Empire's Joss Whedon interview
I've already posted the contents of the DVD and their review of Serenity. Empire also included a Q&A with Joss. Again, not by me, but all typos are entirely my fault. Joss discusses comics, films, cancellations, Michael Bay, and father/son relationships.
Serenity Now!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s creator Joss Whedon tells Empire about his new big-screen sci-fi Serenity...
Empire spoke with the God of Geeks, Joss Whedon, the day after he had some out of hospital, recuperating from knee surgery, Exhausted, but with mind bright, Whedon's turn of phrase smoothly surfs between the poetic and the hip, the political and the personal. He is a multi-award winning (and Oscar-nominated) writer of feature films and comics, the third Whedon to write for TV after his grandfather and father, cutting his teeth on Roseanne and then going on to create Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its off-shoot Angel and the short-lived but critically lauded Firefly, a futuristic space-Western that has not been transformed into the blockbuster film Serenity.
How are you?
I had surgery on my knee yesterday.
Have all those years of kicking ass worn the cartilage away?
I'm definitely going to use that, because no one is believing my "saving orphans from a fire" story. I went running.
There's an interesting moment in Serenity when you have your Mal Reynolds character shoot an unarmed man.
He does actually shoot three unarmed men.
Does this reflect a growing bleakness in the way you look at things, or is it just the character?
Well, it's mainly the character. He's pragmatic. It's not his first instinct, but he won't hesitate if things are bad enough. He shorts three different people for three different reasons, but the fact is, none of them are packing.
Firefly fans are numerous and highly devoted, but why should they watch Serenity?
For the fans, because it's the people they love, getting to pay off the situations they started to get themselves into, in a giant epic fashion.
And for the people who've never heard of Firefly or even Joss Whedon?
I think because it's an exciting movie that is genuinely thoughtful -- and usually it's hard to find either.
How did you pitch the film? "It's like my cancelled TV series, only bigger..."
I showed them the DVDs and told them I had an epic story to tell with these characters.
As a man who has spent a decade doing almost literally a new thing every week, were you bored beyond belief after only working on the single film for two years?
God knows when you're used to telling 22, 44 or, in one case, 56 stories a year, telling one story in two years does get a little repetitive. Having said that, there are still things in that movie that I can't take my eyes off. There are lines that still make me laugh, there are moments that still give me chills. Part of me was very glad to be finished, but I never really did get bored of it.
Are you going to have a rest, take a break, write some comics?
Well, I have been contracted to write and direct Wonder Woman.
So you're actually starting right away?
Well, I'll be writing, which is like a vacation for me. I can't not write. I mean, I'm breathing, so I'm writing. So it's my next assignment. It's new territory for me. It's something not from the old verses, and so it's exciting. And I'll be able to stay with my family while I do it, so everybody wins.
Does having a family alter the way you tell stories?
Ultimately it will in ways that I can't predict. But the stories I tell are about small people in big situations becoming stronger than the big people around them, and since I have small people around me [called children] it's not like that's going to become irrelevant.
There's a T-shirt out which says "Joss Whedon is my master now". Are you aware of this?
I am aware of it. But I'm not wearing it.
As a feminist icon, you've obviously got your wife to wear it.
[Laughs] Yeah. That is the last person...
How do you wrap your head around that kind of adulation?
To an extent it's tongue in cheek, but if people are excited by the work I do -- that would be a good thing. If they said "Josh1 Whedon's a doughy hack", I would be -- "I don't love that T-shirt". It's not like I invented Scientology. I think people respond to some things in my work... I obviously do since I wrote them. It's lovely, it's fun. It's also kind of moving. I've never had anyone be really creepy with me. I've met some idiosyncratic people, but you know, I'm not exactly Joe, King of the Prom myself -- those are my people.
You've reached the pinnacle of Supergeekdom by having an assistant who buys you comic books.
Isn't that just something? One always prefers to go oneself, but you can't...
Comic books are by definition more bombastic ways of telling stories -- are they completely different for you or just one end of a scale that ends in film and TV?
I think they're just different mediums. Comics aren't necessarily more lowbrow. I love the splash of the superhero in the colourful costume punching the bad guy, but the things I'm looking for in a comic books are the same that I'm looking for in a movie. Quite frankly, the same things I'm looking for in Shakespeare. They are the moments that you can't deny, where they really get in the soul of somebody.
You've emerged as a feminist icon through your work championing the female, but the male element, or in particular, the father-son element has always been tortured, even though your father was instrumental in your burgeoning career.
My father [was] an unbelievable font of support and love at the beginning of my career, but I was in fact raised by my mother. Obviously I got an archetype of a strong woman, my stepfather was a very strong influence on my life as well. It's not like I grew up as a man-hater. I grew up with the notion that family is something that you create.
You graduated from film school with Michael Bay, and are on record as saying "he has the best eyes in the business". What exactly does that mean?
Michael and I could not be further apart in terms of our priorities, but I think he's a really good lens man. He has always known how to make things really glamorous and exciting and cool. That's what I meant.
Can you speculate on his priorities?
I can't speak for what his priorities are. But I can say that watching Bad Boys II was like being inside the mind of a serial killer. I thought it was kind of a shocking movie, and a sad movie.
You went from some of the most popular TV shows ever to being cancelled -- were you flabbergasted?
No. The wheel turns. The wheel never stops turning. I was disappointed in the network for not supporting the show -- they'd cut the budget, we were still churning them out, they were doing well, it had everything going for it, and we also had helped create their network. They disappointed me when they didn't fight for Buffy and they disappointed me when they cancelled Angel. There was a small period of time when I was welcome in television, I was very lucky to have one. There may be another time.
