“[Playing Anya] marked me as a ‘funny gal,'” Caulfield explained. “I’d get sent out for comedies, but then I was told I wasn’t funny! I read for ‘Miss Congeniality’ and I was told that I can’t read for comedy. I was branded as a type of comedy. Nowadays that kind of humor is common. That was hard. I didn’t fit in anywhere. [People said], ‘Let’s give her the b*tchy roles.’ And I thought, ‘But I don’t want to play a b*tch. Can’t I just play a normal person?’ It wasn’t easy for me.”
Anya is a mean girl, but a different kind from Cordelia (whose spot in the ensemble she arguably filled). They’re both blunt and insensitive, saying anything that pops into their heads, but Anya just doesn’t care whereas Cordelia is intentionally insulting. As for Caulfield, it appears this typecast is still in play; she was Dottie in Marvel’s “WandaVision,” queen bee of the housewives of suburban Westview, and played the child-eating witch from “Hansel and Gretel” in “Once Upon A Time” — hard to get more “b*tchy” than that.
In 2010, Caulfield decided to grab her career by the horns and created her own web series, “Band Wagon,” playing a fictionalized, fame-hungry version of herself. If an actor isn’t getting the roles they want, why not cast themselves?
In the THR interview, Caulfield expresses doubt she’d be back for a potential “Buffy” reunion (“I died!”), but she was wrong. She returned as Anya for “Slayers,” the 2023 audio drama featuring some of the other women of the Buffyverse who were done dirty, such as Cordelia and Tara Maclay (Amber Benson). “Slayers” shows there’s more to “Buffy” than just Buffy, but watching the show could tell you how important the supporting cast is — Caulfield and Anya’s acerbic tongue very much included.
“Slayers” is available on Audible.