Playing A Single Mom In Buffy Resonated With Kristine Sutherland In A Very Real Way
The cast of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" gave some of the best performances in teen soap history, and Kristine Sutherland's performance as Buffy's mother Joyce was no exception. Although Joyce was typically removed from the action of the show, she was a consistent presence in the first five seasons of the series before her character's tragic death. Buffy's mother was a protective force in her life before and after she discovered her true identity, and she was raising her all on her own.
Sutherland had portrayed a mother on screen before when landing the role of Joyce Summers, having played the supporting role of Mae Thompson in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." However, the actress found that her "Buffy" character offered new shades of complexity to the archetype of an onscreen mother. We see Joyce struggle between wanting to discipline Buffy and wanting, above all, to understand her. The character might not have much screen time compared to the other series regulars, but she still manages to have incredible depth, mostly thanks to Sutherland's performance. As it turns out, the part was incredibly personal to the actress, who had been raised by a single mom herself.
"It was very moving for me to play a single mom," she revealed to The Hollywood Reporter. "My own mother was a single mother, and I watched her struggle with that role at a time when it wasn't socially acceptable to be divorced. So to have had the opportunity to play a single mother struggling with raising her own daughter was something personally very close to my heart."
The actress even saw parallels between her dynamic with her own mother and Buffy's relationship with Joyce. "My mother had to accept that I wasn't going to have the life that she had envisioned for me, just as Joyce had to accept Buffy's destiny and come to admire her strengths and her gifts," Sutherland continued.
Sutherland was raised by a single mom herself
Joyce and Buffy had a great relationship by the time that Sutherland departed from the series at the end of season 5, but that wasn't always the case. Their bond evolved a lot throughout the series. The further that "Buffy" moved into adulthood — and the more difficult it became to conceal her duties from her mother — the closer the pair became. Sutherland spoke about the way their dynamic changed at length in a 2016 interview with the blog Indie Mac User:
"When the series opens their relationship is in a very strained place and Joyce is outside of the center of her daughter's life. As Buffy gets older, the world goes from black and white to all the shades of adult grey. In those greys, she and Joyce forge a more mature relationship and really rediscover their love and respect for each other. I loved the way that Joss played with that. Buffy is driving me crazy when the series opens. I am worried sick about her and what she is making of her life. Then in [the season 3 episode] 'Band Candy' the whole relationship gets turned upside down and Buffy has to experience what I went through as a parent."
Sutherland felt strongly that "the portrayals of mothers' lives, in all their complexities, hadn't traditionally been fleshed out" in other coming-of-age shows, she told The Hollywood Reporter. The actress was no stranger to playing an onscreen mother, but Joyce's many dimensions were a rare treat.
"I have played many mothers," Sutherland added. "I know a lot of actresses might feel typecast by that, but I actually celebrate it. So many mothers are unsung heroes, who for years in Hollywood just got lumped together as a universal prototype. Buffy helped break that mold."
The actress' mom had a brain aneurysm just like Joyce
In a shocking turn of events, the thing that kills Joyce in season 5 of "Buffy" is not a supernatural force, but one of the worst natural forces of all — a brain aneurysm. Her death is honored in the acclaimed episode "The Body," which is stripped of a score and features tear-jerking performances from nearly every member of the cast — besides Sutherland, of course, who is featured only as a corpse.
"I lost my own father when I was 28 and know firsthand the pain and confusion of losing a parent early," she went on. "I stood in front of my closet just like Willow and didn't know what to wear to his funeral. [...] As painful as it was to shoot that episode, it is amazing to encounter fans all over the world who emotionally express how profoundly it helped them process a death of their own parent."
Sutherland struggled to play a character with a brain tumor as this subject was also particularly and deeply personal to her. "[Joyce's aneurysm] was eerie for me, as my mother had a brain aneurysm and barely survived it," she revealed in the same Indie Mac User interview. "I think having said that, you can imagine how difficult and personal it was to experience both my illness and my subsequent death."
But that's not where the similarities between Sutherland and her character end. The actress is a mother herself, to an only daughter — just as Joyce was for the first four seasons of "Buffy." Having an additional daughter for her final season of the show was "a delight" for Sutherland and was also, she added, "the closest I ever came to experiencing what it feels like to have two children."
Sutherland did have one regret about her Buffy character
Although Kristine Sutherland loved that "Buffy" suggested Joyce had a life outside of being a mother, she did find one thing about her character to be underdeveloped. "The only thing that I felt was missing was I wore a lot of mom clothes that I thought didn't reflect my profession," the actress confessed in a 2023 interview on the podcast The Rewatcher. "I thought Joyce could have been a lot more powerful in her work life [...] I thought that that was an important part of the feminist story is that I would have liked to have explored more of Joyce's work life. And had that filled out more."
Throughout the entire run of the series, there was only one scene where Joyce was seen in her gallery — in the season 3 episode "Dead Man's Party," which centers around a cursed mask. However, the lack of attention to Joyce's work life remains Sutherland's "only regret" about the role. Overall, she commends the work that the series did to bring television into the 21st century.
"'Buffy' was ahead of its time in celebrating the right to be different and to be loved and valued for who you are, even if it's outside of the mainstream," the actress mused in conversation with The Hollywood Reporter.
Joyce might not have lived for the duration of the series, but she was a strong character who imbued her strength into the incredible daughter that she raised. A large part of what made "Buffy" so revolutionary was the way that it turned traditional female roles like the teenage bimbo or the overprotective mother on their head, and Sutherland was an instrumental force in that revolution.