Amy Acker is a favorite among Whedonites (followers of Joss Whedon) for her role as Fred Burkle and Illyria on “Angel,” and also co-starring in an influential arc on the show “Alias.”  Joss woke up and “smelled the Acker” — he said it, not me! — and rewrote a character on his new venture “Dollhouse” for the actress.  Doing one-episode stints on shows such as “Ghost Whisperer,” “Private Practice,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” and more, Acker was ready to fall back into the comfortable confines of Whedon witticisms, supported by a crew filled with familiar faces.

So, you are Dr. Saunders.  What are your duties in the Dollhouse?
I’m there to take care of all the dolls.  I seem to be the multi-purpose doctor, since I’m the only one there.  I’ve done some stitches, some Band-Aids and some psychological counseling.  It’s a fun job because I get to see everybody and do a little of everything.  And I feel like I’m there to keep the morality of the Dollhouse in check.

How tough of a job is that with apparently shady characters like Olivia Williams’ Adele DeWitt?
Yeah, she seems a bit nasty sometimes.  No, I think you never know what anyone’s objective is there: if they’re doing what they think is right or what the right thing really is.  It’s hard to navigate what is right in this world.

How different is your character from Fred in ‘Angel’?
Whenever I’m doing scenes with Topher or Franz’s character, I think, “Hey, that’s like Fred.”  He’s always thinking and just moving around.  Dr. Saunders is totally direct and focused and always knows what she wants.  It was a hard transition to not be the silly, eccentric one.

When Joss originally wrote the doctor character, it was supposed to be an older person, I think. What do you think about re-teaming with him and the fact that he had you in mind for a role?
Well, I think the only part of that you’re missing is me calling him up and saying, “Why can’t I be on the show!’ … Anytime I hear he’s doing anything, I’m like, “I’ll do craft services.  I don’t care, whatever … can I be your assistant?” He’s just such a great person and so talented, and it’s fun to watch people bring the words he writes to life…. He’s just so good at choosing amazing writers and an amazing cast without any drama, and everybody gets along.

What did you think of the Dollhouse when you first stepped on the set?
Mainly it was jealousy.  I was like, “I have to go home, and my house isn’t even close to as nice as this.” They just did a great job, and it makes you feel so relaxed.  It’s all designed as this Japanese spa, and it’s like you’re at peace when you’re there.  It seems to lower the stress level.

If you were a doll or an ‘active,’ what kind of mission would you like to be programmed to go on?
I was pitching to Joss that I would like to … well, I’ve always been obsessed with Audrey Hepburn.  So I was thinking, “What if someone was obsessed with Audrey Hepburn, and they wanted me to be her!”  That was my idea.  Didn’t happen.

Yet.
Yet.  Exactly!

When you first got the call, how did you react and prepare for what you’d have to do?
When I first got the call, I was in the shower and my husband said, “Joss said he’s sending over a script.” And I said ‘What?!?’ … Mainly I was in shock, then I just got really excited.  Then I got to go over and hang with Joss and he told me what the character was supposed to be….  You know, with new shows, they’re figuring stuff out, then you see an episode and you’re like, “Oh, this is where I’m supposed to go.”

Being Fred, then Illyria, on ‘Angel,’ you had to switch personalities, so can you kind of empathize with the dolls?
I think it’s the best job on TV for all those guys. Just the ability to change the way you look and you get to do different things and you’re not stuck just interrogating someone.  Even the people who aren’t dolls are put in such different situations.  One episode’s a comedy or one’s really sad.  Working with Joss is the best thing for an actor.

What would be the thing that you’d most want to do in your career?
I really like television, and I haven’t done a whole slew of movies or anything, but I’ve been lucky with “Alias” and “Angel” and “Dollhouse” now, just working with a group for an extended period of time, to learn and grow with a character.  To me, television is where it’s at.

There seem to be some obvious similarities among ‘Angel,’ ‘Alias’ and ‘Dollhouse.’
For “Angel,” more of the similarities have to do with the people involved.  All of the crew is all from “Angel,” so walking on the set I would say, “Where’s Alexis [Denisof]? Where’s J [August Richards]?”  …  The quality of the writing is there, but the premise is so much different.

For “Alias,” I guess … the similarities would be the dolls getting to be all different kinds of people, and then Jennifer [Garner] was amazing in being in so many different roles, having to also change her appearance and personality, she was just fantastic.

