Joss Whedon: The Biography
Read Joss Whedon: The Biography Online
Authors: Amy Pascale
G
oing from the 4 million US viewers who watched
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
to a worldwide box office of $1.5 billion for
The Avengers
is quite a leap. Yet the creator of them both, Joss Whedon, told as personal a story with a cast of A-list movie stars and complicated CGI effects as he had with a modestly budgeted teen fantasy series on an upstart netlet.
Whedon deals in classic themes of love, death, and redemption with a feminist perspective that his mother, a beloved teacher and activist, imparted to him. Although he comes from a family of television writers, he was determined to follow his own path from a young age. This definitive biography shows how his years at an elite English public school led to his early successes, which often turned into frustration in both television (
Roseanne
) and film (
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
;
Alien: Resurrection
). But when he resurrected his girl hero on a young network, the results enabled him to direct, write, or produce three more television series, several movies, Marvel comic books, and an innovative web series, culminating in the blockbuster
The Avengers
. Then
Much Ado About Nothing
, a personal project shot in his home and cast with friends, allowed him to step out of Marvel’s shadow.
Amy Pascale has based this revealing biography on extensive original interviews with Whedon’s family, friends, collaborators, and stars—as well as with the man himself. They’ve shared candid, behind-the-scenes accounts of his work with Pixar, his filmmaking adventures, and the making of his groundbreaking series
Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse
, and
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
.
Copyright © 2014 by Amy Pascale
Foreword copyright © 2014 by Nathan Fillion
All rights reserved
Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-61374-104-7
Lyrics from
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
and
Commentary! The Musical
used by permission of Time Science Blood Club, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pascale, Amy.
Joss Whedon : the biography / Amy Pascale.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61374-104-7
1. Whedon, Joss, 1964– 2. Television producers and directors—United States—Biography. 3. Television writers—United States—Biography. I. Title.
PN1992.4.W49P38 2014
791.4502′32092—dc23
[B]
2014011192
Interior design: PerfecType, Nashville, TN
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
To Bronzers everywhere
“Bottom line is, even if you see ’em coming, you’re not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.”
—Whistler, “Becoming, Part 1”
2
“Being British” in the Land of Shakespeare (and Giles)
4
The Blonde in the Alley Fights Back
6
To Infinity and Beyond:
Toy Story
and
Alien: Resurrection
15
Buffy Goes Back to High School
18
Curse Your Sudden but Inevitable Cancellation
20
An Astonishing Return to His Roots
32
Fanboy Dreams Come True:
The Avengers
35
Something Personal:
Much Ado About Nothing
37
The Year of Joss Whedon, Again (Really)
Index
My generation, we were kind of raised on the super-cool, “I can handle anything” with a gun in his hand hero. Any situation you throw at him, he can handle it—with catchphrases. It was very cool.
But Joss Whedon’s version of a hero doesn’t always win. He loses more than he wins, and when he wins, the victories are tiny, but he takes ’em. “That’s a victory! I call that a victory!” It’s a tiny victory—he takes it, and that’s what he walks away with. And that’s something I can actually relate to.
That’s something that people can relate to—because that’s actually life. I don’t know a lot of people who win more than they lose. Life is kind of a losing proposition as you go. It’s not all winning lotteries every day. It’s a lot of “What do I do with this problem? Now how do I handle this?” I think people can relate easier to someone who isn’t prepared to handle every single situation, and everything comes out roses and their way, and all they’ve got to do is be cool. We don’t have that in real life.
A friend of mine once told me that what he finds so satisfying about Joss Whedon is his way of telling stories. As a society, we are incredibly story literate: We know story. This is the hero; this is the villain. This is the denouement; this is where the twist comes; this is where the learning experience is; this is where the turn is. We know story.
He said, “Joss Whedon will give you a story twist. But instead of twisting it to the story tradition that we know, he twists it and says, ‘That’s what happens in stories. This is what happens in real life. This is how real life went.’”
I described Joss to a friend as we were on our way over to his house for a party. And she’s heard me tell stories over the years about this fellow. We went to his house, we had a great time, and on the way home, she said, “You know, I got to say, from your description of the kind of guy this guy is, and from all the stories you’ve told me—I expected him to be six two, chiseled jaw, long, wavy golden hair and bright blue eyes and
gleaming teeth, and just chesty and …” The guy, she said, “when you describe him, he’s so heroic.”
And yeah, he is. He’s heroic like that.
N
ATHAN
F
ILLION
In June 2011, Joss Whedon stepped onto the set of
The Avengers
. He was just over a month into shooting on Marvel’s highly anticipated, high-profile comic book movie, with a $220 million budget and a plethora of A-list talent who came to the table with their own high expectations, and it would have been fair to wonder whether he was up for the task. This wasn’t Joss’s first time directing, but his only other feature film was 2005’s
Serenity
, a big-screen continuation of his shortlived sci-fi western series
Firefly. Serenity’s
budget was $39 million, and it pulled in just $25.5 million at the US box office and barely broke even worldwide.
Joss certainly had the geek cred for his
other
role on the project, as the screenwriter behind
The Avengers’
script. A lifelong Marvel Comics fanboy who’d attended his first comic convention while still in grade school, he had a deep understanding of the superhero universe in which the film was set. He’d had his own run writing comic books—and of course, he was the acclaimed writer/producer behind such cult television hits as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
. His TV work had given him experience handling a large ensemble cast like that of
The Avengers
, and he’d directed nearly forty television episodes.
But in television, if you make a mistake, there’s always next week. That isn’t the case with a blockbuster movie featuring some of the world’s most beloved superheroes. So no one would have faulted Joss if he’d been panicked or overwhelmed by the project—or if, on the umpteenth grimy day of shooting, when everything had been covered in ash from daily explosions, he’d been a little bit short or impatient with me, his interviewer.
Instead, as I wished him well, Joss stopped me. “There is a tiny story that I want to tell you,” he said.
“My wife is from Barnstable [Massachusetts], and we went with our friends to the Barnstable County Fair one night. We got on this ride that
spins—you go up high to the side in a circle, and then you go the other way. The guy at the controls can switch directions and mess around. It’s not for kids.
“Near me was this ten-year-old girl with her older friend, and she was clearly not ready and terrified. I wanted so badly to help, but there wasn’t anything that I could do. ‘Hey, there’s a creepy old man talking to me.’ That’s weird.
“So I was sitting there watching her, and I felt so bad, because she’s got that face. I know that face—I wear it most days when I go to work. Everyone was like, ‘Whee, having fun!’ and she’s gripping [her seat] with this death grip. And then gradually she starts to let go a little bit, starts to swing into it. By the end, she has completely mastered it; she is screaming ‘Whee!’ and she has her hands up—she’s completely comfortable. And I just … my head just exploded.
“I just watched someone get stronger. Just watched that girl get stronger, and I was like, that’s the purest moment of my life. That’s the real deal. That is everything I ever want with what I’m doing, but to have somebody do it for themselves would be better. It was pretty extraordinary.
“That’s my story. That’s the story of my life….
“And now I must go and blow shit up.”
