..and then there were wes! \\ suomalainen fanisivusto Alexis Denisofille

The Right Pryce - TV Zone #150 [huhtikuu '02]

Alexis Denisof chuckles when asked about his first time working in front of a camera.
"When I was about 11 years old, I appeared in a short public service film that was meant to help raise people's awareness of CPR and emphasize why it's so important to know how to do it", he says. "It was called 'A Life In Your Hands', and we shot it on the observation deck of the Seattle Space Needle. I played a little kid who runs out on the deck and calls to his dad to come look at the view. He turns around only to see his dad clutching his chest and falling over. Fortunately, someone in the crowd knew CPR. They saved the man's life, and he and his family lived happily ever after.
"Ironically, a couple of years later, we gathered on day in the auditorium at school and they showed an educational film about CPR. It just happened to be the one I did. You can imagine my surprise when the movie began and my face popped up on screen. Needless to say there was a minor uproar and a lot of teasing that went on later by my fellow classmates."

Nowadays, Denisof is the one who's saving lives each week as Wesley Wyndham-Pryce on Angel. Each week, Wesley and his friends at Angel Investigations fight to save lost souls from the forces of evil. Wesley's battle with all things dark and demonic began on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He came to Sunnydale halfway through the show's third season to take over as Watcher from Giles [Anthony Stewart Head], who had been fired by the Council. Although the actor has come to relish the role, he initially had doubts about even trying out for the show.
"I'd come to Los Angeles from London for a two-week vacation", recalls the actor.
"Much to my surprise, I ended up stumbling into a wonderful series of [acting] jobs that kept me in town for longer than I expected. One day my agent phoned me about trying out for a TV series called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Because I'd been living in England and only recently arrived in LA, I wasn't at all familiar with the programme. My agent explained to me that it was a popular cult show with high production values, solidly written and acted. She suggested I take a look at the script and audition.
"So I took my agent's advice and met with the show's casting director Amy Britt and Joss Whedon. The actual episode introducing Wesley hadn't been written as yet, but Joss wrote a few pages of dialogue between Wesley and Giles. This eventually became the scene where my character first arrives in Sunnydale. I had a very strong view of Wesley right off the bat. Joss and I read through the scene a couple of different ways. I think he and I both discovered the seed that would eventually blossom into the Wesley character. This seemed to amuse us as well as the producers and inthe end I was lucky enough to get the part."

The actor could not have been more pleased with his first Buffy episode, Bad Girls, in which Wesley sends the Slayers, Buffy [Sarah Michelle Gellar] and Faith [Eliza Dushku] in search of an ancient amulet. Unfortunately, their mission does not go off precisely as planned.
That was a great introductory story for the character", enthuses Denisof.
"It quickly established the passive/aggressive relationship he had with both Giles and Buffy. The episode also featured a number of defining moments for Wesley, including the one where he was practically knocked out by Cordelia [Charisma Carpenter]. Then there was the problem of him not knowing quite how to handle the Slayers. Up to this point, all of Wesley's experiences were either academic or experimental. This was his first time out in the field where he had to relate to Slayers and make decisions. Nowhere was his naïïvetéé more obvious than in the scene towards the end of the episode when he and Giles find the monster in the tub. Wesley tries his best to keep a stiff upper lip and all that, but deep down he's slowly becoming unhinged," laughs the actor.

"So Bad Girls laid much of the groundwork for Wesley, who, at the time, was a man of great ambition and strong ideas but very little practical knowledge. Here's someone who wanted to appear in control and command but was clearly undone by the spontaneity of real life. He was also a person who had a hard time relating to the opposite sex and undermined himself with his stiffness. It's in all of this, though, where we found the humour. Wesley was constantly slipping on that imaginary banana peel that he'd more or less put there himself. We continued to have fun watching that. Alternately, he was being used as a foil for the show's heroic characters because Wesley was not a hero. His particular type of heroism was buried deep down inside him and had yet to emerge. I'm guessing his quirky nature appealed to Joss and the show's writers. At least it's the only reason I can think of for them deciding to keep the character when the original plan was to kill him off in the next episode [Consequences].

