From TV2ZapIt:
http://tv.zap2it.com/shows/features/features.html?23820
Looking Good While Doing BadTue, Feb 12, 2002 10:54 AM PDT
by Kate O'Hare
In "Waiting in the Wings," last week's episode of The WB's Monday drama "Angel," written and directed by series co-creator and executive producer Joss Whedon, the storyline involved vampire Angel (David Boreanaz), colleague -- and love interest -- Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and the ballet.
Not in evidence was Stephanie Romanov, who plays Lilah Morgan, a top lawyer at the demon-employed Los Angeles firm of Wolfram & Hart, which is constantly trying to thwart Angel's mission to help the helpless and stop the pain in his tortured soul, restored by a Gypsy curse.
That's too bad, because Romanov could have done her own dancing. "I was a ballet dancer for years," says the Las Vegas-born actress and former model.
Last fall, Romanov (whose next episode, "Sleep Tight," likely airs in March) found herself very envious when sister series and predecessor, UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," did a musical episode in which cast members sang and danced. "I've been trained in all forms of dance," she says. "I can do just about any dance there is -- and sing, forget about it. We need 'Angel, the Musical.'"
"I've been saying that since the beginning. I say that on every job, because I want to do a musical so bad. Then when I saw the big posters for 'Buffy, the Musical,' I'm like, 'Oh, my gosh, you've got to do it.' And they're like, 'No way, it'll never happen.'"
Romanov joined "Angel" in its first season, playing Lilah as witty, smart, ambitious and willing to do anything to rise in the ranks of Wolfram & Hart. The law firm is the brainchild of the show's other creator and executive producer, David Greenwalt, who had a similarly ruthless (but not supernatural) corporate entity in his short-lived FOX series "Profit."
Until the end of last season, Lilah was perpetually in competition with now-departed fellow lawyer Lindsey McDonald (Christian Kane), who straddled the fence between doing evil for the firm's heinous clients and occasionally helping Angel on the side. Lilah has been a total Wolfram & Hart team player, although Romanov has always seen layers in Lilah's animosity toward her brooding vampire foe.
"The Angel passion?" she asks. "It's funny, from the first episode I did, I always thought she had a mad crush on him. You can't hate someone that much unless you really like him. I'd always played her that way, without saying anything to anyone, just in my own motivation. It's almost as if she's a scorned lover."
That passion was revealed in an October episode called "Carpe Noctem," in which Angel, while possessed by someone else, decided Lilah was irresistible. She, in turn, didn't resist his advances. "I thought it was about time," Romanov says.
Another crack in Lilah's armor appeared a couple of episodes later, in "Billy." In a charged scene, Lilah and Cordelia squared off over the title character, an evildoer that Lilah had sprung from a hellish prison, who brutalized women. After sparring over shoe choices, the two women found common ground in both being a "vicious bitch." In the end, Lilah did the right thing -- by her standards, anyway -- and eliminated Billy herself.
"I think Lilah heard that," Romanov says. "That was actually the first scene ever, and the only scene, that I've ever done with Cordelia, so that was cool."
Although Lilah's history has never been revealed, Romanov has a theory. "I tend to think she was an orphan. She doesn't easily form relationships. She doesn't really know what they are. I get the feeling that she was an orphan and went on her own, maybe at 13, finding odd jobs and doing whatever she could to survive. That could make it easier for her to survive in the world she's in now, which is always do or die."
"Definitely she has a heart, otherwise the things that Cordelia said wouldn't have meant as much. I don't think she would have gone and killed Billy. Obviously, there was a purpose in bringing him back, and she would have found that more important than doing the right thing."
Asked what Lilah would do in a true showdown, Romanov says, "I think her instincts would take over, which would be survival, depending what she's up against. She's a whatever-it-requires sort of gal, a bottom-line gal."
Romanov also doesn't think that Lilah should show as much fear as she does, when faced with the brutalities of life at Wolfram & Hart. "I don't think she should be so scared, because why is she in that line of work? She's up against this stuff all the time, doesn't she eventually get used to it? I'm figuring, by this point, she knows that either she's going to die, or she's not going to die. There's nothing she can do. It's either get in or get out."
"But maybe she's trapped, and that's where her heart comes from. Maybe she thinks she's made the wrong choice, but there's no going back. She's made the deal with the devil."
This year, other than Angel, Lilah's main annoyance has been fellow lawyer Gavin Park (Daniel Dae Kim), who has bedeviled Angel with building-code violations and other legal maneuvers. "That's a complete nuisance to her," Romanov says. "I don't think she thinks he is (a worthy opponent), but I don't think she ever thought anyone was. Even in the other seasons, it wasn't really her that was messing up, it was usually Lindsey, and he kept getting promoted. I don't think she ever understood why."
"I think it's because it's a sexist world, and she's a woman. She hates that, and now here's some other guy trying to come in and move in on her territory. She just doesn't see it happening. It's a man's world, even on TV, even in the make-believe world."
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