The Point Radio: Making Magic With Amber Benson

Like you, we first fell in love with Amber Benson during her days on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. The feelings only grew as we watch her evolve into a director, producer and most of all a successful author. Amber’s latest project is WITCHES OF ECHO PARK and she talks about why going “magical” seemed like the next step for her. Plus actor Jon Tenney, from MAJOR CRIMES and SCANDAL, talks about the great parts of being a working actor in todays’ exploding entertainment mediums.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It's Mike Raub, the delightful Amber Benson comes along to talk about everything from her work in comics to Buffy to her latest book project and why you should be grabbing a copy right now. Plus John Tenney from Major Crimes and Scandal talks about the joy of being a working actor these days and the numbers are in and it was a pretty good year for comics in 2014. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.

Amber Benson better get a bigger business card. She's a director, a filmmaker, a retired actress and of course a best-selling author. We've been following Amber from her days in front of the camera on Buffy the Vampire Slayer to her current tour promoting her latest book Witches of Echo Park, which is a book that's in a little bit of a different direction. You know I wanted to write a series about women and their relationships with each other

outside of talking about dudes. I wanted to write something that could pass the Bechdel text and I thought well what better way to sort of create that world than to sort of send it around a covenant of witches and I live in the east side of Los Angeles and that's like my stomping ground and it's such a magical place. Like you walk down the street and there are botanica as you walk in and there's saints candles and magic spells that you can buy

and there's houses perched on these hilltops that you can't access except via staircases. There's no road to them you know. I was so entranced by the neighborhood and so that was sort of like the meeting of the two women and their relationships with each other set in this environment that I love. Well it is logical. Amber's character on Buffy was heavily involved in the occult but her fascination actually goes back a little farther than that.

No I've always been interested in the occult ever since I was a kid I was fascinated like what happens when you die? Why is magic real? And so I did a lot of reading. I was the kid looking up you know how do you make a zombie when I'm like 11 in the school library. I think the librarian thought I was crazy. Maybe I am slightly crazy. And so yeah and then that sort of led me to like you know world religions and mythology and Joseph Campbell and the heroes of the thousand faces

and then I watched the Bill Moyers special where he talks to Joseph Campbell and I was like oh that's so intriguing to me that that you know all of these different mythologies sort of come from the same place and they're trying to answer the same questions and there's a lot of magic in mythology and I was like that's an interesting. I was like I want to be a mythologist when I grow up and then I realized no actually I don't want to be a mythologist I want to be a storyteller

because that's what the magic is. It's not in the myths and dissecting them it's in creating stories that have power to them. And it all seems to fit together perfectly. Actually my previous the previous series that I did for Penguin is called the Kalyapi River Jones series and I actually dealt with a myriad of world religions. We dealt with Hinduism and Aztec mythology and Egyptian mythology just lots of different the witches which is this new series

that I'm doing is less about mythology and more about the psychology of why do people do what they do. What is magic? Is it coincidence? When you have an intuitive feeling about something is it you like being shalakean and not you know going around connecting all the dots going well this guy is you know doing this this and this and this is how you know why I intuitively thought he was going to call me. Do you know what I mean? Or is there like the magic? Is there something that

we're snapping into some youngie and collective unconscious that we're tapping into. So that's really what inspired me with these books. Amber's also written some pretty amazing comics for the folks at Dark Horse and I was curious as if she ever going to return to that particular job. More than anything it's just who I am as a person. It's something I'm interested in. I grew up reading Stephen King you know. I read a lot of fantasy. I read a lot of horror. I read a lot of science

fiction and it's something that I was very interested in and then it only made sense that of course I ended up on this show that has all these these giant you know sci-fi fantasy horror themes to them that I am interested in just as a as a as an audience member reader you know movie goer. So yeah so then when I was approached by Chris Golden to do some Buffy comics that was such you know it was a no-brainer. It's like I want to try something different and

that just led me into all these other like supernatural horror themed things and I don't know. I enjoy it and I want other people to enjoy the things that I'm doing and that I enjoy. So I try and make it inclusive rather than exclusive. So who actually is the audience that Amber writes for? You know the first series I did wasn't YA but it did skew. I would say it's more new adults. It kind of but it's it definitely skewed to a younger audience. But for me I wasn't expecting

younger people to read the some of the books in the series because there was some sexual stuff in there and I was like that's not really appropriate for younger readers. The first book is fine but the second and third have a couple of moments that probably not for 12 year olds. But you know the idea that children can't handle death is is that doesn't make any sense to me because it's out there every day. You can't turn on the news without seeing and I think there's

