“Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is over however loyal fans are still interested in what’s going on with actor Marc Blucas, Buffy's one-time love interest, Riley Finn. It seems that no matter how many years have passed since he co-starred on the cult series, the subject of “Buffy” invariably comes up, no matter what project he’s actually promoting. In this interview, Blucas talks about working with Katie Holmes and Forest Whitaker on “First Daughter,” and, of course, the continued support of “Buffy” fanatics.
INTERVIEW WITH MARC BLUCAS (‘James’):
What’s the story behind being cast in this film?
What happened was, all of this I learned after the fact of course, he could have saved me a lot of stress and agony by not putting me through the audition process. I was outside. I was going to the meeting and Forest (Whitaker) was going to the meeting as well, and I parked my truck and he was about 20 feet away. We had never met before. I said, “Hey, Forest. I’m Marc. I’ll be in in a little bit.” And he kind of stopped and looked at me for a beat or two too long, and I’m like, “I was just judged right there.” And he went in. Probably three or four months after we wrapped, the casting director said he just walked into the room and said, “I just met my guy right in the parking lot.” So, yeah, he could have saved me a lot of anguish, some stress going in there.
It probably wasn’t his decision alone though.
Right. And obviously, I think it was at the point where they had narrowed it to seven or eight guys at that point. I think he wanted to see people with Katie [Holmes] because chemistry really isn’t something you can just wish to happen. I think it either does or it doesn’t.
Did you read with her?
Yeah, which kind of shows her commitment and her professionalism. That was something she probably didn’t have to be at, at that point. She wanted every guy in there to have a fair shake, and it was very easy. I think we found a cadence. I think ease is really the best word. We just found a very easy way of being with one another.
Had you met her before?
Socially, one time. But it was brief. I think it was when she was with Chris (Klein) at something.
Were you a fan of “Dawson’s Creek” at all?
I don’t have satellite or cable. I don’t really even watch television, so I can’t really say I was a die hard [fan]. But I could say that about my own show (“Buffy”) at that time, too. So, it’s not any slight to that.
Were at all aware of the other First Daughter movie being made around the same time?
(Teasing) I have no idea what you’re talking about. Yeah. All along, as an actor trying to find work in town, I knew about both of them. I knew, I guess rightfully so, it was a race to see who comes first. But that happens a lot in town. There’s a concept out there and suddenly all of a sudden there’s three of the same things out there. And I think that, we forget that when “Big” came out there were two other movies very similar to that that we really don’t remember, and it was kind of a race to see which one came out first then.
Obviously, as an actor, we have no control. We don’t weigh in on the decisions the studios make, but I would like to think that they saw some of their footage and said, “Hey, we’re going to give the filmmaker as much time as he needs to finish out his vision, to make the movie he wants because we think we have something special and it doesn’t matter when it comes out. We don’t feel like we need to feel the pressure of going first.” But, I don’t know what the decision process was there.
Did you practice much for the dancing in the movie?
It was so hard to get onto two and four instead of one and three. It was the gown I was most worried about, this Vera Wang gown. I was like, “I gotta stay away from this thing.” But Katie had some ballet training growing up so she’s kind of been around it, so I took her lead a couple of times. Our dance coach, I think she choreographed “Dirty Dancing.” She has some impressive credits to her resume and I don’t think anybody’s going to be calling us Fred and Ginger anytime soon. But hey, the spoils of an actor, you get the opportunity to learn a skill that you normally wouldn’t learn or have access to or have time to go learn.
