Q&A: Joss Whedon, creator of Dollhouse.

By LEV GROSSMAN Friday, Feb 13, 2009

Joss Whedon
Lluis Gene | AFP | Getty

Most people who write for TV are not famous. How good of a TV writer must Joss Whedon be, that he is famous for it? The answer is, very good. Whedon - who is also a director-producer-creator person - is the man behind, among other brilliant things, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (which if you don't know what that is, it's very important that you find out immediately).

his new show, which premieres on Fox on Feb. 13, is called Dollhouse. It's about a young woman named Echo (played by Eliza Dushku) who works for a secret organization that imprints her with a new personality every episode. Whedon spoke to TIME this week in New York City, where he was promoting the show.

TIME: I think of your modus operandi as taking on a genre and then remaking it in your own image. With Buffy it was vampires, with Firefly, space opera. But Dollhouse is different. It's its own genre. Unless there's a genre out there I don't know about.

JOSS WHEDON: If there is I'm not aware of it either. So either I've gotten more original, or I've run out of genres to rip off.

Dollhouse is my usual sort of hybrid. But I would call it a thriller, or a drama, before anything else. It's very much a story about this girl's attempt to reclaim her identity, inside of an organization that would perhabs prefer she be stopped. But then within that, because she takes on a different personality each week, there are all sorts of adventures. there's one that's like a whodunit, there's one that's like a caper, there's one that's like a horror movie. We can bounce around.

It reminds me of those Star Trek episodes where they'd all go in the holodeck, and suddenly the show would turn into a Western or something.

JW: Yeah! Maybe I'm re-inventing the holodeck genre. The trick is to make it seem more real that Patrick Stewart in a Stetson.

You've always had a great eye for spotting talent. What do you look for in an audition?

JW: Obviously you're looking for a particular spark. I started with Eliza in this case, and so it's great to have that key player in place, because you're also looking for differences. You;re looking for different energy - I always think of it for some reason as people holding a quilt. Everybody's got hold of a different end, and they've really got to stretch it taut. You don't want two people who perform the same function.

The other thing that I am very strict about looking for is sanity. If I'm going to potentially spend seven years with this person, I want to make sure that they're the kind of person who's collaborative and easygoing, ready for a challenge, a hard worker. I'm very old-fashioned about the work ethic and the training, and that's a part of it.

This is very much a showcase for Eliza - a new personality every week. It seems like the challenge for her is to transform into a completely different person every episode, and yet maintain some baselime element that we can still recognize as being her, as being Echo.

JW: The thing about Eliza is, it's not like she can turn off the Eliza. She always is her. She has great versatility, and there's lots of different rhythms, and characters, and eras, and social strata she can play, and the way she moves, the way she reacts, she's doing a lot of lovely, subtle work. But at the same time there is that Eliza thing. And that's kind of the premise of the show: no matter how often they tell her who she is, Echo is always in there somewhere, struggling to get out, and to self-actualize. That is Eliza's story, and it's also who she physically is. So the match is perfect.

Do you throw around the word soul at all? I sthat the part of Echo that stays constant?

JW: The word soul gets used. We don't open with it, because it's a word that can be overused. But it does creep in in the later episodes. There is definitely something about her, that however many times they may wipe her personality, she still retains something. And they can't really control that.

It's not as funny as some of your others. It's darker and more serious. Would you agree?

JW: Absolutely. It is a dramatic thriller where it's very important people invest in the reality of the thing, and the reality of the thing is dark. And yet once people have, we're able to bring some changes. There's no way I'm going to make a show that doesn't have some silly. I couldn't breathe if there was no silly. The fact of the matter is, we're talking about what makes a human being a human being. A large part of that is that they're ridiculous.

FOX is playing up the sexy side of the show lot. And there is something weirdly brothel-like about the Dollhouse. How much is the show about sex?

JW: It's probably less about sex than it was when we pitched it. Eliza and I were interested in the way people deal with each other sexually - what they need from each other, what they're ashamed of, how they control each other, how power is involved. She was interested in exploring sexuality. And she likes looking good, and being attractive, and that's part of the package. She's a television star for a number of reasons. But I think the network is happy if we gear it toward the conspiracy and the thriller aspect of it, because it does have that aspect of sex for hire, that makes people nervous. But we wanted to explore that. We want to make people a little nervous.

How much directing to you think you're going to do on the show?

JW: Not as much as I used to. It's really a question of time. But when I've got people like [Steven S.] DeKnight, and Tim Minear and David Soloman in my pocket, it makes it a lot less painful. (pauses) They're not actually in my pocket.

It would have to be a big pocket.

JW: They're actually very teeny...

How's the partnership with FOX been?

JW: It's been difficult on both sides for us to reconcile our visions of what the show's about. But it has absolutely been a collaboration. My experience with Firefly was very unpleasant. [FOX canceled it, infamously, after 11 episodes.] This experience was very different. It was never ugly in any sense. It was hard. But art should be hard.

You're a behind-the-scenes type person, but you're also a celebrity. How does that work?

JW: I don't think I'm a celebrity. Maybe I'm a cult figure? I walk down the street, and it's not like people are mobbing me. But I do get recognized sometimes - which is very new for a writer. A writer is supposed to have anonymity. And the result of that is that I think I'm all that. My ego is completely out of control. I think you're going to see that in some of the work coming up.

You had great music in Buffy - in fact, in all of your shows. The music in Dollhouse has a different vibe. Could you talk about how you choose the music in your shows?

JW: The first thing was the title, where I had something by Jonatha Brooke in mind, and the next day they got me on the phone with Jonatha Brooke. And I was like, wow, so that's how that works now. It was very surreal for me, because I've been a fan of hers for years. She wrote a beautiful theme that informs the kind of music that I like on the show. And then we basically get sent a bunch. Some of the music is not the music I listen to - for example, in the third episode Echo becomes a backup singer for a diva pop star, and that obviously is not my stuff. It just felt right for the episode.

Is Eliza going to sing? Can she?

JW: Oh boy can she sing. Girl's got pipes. She does sing just a little bit in the episode where she plays a backup singer. I'd love her to sing mroe, but apparently this isn't just my playground, I do have to tell responsible stories. She can't sing every episode. Dammit.

I've always wondered about your name, Joss. You don't meet a lot of Josses.

JW: Remember the bad guy from Lethal Weapon 2? "Diplomatic Immunity" - that guy? Great British actor. Joss Ackland, And there's the singer Joss Stone. We're out there.

Did you have a dollhouse when you were little?

JW: The dolls I played with were all superhero dolls. I did not actually have a dollhouse. I was pretty much playing with Spider-Man and the Falcon. And I wasn't putting Spider-Man on top of Falcon. No matter what you've heard.

Wait, who's the Falcon?

JW: He was Captain America's sidekick, for a while.

I thought that was - Billy? Bobby? What's his name?

JW: Bucky! Bucky died in WWII, bra! He had to get a new sidekick.

So Spidey and the Falcon didn't have a house? They were homeless?

JW: No. They didn't have a house. Kind of sad, really.