Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce | |
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Angel Investigations Sorcery Highly proficient marksman Encyclopedic knowledge of demons Genius-level intellect Polyglot |
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (also spelled Wyndam-Price
Wesley is introduced as a member of the
Appearances
Television
Wesley is introduced in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season three (1998–1999) episode "
Wesley reappears in the first season (1999–2000) of spin-off show Angel, in the episode "Parting Gifts". Introduced as a self-proclaimed "rogue demon-hunter", Wesley reveals that he was fired from the Watchers' Council for incompetence, but is soon accepted into supernatural detective agency
In Angel's third season (2001–2002), Wesley's path becomes filled with tragedies and difficult choices. Just as he starts developing romantic feelings for his teammate
Season five (2003–2004) sees Wesley suffer yet more loss. In the episode "
Joss Whedon revealed in an interview that Wesley was originally intended to survive and appear in Angel season six, but he was inspired to kill Wesley off after being pitched the idea of his death scene by one of the script writers.[8]
Literature
Wesley appears in comic books and novels based on the Buffy and Angel television series. He appears in numerous
Concept and creation
Young, not bad looking, but a bit full of himself. Thinks he's Sean Connery when he's pretty much George Lazenby.
—The description of Wesley in the script for his first episode, "Bad Girls".[10]
Wesley was initially designed to be a
Alexis Denisof, who had been living in England before coming to L.A., was unaware of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since it had not yet aired in Britain. When actor
Characterization
Wesley matures significantly over the course of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel; in his early appearances he was largely cowardly and incompetent. Alexis Denisof claims that his initial goal in playing the character was to be as annoying as possible for the other characters. He explains,
I thought that an irritating version of Giles would be annoying for [Giles] and also for Buffy. Wesley's purpose was to come there and point the finger and get things shipshape. He's a by-the-book school teacher. Considering what kind of person it would be who would have dedicated his life to this peculiar task of being a Watcher, and what would be the unique characteristics of somebody who had made those decisions, and then was taken out of that environment and put into Sunnydale. To Wesley that was a completely new and bizarre place.[12]
During this time, Denisof came up with a background story for Wesley regarding his father to explain "why he was so repressed." The writers used this story in the show, alluding to it in early Angel episodes such as "
Wesley is introduced in Angel having been fired from the Watcher's Council. Denisof says the experience gave the character "a little shake". He elaborates,
When he arrived in Sunnydale, he was straight out of Watcher grad school; he lacked practical experience. He was living in the ideal of the perfect way to execute his duties. I think that losing his job and going out alone roughened him up a little, lopped off some of his sharper corners. It made him more approachable and more personable, less sure of himself all the time.[12]
Coming into the show immediately following the death of Doyle, Wesley serves as a partial replacement for that character. Comparing the two characters, Denisof states, "Wesley is a clearer counterpart to Angel, whereas Doyle had more street smarts. Although [Doyle] was struggling with his demon nature, he had seen a lot more of the world in the same way Angel had."[12] Nonetheless, Denisof believes that in this period, his character "was so anxious to be a tough rogue demon hunter but was clearly a kind of soft puppy dog."[14]
Denisof complimented the season three Angel episode "
It isn't that he's purely bad or purely good, we're discovering a deeper and more complicated area of the character where good and bad aren't as clear, where Wesley does something motivated, he thinks, for the good of all – i.e. saving Connor and relieving Angel of the responsibility of murdering his son – and in doing so creates the situation in which the baby could be kidnapped, Angel loses his son and Wesley has his throat slit for the trouble. So it's grey rather than black or white.[14]
[The modified accent] just sits on him better. As an actor, it just felt that organically the way he was changing, and it also seemed to be accurate when you consider the amount of time he's spent in L.A. that the accent could have softened. And since he isn't surrounded by upper-crust academics as he was as a young Watcher in the Academy in England, it's understandable that he is changing the way he speaks and changing his voice, his delivery, as a result of his environment.[16]
