Buffy The Vampire Slayer Would Not Have Been The Same Without Anthony Head
“In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we appear to have changed.”
A mentor can make or break an ensemble series. They have to be serious enough to ground the action and provide necessary exposition, but they can’t bring down the tone of the rest of the show. It’s a careful balancing act, and one that requires an experienced actor who knows how to bring that nuance and take things just seriously enough.
Back in 1997, a movie adaptation called Buffy the Vampire Slayer found the perfect actor to play Rupert Giles, Buffy’s librarian and Watcher, her mentor and guide through her time as the protector of Sunnydale. Anthony Head, who recently passed away at the age of 72, brought a sophistication to the series but also showed moments of warmth, heart, and occasionally, silliness.
Anthony Head’s Giles was a father figure and mentor to Buffy.
Rupert Giles may have been a British librarian who loved wearing tweed, but he was so much more than that. As much as Buffy relished the role of Slayer, Giles loved his role as Watcher. He was usually the calm one in the room, but his enthusiasm for researching the supernatural was evident in every episode.
But that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t afraid to get vulnerable. Take, for example, Season 3 Episode 7, “Revelations,” where Buffy hid Angel’s return from the Hell dimension from her friends. “I won't remind you that the fate of the world often rests with the Slayer,” he said to her after a confrontation with her friends, “nor shall I remind you that you have jeopardized the lives of everyone you know by housing a known murderer. But sadly I must remind you that Angel tortured me. For hours. For pleasure. You should have told me he was alive. You didn't. You have no respect for me, or the job I perform.”
It’s a harsh reprimand from Giles, but it was a clarifying moment for the relationship between the Watcher and his Slayer. He does did for her like a father, but he also had high expectations for her, and would do what it takes to get her to reach that potential, even if that meant scolding her.
Giles had his own dark past that came to light in Seasons 2 and 3.
He understood Buffy’s plight as a high schooler trying to survive because he, too, had a rambunctious childhood. It’s only occasionally mentioned, but Giles had a past as “Ripper,” a dark magic practitioner who dressed like a punk. We first learn about this past in Season 2 Episode 6 “Halloween,” but two episodes later in “The Dark Age,” the gang was confronted with Giles’ past directly when a demon he and his friends summoned and failed to exorcise wreaked havoc in Sunnydale.
This all led to a fan-favorite episode, Season 3 Episode 6, “Band Candy,” where cursed candy changes all the adults in town to their adolescent selves, meaning we see Giles in a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, hanging out with Buffy’s mom Joyce. Fully immersed in his “Ripper” persona, Buffy and her friends were shocked when their usually straight-laced mentor taunts a cop at gunpoint.
Whether he was comforting Buffy through the loss of her mom or singing his heart out under the control of a musical demon, there’s nobody who could have played Giles the way Anthony Head did. He may be Rupert Mannion from Ted Lasso for some, or Uther Pendragon in Merlin for others, but for Buffy fans, he’ll always be that show’s secret weapon.