desensitizing of what that actually means and how valuable human life is. When you see people shooting people on the news all of a sudden it stops to or when you know in the media too. When you see people you know like you know Sylvester Stallone shooting up a whole bunch and they just cease to have any value. They're not people anymore. They're just you know things to be destroyed. And I think you know if you're going to talk about these big topics you're going to talk about

death or sex or any of these things to a younger audience. You have to you have to make it based in reality. Do you know what I mean? Like it has to come from a real place and I think it's totally valid to talk about this stuff. The Holocaust happened. You do have to talk about it you know because if you stop talking about it you are doomed to repeat it and I think that's it you know for any any aspect of these these atrocities that happen whether it's Rwanda or what's happening

in West Africa right now with the lack of health care. You know you have to you have to make children aware. So many opportunities today in media, TV, movies, web series, any chance of any of her properties making the jump? Oh my gosh you are not kidding. You know we took the the Death's Daughter, the Calliope River Jones series out and we had a lot of interest but honestly like I want to be involved in it and really they don't want authors involved. They just want to option

it for a very little bit of money and go do what they want with it and I was like you know what I worked really hard on these books. They're my babies. I'm gonna wait. I'm just waiting to see when I'm in a better place then I can I can take these and do what I want with them when I have the autonomy and the power to do to have a joss Whedon kind of sort of say in what happens. Amber Benson's new book Witches of Echo Park from Penguin available in good bookstores and online

on Amazon. No shortage of pop culture coming back from this weekend. Mark Wade and Barry Kitson are returning to their fan favorite Project Empire. IDW is teaming up again with Thrillbend first for a release of the print edition of the original Empire graphic novel that'll take place in April. Also during the same month will be the first issue of the monthly sequel to Empire. Empire Rising again done by Wade and Kitson. The big news in our world over the weekend wasn't

necessarily the Golden Globes but more centered on the CW and DC universe properties. First of all the CW announced via Twitter that there's a new animated series based on the character Vixen. It will appear on the digital platform Seed and it'll feature Arrow and Flash and more than likely tie into those live action series as well. But the biggest news is the talk of a third DC series on the CW. This one possibly being the Adam and possibly keeping Brandon Routh involved with that

project as well. Nothing evident lots of rumors and lots of innuendo but more than likely a big announcement will come before the big tv purge in April. When you look at the bookstores and graphic novel sales for the month of December, a little bit of a shake up with no longer walking dead at the top of the list. In fact the number one best-selling graphic novel in bookstores for the month of December was Ross Chas Can We Talk About Something More Pleasant. Also in the top 20

were some representative DC and Marvel titles including Ms. Marvel volume one from Marvel and Batman the Killing Joke Deluxe Edition from DC as well as Scott Snyder's Batman volume three hard cover and the Joker mask set from DC as well. Meanwhile the comic stores was overall a great year for 2014 with Image making the biggest growth in fact monumental growth for the last 12 months we'll look at what sold in the comic stores for the whole year coming up in just a little bit.

The cold film Wet Hot American Summer is making its comeback as a series on Netflix. The show was greenlit for eight new episodes and the entire cast is set to return including Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler and Elizabeth Banks. Original writer David Wayne will also be involved as well with Wayne directing a few episodes too. Look for an announcement as far as when the series will debut coming in a few weeks. Programming is starting to fall in place for Wizard World's

new upcoming geek streaming channel ConTV. First new item will be Last Fan Standing a new game show that will be hosted by Bruce Campbell from the Evil Dead. Gamble's going to visit comic-ons around the nation to quiz attendees for the chance to win prizes and the title of the Last Fan Standing. Production on this and other programming for the new channel has already begun and the network is set to debut streaming in February. Despite starting off with a

flash period that well had a lot of us a little concerned. Comics did pretty well in 2014 with sales being up over 4% with comics and graphic novels. I grew about 4% graphic novels were up over 5% over the year and when it wrapped Marvel Comics was the sales leader in both dollar and unit market shares. DC's so strong at number two but the big success story M.A. Drew jumped up past Dark Horse and IDW to grab almost 10% of the marketplace this year. All due to a number of

different projects including Brian Gavond's saga and of course The Walking Dead. The top 10 best selling comics for the year begin at number 10 with Superior Spider-Man number 31 from Marvel. Death of Wolverine number three gave it a number nine. Death of Wolverine number two is at number eight. Marvel back again with original Sin number one at number seven and Thor number one at number six. Death of Wolverine number four landed the number five spot for the year. Number four

