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BUFFY's Strong Man
By ANTHONY C. FERRANTE Sometimes being insignificant can lead to far more significant things. Take the case of actor Danny Strong, who started on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER in season two as a bit character named Jonathan. The poor guy always ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I became a running gag--whenever they had a student who was about to die, but didn’t, that was usually me,” says Strong. “It was sort of the Kenny-from-SOUTH PARK syndrome, but they actually kill Kenny, while Jonathan would sort of pop up, almost die, then not die and had some funny one-liner. He was the perennial victim.”
A few featured spots in stand-alone episodes (most notably “Earshot,” in which Jonathan almost commits suicide, and “Superstar,” where he uses magic to become the most popular person ever) have now led to season-six immortality as one of three geeks who are hell-bent on world domination in general and destroying the Slayer in particular. As opposed to past BUFFY evildoers, this trio is less threatening than season two’s Spike and Drusilla or last year’s vicious Glory, and more akin to supervillains from comic books and campy B-movies.
“For me, Jonathan has always been a very shy guy who has never been comfortable enough in his own skin to really make friends,” says Strong. “He’s the outsider who always wanted to be the insider, and he hooks up with these two guys who finally make him feel like one. ‘It’s OK--if I can’t be part of the Scooby gang, then I will become their villain. That way I can be on equal terms with them.’ ”
His compatriots in crime are actually characters (or relations to characters) from prior BUFFY episodes as well. Adam Busch’s Warren created the girlfriend robot last season in “I Was Made to Love You” and later fabricated the Buffy-bot for Spike (James Marsters). Tom Lenk plays Andrew, the brother of Tucker (Brad Kane), who set loose the hellhounds during the prom in season three. Bringing the trio together has resulted in some of the show’s funniest recent dialogue, as it plays with the “geek” mentality. While stealing diamonds, creating invisibility rays and playing with Buffy’s sense of time, the Super Villains (as they are collectively known) have constant, intense debates about who the better James Bond was and get bent out of shape when their Boba Fett toys are in danger.
“The stuff with these characters is never rewritten, because the writers nail it on the first pass,” says Strong. “I guess what they do is have these arguments about mythology in the sci-fi worlds and then literally transcribe them into the scripts.”
Though Strong is not at liberty to discuss where the misfit trio will be heading during the rest of the season, he does reveal that they will be around all year. And he points out that even he doesn’t know everything that’s in store for him--which is one of the things he likes about working on BUFFY. “They don’t really keep any of us in the loop,” he says. “I don’t know if that’s going to change with us, or if there’s going to be another villain and we team up with him or fight him.”
At least with the episode “Gone,” Buffy was finally made aware of who has been messing with her for most of the season, and her gang can now determine how dangerous the Super Villains actually are. “The confrontation with Buffy increases,” he reveals. “It starts to really go down between us, because up until now it hasn’t been too direct. We’ve just been hiding out in our van.”
Since he and his cohorts have been largely isolated from the main characters for most of the year, Strong admits that as actors, they also formed an instant bond. “You never know how it’s going to work out,” he says. “I had never met them, but by the end of our first day of working we were all really good friends. It was an instant chemistry. It’s actually some of the most fun I’ve ever had on a job, working with Adam and Tom.”
Still, aside from collecting classic and modern fiction, Strong doesn’t share his character’s obsessive pursuits, which has led to some confusion over the geeky dialogue references. “In one episode, they kept calling me Frodo, and I had no idea who that was,” the actor admits. “I asked them, ‘Is this a typo and it’s supposed to be Fredo--like a GODFATHER reference?’ They just shook their heads in disbelief at my lack of intelligence. They were like, ‘No, it’s LORD OF THE RINGS, it’s a reference to being short.’ ” Strong is particularly proud, though, that he understood the big 007 debate that erupted between the characters earlier this season. “I like the James Bond stuff and I am a Roger Moore fan, so that was easy for me to play,” he says. “But even those references were so detailed, I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
Growing up on BUFFY has certainly had its perks. The gig was Strong’s first major break, and as he has learned more about the craft, his part on the series and in outside projects has increased exponentially as well. “It’s just wonderful,” he says. “My role on the show has progressed basically to the extent my career has progressed. From an outsider’s point of view, I really admire the cleverness of what they’ve done with this character. There was always sort of a sense that this guy gets pushed around and maybe it’s really bothering him. It’s very smart writing.”
The cast and crew have also been great to Strong over the years. “They have always made me feel like a cousin they really like,” says Strong. “They see me at the holidays, everyone treats me great, then I leave town.”
Beyond BUFFY, Strong’s genre credits include a small bit in THE PROPHECY II, playing Brittany Murphy’s boyfriend who commits suicide with her at the beginning of the movie. He also had a significant part in the slasher spoof SHRIEK IF YOU KNOW WHAT I DID LAST FRIDAY THE 13TH. “I thought it was funny,” says Strong of that film. “It wasn’t meant to be a cure for cancer or anything, but it turned out pretty well.”
In fact, SHRIEK was actually completed long before the similar SCARY MOVIE was released, and Strong is still baffled as to why it wasn’t released theatrically before or even after. “Even once SCARY MOVIE became such a monster hit, our film could have easily made $15 million just piggybacking on it,” he offers. “It only cost a few million, so I never understood what happened and why it wasn’t released theatrically. When they sold it internationally, it was a huge seller and very profitable, so I don’t know why it was buried here.”
Returning to BUFFY, Strong believes that the key to Jonathan and perhaps even his future on the show can be directly tied to his desperate past attempts to make himself important to everyone around him. “Even in ‘Superstar,’ it was his attempt to fit in,” Strong says. “He just wanted to be everybody’s friend. There is something sort of sweet and innocent about that, but it always backfires because that’s just not a way to make friends.”
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