Charisma Carpenter 'Felt A Bit Lost' Returning To Her Buffy Character, Cordelia
The world of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" returned last week — but it looks a lot different than the last time fans saw it. Or, rather, it sounds different: the show's revival comes not in the form of another TV season, but an Audible exclusive audio series called "Slayers." It's a clever way to get the monster-fighting band back together, all while side-stepping issues that might arise with revisiting this world — like supposedly immortal monsters aging with their actors.
"Slayers" also gives fan favorite "Buffy" castmates a chance to reinvent their characters, as it features a wild, universe-hopping plot that sees dead characters revived, scripts from Tara actress Amber Benson and novelist Christopher Golden (original series creator Joss Whedon is not involved with the project), and, most thrilling of all: Cordelia Chase, vampire slayer. Yep, Charisma Carpenter is returning to the Buffyverse after two decades away, and she's taking on an entirely new version of her beloved mean girl character.
This time, though, Cordelia is a battle-hardened slayer who's lived through Buffy Summers-level adventures and come out the other side. Understandably, this new headspace proved an interesting challenge for Carpenter, who was used to the bubbly — and bitchy — teen version of her character. In an interview with Variety, the actress spoke about (metaphorically) stepping into Cordelia's stylish shoes for the first time since the character was unfairly killed off in "Angel," and noted that it took some discussion to find her way into the new version of the character.
The Slayers version of Cordelia is a whole different person
"I think I felt a bit lost," Carpenter said when asked about the process of embodying the new Cordelia. "Because the description of Cordelia and the scenes were the world-weary, kind of doom and gloom." In "Slayers," Cordy 2.0 spends a good amount of time with a new main timeline slayer named Indira (Laya DeLeon Hayes), who's a chipper slayer superfan in a post-"Buffy" world that has multiple slayers at once. In contrast, Cordelia is a bit more cynical. "How do I play this embattled slayer, who's living their purpose and sees it really as the burden that it is — taking on the big bad — and infusing that with the Cordelia from before, which is sassy and witty and pithy and all those superficial things?" Carpenter recalled asking herself. "How do I balance them?"
The actor called the characterization "an interesting dilemma to figure out," and noted that she "spent a lot of time with Christopher and Amber, stressed, going, 'I don't know what I'm doing.'" The new show is ambitious, allowing several of its characters to evolve in unexpected ways rather than stay the same — even if the latter option would pander to longtime fans. "I didn't think it was possible to bring more layers to Cordelia," Carpenter admitted to Variety, "because I feel like she went through so much in terms of her character arc from beginning to end."
Carpenter's ready for justice for Cordy
Clearly, though, Carpenter found a way to bring more layers to the character. Co-star James Marsters, who returns as Spike in the new series, commended her work later in the same interview, praising "just her as an actor, being able to give a strong, loving, slightly world-weary, wise perspective to it, this absolutely seems like what Cordelia would be like in 2013." Carpenter also revealed in the interview that she agreed to the project in 2020, before the team even knew what medium it would turn out to be made in. "But it wouldn't matter," she shared. "I would just do it because I trust [Amber Benson's] vision. I trust her and I respect her talent as a writer and creator and I just love her to pieces."
Ultimately, the series is designed to give characters who were perhaps given the short end of the stick in Whedon's original series a second shot. "I think it will be an opportunity to give credit and justice to Tara, to Anya, to Cordelia," she said. "So I feel like it's really a beautiful thing to have this opportunity to bring her back to life — Cordelia specifically — and have her live out a very empowering life, and share her wisdom from that battle."
Season 1 of "Slayers" is now available on Audible.