Age of The Nerd
The new Audible Original series “Slayers: A Buffyverse Story” picks up ten years after the “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” television series finale. The Audible series reunites a lot of familiar faces to the delight of fans, but brings us an entirely new and unique story.
“Slayers: A Buffyverse Story” comes from the mind of of Amber Benson and Christopher Golden. The audio drama is narrated by Spike (James Marsters) and features a reimaging of storylines for characters such as Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Anya/Anyaka (Emma Caufield Ford) and more.
We had the chance to sit down with Juliet Landau (Drusilla) & Laya DeLeon Hayes (Indira) at New York Comic Con to chat about their experiences working on the Audible series, the Buffyverse fandom, and more!
When asked what it was like to join the Buffyverse as a newcomer, Laya DeLeon Hayes reveals, “It is really exciting. I mean, this opportunity came is just like an email in my inbox one random Tuesday. It was like, I had no idea really all that it was going to entail one. Of course, I it was a bit before my time, too. So it was like really coming into a new world. And I was very nervous about that. I wanted to make sure that one my character be in addition, and like I understood the tone. And it was like immediately when I got on the phone with Chris, Amber, and Casey, all those nerves went away. Truly like this cast and crew was so welcoming and generous from the very beginning. And then also to play like Indira is so badass and so much fun. Was just like the cherry on top. So yeah, it’s been it’s been very special.”
Juliet Landau adds, “Drusilla is a character who is rife with contradictions. And I’ve always loved that element of her because as an actor, there’s just so many levels to play. She’s delicate, but she’s powerful. She’s sensual, but she’s childlike. She’s diabolical, but she’s innocent. And in this particular story, it was interesting to me because she was not an appendage, and she’s not subservient to anyone. And she drives a lot of the action. Drusilla is also a character with huge heart, and she’s all about love, even though she does pretty nefarious things and is, you know, exceedingly damaged. But also, what was interesting is I only two of the actors had I worked with on set before James, of course. And Tony. And in in this scene that we’ve gotten to do, I was straddling him and making out with him on set. So this was a little bit different. And but everyone else we overlapped on set, but never actually interacted in scenes. And so as an actor, that was interesting, and as the characters putting different characters together Drusilla had never been with Tara I call her Tara because of the accent with Tara, my, my boo, and James comes back as Spike. And, and so I had never, and I hadn’t worked with Emma before. And I hadn’t worked with James Leary before, and Clemen Drusilla had never been in a room before. And so all of that made made it interesting. And a new cocktail, if you will, or a new recipe is hard.”
When asked if it hard to play someone who is so emotionally tortured, Landau tells us, “It’s interesting. She is a character that has a lot of trauma. And yes, I mean, it’s so when you play a character, but there is a balance with a lot of humor as well. But yeah, it’s part of your job as an actor that you step into that, and then you kind of go okay, I’m gonna leave that behind. I have today actually is the worldwide streaming and blu ray release of my feature film. And it also has a lot of emotion in it. And so that was interesting. As a director and actors switching between that and sort of being I’m going to emotional place, really dark and heavy. And then I’m gonna step back and have to be objective and deal with the rest of everything. So you learn as an actor how to do that, and how to let it go some things stick a little more than that. And it takes a little more to shake it off. But yeah, that’s part of what I think we need to do to have a healthy, healthy balance in life. But that’s a great question. It’s really interesting.”
Talking about being the “big bad” in “Slayers”, Landau reveals, “Oh, well, who doesn’t love being the big bad, to get to do things that you would never do in life and to get to behave in certain ways that you would never in life there’s also with Drusilla in general, there’s just such a freedom and abandon in the character. I think it’s one of the things that people have always responded to in her, you know, she’s unabashedly in her sexuality. She’s fearless in a lot of ways. And so I think being the big bad, you get to push that envelope even a little bit further and, and in this alternate reality Drusilla is also more ambitious. So she has more of a strategy but you know, sometimes goes a little off course because she doesn’t do anything in a straight line at all always takes a circuitous route, for sure.”
“Slayers” features some badass female characters and was co-created by a female, Amber Benson. Speaking about what was special about having a female co-creator, Hayes says, “Well I think it’s so wonderful to have women and men and all admit to have a varied voices and to get to investigate those varied viewpoints and voices was so absolutely, absolutely special. Sometimes it can shift an entire experience just having that sort of understanding that comes from having another female in the booth, you know. And she was so wonderful, like I said, from the beginning, welcoming me into this world with open arms one. And even like, in the recording booth, there were certain conversations that I thought I was able to have like simply with Amber just because there were things that she understood that you can’t really like you can’t put a price on that type of that type of feeling and comfort that you can get in a workspace, especially with me being so young. And coming into this new world. It’s something I really appreciate.”
Slayers: A Buffyverse Story is now available on Audible!
