The story has always been that visa complications kept Melanie Lynskey from taking the role of Willow on Buffy. The actual story, as Lynskey told it this week to author Evan Ross Katz’s newsletter, is more layered than that.
“It was kind of a visa issue, but not really,” she said. “I also was not sure about doing television at that time.” Her agent was explicitly old-school about it: “TV? That’s for has-beens!” Lynskey wasn’t sure she agreed, but “I just wasn’t super into it at the time.”
Then it got more involved. Lynskey had dinner with Joss Whedon to discuss the role — and they stayed in touch after the pilot was filmed. When the show was recasting Willow following the unaired pilot, Whedon reached back out: “Now do you think you would want to do it?” Lynskey had seen the pilot and was impressed. She started to come around.
Then the process fell apart. “It became this whole thing of, ‘Well, now you have to audition.'” She auditioned. Then came the feedback: “Oh, they didn’t like what you were wearing.” She didn’t get the role. Alyson Hannigan did.
“All was cast as it should have been,” Lynskey said. She’s not wrong. But it’s a genuinely fascinating piece of TV history.
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