Buffy's Character In Episode 1: More Joss or Sarah?

[AbraxasP3]

Welcome to the hellmouth

This episode is awesome and classic for a lot of obvious reasons. I definitely think it was Joss' way of showing what he wanted Buffy the series to be - a perfect balance of qualities...not completely devoted to slapstick and one-liners that were only stupid comedy. It was a fantastic start for a fantasy show wanting to be taken seriously. I definitely believe that a series modeled directly after the movie would have been absolutely terrible.
Having said that, I thought I would comment on Buffy the character & Sarah's portrayal.
I haven't read much in the way of developing the show - but I can guess that Joss had some preliminary ideas & the rest was probably knowing exactly what he didn't want it to be after seeing what they did to his script for the movie.

What I'm wondering is how much of the portrayal of Buffy in episode 1 was Sarah - how much of it was Joss?
The reason I'm curious is because in my opinion, Sarah's performance is really...spot on as far as the character of Buffy. Her movement, her acting style, her reactions = spot on.
I wonder if Joss choreographed Sarah's movement, speech pattern, etc?
Anybody know?I would like to think that Sarah had a pretty good amount of input due to most of her acting being really fluid & appropriate as far as comedic timing.
For example, Buffy's first real jaunt into the library to discuss the dead body in the locker - How much of that was Sarah?

---------- Post added at 01:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:51 AM ----------

The obvious answer might be that they both had a little input -- but I'm really curious as to what others have to say on this.
Like I said, I don't know that much about development or production itself, but maybe Sarah was only offered more creative choices as the seasons went on? I guess it's also a question as to how Joss works on a series.

 

[EVIL UU]

[MENTION=12260]AbraxasP3[/MENTION]

What I'm wondering is how much of the portrayal of Buffy in episode 1 was Sarah - how much of it was Joss?

I think the person most responsible here is Kristy Swanson as Sarah emulates her take on the character.

 

[Zeppelin92]

I'm pretty sure Sarah had originally tried for the role of Cordelia. Cordelia in my opinion embodies what the old Buffy from the movie was like.

So maybe Sarah had taken what she had already been practicing for Cordeliaand used in the role of Buffy and Joss decided to tweak the character a little bit. Joss actually mentioned in an interview that the original concept of Buffy was meant to be a shallow high school girl who eventually becomes a self sacrificing heroine. This storyline was only realized through Cordelia when she moved to Angel.

 

[white avenger]

Just taking a guess, I would say that the character in the TV series, at the very beginning, was pretty much Sarah following Joss' direction as to just how he wanted Buffy to be portrayed. Afterward, as the series progressed, the two of them worked together in developing and refining the character, and the more input Sarah was allowed over the next, the closer the role came to becoming the character that we came to know.

But Episode 1, Season 1, was almost certainly Buffy as Joss imagined her, with only minimum input from Sarah.