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Taken from the UK Angel magazine March 2004
Dru calling

Drusilla may be completely insane and terrifyingly lethal, but it's always a pleasure for us viewers to see her turning up every now and then in Buffy and Angel. And since her last appearance in Angel's "Destiny" revealed a shocking twist in the Spike/Angel/Dru relationship, we thought it was about time we caught up with Dru actress Juliet Landau for an insightful chat!
Part of the appeal for guest stars of Angel and the late Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the way that their characters can weave in and out of storylines as the tapestry of the Whedon-verse continues to evolve and expand. Actress Juliet Landau sereves as a perfect example of this. Since debuting on Buffy as vampire Drusilla in Season Two's "School Hard" (which co-starred James Marsters as Dru's vampire lover, Spike( Juliet has reprised the role an impressive 22 times, most recently on the "Destiny" episode of "Angel". Along the way, the character has not only served as a tangible threat in the present, but in different time periods via flashback- all of which have played an intergral role in Dru's gradual evolution. "Getiing to work on a character for such a length of time is something that I liken to doing a run of a play," muses the daughter of Mission:Impossible and Space 1999's Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. "When you work on a play, and you do, say, eight shows a week from opening night through 40 shows later, this other sort of thing starts to happen where you gradually begain to find so much more in the character. Playing Drusilla has been the same kind of experience, except that the text is different every time as opposed to a play where it's the same text night after night. But getting to live with this character and bringing her out over six years- well, I've never really had the longevity of that kind of experience before as a character. It's so great and I've been so busy doing other things, too, so it's this balance where I get to play this great role and I get to do many other things as well. I love this role,"Juliet continues. "There's just so much dimension and it's really a great time working on this part. In terms of history, you're dealing with characters who are 200 years old, so there's quite a bit of lineage there. The cast and creators are wonderful- both Buffy and Angel have been great shows to work on, and working on "Destiny" was wonderful. In "Destiny" Angel and Spike vie for the virtual Holy Grail of the vampire world: the Cup of Perpetual Torment, which will supposedly transform a vampire back into human form in fulfillment of the Shanshu Prophecy. Along thw ay, the episode flashes back to the 1880's where we discover that the rivalry and antagonism betwen Spike and Angel has often been over their feelings for the same woman: Buffy in the present and Drusilla in the past. "The appeal,"Juliet explains,"is that it sort of takes place right after I've made Spike a vampire, and invesigates that love triangle between Angel, William and Drusilla. That's the theme of it, and it's always great to come back and work with the boys and to explore new colours and dimensions in the role." This is an opportunity that presented itself to Juliet from the beginning. "For the first six episodes of Buffy," she reflects,"my character was weak and dying. Then I got renewed strength and became powerful. When I came to Los Angeles and teamed up with Darla (on Angel), it was this little bit of a different side- and I got to spread more of my evil wings. Then filling in the flashbacks is something I've always loved, because I've always wanted to do a period movie, so we get to do some of that. The nice thing is that this is not just straight black and white, "Oh, she's the villainess" kind of role. So much had happened to the character in terms of her life before she was turned into a vampire, that I hope it creates some sympathy for her as well. She's a little crazy, but, as we've learned, she was also victimised." In that regard Juliet recalls a flashback sequence on Buffy, in which a still human Dru is suffering from bizarre visions, and turns to the church for answers. Unbeknownst to her, the "priest" she's talking to in the confessional is actually Angelus, who more or less pushes her over the edge of sanity before turning her into a vampire. "What was interesting about that scene," she says, "is that we usually get scripts about a week in advance, but for some reason on that particular episode for that particular sequence, I really only got it a couple of days ahead of time. It seemed like such an important piece, because it was the first time I got to work on Drusilla prior to her becoming a vampire, and I felt that this was important and we had to get it right. For that reason, it was an intruiging scene." Just as intruiging about the character about Drusilla is the fact that she seems to be extremely sensual, which Juliet attributes to a combination of the character as written and what she's attempted to bring to it as an actress. "When I first got hied for the role," she says, " I had never actually read for it ahead of time. I worked in Ed Wood and a movie I did with Whoopi Goldberg (Theodore Rex), where I played an upper class English characte. I went in, and we had this incredibly creative meeting where it was (the WB's) Gail Berman and David Greenwalt and Joss, and we bounced ideas off of each othe and I thought "This could be so much fun". When I got hired, I went in for a creative meeting and Joss and I sat down. He sort of filled me in on all the vampire lore of the show and he told me all the objectives he wanted for Drusilla- and they were quite a spectrum of things. A little bit Ophelia, but diabolical. Sensual, but ethereal-things that seemed like a big spectrum. I thought to myself "How am I going to put all these pieces together?" Then I did a lot of work on it and it all fell into place. She is definietly sexualised. There's a lot of it that's twisted," Juliet elaborates with a laugh, "because there's there's also the fact that the relationship with Angel is kind of an incestrous love affair, as he's kind of my father figure. I remember talking to Joss about a movie called Night Porter, with Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, which was about Nazi Germany but was also very dark and interesting and has that murky sexuality as well. So I think it's a combination of what was given and how it's taken off as well. Definitely collaborative. That's one of the things I love about working on thse shows." For those who wonder how much of Dru is informed by the actress, she's quick to point oit that there actually is very little that connects the two. "Its funny," she smiles, "there's someone I've been friends with since we were kids, and she hadn't seen a lot of Buffy or Angel. But she called me one day after she did see an episode and said "I recognise you, but I don't recognise you.Drusilla is so not like you in terms of mannerisms and physicality." I actually took that as a huge compliment. Of course, in terms of choices, as an actor you use yourself. I really don't feel that I'm like that character in pretty much any way, but it terms of adding to my life, I feel like I get to make some really bold choices as an actor and get to have a certain freedom that has been an increbile experience." Although Juliet has made an impressive career for herself in such independent films as Life Among the Cannibals(1996), Carlo's Wake(1999), Freediom Park(2000), Repossessed(2002), The Toolbox Murders and Shopping(both 2003), it remains her work in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994), in which she played Loretta King, and, naturally, as Drusilla that she continues to be most recognised. "When I was working on Ed Wood"she says of the movie in which her father played Bela Lugosi, " a lot of people responded to that film and loved Tim Burton, but I would say that Drusilla has had a different kind of life definitely. I have an action figure, which is kind of surreal and pretty wild. I am one of the few people on the planet who doesn't have a computer, but I've been told that there are quite an extensive amount of sites devoted to the characters from Buffy and Angel. The thing that's really cool about the fans is that there's such a wide spectrum of them. It seems like the show appeals to a wide range of people in terms of ages. I get fan-mail from really interesting parts of the world. "It seems that people respond to the writing because it's really intelligent,"Juliet adds, noting that there has been talk of her reurning to Angel this season. "The thing that made it terrfic as an actor is that there's an element to the shows that is fantastical, obviously, but Joss has always been really clear that everything is rooted in something. The whole initial concept of high school as a nightmare and using evil forces to pull that metaphor to the extreme is a perfect example. It's the same thing when Buffy's mom found out she was the Slayer. The whole scene was written as if Buffy is coming out of the closet, and her mom is like "Have you ever tried not being a Slayer?" For us actors, that kind of thing roots the show. That's what makes it, I think, not just a fantasy show."