Buffy's third season gave Wesley the chance to get to know two of his future colleagues, Angel and Cordelia. However, his bookish personality often got in the way of his bonding with either of them.
"Wesley's only real interaction with Angel were the times when he'd try to capture him," explains Denisof.
"He'd dealt with Angel by the book in that he was a vampire and all this business of him having a soul was nonsense. Wesley didn't really look at the man who was Angel but chose to focus more on the demon that was Angelus."
"In a sense you could say that was true about Buffy as well. He had a clinical approach to the Slayer rather than a personal one, and this was where he differed from Giles. Giles and Buffy had a strong emotional connection, whereas she and Wesley didn't, mainly because he failed to treat her as a person. He saw Buffy as the perfect slaying machine and someone who followed the orders of the Council of Watchers. That was something the audience could relate to. I mean, at one time or another we've all been treated like a number or a machine rather than a human being with feelings and ambitions."
"Wesley was guilty of doing just that, and it caused his deteriorating relationship with the two Slayers and the problems he had with Angel when he first arrived in Los Angeles. He finally realized he had to change his approach when it came to how to handle a person, vampire, Slayer, demon etc. He was out in the real world now and couldn't always count on the Council of Watcher's manual for the right answers."

"As for Cordelia, he was blown away by her at first. Here's a guy who came from a strict English educational system and also someone who's devoted his life to being a Watcher. That's a 24/7 job, which doesn't leave a lot of time for a social life. As I said before, when Wesley came to Sunnydale, he hadn't had much experience with women. It's not as if he'd never encountered them before, but it wasn't an area where he felt either confident or comfortable. This was especially true when he was confronted with a bombshell like Cordelia. Let's just say that for a while there he was at a loss for words!"

In Buffy愀 third season finale, Graduation Day, the Slayer saves Angel's life after he is poisoned by Faith. After having what can only be described as an epiphany, Angel decides to leave Sunnydale and head for Los Angeles. He plans to make amends for what up to now has been his misspent life by ridding the city of its demons. This was the premise for the spin-off series Angel,which Denisof was to be a part of.
"I was flattered and excited with the prospect of continuing to flesh out my character," he says.
"Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt [Angel creators and executive producers] had come up with some great ideas as to how to bring him into this new world they were creating and I was thrilled about that."
Wesley comes to the City of Angels nearly halfway through Angel愀 first season in the episode Parting Gifts. With their friend Doyle [Glenn Quinn] gone, Angel and Cordelia renew their acquaintance with Wesley and join forces to hunt down a demonic bounty hunter.
"That was a wonderful introductory story," says Denisof.
"We took a character that Buffy viewers had watched and come to know and re-introduced him. In some ways he's the same Wesley but in other ways he's not. A lot happened to him since Graduation Day. The last we saw of Wesley, he was wearing a neck brace and being bundled into an ambulance after the school had been blown to smithereens. So there was the question of whether or not he would live. Well, he does, and when we next see Wesley he's no longer a Watcher. He roars into Los Angeles on his motorcycle, clad in leather, armed with a crossbow and doing his best impersonation of a bad ass. Angel and Cordelia couldn't believe their eyes!"

The ex-Watcher changed more than his wardrobe when he joined Angel. "We needed to find things about Wesley that appealed to the show's character as well as viewers," notes Denisof. "That wasn't really necessary on Buffy. There were already half-a-dozen characters that fans loved, so it didn't matter if Wesley was liked or not. I mean, he was basically on Buffy to irritate everybody, but we had to do something new with him on Angel. Had we simply gone on and made him more and more irritating, nobody would have bothered to stick around."
"I thought the writers did a great job of integrating my character into the show. They revealed aspects of Wesley's personality that helped him bond with the others. Sometimes it was in an amusing, carefree kind of way, other times in a very profound, touching kind of way, and, on occasion, an action-packed, life-saving way. That process continues to this day. We also saw that Wesley brought humour to the office along with his expertise in academics, languages, deductive reasoning, and, naturally, demonic history. His background and training with the Council has come in quite handy, too."

