Clare Kramer    "GLORY DAYS"    "TV Zone"    Issue 155    Oct 2002			Clare Kramer    "GLORY DAYS"    "TV Zone"    Issue 155    Oct 2002
	Glory Makes a Deal with Buffy,                             23 Jan 2001	Glory Returns as Promised                 24 Sept 2002

Transcription by Gloriana, 10/16/2002
for gloryisagod.com
Paragraphing, etc., is that of the magazine article.
Images have not yet been scanned in, but will be added later.
They are all Season 5 images with interesting captions.
 

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"GLORY DAYS"  "TV Zone"   Issue 155  Oct 2002  pp 48-50

You thought she was dead, huh? You should know by now that
Gods cannot die! Yep, Glory's back in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
so David Richardson and Judy Sloane found out from actress
Clare Kramer how and why the Hell-God is back in Sunnydale...

In Buffy's fifth season, terror wore high heels. The Big Bad was also beautiful: a blonde vision in designer label clothing,
whose astounding strength immediately reveals that she is no mere jaded Prom Queen. Glory would prove to be one of
the Slayer's most formidable foes, being so powerful that she would drive the Scooby gang out of Sunnydale, steal the
mind of Tara, and lead to Buffy's death in a magnificent act of self-sacrifice.

Glory would finally be expelled in the show's 100th episode The Gift, but now, almost two years later, she's back with
a score to settle.

"Glory has evolved from the last time you saw her," offers actress Clare Kramer. "She tried a lot of stuff last time and
a lot of it has failed, so she is going to have a new attitude. [Executive Producer] Joss Whedon and I are going to
collaborate on it and come up with something juicy."

It's an exciting time for the show's fans, some of which voiced their discontent with the low-key Season Six. Glory
proved a hard act to follow, so the writers tried a new direction: a year without an all-powerful villain - at least until
tragedy would impel the wicca Willow into a world-threatening frenzy of revenge. Foe Season Seven the scales
have tipped in the opposite direction, as a gallery of enemies from the past, including the Master, Drusilla, Faith,
Adam and the inept Trio, return for Buffy's swan song.

:One of the reason's why I was so excited to come back is that Buffy has been so good to me," Kramer smiles.
"When I got that part it was a time that people started to believe in me and took a risk in me a an actor.  It's
opened a lot of doors, everyone is familiar with the show. It was a wonderful year."

Kramer's association with Buffy originally began, as always, with an audition.

"The character was called Cherry until the script breakdown came out," she reveals. "They gave me this little
two-page scene and there was basically no character description, it was completely open-ended. I thought,
'I have and idea that I'd like to try. i'm going to take a risk and go and audition and do something completely
different.'

'She was loosely based on Jack Nicholson's character from The Shining. When I read the two pages of sides,
I thought, 'Here's something I can do with a woman that's never really been done.' Based on the audition, I got
the part and when I read the first script, I thought,  'Wow, they ran with it!'

Glory, or Glorificus to her acolytes, first appeared in the fifth season's fifth episode, No Place Like Home.
She's a new player in a strange scenario: the Summers family has just gained a new member in the young
Dawn, a cuckoo in the nest that Buffy learns is the Key, a mystical form of energy made Human - and
something that Glory desperately seeks. Cue a meeting between the Slayer and the bitch from another
dimension, and much smashing of masonry.

"It took me two or three episodes to click on who she was and how she felt," muses the actress. "She's so
different from me as Clare.

"It was very intimidating, it was my first time doing TV and I had a lot of respect for Sarah and the other
actors on the show.  I was intimidated but I just tried to come in and made sure I knew my lines and did my
job. I think as the season went on, we got to know each other: at first I felt I wa doing all my stuff with the
minions and I didn't meet the cast. I'd come in and they'd be in hair and makeup and I'd go, 'Hi!'

"Mostly it was Sarah who I got to know., but toward the end, once I was chasing them, that's when I bonded
with the rest of the cast."

The season would prove to be a masterpiece of plotting, With Glory's background and motivations revealed
piecemeal. We learn that she shares a Human body with Ben (Charlie Weber), a doctor at the hospital who
is treating the ailing Joyce Summers. We also learn that she is a god, banished from her own dimension,
who can only return home using the power of the Key., an act that would trigger the Apocalypse. Just like the
audience, Kramer would be fed this information a the series progressed.

