Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Amber Benson is excited to see a woman of colour take on the titular role of Buffy in Joss Whedon’s upcoming reboot of the cult TV show.
Plans for a reboot were first announced back in 2018, with series creator Whedon confirmed as executive producer on the “richly diverse” new version, alongside producer and screenwriter Monica Owusu-Breen (Midnight, Texas) as showrunner.
While the cast is yet to be announced, Benson – who played lesbian character Tara Maclay during the show’s original run – told Digital Spy that she’s looking forward to the reboot.
“I was so excited because Joss (Whedon) was involved, a woman of colour was going to be running the show, and Buffy was going to be a woman of colour,” she said. “I thought that was really important.”
She added: “So Buffy – it had some diversity. But I feel like it could have had more. And that was just the time. That sort of onus wasn’t on the creative world to show the world in a diverse way. I would very much like to see Buffy in a diverse world. I think it would be a really amazing thing.”
When asked whether she’d get involved in the new series, she responded: “Sure. I would pop in for a little cameo. Heck yeah!”
Back in May, Whedon revealed that Willow, one of the core characters on the show who came out as gay in season four, would be bisexual if the show was produced today. “There are you things you can’t do, thanks to (the society at the time),” he explains, in a recent interview with Metro.
Thanks to the social pressures of the time it was created, he adds that he felt he couldn’t make Willow bisexual, or risk her sexual orientation being considered a “phase”: “because that’s what people do to deny their existence.”
“So, if I did it now,” Whedon adds, “I’d be like yes she can be bi. Because some people are! But back then it was like, no…we’re not ready for that.”