Trivia / Angel

• Ability over Appearance: Doyle wasn't originally supposed to be an Irishman, but was written as such when Glenn Quinn was cast. The role of Doyle was Quinn's first role where he was able to use his own Irish accent.
• Acting for Two: Amy Acker playing both Fred and Illyria when the latter takes over the former.
• Acting in the Dark: Charisma Carpenter was reluctant to sign on for "You're Welcome" after having been fired at the end of Season 4. She signed on not knowing Cordelia would be Dead All Along. She says she cried when reading the script.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Alexis Denisof came up with a background story for Wesley regarding his father to explain "why he was so repressed." While discussing Wesley's character development, Denisof explains: "I decided that Wesley was internally confronting his father and that released him a little bit and made him less repressed."
  • Amy Acker wore her own glasses to play Fred.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Both Amy Acker and Fred are from Texas.
  • Lorne is introduced as a singer at a nightclub. This is how Andy Hallett was discovered by Joss Whedon.
  • Like Gunn, J. August Richards is terrified of rats.
  • Summer Glau has her acting debit in "Waiting In The Wings" playing a ballet dancer. She was actually cast for her dancing.
• Blooper:
  • In "Lonely Hearts" during the fight in the apartment, as Angel is thrown into a wall, a cameraman is visible on the opposite side of the screen. He would have been Behind the Black when the episode aired, but is quite obvious in the widescreen version on Netflix and DVD.
  • In "I Will Remember You", when Angel tells Buffy time will be reversed and their day of perfect happiness together will be undone, Buffy starts crying. When Angel comforts her, David Boreanaz is clearly heard calling Sarah Michelle Gellar by her real name, instead of her character's name.
  • In "Judgment", when the team walk through the gym and Angel joins the team as they pass through a mirror. David Boreanaz is stood by the end of the mirror, waiting for his cue for Charisma Carpenter and Alexis Denisof to pass him before joining them in the full team shot. This is only noticable in the widescreen versions on Netflix and the DVD release.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Christian Kane was auditioning for Riley on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and was down to the last two before it went to Marc Blucas. He was then offered a guest spot as Lindsey on this show, and they liked him so much they kept bringing him back.
  • Jenny Mollen originally auditioned for the role of Eve. The part went to Sarah Thompson. However, the producers liked Mollen so much, she was brought back as Nina Ash, aka Werewolf Girl.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Country singer Christian Kane gets to show his stuff in "Dead End" after Lindsey gets his hand back, to which Angel pathetically tries to say he's not that good while the rest of the crew is enraptured. He sang so well at Caritas that not just Cordelia, but also Gunn and Wesley are impressed.
  • Julie Benz also gets a turn on the mic as Darla in the same episode.
  • Andy Hallett frequently got to showcase his own singing chops.
• The Character Died with Him:
  • In a strange view of this trope, Doyle was supposed to come Back from the Dead but this became impossible when Glenn Quinn died of a drug overdose.
  • Following Andy Hallett's death, Lorne was retired in a self-titled, one-shot comic. While it would've been easy to keep the character alive since the series had long since transitioned from television to comic books, this was seen as the proper way to give tribute to the actor.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Charisma Carpenter disliked Cordelia's seduction of Connor in Season 4, finding it incredibly creepy. In 2019, she shared an article talking about Cordelia getting Stuffed in the Fridge, and how she and the other female characters were treated badly, followed by a full account in 2021 accusing Whedon of horrible verbal abuse throughout her run on both shows, including pressuring her to get an abortion so her pregnancy wouldn't interfere with his story plans, claims that Whedon has denied.
  • Christian Kane didn't like how Lindsay ended up the whipping boy of Darla and Drusilla, and only returned in the fifth season with a promise he Took a Level in Badass ("I didn't want to be beaten up by girls again"). Even then, he was unhappy with Lindsey impersonating Doyle in Season 5, as he had been good friends with the late Glenn Quinn. Kane also took issue with a throwaway line by Angel referring to him as "a tiny Texan", claiming Joss Whedon put it in there as a Take That! to him. He also disliked Lindsey losing his right hand, which led to forty-five minutes a day in makeup as they applied the plastic hand prosthetic, and it made the downtime quite difficult. He was actually ready to be killed off before they wrote in Lindsey getting his hand back.
• Creator Couple: Alexis Denisof starting dating and eventually married Alyson Hannigan after his stint on Buffy, and as such when Willow shows up for "Orpheus" and Wesley behave like old friends even though they barely interacted on the parent show.
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • Charisma Carpenter's favourite episodes are "Birthday" and "Spin the Bottle".
  • James Marsters' favourite episode is "Smile Time". He explained that it was "such a brave move" for a show to do an episode like that.
