Alyson Hannigan: Willow led to Mother

From News.com.au, a piece about how Willow led to Alyson getting her role in How I Met Your Mother:

Hannigan's character is based on executive producer Craig Thomas's wife Rebecca, and Marshall and Lily's antics are loosely based on Thomas's own clumsy romantic experiences.

"I didn't steal too much from her (Rebecca), but I will because she's awesome," Hannigan said.

"It is really cool to be playing somebody who's alive until she hates it and then you're like, 'Oh I don't know, sorry'."

But that is unlikely to happen since Rebecca is a huge Buffy fan and urged Thomas to watch Hannigan in the show.

"Arguably that is why we cast Alyson," Thomas said.

"None of us knew about Buffy and my wife told me to watch it.

"We became almost embarrassingly huge Buffy dorks to the point where I think Alyson is uncomfortable around us sometimes."

Hannigan said she had worried that after Buffy she set her sights too high when looking for new projects and was thankful when How I Met Your Mother came along.

"I was definitely looking for a half-hour show," she said. "It is like doing a play.

"And I really enjoy the energy that you can get from performing in front of an audience and knowing if you hit a joke or if you didn't."

Fancy squeezing into Evil Willow's corset?

The Evil Willow outfit from Doppelgangland and The Wish is up for sale on, natch, Ebay - you can make it yours for $17,500. It's unclear if there's enough DNA left on the bodice to clone your own Alyson Hannigan, but it's worth a shot.

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ebay
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BUFFY COMES TO DOWNLOAD

BBC News is reporting that Buffy is coming to iTunes as part of a download deal between Fox and Apple.

ALYSON HANNIGAN: HIMYM

How I Met Your Mother has finally turned up on British TV, and its... well, disappointing. The problem is that Alyson has a natural talent for comedy - she's got the timing, she has a way of delivering a double entendre that doubles the original double, and the scene of her hanging around in a bar desperately trying to get picked up was perfect.

The trouble is, of course, the rest of the show doesn't match up. There are ideas there that really work - the concept of taking bags, leaving them on a carousel at an airport and using them to pick up girls is a neat one; the plotline that this would then lead into Department of Homeland Security style complications is pleasing. But the execution is just too poor.

We're constantly told how the US style of team-writing comedy is the model to follow - lots of eyes cast over the script, each joke given a workout by so many hands it's as buff as a beach volleyball player by the time it reaches the screen.

HIMYM, though, shows the pitfalls of that approach - rather than getting a workout from so many writers, it's like each comedic moment has been given a dressing down by a boatload of comedy mothers-in-law, and far from being buff, what reaches the screen has had its spirit broken. You can see that four or five rewrites ago, there might have been a really funny show there. Instead, you get a show sitting around on its sofa eating Doritos.

See also, of course: Date Movie

alyson+hannigan how i met your mother date movie

SMG: New photo

From a Walter Chinn photoshoot; part of the 'leave Buffy behind' campaign that SMG has embarked on since the series. Trouble is, of course, every time she takes one step away from the role, there's another reworking of the DVDs or a new channel picks up syndication rights. She's going to have to really pick up speed if she wants to break from the pull of having been Buffy, and the odd photoshoot and role playing - gasp - pornstars isn't anything like enough to do it.
sarah michelle gellar

RIP: SCOTT BRAZIL

Scott Brazil, who directed the 'Angel' episode of Buffy has died from espiratory failure stemming from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Lyme disease. Recently Brazil has been exec producing The Shield.

BUFFY AND BEARS

Lisa Spodak has been raising funds for breast cancer by getting celebrities to pose with a small teddy bear. Amongst those featured: Amber and Alyson.

NOXON AGAIN

Some good news from the always-worthwhile USA Today PopCandy blog: marti Noxon has just signed a deal with Touchstone TV; amongst other duties, she'll be overseeing ABC's new Rachel Griffiths series Brothers & Sistsers.