#Cynthia Bergstorm

[avrelia]

Into Every Generation a Slayer is Born

I finished the book Into Every Generation a Slayer is Born by Evan Ross Katz. A month ago, and I did a twitter thread review of it, since a lot of my Buffy friends are over there and not here, and now I collected it all here for myself and people of DW. :)

It is an easy read that covered a lot of ground fast but not particularly deep. I got in for the new interviews with the cast and crew, and the interviews were delivered. I could do without opinions on quality of the last seasons and continuous sniping at Marty Noxon, but well… The time for the perfect book shall come one day.

1) Best new tidbit of information: Antony Stewart Head played Giles as a mix of Prince Charles and Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham. This already is worth the price of the book.

2) Best duh moment – Cynthia Erivo telling her understanding of Anya reflecting an experience of an immigrant. The most surprising part was why didn’t I pick up on it before, as I was watching and connecting with Anya twenty years ago.

3) the best interview was with SMG. The author is her biggest fan, and she comes off really great there. Of course she is also frank, respectful, sweet and supportive of all the people she worked with, and very appreciative and proud of Buffy’s legacy.

4) the weirdest interview was with Nicholas Brendon. It is understandable, given his unhappy trajectory over the years. And I was glad to read his warm words about CC and SMG, but I also didn’t really care about his latest feud with DB. Overall, it was really sad to read, the whole story of NB, but it definitely added to the whole perspective.

5) the most emotional interview turned out to be with Cynthia Bergstorm, the costume designer for seasons 2-6. Reading her account on the atmosphere on set before she left I almost cried. No, not tears of joy. More like tears of anger

6) the most notable interviews we didn’t get were with AH and Michele Trachtenberg, as they were planned then canceled after February 2021, following the newest wave of conversation about Joss. I understand their reluctance to discuss it at the time.

7) Out of the writers we saw Doug Petrie, Jane Espenson and Drew Z. Greenberg. Marty Noxon didn’t answer the requests and for some reason the author was really mean about it several times and it was really annoying to read.

I was quite happy to see also interviews with Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield, CC, Julie Benz, Mark Blucas, Danny Strong, Seth Green, Tom Lenk, JM, ASH, Bianca Lawson, . Am I forgetting anyone of the cast?

There were no any profound revelations, after all I’ve been a fan for twenty years (soon – yay!) and generally had an idea how it came to be, but the picture became clearer and more detailed. From the history, to the process, and the behind the scene stuff

The interviewees rarely got into any details, and never shared anything lurid or scandalous, but I got the following picture: it started with them being very young and mostly inexperienced. JW was a writer, but had no idea how to run a tv show or direct episodes. And if he successfully managed to do later, the former proved to be problematic.

One of the details everybody talks about is their insane working hours: an average workday during the filming season was 18-20 hours, which is genuinely crazy even if you don’t take into account all the makeup, fight rehearsals, and expected precision in delivering dialogue.

The Beloved Buffy-speak is literally Joss speak. Joss speaks more or less like this and all his characters speak like this, and all his writers write like this and if not he changed the lines to be more like this and the actors had to say lines precisely, re-doing the takes until they manage.

They started a one small happy family, then as the show’s popularity grew, as they had more money, fame and pressure, they become “middle school with more money” according to Mark Blucas, then really, really tired group by the end of the series.

The blame for growing toxic atmosphere on set all the interviewee put on being young, overworked and “someone” on top constantly stirring s*** up and pitting the actresses against each other. (some interviews were done before Feb.2021 and the latest round of allegations)

This story, told by Emma Caulfield is very representative. I'll just add it all here

Mark Blucas, btw, gave a very sweet interview, where he several times apologized for having caused problems for cast and crew due to be totally new to acting and having no clue what he was doing and, of course, praised SMG for being very patient and very helpful

I need to finish the write-up, I guess. So, a month after finishing the book I have to say that it was a fun read, fast, not very engaging. It confirmed what I, as an old fan new or guessed, or explained details that made me go “Duh!” - of course, they were young, mostly inexperienced and over-tired.

Of course, JW was messing up. I mean, I wasn’t even very deep into details, but I always knew that the cast was divided into “favorites” and “not favorites”. I didn’t really think that it was an intentional division, that JW created and exploited, but apparently it was. Oh, well. I was happy to know that the actresses mostly reconciled by now.

And the most pleasant part of the book was SMG – both her own interview with an author, and what everyone said about her. I remember, in my early days in the fandom there was a strong anti-SMG streak, where by calling her “professional” people meant she was cold, unfeeling and un-fun.

Whereas it actually meant she cared about cast and crew and doing her job without wasting everyone’s time (remember those crazy hours!) and without creating extra problems for her colleges. She helped her cast-mates, she helped the crew, she worked a lot, she wasn’t always right, but who was?

So, anyway. That was not a definitive book by all means, but an ok one. There are more books to be written, about Buffy, and the fandom, and all the ways it is still changing our lives. I personally want more books on Buffy fandom.