© Empire Magazine.
1 This is how it was printed in the magazine. I don't know if this is a typo on their part or if Joss said Josh.
Serenity Now!
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s creator Joss Whedon tells Empire about his new big-screen sci-fi Serenity...
Empire spoke with the God of Geeks, Joss Whedon, the day after he had some out of hospital, recuperating from knee surgery, Exhausted, but with mind bright, Whedon's turn of phrase smoothly surfs between the poetic and the hip, the political and the personal. He is a multi-award winning (and Oscar-nominated) writer of feature films and comics, the third Whedon to write for TV after his grandfather and father, cutting his teeth on Roseanne and then going on to create Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its off-shoot Angel and the short-lived but critically lauded Firefly, a futuristic space-Western that has not been transformed into the blockbuster film Serenity.
How are you?
I had surgery on my knee yesterday.
Have all those years of kicking ass worn the cartilage away?
I'm definitely going to use that, because no one is believing my "saving orphans from a fire" story. I went running.
There's an interesting moment in Serenity when you have your Mal Reynolds character shoot an unarmed man.
He does actually shoot three unarmed men.
Does this reflect a growing bleakness in the way you look at things, or is it just the character?
Well, it's mainly the character. He's pragmatic. It's not his first instinct, but he won't hesitate if things are bad enough. He shorts three different people for three different reasons, but the fact is, none of them are packing.
Firefly fans are numerous and highly devoted, but why should they watch Serenity?
For the fans, because it's the people they love, getting to pay off the situations they started to get themselves into, in a giant epic fashion.
And for the people who've never heard of Firefly or even Joss Whedon?
I think because it's an exciting movie that is genuinely thoughtful -- and usually it's hard to find either.
How did you pitch the film? "It's like my cancelled TV series, only bigger..."
I showed them the DVDs and told them I had an epic story to tell with these characters.
As a man who has spent a decade doing almost literally a new thing every week, were you bored beyond belief after only working on the single film for two years?
God knows when you're used to telling 22, 44 or, in one case, 56 stories a year, telling one story in two years does get a little repetitive. Having said that, there are still things in that movie that I can't take my eyes off. There are lines that still make me laugh, there are moments that still give me chills. Part of me was very glad to be finished, but I never really did get bored of it.
Are you going to have a rest, take a break, write some comics?
Well, I have been contracted to write and direct Wonder Woman.
So you're actually starting right away?
Well, I'll be writing, which is like a vacation for me. I can't not write. I mean, I'm breathing, so I'm writing. So it's my next assignment. It's new territory for me. It's something not from the old verses, and so it's exciting. And I'll be able to stay with my family while I do it, so everybody wins.
Does having a family alter the way you tell stories?
Ultimately it will in ways that I can't predict. But the stories I tell are about small people in big situations becoming stronger than the big people around them, and since I have small people around me [called children] it's not like that's going to become irrelevant.
There's a T-shirt out which says "Joss Whedon is my master now". Are you aware of this?
I am aware of it. But I'm not wearing it.
As a feminist icon, you've obviously got your wife to wear it.
[Laughs] Yeah. That is the last person...
How do you wrap your head around that kind of adulation?
To an extent it's tongue in cheek, but if people are excited by the work I do -- that would be a good thing. If they said "Josh1 Whedon's a doughy hack", I would be -- "I don't love that T-shirt". It's not like I invented Scientology. I think people respond to some things in my work... I obviously do since I wrote them. It's lovely, it's fun. It's also kind of moving. I've never had anyone be really creepy with me. I've met some idiosyncratic people, but you know, I'm not exactly Joe, King of the Prom myself -- those are my people.
You've reached the pinnacle of Supergeekdom by having an assistant who buys you comic books.
Isn't that just something? One always prefers to go oneself, but you can't...
Comic books are by definition more bombastic ways of telling stories -- are they completely different for you or just one end of a scale that ends in film and TV?
I think they're just different mediums. Comics aren't necessarily more lowbrow. I love the splash of the superhero in the colourful costume punching the bad guy, but the things I'm looking for in a comic books are the same that I'm looking for in a movie. Quite frankly, the same things I'm looking for in Shakespeare. They are the moments that you can't deny, where they really get in the soul of somebody.
You've emerged as a feminist icon through your work championing the female, but the male element, or in particular, the father-son element has always been tortured, even though your father was instrumental in your burgeoning career.
My father [was] an unbelievable font of support and love at the beginning of my career, but I was in fact raised by my mother. Obviously I got an archetype of a strong woman, my stepfather was a very strong influence on my life as well. It's not like I grew up as a man-hater. I grew up with the notion that family is something that you create.
You graduated from film school with Michael Bay, and are on record as saying "he has the best eyes in the business". What exactly does that mean?
Michael and I could not be further apart in terms of our priorities, but I think he's a really good lens man. He has always known how to make things really glamorous and exciting and cool. That's what I meant.
Can you speculate on his priorities?
I can't speak for what his priorities are. But I can say that watching Bad Boys II was like being inside the mind of a serial killer. I thought it was kind of a shocking movie, and a sad movie.
You went from some of the most popular TV shows ever to being cancelled -- were you flabbergasted?
No. The wheel turns. The wheel never stops turning. I was disappointed in the network for not supporting the show -- they'd cut the budget, we were still churning them out, they were doing well, it had everything going for it, and we also had helped create their network. They disappointed me when they didn't fight for Buffy and they disappointed me when they cancelled Angel. There was a small period of time when I was welcome in television, I was very lucky to have one. There may be another time.
© Empire Magazine.
1 This is how it was printed in the magazine. I don't know if this is a typo on their part or if Joss said Josh.