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Doug Petrie - Interviewed at the Buffy soundstage August 21st 2001
Spike keeps Doug awake
Writing Fool for Love
Some episodes we get a lot of time to write, and some episodes we have to write very, very quickly. Fool For Love had to be written very, very quickly.
It was a hugely ambitious episode and I had about four days to write it which I think is a record for me. I was freaking out. I was like, "What am I going to do? I cannot do this much work in this short a period of time."
I spoke to James [Marsters] about it and said, "Look, I’ve got this huge episode to write, I’m really excited, I love to be working with you but…" and he brought me back a case of Red Bull.
Fans had sent him cases of Red Bull and he generously gave one of those cases to me. I lived on Cheetos and Red Bull for four days and just slept on the sets, wrote it very quickly and was a highly caffeinated lunatic.
So, thank you James and thank you to the fan who gave James the Red Bull who gave it to me which resulted in Fool for Love. There’s some kind of beautiful cycle of life thing going on in there, a cycle of caffeine.
Comic Capers
Working on Tales of the Slayer
Tales of the Slayer is one of the most exciting things I’ve ever been a part of. Going back to Fool for Love, when they said Tales of the Slayer I immediately said, "Let me do Nikki, the Vampire Slayer and let’s see a story of cool seventies Nikki in her long black coat just being in the "Shaft" of Slayers. No one put up a fight, so I got to do Nikki.
The best news for me personally is that there is a great, great comic book artist named Gene Colan, and to fans of Marvel comics of the seventies, they’ll know his name. He’s legitimately one of the giants of the industry. He’s one of the greats of comic book illustration and he’s about 70 years old now and still doing his thing.
On a whim I called Scott Allie [Buffy editor at Dark Horse Comics] and said "Do you think we can get Gene Colan out of wherever he’s at and have him illustrate this story?" Scott Allie pulled it off, so Gene Colan illustrated the story I wrote called Nicky Goes Down.
It’s some of the best work I’ve ever seen Gene Colan produce, it was thrilling to see. It’s very, very exciting and I’m proud of the story I wrote but really give it up for Gene Colan. I just wrote a story but Gene - they used to call him Gene the Dean Colan - produced some gorgeous, gorgeous art.
I’m very excited to see that Gene the Dean Colan in is fine form and as good as he ever was, if not better. I can’t wait to work with him again, so for me personally Tales of the Slayer is all about the triumphant and long overdue return of Gene Colan to comic books.
The Watchers’ Council (spoiler)
Does Buffy need them any more?
Boy, I don’t know where the Watcher’s council’s going to go. They’ll always be around and they’ll always be a part of Buffy’s life, but I think that as she grows up, she needs them less and less and as Giles separates from her as a father figure, he’ll need them less and less.
They will always be around and they will always have an influence, but I think that Buffy is becoming more and more of an independent agent. In the history of Slayers, she’s lived longer than any other Slayer so she doesn’t need these guys.
She’s completely in unexplored territory, and the longer she lives, the further she’ll go into unexplored territory. I don’t see the Council having a big influence over Buffy in the future, but they may come back.
New Network
How the move to UPN affects Buffy
The change to UPN I’m happy to say hasn’t really affected the show at all. We are making the exact same show, we’re making the exact same sets, our offices are the same.
We’re still doing the same thing as we wanted to be doing from the beginning and it’s the exact show as if it was on the WB or UPN.
I’m told that the censorship is lighter, but we’ve gotten away with unbelievable things on the WB. I don’t see that we’ve ever done anything gratuitously, so I don’t see any change at all.
I think the good news for Buffy fans is that we’re doing exactly the show that we wanted to be doing all along.
Future Plans
What Doug plans to do next
I feel - in terms of writing - more freewheeling than ever before. Having written The Weight of the World which scared me so badly going in, I feel pretty fearless right now.
When we first started, everyone had kind of a niche. Jane would do comedy episodes, Marti would do big emotional episodes, I would do action episodes, David Fury would do comedy/action episodes and Joss did it all.
