*sigh*

[lirazel]

Oh, Joss. I do not understand your infatuation with Eliza Dushku. She's very excellent at playing a specific kind of character (badass, uninhibited: Faith, pretty much), but she has a very limited range, and I would rather Joss do a project with literally any other Dollhouse cast member than him try to do something with her again. With the amount of incredible people in that cast--Enver and Olivia Williams and Reed Diamond and Dichen Lachman and pretty much everyone else--I can't imagine why he'd rather work with Eliza. *sigh* But clearly, everyone at whedonesque disagrees with me.

Also! Just in case someone missed it, this thread (and yes, you have to read all the comments, since that's where the fun is) might be the greatest thread in the history of lj. Just sayin'.

Thank y'all so much for going with the Three Sentence Fic-a-Thon. It's making me really, really happy, and there's some great, great, great fic being written. Keep it up!

Comments

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

It really, really bothers me. A lot. And because I don't understand it, it makes me think that he's just taken with her because she's hot. I don't like to ascribe bad motives to people, so I fight thinking that, but...there's no other explanation I can think of.

"Did you even watch the episodes you were making? She wasn't even the most talented actress on your show." WORD.

And it also really bothers me that people on whedonesque are always going on about how they love her (well, there are quite a few who think she's not that great, but still) while also going on and on about how SMG isn't that great. DID WE WATCH THE SAME SHOW?

[next_to_normal]

And because I don't understand it, it makes me think that he's just taken with her because she's hot.

Yeah, same here. And I feel bad for thinking it, but... well, what other reason is there? :-\

I frequently disagree with the majority opinion at Whedonesque, so that's no surprise, but anyone who thinks Eliza is a better actress than SMG clearly doesn't know good acting when they see it.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I frequently disagree with the majority opinion at Whedonesque, so that's no surprise, but anyone who thinks Eliza is a better actress than SMG clearly doesn't know good acting when they see it.

I'm with you on that one 100%.

[snickfic]

I don't like to ascribe bad motives to people, so I fight thinking that, but...there's no other explanation I can think of.

Mebbe it's just personality compatibility? Maybe they just really enjoy working together.

That said, see icon.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

This is gonna sound schmoopy, but that's another reason I really admire you: that you found a reasonable explanation and didn't go straight to where I went with the whole "he thinks she's hot" thing.

I think you could possibly be right, and I certainly hope so.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

That's my immediate thought. Eliza and Joss may just "click" personality-wise and have a blast working together. I recall Joss being quite an Aly-fanboy when Buffy was airing, so I'm thinking those two likewise got along well.

I'll just wave my little "SMG is AWESOME" flag. *waves*

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see that, personality-wise. And yes, he's very much the Aly-fanboy, and while I like Alyson Hannigan a great deal and think that what she's good at she's very, very good at, I don't think she has nearly the range of SMG (who, in my opinion, can do anything).

I wish Joss would fanboy Enver.

[madcap-shiny.livejournal.com]

I think this is probably true, but you know what makes me the saddest about this theory? Those reports that SMG and Joss did not get along while making BtVS. ;________;

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. He's obviously (understandably) impressed by her acting abilities (I love what he said about her being like Jimmy Stewart), but she's very much the professional (which I love about her), and he seems to want playmates.

Mostly, though, I can't stop thinking about the way he treated Charisma Carpenter when she got pregnant. As much as I love a lot of his work, that makes me wonder about him in RL.

[ohwaluvusbab.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about the whole Charisma Carpenter business. The things I've heard are that she was apparently a supreme diva who was unprofessional. What's the business with Joss and the pregnancy?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

She got pregnant the summer before S4 of Angel and didn't tell Joss about it beforehand (I don't believe she should have to: who knows if it was planned? Besides, it's her pregnancy; he's got nothing to do with it). Joss got pissed and instead of thinking of a plotline that would incorporate the pregnancy and still leave her her dignity, he went with the Cordy/Connor/Jasmine thing. Then he didn't tell her he wasn't bringing her back on in S5. She found out through the press. She found out she'd lost her job. Through the press.

Then came AtS's 100th episode special (which turned into "You're Welcome"). They wanted SMG to come on, but she was either busy or just didn't want to. So they asked Charisma. She wasn't thrilled about coming back, but she thought the character deserved a great send-off, so she agreed to do it but only if they didn't kill of Cordy. She was on set (I believe) for filming and Jeffrey Bell pulled her aside and told her they were going to kill Cordy. She was understandably upset. I believe she wanted to pull out, but she read the script and liked it well enough and decided to do it because she felt the character and the fans deserved it.

I do believe that Charisma was deeply unhappy with the direction they were taking Cordy's character and that she didn't do her best acting in S4 because she was so upset. (She's fabulous in "You're Welcome," though, so she obviously wanted to send off the character in style). Which is not very professional.

But. It sounds to me like Joss was at fault just as much. I know that we'll never know for sure, but from everything I've heard, he virtually punished her for getting pregnant. And especially coming from a guy who calls himself a feminist...that's not cool.

So yeah. I think it was an ugly situation all around and no one acted the way they should have.

[queenofdenile.livejournal.com]

I love love LOVE Cordelia and thought Charisma was great, but I heard a different version of the story. I heard that she waited until the very last minute to tell him she was pregnant, after the staff had written the latter part of S4 leading up to a big confrontation with Angel vs. possessed Cordy. Since Charisma would not be able to pull off those scenes in her condition, they had to rewrite everything. I've also heard numerous stories about her being *incredibly* difficult to work with.

