Juliet Landau ('Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Angel', 'Take Flight')

Juliet Landau is known for being the vile vampiress Drusilla on Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spinoff Angel. But lately she’s been directing a horror-themed music video for Godhead called Hero, directing a documentary about Gary Oldman, and writing two issues of the Angel comic book for IDW that feature her character. Landau has appeared in all kinds of movies, from Tim Burton’s Ed Wood to her most recent appearance in a kid’s movie, but she’s a driving force behind the camera as well as has a very distinct creative vision. Juliet shares her latest projects with us...

“It was an unbelievable experience,” she says about working with Tim Burton (She played the spoiled actress Ed Wood is forced to work with.) “It was obscenely fun. It was what moviemaking should be. I had a great time on that.”

Juliet Landau recently premiered Hero, a music video for the band Godhead, in film festivals. Hero conjures up silent horror films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Expressionist, certainly, it makes the song Hero by Godhead a gorgeous and tragic love story between two characters under Landau’s directorial eye.

“It's about a dysfunctional relationship,” she explains. “But we wanted the way that we shot it to be at odds with that. We wanted it to have a very luminous 1930’s feel and for the subject matter to be very dark in opposition.”

Juliet landed the job as music video director when she screened her documentary Take Flight. Godhead was impressed with her ability as a filmmaker. “They absolutely loved it and they asked me if I would direct their next video.”

Gary Oldman in 'Take Flight'

Take Flight is Landau’s 25 minute documentary about Gary Oldman (you know, the actor) who happens to be a good friend of Landau’s.

“The documentary film started as 50 hours of footage that I condensed into a 25 minute film. With Hero, we wanted it to feel like it was done in one take. That was the concept from the get-go.”

There’s a weird little story behind Take Flight.

“Gary was directing his own music video shot entirely on cell phones, and he asked me to direct the making-of.” Explains Landau.

The project snowballed from there. “It started solely as a behind the scenes making-of video and ended up as a documentary film about his creative process.”

Landau is also picking up the character of Drusilla as a writer in the comic Angel: After the Fall #24 and #25. After having been on Buffy and Angel for years as Drusilla, she’s finally getting a chance to revisit the character and have more power over what happens to her. “I have co-written two issues of the Angel comic book, the first issue is out now,” says Landau. “It was really incredible getting to tap back into her and getting to control the story and come up with the whole idea and work on the art. It was in the midst of shooting a new film so it was a little bit crazy, but we got it all done!”

IDW, the company that publishes the Angel comic, approached Juliet to see if she would be interested in collaborating in some way on the comic.

“I was actually in the editing bay working on my doc,” she says, “and had this immediate idea that came over me. I ran to the computer and wrote it in script form in a couple days and they (Chris Ryall and Brian Lynch) said let's do it!”

Landau brought in a couple of her own artists, and together they’ve created a very cool storyline involving gore and some serious drama.

“Drusilla is definitely violent, which is weird because I am way not violent! But Drusilla is now on her own. In Buffy and Angel she was always teamed with Spike, but she is a villain, after all. The first issue is going to set up the story, and a lot more happens in the second issue.”

Landau's most recentl job was on a movie called Monster Mutt. “Its a kids’ movie by 4-time Oscar winning Greg Cannom's Drac Studios. I play the slinky long Russian baddy. Its really fun.”

You can also catch Juliet as 'Charlotte' in the upcoming horror adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper in 2010.

Landau in 'The Yellow Wallpaper'

Check out www.julietlandaustakeflight.com and find out when you can watch her documentary.