Regressing.  Do you follow your ‘Angel’ character’s evolution in the comic books?
No.  I’ve seen a couple, but no, I don’t really follow it.  What am I doing?

Well, you just almost destroyed all of creation with Gunn (J. August Richards).
Oh, no.  Oh well, at least I’m not alone.

Yeah.  Speaking of character progression … as the show went on, did your ‘Dollhouse’ character go where you envisioned?
I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s pretty amazing how far the show goes. You definitely go way further than you’d ever think from the first episode to the last.  It’s exciting, and I hope everyone watches until the end because they get more and more exciting.

The people who made Angel really love Amy Acker. When Joss Whedon hired her for to play Fred Burkle in the show, co-creator/executive producer Joss Whedon declared: “She’s stolen all of our hearts – and now we’re afraid she won’t give them back!” Acker was a regular on Angel for four years, before being hired by erstwhile Angel showrunner Tim Minear to play Nathan Fillion’s wife on the short-lived Drive, and had a recurring gig as a badass spy on Alias in between. Now she’s a regular on Whedon’s new Fox series Dollhouse as “house” doctor Claire Saunders. Words: Abbie Bernstein

So you’re back with Joss Whedon…

Yes, I’m very excited. I roped him into hiring me!

In Dollhouse, the ‘dolls’ are imprinted with a variety of personalities, but your character has a stable identity…

As far as I know! I’m the doctor.

So she’s not a psychiatrist with a troubled past?

I’m more of the general practitioner. I actually help them with their injuries, but I deal with everything.

Did you have to study anything about being a doctor to prepare for the part?

Right now, I’m doing a movie [21 and a Wakeup] where I play a nurse, so I was already kind of engrossed in the medical world. So far in Dollhouse I haven’t had to do any actual ‘doctoring’. I put a Band-Aid on, so I can handle that! But I haven’t seen the scripts coming up to see what happens.

How is filming on that movie affecting the Dollhouse schedule?

Well, actually, it’s going to overlap a little bit, but I think it’s going to work out. The movie’s being really flexible.

Has your Dollhouse character surprised you yet?

Right now, I’m just waiting to see exactly who she is. I feel like I’m going to be surprised. It’s Joss, so no one’s ever who they seem to be.

Since it’s probably going to change, what’s your initial take on it?

Well, I have scars all over my face as Claire, so I’ll be excited to see the history of who I actually am.

Do you think that the Dollhouse premise is sort of a metaphor for being an actor?

I’ve talked to Joss a lot about the premise – he’s never mentioned that, but it’s a good idea. I’d have to think about it, but I’m sure that it is a metaphor, especially with the psychology of Angel and Buffy.

During the last season of Angel, your character, Fred, died and the blue-faced god Illyria took over her body. In terms of application, is your Dollhouse make-up longer or shorter than the Illyria make-up?

Well, we have some things to work out, so I’ve had to redo it and do it twice, so it ended up being longer. But I think it’s going to end up being 30 minutes shorter, a couple of hours.

Have you seen the Angel comic books, with the images of you as Illyria?

I just saw one the other day. It looks great. My sister’s boyfriend is an avid comic book guy, so he’s been showing me all the latest stuff.

Do you sort of feel like working with Joss is being ‘back to normal’?

Doing the Dollhouse pilot, I felt like I was just so happy to be with him. And actually, a lot of the crew is from Angel [including line producer Kelly Manners, director of photography Ross Berryman and stunt coordinator Mike Massa]. So it felt like, ‘Where’s Alexis Denisof?’ [laughs]

What do you think of the overall Dollhouse premise?

I think it’s going to be really cool. You can do anything with these people – they can be anyone, and you’ve got all these really good actors getting to play these different parts. I’m just excited to see where they go with it.

Back in October we had the chance to speak exclusively with Amy Acker, known best for playing the quirky yet lovable Fred in Angel about her past shows and her new role in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse premiering on Fox this coming February.

How did you come to be in Angel?

That was a long time ago, after college I went to New York for a little bit and then I moved out here and I had only been here about a month and then I was having regular auditions, and one of these auditions happened to be for this character on Angel and I think at that point the characters name was like Logan or something and she was a librarian. I went in and did that scene and I got a call-back from Joss [Whedon] and luckily he liked me and they were trying to decide about adding another girl into the show and they were tossing around a couple of different characters. Joss wrote a scene that I think is on the DVD that Alexis [Denisof], J [August Richards] and I did which was kind of a Midsummer Night’s Dream sort of Shakespearean little scene that Joss had written and that ended up being my screen-test for being a regular.

