How did the initial idea to do Angel come about?
For the first three years of Buffy I was full time and then the end of year three Joss came to me and said "What do you think about spinning Angel off into its own show?"
I said "I think it’s a fabulous idea and I think we should bring young Charisma Carpenter who plays Cordelia Chase with us, because I think she will be a great foil for Angel, a great other side of that dark coin, that big bright girl."
Then we sat down and broke - which means figured out - the story. Breaking the story is almost harder than writing the stories. We broke the story, wrote the pilot and Joss directed it.
I was very excited, although the idea of doing two shows just seemed crazy because Joss worked so hard on Buffy. I would come in to our Buffy sets in Santa Monica, California, and he’d be here at seven in the morning, having spent the night [there], having gotten two hours of sleep.
He was just doing everything in those first few years and I thought "how on earth are we ever going to do two shows?" as it seemed so hard to do one. Particularly with an aim for quality - we want to do good work. Joss seems to have the energy of four men. I’ve the energy of maybe 1.2 men.