• Creator's Pest:
  • Cordelia was gradually phased out during Seasons 4 and 5 due to friction between Charisma Carpenter and Joss Whedon (he told TV Guide that it this was due to the writers running out of things for her to do). This became Harsher in Hindsight when Carpenter accused Whedon of essentially writing her off the show to punish her for getting pregnant at a time he considered inconvenient, which Whedon denied.
  • Vincent Kartheiser says he quickly lost interest in playing Connor after about four episodes. He disliked that every scene would have him and Angel arguing, and he would then go into a corner to sulk. He said he wasn't surprised when he learned that Connor was The Scrappy to fans as well.
• The Danza:
  • David Nabbit is played by David Herman.
  • One of the Tupen triplets who portrayed Connor as an infant is actually named Connor as well.
  • Doyle and Glenn Quinn both shares Francis as a middle name.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Cordelia. This worked fairly well on Buffy, but by the second season of Angel, Charisma Carpenter was in her 30s, while Cordelia was supposed to be 20, and it showed. This is all the more noticeable after Fred joined the cast. If you do the math, Fred should be four or five years older than Cordelia, yet Amy Acker was six years younger than Carpenter. They made a point of never explicitly stating Cordelia's age in the entire series, only once having somebody refer to her as "twenty-something."
  • Albeit only barely, Vincent Kartheiser was 23 when cast as the 17-year old Connor.
• Directed By Castmember: David Boreanaz directed "Soul Purpose", where Angel spends all his time bedridden in hallucinations.
• Executive Meddling: In order to get a season 5, the series changed location, Mind Wiped the characters, changed their jobs from detectives to clueless employees of the same evil corporation that had been laboring for years to dismantle, shifted from a Arc based format to a Monster of the Week setup (for the first 1/3 of the season; after that they had at least somewhat of a Story Arc), and transplanted Spike into the show. It worked to some extent, as season 5 was better received than the previous one, though not enough so to bring about season 6. (Joss Whedon tried to leverage the property to obtain an early renewal, but overestimated his own clout and was canceled instead.)
• Executive Veto: The series was originally going to be darker in tone, similar to the oppressive feel of Season 3-5. In the scene where Angel bursts into Tina's apartment and finds her dead, the script called for him to taste her blood. This was actually filmed, but edited out from the finished episode; You can see David Boreanaz about to do it, but the camera fades out just in time.
  • The following episode, "Lonely Hearts", was scripted to be even darker than that. In David Fury's first draft (then-entitled "Corrupt"), Kate Lockley was written as a drug-addicted cop who worked undercover as a prostitute. The plot would have also involved Cordelia disguising herself as a working girl. For obvious reasons, the network nixed the idea saying it was just too much.
  Cordelia: How's tricks, fellow hookers?
• Exiled from Continuity: The third season saw no crossovers with Buffy due to that show moving from The WB to UPN (unless you count Darla's presence). By the time the issues were cleared, the final two seasons more than compensated.
• Fake Brit:
  • James Marsters and Keith Szarabajka, who are both American, play the British Spike and Holtz, respectively.
  • Downplayed with Alexis Denisof (Wesley) and Juliet Landau (Drusilla). While both actors are American, they both lived in Britain for several years and thus developed excellent British accents that only occasionally slip up (see the usual suspects, such as Wesley saying 'data' the American way). Denisof in particular was praised for his accent's authenticity, to the point that fans are shocked to see him play roles in his natural American accent.
• Fake Irish: Angelus. David Boreanaz never really got the hang of the Irish accent. Whedon states that they chose not to use the accent when Angel was reverted to a teenager in "Spin the Bottle" because there was no way that Boreanaz could sustain it for a full episode.
• Friendship on the Set: The cast did become friends, though David Boreanaz and Charisma Carpenter were very close friends with Glenn Quinn.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Played with in season four. Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy was (poorly) hidden, but Cordelia's secret pregnancy became a plot twist. One she eventually revealed to the other characters by wearing an Obviously Evil black evening gown. Likewise, after Cordelia gave birth (but Carpenter had not) she was unconscious and only shown from the chest up.
• Hostility on the Set: Following Ray Fisher's claims against Whedon in the wake of the imminent release of Zack Snyder's Justice League in 2021, Charisma Carpenter went public with long-rumored allegations surrounding her time on the show, with many of the people who worked with her on Angel giving her their support.
• Killed by Request: As the finale approached, Joss Whedon asked Alexis Denisof what he should do with Wesley. It was his suggestion to kill Wesley off in the finale. Whedon claimed that he would have lived had the show continued.
• Looping Lines: On several occasions, Glenn Quinn had to re-record his dialogue, due to his thick accent.