Now I think that the areas are blending so much that I would almost take the luck of the draw. I almost look forward to getting pot luck and saying, "Okay, what episode do you want me to write this time?" and just taking on anything that they want to give me and not having a preference for the first time ever.
When I first started I was like, "No, I must write Faith episodes, I really like writing Faith episodes," and that’s great, but right now I’d do anything they wanted to give me and if I can direct more episodes I’ll just be the happiest guy in Hollywood.
Keep it short
The short film that allowed Doug to direct Buffy
I made a short film at the end of Season Four called Big Time. It’s a twenty minute romantic comedy with a lot of science fiction in it, and I got a star named Eric Szmanda who now is on the television show CSI. Jessica Capshaw was in it too, and they were both wonderful in the movie.
I lucked out [as] I didn’t know who would shoot the movie or who my crew would be. I started making phone calls and asking people within the office if they knew anybody. And one thing led to another.
Ray Stellar is a director of photography who was sometimes our substitute director of photography when Michael Gershman would be directing or prepping an episode. He has shot second unit on some of the biggest movies of all time, Braveheart, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List… He’s an incredible director of photography, I called him cold and said, "Would you like to shoot this movie," and he said "Sure" and that was that.
Ray brought over a lot of the Buffy crew as well, so I was very, very lucky and very exploititive in terms of taking advantage of my job, using the crew during a hiatus, paying them a fraction of what they’re used to being paid and sticking them in the desert where it was 110 degrees and saying "Let’s make a movie."
They didn’t bury me up to my neck in the sand, they actually went ahead and we shot a picture and spent almost a year in post production - which is what happens when you have very little money - and showed it on a big movie screen.
It was one of the best days of my life. A lot of friends and family showed up, a lot of people from Buffy showed up and a lot of the cast and crew showed up. It was just a great, great day. Seeing my sister talking with Spike about my short film was just something I’ll never forget. James Masters, he’s a doll and he was really supportive about the whole thing. Among the people watching it was Joss Whedon of course.
There was one shot in particular that he really liked and he said, "That’s funny, you can be funny with a camera. Why don’t you be funny with a camera on our show?". I played hard to get for a while. I said, "No …" Of course not, I said, "Yes, yes, please," and much to my delight he began by announcing that I would be directing episode four of Season Six of Buffy.
Today is August 21st 2001 and tomorrow will be my first day of directing an episode of Buffy. I couldn’t possibly be more excited or happier.
Prepping an episode
Doug prepares for his directorial debut
The biggest preparation you can do is writing the script, and I think that is preparation in every sense of the word. It’s prepping the episode and it also prepares you for where the emotional beats are and what the story feels like so writing the episode is absolutely the biggest part of that.
But [after that] you are you’re answering 200 questions a day, just on a set, saying, "Where are we starting and what are we doing here?" and you’ve got these very serious and very talented professionals asking very smart questions. You just spit back the answers as fast as you can.
So prep is all about getting the costumes, getting the sets right. This episode there will be no special effects - so I’m lucky that way - and two giant, giant fight scenes.
A lot of the prep goes in with John Medlin, our fight co-ordinator and I walk through the non existent sets and say, "Okay, we’ll fight this way and that way," and how the fight scenes will work out.
I am a big fan of drawing storyboards, so I draw cartoons of what I’ll be shooting. I basically storyboard the entire episode - which not everyone does and may not be necessary - but it’s my way of doing it, so that’s what prep is like for me.
Season Six villains
What Buffy is up against in the new US season
We will be introducing Season Six’s villains in episode four. There’s more than one and they’re not what you’d expect. That’s all I can say.
The episode itself will be primarily a comedy, but you’ve got to remember that again it’s season six, so no Buffy - what are you going to do? That’s really all I can say. I’d like to tease fans with that, but I’m very excited about directing. I hope that it’s the first of many.
