"Where there's a Willow..."
Buffy's best friend starts to develop some character traits.
by Allan Johnson
One of the more pleasurable side dishes of the WB'S "Buffy the vampire Slayer" is he relationship between the Bufferino (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her best friend Willow Rosenberg, engagingly played by Alyson Hannigan.
Willow has developed from a wall flowery, morose bookworm into a sweet, strong dependable character, all without losing her charming innocence and awkwardness.
Willow musters a little witchcraft now and then, which also has been a lovely enhancement to the character.
"She was never going to be just Nerd Girl and be a bookish, weak person. There's much more going on there," explains "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon.
Hannigan, 25, said it was a "slow progression" for Willow to grow out of that nerdiness, with her developing the "witch kind of thing."
"I think that obviously, with Buffy's influence and everything, she's more confident," Hannigan adds. "She's coming into her own."
Hannigan herself came into her own through a shockingly hilarious performance in this summer's comedy hit "American Pie." Still, she is glad Willow into the young woman she is now, yet remained a character viewers could relate to--probably better than they could relate to Buffy.
"Buffy is what everyone wishes they could be, but Willow is more like the actual people that you knew, or were," she says. "From the response I've gotten, the mail and people who come up to me and stuff, it seems everyone I talked to knew a Willow, or was a Willow."
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