Obviously there are two sides to every story, but Joss going out of his way to screw over a pregnant woman out of spite doesn't seem to fit with some of his other actions. I mean, when they fired Glenn Quinn, Joss told the press and the fans that he had always planned to kill off Doyle, when really Quinn's drug problem made it impossible to work with him. But Joss allowed the fans to get angry with him, I guess to not jeopardize Quinn in any other opportunities.

So anyway, I really don't know which version is true. That's just the one I heard.

She found out through the press. She found out she'd lost her job. Through the press.


See, that's the exact same line Alyson Hannigan gave - she said the cast had to find out that BtVS wasn't returning through EW and SMG didn't have the courtesy to tell the cast herself. Then Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters, and Anthony Stewart Head immediately denied AH's statement and said she was full of shit (in a much nicer way than I just said it). So that comment raises a red flag in my mind.

[ohwaluvusbab.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm not really inclined to believe either 'side' of the story, after reading queenofdenile's post below. It was probably a mixture of both. Meh.

[madcap-shiny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know, I remember reading an interview that took place right after Buffy ended and SMG said something like "now that Joss isn't yelling at me everyday [...]" and I went "huh. Either she is being wicked unprofessional, or Joss was totally an asshat to her, and from what I have seen SMG is one of the classiest ladies, so...huh."

I don't know this story! I remember reading awhile ago that there was some kind of behind-the-scenes weirdness, and I think CC had to be talked into coming back for You're Welcome (?), but I have not heard any other details.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I've replied about the CC thing above. It's an ugly situation.

But yeah, SMG is so professional that she'll actually try to tell you that she thinks it was a good idea to do Scooby-Doo, so I kind of suspect he was an asshat to her.

I think he's probably really, really good to the people he hits it off with (Hannigan, Acker, Dushku, the entire cast of Firefly) and not so much to people he doesn't. Also...I just get the feeling sometimes that after years of people telling him he's a genius that he's a little self-satisfied and that he doesn't like it when people don't pander to that.

I could be entirely wrong about that...but that's the impression I get.

[next_to_normal]

I have heard it both ways. I've heard that Joss felt SMG wasn't grateful enough to him, because Buffy is what made her a star. And then I've heard that SMG felt Joss wasn't grateful enough to her, because it was her acting that made his show popular. Could be a little bit of both, I guess, although SMG doesn't seem to have a diva bone in her body so it's hard to see her making a stink about not getting enough gratitude from Joss.

Either way, it definitely seems like they didn't get along. If nothing else, I find it telling that Eliza got a career intervention from Joss because it hurt him to see her in crappy horror movies when she's "so much better than that," whereas SMG, who has far more talent, didn't get a similar intervention when she did a string of equally bad horror movies.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I agree with this comment 100%. I think we're very much on the same page about the whole thing.

I'm just gonna be sitting over here, fangirling SMG and wishing that she'll get better parts in the future and that she's loving being a mom.

[next_to_normal]

I'm just gonna be sitting over here, fangirling SMG and wishing that she'll get better parts in the future and that she's loving being a mom.

Word. :)

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

Joining the above corner of SMG fangirling, adding my mourning of The Wonderful Maladys to the mix (moment of silence, please).

[next_to_normal]

Heh, what penny_lane_42 said.

Although, if that's the case, I do wish Joss had better taste in friends, lol. The people he seems to love working with the most (Eliza, Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau) are the ones I find the least talented.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I find all three of them likable as actors and, when cast in the right roles, very capable (Eliza created a great character in Faith, I can't imagine anyone doing a better job than Fillion with Mal, and Summer is River), but range? Not so much.

Someone on whedonesque said something that I did find really great: if we've learned anything from DH, it's that Joss is much better at finding actors for characters he's already written than writing characters for actors he's already found. Which sums up my feelings on the topic exactly.

[next_to_normal]

Yeah, I can see that. I think the one exception might be Amy Acker. Fred, as written, didn't have much range, and from what I understand the driving force behind Illyria was to give Amy a chance to show her range. And while Claire/Whiskey didn't get much screen time in Dollhouse, she knocked it out of the park every time. So there is at least once instance where he wrote for an actor he'd already found and it was better than what he'd originally cast her for. :)

Of course, it's any writer's dream to cast someone and then discover they're capable of so much more than what you originally asked them to do. I just wish he'd use those people more often, lol.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I agree! I never understood while I was watching AtS why everyone loved Amy Acker so. She was cute, but I wasn't fond of Fred post-craziness, so I was quite taken aback with Illyria. And yes, with Claire/Whiskey she was certainly incredible. I'd definitely say she was the exception to that rule. She's much more talented than you would have known just watching Fred.

Of course, it's any writer's dream to cast someone and then discover they're capable of so much more than what you originally asked them to do. I just wish he'd use those people more often, lol. Word.

[snickfic]

I actually quite enjoy Summer Glau and Nathan Fillion generally. It's Dushku that I really can't see (although granted, a big part of my issue in DH was not just how the character was acted, but how poorly she was written...)

[next_to_normal]

I think the problem I have with the other two is that they are very one-note - Summer Glau almost always plays socially awkward/crazy and Nathan Fillion plays pompous ass. Both of which they do very well, but it's pretty much all they do, and I find both of those character types annoying.

The only character either of them has played that I liked was Captain Hammer, where it was obvious Fillion was playing up the pompous ass stuff on purpose, almost a self-parody. (It also helps when he's the villain and I'm supposed to hate him.)