![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I recently finished reading Slayers and Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorised, Oral History of Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel
The reviews for it seem in the low side, and I suppose the way it’s put together with just assorted bits from various interviews is a bit haphazard, but I really enjoyed it anyway. Even as a longtime Buffy fan, it had quite a bit of new info in there for me.
I found out a lot about Charisma Carpenter especially which I hadn’t been aware of before, she goes into a lot of detail about her anxiety and how hard it made her to learn lines. Apparently even when she was performing in talent shows when she was younger, she would have the routines memorised, but then her mind would just freeze up on the day and she would forget what she was meant to be doing. It was the same with learning lines, she said that people on the set were actually really great about it because they knew that it wasn’t just a case of being unprepared, that she really was trying. I read the authors elsewhere talking about how Sarah *did* give Charisma a hard time for constantly forgetting her lines, and so she was always worrying about being fired, but in the book at least she says that everyone in the cast was very understanding, it was more that she kept worrying about how sick of her they must be. She notes feeling very inadequate when the lead actress was 4 or 5 years younger than her and always knew all her lines without any problems, while Charisma kept struggling over her same few lines, and that it’s a really big deal when you’re costing a production money by not being able to get your lines in one or two takes. She was having meetings with the producers, her agents were being called, and she felt awful about it. She ended up taking anti-anxiety medication, she went to a psychiatrist, and the producers hired an acting coach for her after asking her what else they could do to help. She also struggled a lot with hitting her mark because she was so inexperienced, and one cameraman in particular would make her feel stupid for not getting it.
James Marsters notes that Sarah was great if you knew all your lines, hit your marks, and were prepared, but it was very hard for her because they were regularly filming up to 16/17/18 hours a day, it would often go up to 20 hours even and they would rarely see the sun. The show was known as Buffy The Weekend Slayer in the industry as they were filming for such unusually long hours, and it was especially draining on Sarah as she had to carry so much of the show.
( Read more... )
The reviews for it seem in the low side, and I suppose the way it’s put together with just assorted bits from various interviews is a bit haphazard, but I really enjoyed it anyway. Even as a longtime Buffy fan, it had quite a bit of new info in there for me.
I found out a lot about Charisma Carpenter especially which I hadn’t been aware of before, she goes into a lot of detail about her anxiety and how hard it made her to learn lines. Apparently even when she was performing in talent shows when she was younger, she would have the routines memorised, but then her mind would just freeze up on the day and she would forget what she was meant to be doing. It was the same with learning lines, she said that people on the set were actually really great about it because they knew that it wasn’t just a case of being unprepared, that she really was trying. I read the authors elsewhere talking about how Sarah *did* give Charisma a hard time for constantly forgetting her lines, and so she was always worrying about being fired, but in the book at least she says that everyone in the cast was very understanding, it was more that she kept worrying about how sick of her they must be. She notes feeling very inadequate when the lead actress was 4 or 5 years younger than her and always knew all her lines without any problems, while Charisma kept struggling over her same few lines, and that it’s a really big deal when you’re costing a production money by not being able to get your lines in one or two takes. She was having meetings with the producers, her agents were being called, and she felt awful about it. She ended up taking anti-anxiety medication, she went to a psychiatrist, and the producers hired an acting coach for her after asking her what else they could do to help. She also struggled a lot with hitting her mark because she was so inexperienced, and one cameraman in particular would make her feel stupid for not getting it.
James Marsters notes that Sarah was great if you knew all your lines, hit your marks, and were prepared, but it was very hard for her because they were regularly filming up to 16/17/18 hours a day, it would often go up to 20 hours even and they would rarely see the sun. The show was known as Buffy The Weekend Slayer in the industry as they were filming for such unusually long hours, and it was especially draining on Sarah as she had to carry so much of the show.
( Read more... )