"I actually didn't know she was a god until that was revealed in the script," she admits. "I think the writers were
playing with different ideas and finally settled on that, so I became aware of that when they did. My initial
impression of her character was someone who was frustrated, out of their element, who wanted to get back
home and didn't understand why things weren't going her way. She knows exactly what she wants and she
never gives up, which i think is a nice character asset.

"Even though she is a god and this supposedly unattainable figure, I wanted to bring her down to a Human
level, so people could relate to her and see different sides. It would be an injustice to play Glory without the
humor: the writing is right there."

Would she have approached her role differently if all of the clues had been provided for her at the start?
"Sure." she insists. "Any information you have makes a difference. I don't know how, necessarily, but I
think it would have."

Did she compare notes with Charlie Weber? "We talked a little. I think they tried to keep us as separate
as possible, but once we figured out, 'Oh, we're the same person' - because we didn't know that at
first - I tried to follow him around and started walking like him a bit."

Kramer certainly couldn't have wished for a more physically active induction into television. She would
spend the season pulling down walls, fighting with Buffy, or clashing powerful forces with Willow, a
regime that might deter some actresses in Hollywood. Kramer, however, already embraced physical
sports.

"Just for leisure, I was already into boxing," she laughs. "Isn't that weird! I just really enjoyed it. When I
moved to Los Angeles, which is about three years ago, I didn't really know anyone here at all, and one
of the few people I did know was a friend from junior high who I'd grown up with in Ohio. He was going
three days a week, and he said, "You know what, you're in a new city, you need some routine, come
with me.' I started going and fell in love with it."

While claiming the sport isn't actually dangerous ("If I spar it's with a lot of headgear and people know not
to it my face") Kramer admits that it made her eager to do as many of her own stunts as she was allowed
to do.

"I would egg them on, 'Oh, let me do that!/ 'Can I be the one to do this?' They'd say 'no'. I actually had
a wonderful stunt double named Lisa Hoyle who did all these things for me, but at the end of the 100th
episode, my reward was I got to do a ratchet shot: where the cannonball [sic, wrecking ball- Gloriana]
strikes Glory, that's actually me who's pulled back by the wires. That was my only wire work."

Nevertheless, Both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kramer would perform the fights in close up - an art in
itself.

"Sarah is so talented with them," she says of the series star. "She'd been doing it for four-plus years,
and you can watch and learn from her. My stunt double was very generous and let me do as much as
we could.  When we were in the parking lot waiting to be called on set, she would show me stuff. Then
as the season went on, I needed less and less practice."

Mid-way into shooting her episodes, the actress suddenly sensed the extent of the show's enormous
following, and the impact of her character. People were taking notice.

"I guessed what was happening when i was out with my girlfriend a a paint store, and we got stopped
and people were like, 'Glory'?!' I didn't even look like Glory at that time moment!"  Invitations to fan
conventions soon followed...

It surprised me when I got offers to do that, " she concedes. "I was like, 'Oh, really - people are
interested in talking to me?' It's been nice to get the feedback and hear questions and the respect
that's out there for the show that just makes you want to work harder as an actor."

Following Glory's impromptu 'departure' in The Gift - Kramer refuses to call it a demise: Ben was
the one who was smothered. She just went off to find another vessel to express herself through"
- the actress spent a year working on her movie career.

"I did Rules of Attraction, which is the prequel to American Psycho and will be out on October 11th.

I did another movie called The Mallory Effect which went on to Slamdance this year. And I did a show
for UPN called Random Years, which was canceled!"

The call from the Buffy set to reprise the role of Glory could hardly have been less expected.

"I felt the character was put to rest and I was OK with that. I'd moved on, and then al of a sudden there
was a phone call and I thought, 'This should be exciting'."

Kramer wouldn't reveal how many episodes she has been contracted for, or her relationship to the other
villains (if any) or her link to the season's own Big Bad (if indeed there is one). Given the producer's
secretive nature, one suspects that, at time of the interviews, she had no idea herself.

But there is one fact that she does promise with absolute relish: "I'll be back in Glory mode!"
 
 

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