Joss Whedon

Joss: I love fantasy. I love horror. I love musicals. Whatever doesn't really happen in life is what I'm interested in. As a way of commenting on everything that does happen in life, because ultimately the only thing I'm really interested in is people.

Joss: (On the buzz surrounding his series Dollhouse before it even airs) We are kind of living in a fish bowl a little bit. Sometimes I don't like people to see the man behind the curtain. I don't like them to know that something wasn't awesome before they saw it. You know, the things we had to tweak, the things we had to cut, that is inevitable. But now, I don't think it is just us. The whole world is so much about seeing behind the curtain and seeing how things are made and how they work and the extended cut, and what we could have done and what we didn't do and the alternate ending and you just, you kind of take it as part and parcel at the beginning. Because it's Eliza, and because it's me, we might suffer from it a little bit more. But those are high-class problems to have.

Joss: (on the selection of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast) The truth is, I wasn't positive that any of them were right. I didn't realize any of them had the depth they have when we first cast it. I just thought they were cute and funny. That was good enough at the time.

Joss: (on how Alyson Hannigan wasn't his first choice for Willow.) She wont let me forget that! I was charmed by her, but I had no idea, basically, how great she was.

Joss: (On the title of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) That title, is one of the things I fought for. A lot of people said "But it's stupid, and it's the title of a comedy movie, and people won't take it seriously," and I'm sure there are some people who still don't. But for the most part, people do see that we really have a quality show.

Joss Whedon: (on having an internet fanbase) By and large, it's a really positive force. It is like having a really big drunk friend who holds nothing back and says everything openly and honestly.

On friend and colleague Marti Noxon... Joss Whedon: She's been a vital part of everything people love about Buffy since she overhauled the Halloween script in season two. She's as good a story-breaker as I've ever worked with. And she's a leader.

Joss: (about Buffy Season 8 comic) I should probably say that it's the awesomest thing ever. I'm having so much fun.

Joss: (On is favorite convention experiences) Buying my first lightsaber. Dude, I have a lightsaber! Also catching Tenacious D right after our panel -- lots of new material in that set. Hearing people cheer for the first time in my life (for me). Buying my second lightsaber. Ditching security with Aly and David B. Watching my nephew seeing his tribe for the first time. And coming in at number one: a lecture on drawing from John Buscema when I was ten. Got his and Stan's autographs, gnarlsome!

Joss: (about Battlestar Galactica) That is my favorite show. Maybe ever.

Joss: (On the Buffy Season 8 Comic) Well, I'm not that bright. I keep thinking that I have all this free time that I don't have. It started going in my brain — "Wouldn't it be fun if... " and, "You could... " while the other voice was saying, "It's death. I'm out of control. I'm already writing." So I basically said, "We could do something and for once we could make it canon. We could make it officially what happened after the end of the show." Let Buffy not only address certain themes that slipped between the cracks of the show, but also really be a comic book. Take the template of the show, but not so religiously that they're all standing in the Magic Box, talking, for 10 pages.

Joss Whedon: (About making the Buffy episode Hush) I had a particular mission here, and that was to traumatize little children.

Joss Whedon: (About James Marsters from the audio commentary for the Buffy episode "Chosen") The ability to turn on a dime is a very rare thing in an actor. From incredibly noble or scary to completely dorky or disarming. He does it with the tongue line earlier, he does it here. You'd be amazed how few people can actually do that, and the last person I ever expected to be able to do it would be a theater-trained guy, but yet, he's got the chops. He can go from Dracula to Jack Benny in a heartbeat, which is one of the reasons why I love him. That, and his shiny, shiny hair.

Joss Whedon: When I created Buffy, I wanted to create a female icon, but I also wanted to be very careful to surround her with men that not only have no problem with the idea of a female leader, but were in fact engaged and even attracted to the idea.

Joss: (about Veronica Mars) Best. Show. Ever. Seriously.

Joss Whedon: Remember to always be yourself. Unless you suck.

Joss: Buffy loves Angel. He loves her. And I love Ho Hos.

Joss: I don't want the giant ego. I don't want to become Kevin Costner, singing on the soundtrack to The Postman.

Joss: As far as I am concerned, the first episode of Buffy was the beginning of my career. It was the first time I told a story from start to finish the way I wanted.

Joss Whedon: I'm a believer in that, ... I am a great believer in found families and I'm not a great believer in blood. Although I love my family, even the ones I grew up with, to me I've always felt that the people who treated you with respect and included you in their lives were your family and the people who were related to you by blood might happen to be those people but that correlation was a lot less [strong] than society believes it is.

Joss Whedon: It's about how much freedom you can take away from somebody before they either fold or fight, ... It's about the right to be wrong and the nature of human beings, that they need the freedom to be wrong. That they cannot be made to be better or perfect.

Joss Whedon: I think everyone who makes movies should be forced to do television. Because you have to finish. You have to get it done, and there are a lot of decisions made just for the sake of making decisions. You do something because it's efficient and because it gets the story told and it connects to the audience.

Joss Whedon: The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.

Joss Whedon: Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.

Joss Whedon: The two things that matter the most to me: emotional resonance and rocket launchers. Party of Five, a brilliant show, and often made me cry uncontrollably, suffered ultimately from a lack of rocket launchers.

Joss Whedon: I'm a very hard-line, angry atheist. Yet I am fascinated by the concept of devotion.

Joss Whedon: I love to write. I love it. I mean there's nothin in the world I like better, and that includes sex, probably because I'm so very bad at it.

Joss Whedon: I also don't trust Caribou anymore. They're out there, on the tundra, waiting... Something's going down. I'm right about this.

Joss Whedon: (about high school and Buffy The Vampire Slayer) What makes the show popular is the central myth of high school as horrific... The humiliation, the alienation... the confusion of high school is taken to such great proportions that they become demonic... I don't think you ever get over high school.

Joss Whedon: It's embarrassing to say that one watches one's own work, but on occasion, I have, and I thought, 'Yeah, this is a thing.'

Joss Whedon: I hate it when people talk about Buffy as being campy... I hate camp, I don't enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has single-handedly lowered SAT scores.