Stay tuned, as they say in TV. We have a great great crew and everyone’s been incredibly supportive. We just have the hardest working and best crew that I’ve every experienced in movies or television, [and when] you get that backup, it’s pretty hard to mess up
David Fury who will be directing later this season, is very excited about that. Marti Noxon will be returning to the director’s chair, so a lot of the writers are really stepping up to the plate and directing. I think it’s going to work out well for the show and for all of us.
No Place Like Â鶹ԼÅÄ (spoiler)
All about Glory
We knew a lot about Glory before a single word of her dialogue was written. Joss Whedon had a very clear mandate for what the character would be like.
In terms of her actual dialogue, I based it on the most narcissistic people I knew and it kind of flowered from there, which was a lot of fun. When she’s torturing a guy, one of the things she says is, "You know this is torture for me". You know it’s all about her. She calls the monk "Hairdo" at one point and says "It’s not always about you." These are people who are being tortured unto death and she just talks about how this is affecting her.
So, there was some leeway in terms of creating the character. Clare Kramer really knocked it out of the park and she looked great in her killer red dress. She had a great entrance - the double door smashing open - that opened the episode. You don’t see what smashed that door up and you think it must be a beast the size of The Thing, just some giant Ray Harryhausen monster.
The second time it happens, the door smashes open in a direct visual parallel of the first door smashing open and you see it’s this cute chick, this hottie in a red dress coming in. I still think ‘Burt Reynolds’ when I say cute chick, but that’s another issue.
The other thing that’s fun about Glory is not only is she kind of almost Cordeliaesque in her self involvement and fashion sense, but she can really kick Buffy’s arse. We’ve made it a very clear that when a god hits a Slayer, the Slayer goes flying about 25 feet and smashes into a wall.
It’s been a while since Buffy has really come up against someone who could give her a good physical fight like that, since a girl could give her a good physical fight like that.
Fool for Love (spoiler)
Spike’s history revealed
The history of Spike was established very, very early on by Joss in Season Two. When Spike first showed up, he’s described as William the Bloody and that he has killed two Slayers.
I think there was always the idea rattling around of, "Let’s go back and see him kill those two Slayers." We talked a lot about - not a time travel episode - but an episode that bounces around in time.
I got a call at home from Tim Minear, the Angel writer/producer/director genius and he had very good news. He said, "We’re going to do a two-parter and it’ll be a Buffy/Angel crossover but it won’t literally be a two-parter. It’s going to be more like Pulp Fiction.
Joss also called, very excited. Joss and Tim came up with the idea of this massive two-parter which would be structured somewhat like Pulp Fiction, where you would see side B in the first episode and then side A [in the second], so you’d get information that you didn’t have before.
I got involved very early on. Minear and I really got a lot of work done - how to show the Drusilla of it and the Spike of it - and had a great, great time. Mere Smith, the Angel writer, was in on it too. Joss and Marti [Noxon] helped us really knock it out of the park and again, as always it’s a group effort.
We wanted to do a seventies slayer. I’m a big Seventies movie nut - you’ve seen my office, I’m pathetic - and one of my favourite movies is Shaft. I really wanted to do a Seventies Shaft, black New York city superslayer, and I got to. Joss wasn’t sure about it at first. I said "Well, what if the coat Spike is wearing is taken from the Slayer," and he just went "Do it." That’s how we invented Nikki, the vampire slayer of the Seventies.
Director Nick Mark came in and just went to town with the production values. We were talking about doing a thing on a subway platform, because we could never get a subway car, and Gareth (Davies, line producer) came into my office one day and said "Well, if you don’t mind, do you think we could do it on a moving subway car, instead of a subway platform," so we did it on a subway car, which is one of the coolest scenes I think we’ve ever done.
We went to that Chinese village where he killed a Slayer during the Boxer rebellion. That was tragic and sad and horrifying.
You can’t really say enough about the chemistry between James Masters and Sarah Michelle Gellar, because it’s just awesome. They had a lot to do with that episode and James really is so good at being this thing on the side of Buffy’s life. To put him front and centre and to watch him take the ball and run with it like that was probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever been associated with in my career. James was just amazing in that episode.
