Amber Benson Recalls ‘Bananas’ First Day on Buffy Set 25 Years Later

Her character, Tara Maclay, first appeared in the season’s 10th hour for a little episode titled “Hush,” easily one of the top tier installments of the show’s seven-season run. In it, Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang find themselves without voices, as terrifying supernatural forces known as The Gentlemen float around town ripping out the hearts of their victims.

Ahead of the anniversary of her arrival in Sunnydale, TooFab sat down with Benson at an event celebrating the show thrown by Tubi, as the series is now available in full — for free — on the streamer.

“When I auditioned for Buffy, I didn’t understand what this was. I knew it because I was friends with Alyson, and I had watched the show to support her,” Benson told TooFab, referring to Alyson Hannigan, who also played her future on-screen love, Willow.

“I was like, ‘This is great,’ [but] did not understand the culture of Buffy. And then to get the job, I didn’t even get to reach out to [Alyson] and tell her, I just auditioned and was like if I don’t get it, then, you know …. and then I got it,” Benson continued, calling “Hush” an “iconic episode” for her to make her debut.

“It was bananas,” she said of her first day filming, which was actually a night shoot on the college set used for University of California, Sunnydale.

“It was getting dark, and I walked up, and they had video village set up. They had the TV screen that shows you what the camera sees. Everyone is sort of around it and watching,” she recalled. “They’re shooting this scene with The Gentleman and I’m watching the monitor, and you see this incredible nightmare creation floating by on screen. Then I see them show up and pass video village, all standing on a platform on wheels, a bunch of the grips are pulling them, and I was like, ‘Boy, this is Hollywood.’ So, it was such a like iconic moment.”

Tara’s role only continued to grow over Seasons 4, 5 and 6, as her romance with Willow came to the forefront. In 1999 and the early 2000s, seeing representation of a loving lesbian couple at the center of a network television show was a pretty big deal … which made it all the more painful when Tara was killed by a stray bullet in Season 6.

In 2023, Benson got to revisit the role of Tara on a Buffy series for Audible, which she and Christopher Golden co-wrote and co-directed. Fellow costars James Marsters, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Head, Juliet Landau, Emma Caulfield Ford, James Charles Leary, and Danny Strong all returned for the series as well, some in their original roles and others in alternate versions of their characters from another universe.

“For myself and for Christopher Golden … we very much looked at that continuation as a way to sort of give a better ending to some of the beloved characters we had. Things I had about, how Charisma and Cordelia went out, how Emma/Anya went out, Tara went out,” she said, referring to the deaths of characters played by herself, Charisma Carpenter and Emma Caulfield.

“Using an alternate universe sort of device, we were able to give those characters the ending we felt they should have. It was very satisfying as a creative person, but also satisfying like a fan of the show,” she added. “I feel like some of those character really did not get the due that they deserved. To give them that was really special and magical.”

Unfortunately, the Audible series wasn’t picked up for another season, with Benson telling TooFab, “I wish we could do more, but I think were kind of done with that for now. Which is a bummer because I would love to go back.”

For now, fans can revisit the original series … or watch it for the first time … on Tubi, with Benson calling the show a form of “comfort food.”

“I think the fact that Tubi is now streaming like all of the seasons, it’s free, you can go back, and you can rewatch it as many times as you want. It’s such a comfort,” she said, praising the “access” the free streamer allows for the show, which she believes “still speaks” to fans and newcomers alike.

“You could find somebody that is your person on the show. I think that is the part of the reason the show has sustained power, because you can find somebody that is your person, your spirit animal,” she continued. “The show is about finding yourself, finding your found family, finding your tribe and that is a theme that will go on forever.”

And she’s already seen new generations of fans at conventions.

“I’m 47 now. The fact that I go to conventions, and I meet the fans. I find kids in their mid-teens, kids in early twenties who were like, ‘I knew nothing about Buffy, my family didn’t watch Buffy, and I was just fussing around and I found it, and I watched the whole thing,'” she told TooFab. “I would say Buffy is a drug. You get addicted to it. Once you start watching it, you’re in trouble. You’re ours, you belong to us.”

Get hooked now on Tubi!