"The most important thing to Wesley, though, was that he'd finally found a place where he could put his talents to good use. He wasn't being stepped on or ignored by his peers. Wesley actually felt needed. This was a major breakthrough for him in the show's first season. His place on the team was further validated by the fact that he had a history with Cordelia and Angel. Talk about ironic twist. Here were these people who'd previously been on opposite sides of the fence so to speak and now they're working together."
Wesley's relationships with Cordelia and Angel have certainly evolved over the last two-and-a-half years. "We know there was this sexual tension between Wesley and Cordelia that didn't bear any fruit," jokes Denisof. "They tried their luck at romance, and failed, but they've come out of it closer than ever. Since they know each other so well they feel free to bicker and trade insults. So that's a delightful relationship. It may have a complicated history, but it's also real and has several sides to it. Wesley and Cordelia would lay down their lives for one another, but there are times when you wouldn't think so."
"In the case of Angel, they were pretty much enemies before Wesley arrived in Los Angeles. They had a real prejudice towards each other. Surprisingly, though, it's Angel who initially opened the door and decided to let bygones be bygones. He was willing to give Wesley another chance when no-one else would, and that had a powerful impact on my character. Since then, I think Wesley has come to look up to Angel. He senses this terribly old soul who has experienced a lot. That's probably why they work so well together. Wesley brings to the table this brain full of facts and figures while Angel brings all the 'hands-on' knowledge."
"The more they work together, the more they come to understand and respect each other. In the second season episode Guise Will Be Guise, Wesley pretends to be Angel, which gives him an even greater insight into who Angel is. As the season unfolds some major changes take place, not least of which is that Angel turns dark and dangerous for a while. Wesley, Cordelia and Gunn respond by going off on their own and Wesley takes charge of this splinter agency. In doing so he proves that he can be a leader and make good decisions. When the foursome eventually reunites, Wesley's newfound abilities are put to good use and he becomes leader of Angel Investigations. By the end of the season he and Angel are on a more equal footing.

"However, things begin to get complicated as we get further into this season. We're witnessing the retribution of Angel's journey into darkness from last year. It takes the form of Angel's baby and prophecies associated with the child. This puts a great deal of pressure on Wesley as he's aware of what these prophecies mean. To make matters worse, Darla is back. This is where the talents of Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt truly shine through. They allow the characters they've created to grow and develop but along the way throw in curves so that it's never smooth sailing for any of them. I love that."

How does Denisof view his character's relationships with Gunn and newcomer Fred?
"I think Wesley felt a little threatened by Gunn when he first came on the scene," says the actor.
"At that point, he wasn't as secure about his position with the agency as he is now. Wesley was concerned that the 'new guy' might replace him. An urban street-fighter, he's a type of person that Wesley hasn't encountered before. On the other hand, Gunn hasn't run into too many people like Wesley either. Funnily enough, it's their differences on which they base their friendship. When the going gets tough, they're there for each other."

"Things get a bit tricky with the arrival of Fred. Both guys take a shine to her. She inspires something deep within Wesley and he's really interested in her. For the first time, he's met a woman he understands and feels could understand him. He responds to her at a totally different level than he ever did to Cordelia. That makes it all the more heartbreaking when Fred chooses Gunn over him. Not surprisingly, he starts to experience negative emotions such as anger and jealousy. He's trying his best to keep them under control so that he doesn't jeopardize Fred and Gunn's relationship. However, it's not easy. This is just one of many challenges this year that continues to make Wesley interesting and fun for me to play."

Despite his on-screen accent, Angel's resident Englishman was born in Salisbury, Maryland. Denisof grew up in Seattle and, after, graduating high school travelled through Europe, eventually settling in London. He enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts to study acting and later worked with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company.
"That was a tremendous honour," says Denisof.
"I've always been a great admirer of their work and the many extraordinarily talented actors and directors to have come out of the RSC. I learnt so much there, and I count myself very lucky."

Denisof has since guested on Highlander, Sharpe and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), but of all the parts he's played, he's best known as Wesley Wyndham-Pryce on Angel, which suits him fine.
"The character is teaching me so much about myself and my craft. Oddly enough, I've found that the more I act, the more mysterious the process becomes to me. I'd like to think I'm getting better at it, but I'm not sure. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm my own worst critic!"