According to director Charles Martin Smith, David Boreanaz appeared to be “scared” on the set of the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Smith joined former Buffy cast member Juliet Landau on the latest episode of her Re-Vamped podcast to discuss his experience directing the beloved series’ 1997 premiere—the only Buffy episode he’s ever directed.
Smith said one of the challenges of working on the premiere was the fact that, aside from star Sarah Michelle Gellar, many of the cast members “really had very little experience” in front of the camera. He recalled that Boreanaz, who had only appeared in a handful of small roles on the show and in a single 1993 episode of Married… with Children before taking on the role of reluctant vampire Angel, seemed particularly nervous.
“I remember him coming on set and I was just like, ‘This kid is scared,’” Smith said. “I remember David was — just didn’t know what to do.” Boreanaz, of course, found his stride on the show, becoming a breakout star. His character was eventually given a spinoff series, Angel, which ran for five seasons on The WB from 1999 to 2004.
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Years later, Smith said, he ran into Boreanaz at a party in Hollywood. “He thanked me for helping him get through that first day,” Smith said. “He was really sweet about it. He said, ‘I really don’t know what I’m doing. But thank you, Charlie.’ And I said, ‘Oh, you know, I want to help a young actor.’ I’m a young actor myself who doesn’t know what I’m doing. So, you know, I want to help those people.”
Despite his rocky start on the series, Boreanaz hinted last year that he might be interested in returning to the world of Buffy and Angel. “It’s definitely something that would be interesting to dig back into, that world, that environment,” he told PEOPLE. While Hulu has confirmed that Chloé Zhao is working on a Buffy reboot with Gellar reprising the lead role, there’s no word yet on whether Boreanaz will return as Angel. Buffy the Vampire Slayer can be streamed in full on Hulu and for free on Tubi.a