Sounds like fun!

It was a lot of fun. They kept saying they were going to do a whole episode like that which we were all excited about but I guess that would have been season 6.

What was your time on the show like?

I loved being on Angel. I mean it was such a great cast, and still some of my best friends are from there, Alexis and J . It was such a great show to work on, because at least with my character, and it seems like everybody got to go on such a big journey for each character so we were starting in Pylea and ending up as Illyria, he [Joss] keeps you interested as an actor.

Was there any part of the show, its overall progression that you didn’t like, for example how Angel took over Wolfram & Hart?

No, I don’t really remember now feeling there was anything I didn’t like. I was a little bit sad when Fred died because that was her thing, that her and Wesley would be together but I think story wise that was good. I was excited to do all those great scenes with Alexis so I was sad more as an audience member that Fred was dead.

How did you feel when the role of Fred was changed to Illyria?

It was exciting. I mean I knew about it. It’s a funny story, Joss called me over or something and said “Meet me for coffee” and I said “OK” and he was like “I’m killing Fred” and I was like “Oh” I thought I was off the show and he waited two minutes and then said “but your still going to be on the show” and I was like (jokingly) “OK, I hate you!” It was exciting because I got a lot of time to work with him and develop what he wanted the character to be. He had Alexis and I come over one night and we made dinner and they had all these cool blue lights in their house they put on and we worked through some scenes and made the character and all the movements and stuff so it was an exciting process to develop a character that was so different from Fred.

Did you expect the shows cancellation at the end of the fifth season, was it a surprise?

I think we were all very surprised, actually I think it was like two days before that where Joss was telling me all of the very cool stuff

that was happening next year. I think I talked to him when he was going to dinner with the guy who told him it was cancelled and I was like “Oh good tell him about that I hope we don’t get cancelled” he was like “Yeh, we’re not getting cancelled” and we were like “Oh, never mind, we got cancelled.”

What sort of storylines did you have setup for season 6?

All I know is he [Joss] was going to have Illyria have the ability to switch back and forth to Fred, like a Superman/Clark Kent kind of thing between Fred and Illyria. She was going to be transforming into different people which I was excited about, not having to do 3 hours of make-up. So that was one thing and another was going to be this whole big mafia thing where we went over and killed all the bad guys and then we were going to kind of become like all these groups were going to turn into a sopranos type mafia thing.

Since playing Fred, seen as your major breakout role, do you feel you’ve been typecast at all?

You know I actually would say, not so much, I feel like more Illyria has been kind of the way that people have been casting me more often than Fred. I haven’t really gotten to be like the nerdy smart girl again. Which is actually more who I am. I keep ending up killing people and doing that kind of stuff.

So you would say Fred is the role that best fits your personality?

I don’t know if I turned into her more over the years or if I started out like that, yeah I mostly identify with Fred.

Be sure to check back on January 15th when our interview with Amy concludes and we cover Alias, Drive, videogames, technology and her new role in Dollhouse.

SOURCE

On the online front be sure to check out Stuffwelike.com around the 15th for the first part of my exclusive interview with Amy Acker, covering all things Angel, Alias, Drive and Dollhouse. As thanks to the few thousand people who read this blog a month I have included an excerpt of the interview below, a full week before its release.
What can you tell us about your character in Dollhouse?

Well I am Dr. Saunders and I take care of the dolls at the Dollhouse. I’m kind of the one who seems to be looking out for everybody and there’s a lot of maybe not so nice people at the Dollhouse. I keep trying to turn things around to do what’s best for the dolls and I guess the trait that is most noticeable is that I have these huge scars across my face, like five scars scraping up my face which look pretty painful.

Reading through his earlier blogs, I found out what he had to say about interviewing Amy:

I completed about two hours ago a great phone interview with Angel, Alias and Dollhouse actress Amy Acker. Of all the interviews I have done over the last few years this one was the best. Amy was a real pleasure to talk to and it’s easy to imagine her being a very fun friend.

Thank you so much for giving us Amy fans the sneak peak Ted!  I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we can’t wait to read the rest!