best-selling book for 2014. Death of Wolverine number one. Number three, Rocket Raccoon number one and number two, Walking Dead number 132 from Image. I am noticing not one DC title of the top 10 best-selling comic of the year. In fact the best-selling comic in over a decade again goes to Marvel. That's Amazing Spider-Man number one. Best-selling graphic novels for the year start at number 10 with saga volume four from Image. Number nine, Batman Court of Owls trade paperback number

eight, Walking Dead volume 22. Number seven, Sex Criminals volume one, the trade from Image. Image back again at number six with Walking Dead volume 21 and volume number one from Walking Dead, a mainstay seller for almost three years now. Is it number five for the year? At number four, Saga the second of the trade paperbacks from Image. Number three, Walking Dead volume 20. Number two, Saga volume one and number one if you notice pretty much an whole image list here.

Best-selling graphic novel of 2014, Saga the trade paperback volume three. John Tenney has had some great supporting roles in films and television series. Like for example, his role in Major Crimes right now on TNT. I'd ask him to take a look back and tell me the moment in time when he knew that acting was definitely what he wanted to do. Third grade play. It was the third grade play, a play that no one's ever heard of before and I was bitten by the bug as

they say so and everybody kept on telling me I was gonna grow out of it and I never did. So has John Gruy's acting resume, was there any type of role that he always seemed to seek out? Well there was a little bit of, I mean certainly early on, a little bit taking you, you know, just taking the ride where it took you. I mean I grew up doing a lot of plays in theater and I grew up back east and so theater was really my first love. So I did, you know, I started out doing a lot of community theater

and then regional theater and I didn't live too far from New York City so I traveled in there and to classes in the city and so that slowly branched out. I eventually had to sort of support my theater habit by doing film and television but then that became something that it kept on letting me do. So I feel very lucky, you know, there's no clear path. For over a decade John has been part of the TNT drama series The Closer and the spin-off series Major Crimes. I asked him to fill me in on that.

I played Fritz Howard on the show, I have been for a while and he used to be working for the FBI and now he works, he's heading up an operations bureau called the Special Operations Bureau which is an actual part of the Los Angeles Police Department and what they say about the Special Operations Bureau, what they like to say is when Los Angeles has a bad day they call the LAPD and when the LAPD has a bad day they call SOB because we deal with some really really really tough cases and the two-part

finale is all about one of these really really tough cases and what I think is really exciting actually about, that'll be exciting for the audience who have been fans since the Closer days is that we're bringing back some characters that were first introduced years ago in the Closer. They come back in full force in this one and in particular a character called Philip Stroh played by a terrific actor Billy Burke who people might recognize in the Twilight movies. He comes back and

he was a character that actually tried to kill Brenda Lee Johnson at the finale of The Closer. He comes back and I'm still married to Brenda Lee Johnson so that's a nice dynamic we have between the two of us. I got some actors to grind. John also has a role in the hit ABC series Scandal so asking between the two shows are the characters similar or different? I think they're very different. I think they're very different although I actually have been doing them back. I've been

working simultaneously on both shows for a little bit so sometimes the hairstyle is a little similar it's about the same length because I changed it too much but no there's totally completely different shows but I feel very lucky because they're both incredibly great casts to work with so that's very fortunate. As a longtime working actor I was curious if there ever was a part that got away. Was there any role that John didn't take that now he thinks well maybe that

wasn't the smartest move? Well it's funny to mention that because I think I was just talking to Tony Golden who is on Scandal and I've known Tony for many many years actually. We worked in the theater years ago together and I said you know years ago I remember getting a script and I was looking at it and saying this is a ridiculous movie. Who's gonna look what is this about a ghost you know comes back and was talking to the old wolf and that of course was the terrific movie

Ghost with Whoopi Goldberg and uh to me more and I thought oh this is ridiculous well of course Tony ended up I threw the script across the room and Tony ended up getting the part and it was an amazing performance so I said I really I made the wrong call throwing that across the ring. Get John in Scandal on ABC and also in Major Crimes on TNT. See more right now with clips at TNTdrama.com. That's after the podcast we're back in a couple of days with a few big things

to cover including the new season of Helix on sci-fi and a show that combines wrestling and death and we're not kidding you'll find this in all the usual places including michaeldavisworld.com comicsmakes.com getthepointradio.com and in the iTunes podcast directory and keep up with what we got going on right now on instagram facebook and twitter under the point radio catch you right back here in a few days. Get the point radio dot com

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