was just so straight and to the point. I loved when Anya got dressed up in the bunny suit. That was so endearing. It was the first time she really tried, and again, she tried so hard that she was off-the-mark. She definitely comes from a good place all the time, but at the same time, she’s horribly misguided.

BTM: WHEN YOU OPEN A SCRIPT, ARE YOU ALWAYS BLOWN AWAY? ARE YOU JUST DROOLING OVER THE LINES?

EC: I can’t wait. It’s such a joy, this character. I’m so lucky to have the opportunity to be surrounded by such talent. It’s so hard to come by; it’s so rare. The amount of scripts that I’ve read over the years, and they’re just horrible. After the season finale of last season, with the dreams, I thought it could never get any better than that. Then here’s another script, and it keeps getting better and better. Just when I wonder how to start playing Anya different, they do something completely whack, and it’s like, “Okay, start shifting in another direction.” It just keeps on growing.

BTM: I’VE READ THAT YOU WERE A PSYCH MAJOR IN COLLEGE. DOES THAT HELP YOU GET INSIDE OF A CHARACTER? DO YOU BRING ANY OF THAT EXPERIENCE TO YOUR WORK AS AN ACTRESS?

EC: I’m sure on some level I do, but not on a conscious level. The idea of breaking a character down is a very similar process to reading about a case study, or trying to pick out variables. In a lot of the psych classes, you’re doing theories. You’re taking information and trying to come up with your own theory as to why things work the way they work. When you get right down to it, so much of psychology is conjecture and a lot of subjective opinions. There are things that are definitely fact, but so much is left up to interpretation. It allows you to take everything that you read and study in class, and break it down. You find the common denominators and work back up, which is really the process of acting. You break the character down to its common denominators; you make it bare, and then you start to build something.

BTM: DO YOU THINK YOU’VE DONE THAT WITH ANYA?

EC: I guess I’ve done that, but it’s been such a long evolution with her. It’s not like it was all there on day one, this whole outline of where she came from and what they were doing with her. It’s been a process for the writers as much as it’s been one for me to discover who this girl is - what she wants, where she came from and where she’s going. She didn’t start out being funny. She started out being a very bad girl. I think it’s definitely helped me deal with this type of situation, as opposed to when you read for something and the writers have a breakdown of who the character is. On the surface, a lot of work is done for you. It’s probably helped me more than I realize, to get to the essence of Anya. What does she really want? I don’t think we even know still.

BTM: DO YOU SEE YOURSELF EVER RETURNING TO PSYCH SOMEDAY AS A CAREER?

EC: I really love what I do. I always have since I was a kid. I’ve always been the little drama queen. I studied it, did theater and loved theater. The best excuse I’ve had to be ridiculous was to be an actor. How else can you get away with doing things you can’t do in a normal structured society? It’s a really interesting world I live in. I do love psychology. I think people are just fascinating. The child psychology was something that I really liked. That would have been something I would have loved to delve into a little bit more. But who knows? I’ve said it before: I don’t know that I’ll be doing exactly what I’m doing right now in ten years. I don’t think I would want to be just an actor. I like to discover things too much. I’d like to produce and be an actor. I don’t think I’d ever want to direct; I couldn’t deal with the hours. It’s too much. You leave here and you’re still working. But I’d definitely like to evolve into something else. If people stop hiring me, I’d have no choice but to open a practice somewhere.