• Magnum Opus Dissonance: Despite its arc-driven and not-especially-accessible nature, the series nevertheless gained a devoted following that included numerous high-profile television critics. The Series Finale ended up topping the Buffy finale in terms of viewers. If you measure the uninterrupted 110 episode run of Angel against Whedon's other shows, it is actually one of his strongest, something which surprised Joss himself.
• On-Set Injury: David Boreanaz injured his knee filming the final season. This required surgery, so some episodes were amended (most notably "Smile Time", where Angel is turned into a puppet and Boreanaz only has to do voiceovers).
• Only Barely Renewed: Borderline as of the end of its fourth season. In an attempt to jumpstart the ratings, the producers changed the show's direction completely and brought over Spike. It wasn't enough, and the fifth season was the last. Joss Whedon said in an interview that an attempt to avert this trope led to the show's cancellation. WB's refusal to renew the show until the last possible minute created problems for the cast and crew, as it left them no time to seek new work if the show weren't renewed. Joss requested a quicker decision for the staff's sake, and WB decided to cancel.
• Out of Order: "That Old Gang of Mine" was due to be the second episode of season two, but was switched with "That Vision Thing" to become the third episode. Indeed, Angel requests that Cordelia encourage Fred to venture into the "outside world," which already happened in the previous episode, creating a minor continuity error.
• Playing Against Type: Two of the notable stars of Firefly appeared on here playing drastically different characters. Adam Baldwin, best known as The Brute Jayne - plays the Sharp-Dressed Man with Creepy Monotone Marcus Hamilton. Gina Torres, instead of Deadpan Snarker Action Girl Zoe, plays the Dark Messiah Jasmine.
• Post-Script Season: The last (fifth) season was this, albeit one that didn't arise from being renewed at the last second. The long story arc of the third and fourth seasons had come to a close, the characters had moved on to a completely different setting (the evil law firm Wolfram & Hart), several characters set out to be or were forcibly retooled, everyone except Angel had their memories of Connor erased and replaced by a false past, and Spike was added as as regular cast member. The change was apparently done at the network's request. Then, due to conflicting accounts, including the high per-episode cost, the show was cancelled anyway. What makes it a Post-Script Season instead of a retool is that, while it was intended to cover multiple seasons, the cancellation aborted the arc.
• Promoted Fanboy: Mere Smith originally wrote fan fiction on Buffy and Angel, and eventually wrote a spec script for an Angel episode that became "Untouched". She got to become a writer on the series afterwards.
• Reality Subtext: After Buffy moved to UPN, the WB execs asked if Angel could cut down on their references to it, though to their credit they did allow for some mentions early in season 3 so Angel wouldn't spend the rest of the show thinking Buffy was permanently dead. This gave us Cordy's line "We try not to say the B word too much anymore."
• Real-Life Relative: In "Orpheus", with Angelus and Faith in a donut shop, the cash register is robbed by Eliza Dushku's big brother, Nate.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Cordelia goes for a drastically shorter haircut in Season 2 because Charisma Carpenter found the upkeep of her long hair too much. In "Spin the Bottle" when she reverts to her teenage self and wails about her short hair, it was an allusion to how Charisma hated the short haircuts she gave herself.
• Recycled Set:
  • Perhaps not surprisingly, the LA office of Wolfram & Hart was later used for Dollhouse
  • The Hyperion was torn down to make way for the Wolfram & Hart set. However, pieces of it can be spotted in the bank where Illryia and Knox attempt to reopen her palace in "Shells".
  • On the DVD extras, production designer Stuart Platt reveals that one set was used for many purposes: for the basement in which Angelus (when his soul was removed) is imprisoned behind bars; for the upper loft where Connor and Cordelia were hiding from the rest of the gang; and as the room in which many fights occurred, such as ninjas crashing in through windows and the gang fighting.
• Recycled Script: Some episodes were remakes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes:
  • "Birthday" is this show's answer to "The Wish" - Cordelia makes a wish and ends up in an alternate reality where her friends are different.
  • "Waiting in the Wings" is the equivalent of "I Only Have Eyes For You", in that Angel and another character relive a love story from the past.
  • "Spin the Bottle" is a remake of "Tabula Rasa" - both episodes are mostly lighthearted romps involving the main cast having their memories erased or altered and wacky hijinx ensuing as a result, only to pull a complete 180 in the last act and end things on downbeat note.
  • "Life of the Party" is a lot like "Something Blue" - both episodes involve one of the characters having a condition that causes them to unintentionally affect the rest of the cast with comments that they make, leading to all sorts of mishaps. Despite both episodes being more standalone comedic tales, they also introduce a few important plot elements that come into play later on.
• Screwed by the Network: The series was suddenly canned to the confusion of those making the show, as it was consistently high-quality with high ratings. The reason the network gave was even more confusing: the show was so popular and good that they wanted the series to end on a high note instead of letting it die in obscurity. Possibly the only example of a show being cancelled (ostensibly) because everyone liked it too much.
