Buffy The Vampire Slayer Typecast Emma Caulfield In A Very Specific Way
One of my favorite "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" characters is Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield), the Vengeance Demon turned human. She's introduced as the villain of the season 3 episode "The Wish," in which Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) wishes for a world where Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) never came to Sunnydale. When Anya makes Cordelia's wish come true, vampires end up ruling the town in the Slayer's absence.
Restoring the proper timeline robbed Anya of her powers; she's stuck as just another teenager attending Sunnydale High (and flunking math). Initially resentful of her new life, she eventually falls for Xander (Nicholas Brendon), and by season 4, she's part of the Scooby gang, sharing duties with her boyfriend as the show's comic relief.
Anya is hilarious; much of the humor in "Buffy" is sardonic, but she's oblivious. Having spent centuries as a vengeance demon, modern socialization skills escape her. (There's a longstanding character reading that she's autistic, at least allegorically so, but nothing like this is said in canon.) Anya can be just as cutting or rude as the others, but often without meaning to. She also likes the finest things in life — money and sex — and happily lets people know. Her loudmouthedness usually makes her the target of the other Scoobies' snark, even if she's too literal-minded to notice the insults.
The latter half of "Buffy" is a transition from the first, with cast shakeups (several actors left for the spin-off "Angel") and new settings (Buffy goes from high school to college). Anya's presence isn't quite a dividing line, but she's definitely more prominent from season 4 onward. Caulfield's comic timing was a huge help to these later years, so it's a shame she reportedly felt so unappreciated she asked for Anya to die in the series finale, "Chosen."
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about her "Buffy" legacy in 2017, Caulfield revealed how the show got her typecast.
Emma Caulfield's life post Buffy
"[Playing Anya] marked me as a 'funny gal,'" Caulfield explained. "I'd get sent out for comedies, but then I was told I wasn't funny! I read for 'Miss Congeniality' and I was told that I can't read for comedy. I was branded as a type of comedy. Nowadays that kind of humor is common. That was hard. I didn't fit in anywhere. [People said], 'Let's give her the b*tchy roles.' And I thought, 'But I don't want to play a b*tch. Can't I just play a normal person?' It wasn't easy for me."
Anya is a mean girl, but a different kind from Cordelia (whose spot in the ensemble she arguably filled). They're both blunt and insensitive, saying anything that pops into their heads, but Anya just doesn't care whereas Cordelia is intentionally insulting. As for Caulfield, it appears this typecast is still in play; she was Dottie in Marvel's "WandaVision," queen bee of the housewives of suburban Westview, and played the child-eating witch from "Hansel and Gretel" in "Once Upon A Time" — hard to get more "b*tchy" than that.
In 2010, Caulfield decided to grab her career by the horns and created her own web series, "Band Wagon," playing a fictionalized, fame-hungry version of herself. If an actor isn't getting the roles they want, why not cast themselves?
In the THR interview, Caulfield expresses doubt she'd be back for a potential "Buffy" reunion ("I died!"), but she was wrong. She returned as Anya for "Slayers," the 2023 audio drama featuring some of the other women of the Buffyverse who were done dirty, such as Cordelia and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson). "Slayers" shows there's more to "Buffy" than just Buffy, but watching the show could tell you how important the supporting cast is — Caulfield and Anya's acerbic tongue very much included.
"Slayers" is available on Audible.