Alyson Hannigan says she totally bombed her 'Buffy' audition

Could you imagine Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Willow Rosenberg, her best buddy and computer wiz who (seasons later) also turns into a powerful witch? It’s hard to picture anyone but Alyson Hannigan slaying in that role, but it turns out audiences were almost given an entirely different version of the character because Hannigan says she bombed her audition.It has to be hard enough being a young actor in your twenties and trying to break out in Hollywood, but Hannigan seriously says she bombed. As in, she walked into a door, forgot all of her lines, and completely waffled a chemistry read between her, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Nicholas Brendon. Hannigan revealed to People that she was pretty sure she was never getting the part, especially considering creator Joss Whedon was in the room to see her flub it all up.“It was like the eighth audition and it was a chemistry read,” she says. “Joss [decided he wanted] new lines, so he wrote a scene just for this audition and it was all this computer jargon, blah blah blah. I got it the day before or the morning of and it didn’t make any sense to me. I got to that part and all the words started swimming. I don’t think I was speaking English at some point and I finally was like, ‘Okay I’m just going to stop talking now.’”

 

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Me trying to figure out this whole social media thing

A post shared by Alyson Hannigan Denisof (@alysonhannigan) on Nov 22, 2019 at 5:37pm PST

What Hannigan didn’t know at the time was that her messing up those lines is exactly what made Whedon decide to cast her. He later told her, “You couldn’t say the words to save your life, but I knew right then and there because the chemistry was there.” He was perhaps referring to Gellar’s facial reactions, which according to Hannigan read something like, “This poor girl… What did you just do?’”Because that’s obviously not enough stress, it’s also worth pointing out that Willow was the last character to be cast; the creatives had already shot a pilot with another actress, Riff Regan, in the role. Obviously Whedon and co. didn’t think she had the right chemistry, and they started looking high and low for someone who could fill that oh-so-important spot. You could say there was a lot at stake.“I was determined that we wouldn’t have the supermodel in horn rims that you usually see on a TV show,” Whedon said on the Welcome to the Hellmouth DVD commentary. “I wanted somebody who really had their own shy quirkiness. While the network and I were looking for people, Alyson Hannigan slipped under our radar. She came in and we didn’t really know that she was going to be the guy, and then when she read for the network we were just blown away. She brings so much light and so much tenderness to the role, it’s kind of extraordinary.”It seems like Hannigan really isn’t as bad at auditions as she thinks. After playing Willow for seven seasons, Hannigan went on to land another career-defining role as Lily Aldrin in How I Met Your Mother, a gig she had for nine seasons. Next up she’s playing host for the four-part Food Network show Girl Scout Cookie Championship.Hannigan reveals that she did have one moment where she knew it was going to work out. She goes on to tell People that she was visiting her grandmother in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics when she got that first call-back for Buffy. So her family had to cut the trip short, which sort of cheesed her grandma since she never got to see her.“We were driving to the airport and I remember sitting in the backseat and my grandma was like, ‘When are you going to give up this childhood acting thing?’ She did it from a place of wanting me to move back, but the moment she said it [I knew] she just clinched this for me. Because that’s the thing you always hear people say, ‘Oh as soon as they told me to give up that’s when I struck gold.’ She just did it. And then I wound up getting it.”So what did Grandma think of Hannigan’s new gig at the time?“She was like, ‘What is it called’? She never understood the show.”[video_embed id='-1']Before you go: This newborn husky's first-ever howling session will melt your heart[/video_embed]