Who are you most proud of bringing into the limelight?
That's a hard question because obviously everybody did amazing work, but the most fun story for me and the most Hollywood story is the discovery of David Boreanaz, which at this point might be somewhat legendary.
I was casting for the role of Angel, which was a one-shot deal, and I was very obsessed with this character. Most of the time if somebody's just going to be on a show once, you don't get completely obsessed with the character, but I loved the mystery of [him].
He was supposed to be the most handsome, charming, mysterious, every superlative you can possibly have, [guy], and I met a million people. I would say I auditioned three hundred guys, for one scene basically. We actually found a couple of people that [we thought], "We're shooting tomorrow, this will be fine."
I kept saying to Joss, let me have a few more hours, and he was like, "Fine, but we have people, don't drive yourself crazy." Out of the blue, a friend of mine called, who I knew as a producer in the independent film world, and he said, "I know what you're looking for, and there's this guy I see walking his dog outside my window. I don't know what his story is, but I think you should meet him." I said "Yeah, send him in."
He walked in the room, and I looked up and wrote next to his name, "This is the guy." He never even opened his mouth. We just chatted for a while. He told me where he was from, we talked about italian food.
I said, "Wait here," I ran down the hall and I said to Joss, "I've found the guy." He did that one episode, and the rest is history.