  • Word of God says that the network wanted to wait until the end of the season to consider renewal. Joss demanded an answer at mid-season and Jamie Kellner canned it, seemingly out of spite.
  • Worse, Word of God was that this had happened for the last several seasons of the show. Joss finally snapped since the show was, as established, quite popular. For some reason, the network dropped the ball on what probably would've been the best season yet for fear of Joss actually gaining enough leverage to know if those scripts he'd been writing for next season were a waste of time or not.
• Scully Box:
  • In her scenes with Lindsey (Christian Kane), Lilah (Stephanie Romanov) wears high heels to accentuate her height. They are actually about the same height, but the heels gave her a notable lead on him and the producers loved how it looked. Kane laughingly referred to the duo as "Boris and Natasha."
  • In "Underneath", Hamilton (Adam Baldwin) utterly towers over Angel in his introductory scene, rendering his feel-good personality that much more absurd. Baldwin is already quite tall, but as the scene was shot in a parking garage he also stood on the ramped incline.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: Alexis Denisof was diagnosed with bells palsy three weeks before shooting Season 5. Many episodes are filmed so that only the right side of Wesley's face could be seen. He eventually made a full recovery.
• Throw It In!:
  • During Angelus' return in season 4, David Boreanaz improvised a lot of his dialogue, such as "You're preaching to the guy who ATE the choir!" Also during the episode "Spin the Bottle" they had to structure a comedic bit so that Angel and Wesley didn't have to look at each other because neither actor could keep a straight face.
  • Charisma Carpenter found Cordelia's long hair to be too much of a strain on her head, and asked if she could cut it. Cordelia's haircut became a minor gag in "The Shroud of Ramohn".
• Troubled Production:
  • According to Tim Minear, the production for "Hero" was troubled indeed. He and co-writer, Howard Gordon had a weekend to write the script that had go into pre-production the following week. David Greenwalt had told them that only half of the script was good, whilst the other was not up to par. This continued into the first edit of the episode, which Joss Whedon himself had declared as unairable. With these comments in mind, he had to sit with the editor to work on a new cut of the episode. When the producers were shown the new recut, Greenwalt had told Minear that he'd done a great job and saved the episode.
  • Season 4 had a sudden and drastic rewrite brought on because of Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy, which required changing much of the later two thirds of the series. According to Carpenter this caused Whedon to write Cordelia as the villain for the early half of the season while writing around the pregnancy (disputed by David Fury, who says that Cordelia was always supposed to be the villain in Season 4), and ultimately Cordelia was written out of the show at the end of Season 4 with only a brief appearance in Season 5 to wrap up her arc. In 2021, with Whedon in hot water after accusations of abusive behavior while making Justice League (2017), Carpenter claimed that the situation on Angel was even worse than anyone knew at the time, including Whedon trying to pressure her to abort her baby, something denied by him. Her claims received wide support from others involved with Angel and Buffy, whereas Whedon disputed their claims while acknowledging that he was not as “civilized” back then.
• What Could Have Been: Kate Lockley was supposed to fill the role that Justine filled in later seasons, helping Holz punish Angel, but Elizabeth Rohm (her actor) took a role on Law & Order instead.
• Word of God: Amy Acker claimed in an interview that Whedon would have brought Fred back or had Illyria regain more of Fred's memories if the series had a sixth season. Also revealed to be the process by which Angelus made Drusilla lose her mind. The former idea has been used in Angel and Faith, Season 10 comic; after Illyria's death and subsequent resurrection in Buffy, Season 9, she and a recently revived Fred now co-inhabit Fred's body.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: It was admitted that season four turned out this way due to compounding factors, most of all Charisma Carpenter's pregnancy. The overall Myth Arc got so convoluted and off track the retool in the season finale was meant as a fresh start.
• Written-In Infirmity: David Boreanaz suffered a knee injury during a stunt early in the fifth season, and had surgery on it about halfway through. "Soul Purpose" was both Boreanaz's directorial debut but also written to have all scenes staged to keep him stationary, justified as a parasite feeding on him while sleeping and he had increasingly weird dreams. This is also the case with "Smile Time" where Angel is turned into a puppet, Boreanaz only needed to do voice-over work. The directors for other episodes also went out of their way to have him leaning on a desk to try and not put too much strain on the knee.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Sean Gunn played an ill-fated half-demon in "Hero" and a human helping interdimensional refugees in "She".
  • Jack Conley played Kane, a werewolf hunter, in a Season 2 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sahjhan in this series.
  • Jonathan Woodward played a former classmate of Buffy who became a vampire, and Knox in this series.
  • Carlos Jacott played the Villain of the Week in the Buffy Season 3 premiere, and the fiancé of Doyle’s ex-wife in "Bachelor Party".

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