Interviews...

 
How have easy was it to settle in when you started on Buffy?
In a way I was kind of welcomed from the very start. I had someone that I have known a long time, who was already ingratiated into the fold. Alyson and I have stayed friends for the last ten years or so. I wasn't an outsider from the start. I was just kind of included. When things went on, I was invited. When everybody left the set to go to the service table, they asked me.
How did you feel having such a small part in season 2?
If you're there all the time and you're in the forefront, then it's so over so fast. I would rather be a supporting player for the rest of my life. I would be very content with that.
Is it true you want to be a producer or director later on?
Directors have to have a vision and stamina, and I have neither. I just want to take things from their very earliest points and I want to put the people into them and make them something special.
OK, now what about Oz's van?!
It was carpeted, there were bean-bag chairs, there was a bench. It had black-light posters, there were shrunken heads, there was a disco ball, a dart board, a fridge. There was just all this stuff. They went all out. They so defined the van. It was really funny. They did a great job finding cool stuff. [Oddly enough there's an Internet group devoted entirely to Oz's van!]
How do you feel about your fan base i.e. the buffy posting board?
It's just nice because the people who like the show are very supportive and it takes such little effort to show that you appreciate it [talking about chatting on the board] So long as it doesn't take focus away from the work, because if you get too wrapped up in your own ego, you stop working as hard. So long as I avoid that, then, yeah, it is nice to know that people are into it.
What are your feelings about the character Oz?
I feel that Oz is defined by a few specific moments. One of them is that scene in Innocence where we are stealing the weapons from the armory and I am sitting in the van with Alyson. I haven't said anything, this whole episode I haven't said a word. And then she says,'Do you want to make out?' And I remember this so specifically: I say,'Well to the casual observer, it would appear that you're trying to make your friend Xander jealous, or even the score, or something like that, and to me that's on the empty side.' Right away, you get the impression that Oz knows what is going on. He pays attention, not only to what people are doing to him but to what people are doing to each other. He just takes things as they come and recognises them for what they are. So, while I would love to explore the more emotional side of him, I think it's going to necessitate a huge and very powerful catalyst to even break through that. It's the werewolf thing. The way that his family has reacted to the whole thing, because no one seemed too upset that their kid is a werewolf. He has been conditioned in one way or another, and while there is a little bit of an emotional reaction, it is pretty internal. It is so much more cerebral than that. He's like, 'Well, all right, how am I going to deal with that?'
Is it true Oz wasn't always intended to be a werewolf?
Yeah, when I first came on the show it was with a three episode commitment. Then they saw that Aly and I got along really well, and I saw the wheels spinning in Joss's head and he was like, 'I can work with this.' Alison said it to me first...She said, 'If they offer you to be a regular, would you do it?' I was like, 'Hell, yeah...absolutely. Absolutely.' Then I talked to Joss and I said I just wanted to know what he was thinking, because that was integral in my decision whether this was the show that I was going to commit to.
    He said,'Well, there is a talk of making him a werewolf, but we don't know exactly how we would handle that.' I said,'Okay, let's keep our minds open and see where it goes.' He told me a couple of weeks later to read episode fifteen. 'That is what I'm going for. If you like that, we will go into negotiations.' Fifteen was "Phases" the werewolf episode, and I loved it. It was perfect.
Is it true that you are the only member of the Buffy cast who was in the movie?
Yeah. I was cut out of the film, but I'm on the back of the video box. Go on, check it!! I was awful in it, and I really hope the footage never surfaces, because in retrospect I realise how bad I was in it. You see me really early on as sort of a geeky guy that Sasha makes fun of in passing, like knocks books out of my hands or something like that....And then he is walking through the woods toward the merry-go-round. The way it goes in the movie now, Sasha says, "I'm going to turn around and when I do you're not going to be there." When he does, it is Paul Reubens on the merry-go-round. There are five minutes cut out of that bit where I turn into a vampire.
Were you interested in horror and fantasy growing up?
Absolutely. There was a time when I was very into vampire mythology and things like that. Then it got a little spoiled for me. It is difficult for it not to be spoiled when there are all these people running around with died black hair and Marilyn Manson T-shirts talking about how they suck blood. Quite frankly,when you have something that you take relatively seriously, just made laughable by a few ignorant people, it is difficult to still hold it with the same amount of respect.
Oz is the lead guitarist for Dingoes Ate My Baby. Do you play guitar?
I can fake it, can't I?
That's not what I asked.
No, I sure can't. I can strum. I know where notes are on the guitar, but I really don't have any dexterity when it comes to it. Our music co-ordinators on the show help, and my friends who do play guitar. I get the tapes well in advance and I sit and practice and practice, and it's all for naught because you never really see me play guitar on the show.
Do you have any scars, tattoos, or any other distinguishing marks?
I have two scars on my head in the same place. I was five years old and my sister and I were running around our living room. I just dove headfirst into the corner of our coffee table and split my head right open. And then, this is the best part, about two years later I was playing super-jock football with my dad and I go to run out of my room, and I hit my head on the protruding corner of the wall, right in the same place. Split my head right open again.
There you have it. The question is sort of another version of something Cordelia says in one episode: 'What is your childhood trauma?'
My childhood trauma was when I realised that I was going to Hell very early on in my life because I saw an old lady fall when she was trying to get off the bus and I laughed. It was bad, man. It was a very slight fall, and we helped her up, mind you. We raced to help her up, but at that moment I realised that I had laughed at an old woman falling off a bus. I was going straight to hell. As a result of that, I have lived my life with the theory that I'm already going, so I might as well live it up.
What were you afraid of as a child?
I don't know...stupid stuff. When I was four years old, there was this episode of Starsky and Hutch on TV and they opened up a closet and there was a decaying body inside, and that scared me. But I never had an ongoing fear....Then, over the course of my life I have seen so many horror films I am conditioned to not jump at the big scare, and as a result, I don't jump. Creepy is so much better than the big scare.
What other actors do you admire?
Breckin Meyer, who  think is one of the best young actors around. Definitely one of the most under-used talents around. He is up and coming, just a huge sex symbol. And if there were a man that I was going to be in love with, it would be Breckin Meyer.
Is he standing right there next to you?
Kinda.
So you have to say that?
Well, Breckin and our friend Ryan and I intend to produce stuff, and we're trying to work toward that. If I could sound any more arrogant and pretentious.
Do you have a favourite moment from your tenure on the series [of Buffy]?
There was a day when we were making "Innocence" They had built that whole mall in this warehouse in downtown LA, and we had a kind of mini-revolt, and Aly and Charisma and Nick and Tony and I all went to the mall across the street and we ate lunch there. It was so bad, we were told there was a Chinese place and they wouldn't serve us. They were like, '"We're only doing lunch orders now." We said, "Yeah, we want lunch."   "No, no bulk orders for delivery," and they wouldn't give us food. So we wound up eating at McDonalds or something, and then we started scouring the mall for board games, and we wound up buying TVopoly, which is like TV monopoly. It was like a long time between set-ups. Juliet, David and Sarah were all on set; they were working. we didn't have anything to do, so we just sat in Charisma's trailer playing board games. It was so much fun.