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Taken from the Dreamwatch UK magazine December 1999

 “I’m not dead, I’m still the undead!” Juliet Landau proclaims proudly down the telephone line. While it has been some time since her last appearance on Buffy The Vampire Slayer as the evil vampiress Drusilla, she still retains a great deal of affection for the show, and is looking forward to a return. Her career has really taken off in recent months, meaning she has not had the time to turn up in Sunnydale-“a very nice problem to have,” she jokes. “I’m not complaining!” Juliet was drawn into Buffy’s world, by the creator of the show, Joss Whedon. Like everyone else on the programme, Juliet has nothing but praise for the very hands-on producer. “He’s one of the most busy human beings. It’s unbelievable .Even on Buffy, he gets involved with every aspect. He writes a lot of the episodes, he produces them, he directs a lot of them, he’s literally involved with every wardrobe choice, every final edit… he’s so involved that it’s amazing the man sleeps at all. And then he has this two-picture deal with Fox. He wrote the last Alien script, Toy Story, it’s amazing… “Joss saw me in Ed Wood- I had a co-starring part playing Loretta King- and I think he had also seen my work in a movie called Theodore Rex, in which I starred with Whoopi Goldberg and Armin Mueller-Stahl. He asked me to come in and I had this most creative fun meeting with Joss (producers), David Greenwalt, and Gail Berman and (casting director) Marcia Shulman. “I had read a couple of the pages of the script and a character description of what they had in mind for Drusilla. It said that the actress could either be British or American. I had a really strong sense of what Drusilla could be, so I did a little bit of her, and we started to bounce these ideas off each other. Within half an hour of my leaving I got the call saying they wanted me to do it. “ I left thinking this would be such a strong creative experience to have, just the whole concept of us being the Sid and Nancy of the vampire set, the drug analogies, the whole look thing. Obviously they decided to keep the dialect and found a Sid. Then they paired me with the three final choices ( for the part of Spike), and James Marsters came in and was absolutely amazing. He’s such a wonderful actor: a real theartre actor and a real giving actor, we had such a good time in his audition together and came up with all this stuff that ended up being used. In our introductory episode, Spike and Drusilla are talking to the Anointed One, this little boy that ruled. Basically we take over power from him. We had this moment: we were lingering as if we were going to kiss when we were in the middle of talking to the boy, and our heads just rested on each other, then we were like, “Oh yeah, we have business to do” and we turned our faces out. It ended up being used not only in the episode, but in all the trailers: they said, “Evil has two new faces” and they used that bit of us resting our heads and turning out. It really came out of a true moment between the two of us” The relationship between Spike and Dru is very complex. Neither wants to rely on the other, but they know they need each other. “That’s what made it such a joy because there were so many different levels to the relationship. What was also a great thing was that my character started very, very weak, and got strong, and James had the other arc. He started very strong and then ended up in a wheelchair, so we were switching the role of who’s the caretaker and who’s the strong one” Had she been aware that Spike was originally intended to die at the end of What’s My Line? “I was aware that James’ arc was shorter, and they were thinking about that,” Juliet admits. “After I was cast, I had a creative meeting with Joss where we sat down and he gave me all the vampire lore for the show. He did tell me that in terms of the creative process that anything could happen. All of a sudden he could get an idea and both of us could die, or both of us could go on. It’s an ongoing process with him, and sometimes something unexpected would come to him, and that would be the direction it would go. But I was aware that James was supposed to die. But he was so fabulous they had to keep him around” How much input did she and David Boreanaz have into the playing of the scenes between Drusilla and Angel, since the sexuality of the vampires had been played down in Buffy until then? “That for me was also interesting. In a way we were getting to push the envelope of what is on television… there’s so much stuff that is suggested. It’s not gory or blatant! When I have Angel tied to my bed, and I drop Holy water into his chest, it had so many elements of torture and S&M and sexuality. Getting to push that envelope with the three of us was such fun. Really, really fun.” Was Joss writing it to the way they were playing it? “One of the things that made working on the show so creative and wonderful is that it was really collaborative, in that they started to write off of what we were coming up with- but Joss said he had Spike and Dru running around in his head for ten years! I came up with a character laugh that would make its way into a script. On one particular episode I wanted to dance on a table, but I didn’t on that episode, but the next episode Joss directed, he had me up on a table. There were always things. It was just so collaborative, following through what was right with the character and getting to work all together on that. It was loads of fun with both James and David. They’re so wonderful, bouncing off them in scenes we were playing, and the dynamics we had: Angel made me the vampire I am, but there was Spike, and we’d been together so long” There’s an element of Drusilla that is almost sympathetic- the viewer doesn’t know whether to hug her or slap her. “When I had that meeting with Joss, I wondered how I could put all these things together that he was saying: Sid and Nancy, and Ophelia. Drusilla is ethereal; she’s sensual; she’s diabolical and somewhat mad, so I had all those colours, and was able to bounce. She’s very childlike and very womanly, and then extremely evil, then giddy: that’s the part for an actress which is like a dream to have. Sometimes you get a character who is so one- dimensional in terms of “Stand there and look good” (and that’s good too), but it’s nice to be able to move through all those things.” It’s the attention to detail on Buffy that Juliet enjoys. Cynthia Bergstrom who does wardrobe is absolutely amazing,” she says.” So is Todd McIntosh who does the make-up. He came up with the idea for my French manicure: when I’m weak its black with white tips and then when I wanted to make it a little bit different so its red with white tips. Little details which make a huge difference to the visual picture from me being weak to healthy is made up of that” What does she look for in a part? “I do look for diversity. It’s a bout getting to do a whole range of types of characters. I’ve been very fortunate in doing that. I’ve just done a movie called Carlito’s Wake, which comes out this year. I play a New York Italian in it, and I’m a really different character than I’ve done before. I had a blast. I also just an episode of La Femme Nikita- I played two characters in one episode. One is this wild terrorist, and the other is dying of leukaemia who has to try and infiltrate and become like the other character, so again it was like an actor’s dream because it was such a range! It was the first time Joel Furnow, the creator of La Femme Nikita directed an episode. We had so much fun. Also, I look for directors,” she adds. “My first job, on The Grifters, was with Stephen Frears. I worked with a baby and two different little boys in these flashbacks, but the movie worked better without the flashbacks, so I was cut out. I worked with Stephen Frears, with Tim Burton, with Joss. I’ve just had an opportunity to work with people who are inspiring.” Like her co-star James Marsters, Juliet appeared on the last season of Millennium. “Again to me it was such a great part. I’m nine months pregnant, and get kidnapped. It’s very dark. They blindfold me and bind my hands and feet, and induce labour. I actually give birth in water with men holding me, then they take my baby from me, and much of the episode I don’t know if my baby’s alive. Actually there is a happy ending! It was a really wonderful acting role, and I loved working on it. The director, Thomas J Wright, was incredible to work with. The nature of this part was so emotional: literally I was weeping all day long for days and days and he was so great. I had a wonderful time, although when I got the part I realised it was days of a total nightmare experience. I thought it was going to be great and it was.” What does her future hold? “I’m not driven to direct. I’m driven to keep working as an actress. I want to keep working. I’d love to do a period movie: I actually got a little bit with Buffy with some of the wardrobe and a little step into that with the flashbacks. The look on Buffy was sort of this cross of the Victorian look with her dolls, and then the Kate Moss heroin chic look. This cross of two things that seem completely diametric in an interesting way. I’d love to do a period piece.”