What we loved is that Spike has come all this way. What we wanted to do is go, "Okay he’s come this far, he’s come this far…" and then at the end, he’s come nowhere. He’s the exact same guy he was 125 or whatever it is years ago and he’s a fool for love. He’s a heartbroken poet, he’ll never be anything else. It’s a little hard to really hate Spike the way we have before.
He’s not even a two-dimensional villain, he exists in time, he’s a four-dimensional villain. We really gave him a lot of layers. You see that he really is heartbroken underneath all of that. When the women say to him, "You’re beneath me," its something that he cannot escape. All his cool and him making himself like Sid Vicious didn’t work. So that was a fun episode.
Checkpoint (spoiler)
Reigning in Glory
We did have to hold Glory back a little bit. In episode 12, which was entitled "Check point, we had scenes with Glory where she doesn’t fight Buffy. We gave her one line when she said, "If I wanted to fight with you, you’d know by being dead already," so we did have to pull her back and make her vulnerable. That was a big problem - how do you make a God vulnerable?
So, we gave her a medical condition. If she didn’t suck someone’s brain out, she went nuts, and so that was a big problem for her. We treated her very much like someone who needed their medication, so we did have to pull it back and dial her back as the season went on and then really let her out - really let Buffy have it.
The Weight of the World (spoilers)
Limited time with Sarah
Sarah was shooting Scooby Doo. We knew for some weeks in advance what her schedule would be like and we were all very interested in accommodating that schedule because it’s great that Sarah’s going off to be a movie star and it’s great that she’s staying with the show. So, of course, we did everything that could be done to accommodate that.
But we had the second-to-last episode of the season and no Buffy. What do you do? Joss and I were both big fans of the Dr Strange comics. Dr Strange was a mystic magician who lived in Greenwich Village, New York and could leave his body. His astral self would go off on these adventures.
This episode scared me more than any other episode I’ve written. I was afraid that I simply couldn’t do it - that it was just too cerebral and conceptual and I didn’t know how to do it. Joss was great and Marti was great and they really helped guide me through it. David Greenwalt threw some ideas in there and really really helped me [too].
The girl cast as young Buffy was just heartbreakingly great. I think it’s one of our most unique episodes, it’s very action free - which scared me. I was like, "Hey, Stephen [DeKnight] got to write Spiral, to have knights, armour, fighting, stage coaches and Raiders of the Lost Ark and I’ve got a bunch of people walking around in people’s brains, talking.
The Gift (spoilers)
The spectacular end to Season Five
The Gift was awesome. I had a very good feeling about season five. I loved the fact that in the fifth season of a show, you’re not tanked and you’re not running out of ideas but you’re actually picking up steam.
I think that season six is also very, very strong. I don’t know of many television shows that are really strong in their sixth year and I feel great about where we are right now. The Gift was an end and a new beginning, obviously. All great, hugely emotional, it was a big payoff not just to season five but a big pay off to the series.
And Buffy died. It really is the ultimate thing a Slayer can do. At the end of season One she died because they didn’t know if they were coming back [for a second season] or not, and it makes sense that the way a Slayer’s story ends is with her death.
Every Slayer’s been killed before Buffy, some day Buffy’s going to die and that day actually came and went twice now. The Gift is a phenomenal episode> it’s also coincidentally the 100th episode of the series and tied everything up in a really nice bow.
As Joss Whedon said when we watched the episode at his house, "Yeah I make women’s pictures with fisticuffs in them." God bless him.
Season Six (spoilers)
What’s in store for the Scoobies?
Buffy died at the end of season five, so in season six there’s no Buffy. She’s dead, she’s gone, that’s it, it’s over.
So, it will be a lot of sitting around talking, drinking coffee, missing her. A lot of homework, a lot of doing taxes. Someone will buy a car at some point in the season. That was David Fury’s pitch I believe, and that’s pretty much, it.
It will be a lot like Friends, but not as funny.