Denisof had earlier stated that he thought "it's better for the father [of Wesley] to be kept in the background and not become part of the story."[13] When Wesley's father finally did appear in Angel season five, he said:
I had mixed feelings [at first]. It was a lot of pressure to have to define something that had been speculated about for many years. I was worried that by making it specific, it would lose its power, both in the mind of the character and in the minds of the audience. All my concerns disappeared as soon as I read it. There are responses to powerful figures in your life, like your parents, that you can't necessarily control. Wesley's a very controlled person on the exterior and presents a very collected persona to the people around him, being with his father he would no longer be able to control his responses. That's one of the things I wanted to explore with this, the subtle ways in which you respond to the conditioning of your parents. Wesley has difficulty around his father on a physical level, on an emotional scale, and on an intellectual scale. He is extremely intimidated by his father, and at the same time, still seeking the approval that we all essentially want from our parents when we're children. The shooting [of the cyborg Wesley believed to be his father] was an exhilarating moment in which there was the most dangerous person in his life on every level, and there is a woman he is obsessed with. And to have the woman jeopardized by something as dangerous as his father – I played that moment as a moment of pure instinct. Wesley is centered in his intellect and is more uncertain in his emotional life, but in that moment, he becomes pure instinct because he has to choose between the woman he loves and his father.[17]
Wesley undergoes yet another drastic personality change in Angel's fifth season following the death of his love, Fred. Denisof believes that the loss of Fred caused Wesley to become understandably "unbalanced". "By the time we get to the last few episodes, he's got a handle on the grief and is functioning in a more level-headed way," says Denisof. "But underlying it is a huge hole in his heart and it makes it possible for the decision that they make in the final episode. For him emotionally, the stage is set for a life or death battle, possibly for the last time, because at this point, there's nothing more for him to lose."[17] Denisof talked with Whedon about what storylines would have been in place had the television series received another season; Wesley would not have died, and he and Illyria would have featured in an arc in which the transformation of Illyria to Fred would have been extended over many episodes and taken to a "much deeper, darker place" than it briefly was in the late fifth-season episode, "The Girl in Question". Denisof continues,
They would have progressed the relationship between Wesley and Illyria in such a way it would conflict with his own feelings for Fred, in a much more profound way. And then we would have gone into the switching of Fred and Illyria and having these two people that he was having these strong feelings about. That was going to be a fairly long journey in the following season, all of which got abbreviated tremendously when [the WB] decided to cancel the show.
The cancellation of the show was the inspiration for Wesley's death; Whedon gave Denisof the option of keeping the character alive, but Denisof believed killing the character was right for the story, "It was very upsetting to read. It's too good a story because it hurts."[18]
References
- ^ The Complete Third SeasonDVD Special Features) (DVD (Region 2)). United States: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ a b Brian Lynch (w), Franco Urru (p), Ilaria Traversi (i). Angel: After the Fall, no. 1 (November, 2007). IDW Publishing.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Season 3. Episode 14. The WB.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Season 3. Episode 15. The WB.
- ^ Joss Whedon (2004-02-25). "A Hole in the World". Angel. Season 5. Episode 15. The WB.
- .
- .
- ^ "Joss Whedon". The A.V. Club. 8 August 2007. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
- ^ Brian Lynch (w), Franco Urru (p). Angel: After the Fall, no. 17 (February 11, 2009). IDW Publishing.
- ISBN 978-0-671-04260-8.
- ISBN 978-0-671-04260-8.
- ^ a b c Springer, Matt (May–June 2001). "Vogue Demon Hunter". Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine (21): 10–12.
- ^ a b Curtis, Darryl (October 2003). "Wyndam of Change". Angel Magazine (2): 12–13.
- ^ a b c d Bernstein, Abbie (Winter 2002–2003). "The Pryce is Right". Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine (2002 Yearbook): 65–67.
- ^ Starburst #43
- ^ Bernstein, Abbie (May 2003). "Pryce Challenge". Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine (46): 16.
- ^ a b Bernstein, Abbie (August 2004). "Parting Gifts". Angel Magazine (13): 12–16.
- ^ Dilullo, Tara (May 2005). "Pryce Check". Angel Magazine (22): 18.