Here’s a transcript from the interview with Alyson and Luke Perry on the Richard and Judy Show, Channel 4 (UK) February 4, 2004. It was about 12-15 minutes, including film clips. I was amazed at how much Willow I saw in Alyson: the voice inflections, the cute hand waving when she got excited, the wonderful facial expressions. Alyson was absolutely adorable. Sorry in advance for any errors in transcription. It’s hard when four people are talking; there’s bound to be inaudible overlap.
Alyson Hannigan and Luke Perry Interview
The Richard and Judy Show
February 4, 2004
Judy Finnegan (JF): The latest American stars to tread the boards in the West End have both featured in hugely successful cult TV series. Luke Perry from Beverly Hills 90210 and Alyson Hannigan who played Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have teamed up in the stage version of When Harry Met Sally, the hugely popular romantic comedy staring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. Before we meet them, here are Luke and Alyson in the shows which made their names.
[Section of Beverly Hills 90201, followed immediately with a section from Dopplegangerland where, near the end of the show, Vamp Willow is choking Willow in the Bronze, during a fight. Buffy comes to save the day and Willow refuses to have her doppelganger staked.]
JF: Well Luke and Alyson join us now. Does it seem strange looking back to your earlier incarnations?
Alyson Hannigan (AH): (laughs) Yes.
JF: So you teamed up together over here—we’re very honoured to have so many American’s coming over to the West End, actually, taking part in plays, but--
Richard Madeley (RM): (inaudible)….taking our jobs. (laughter)
JF: (to AH) And you play the Meg Ryan role?
AH: Yes.
JF: (to Luke Perry (LP): And you’re obviously the Billy Crystal role.
Luke Perry (LP): Me? Yes, I am.
JF: OK, and when does it open?
AH: We start previews next week on the tenth and then press night or opening night is the twentieth.
RM: What’s the attraction? Why so—I mean this is turning into a full flood, this American talent coming over here to do plays in London, and the run of the country. What’s going on? What’s the deal?
AH: (to LP) What do you think?
LP: Any ideas? OK, I have a theory on this, all these guys coming over from England and Australia to America to make movies, both actors and actresses, we’re just sort of swinging it over this way. (laughter) You can’t get a job over there unless you’re from England, so if you come over here and you’re American….(laughter)
AH: I think it’s really sort of become what the independent movie used to be. Now everybody does independent movies so now the theatre is just sort of like—“OK what can I do just to spice things up?”
RM: But is it kind of a quality thing? I mean, is it a cult thing—a cool thing to go back to the States and say, “Well, I’ve just done the West End of London.”
AH: Oh gosh, it’s hugely respected—
RM: Really?
AH: (big laugh from JF)—no, I’m serious! It’s like, like--
(banter which is inaudible)
AH: (turns to LP) well, his performance won’t be, but mine will be (laughter). Yeah, it’s just a dream come true. It’s—seriously, it’s just one of those things that….
LP: It’s something I always wanted to do. You know when I first started getting into acting, everybody talked about “Well, I want to be a movie star. I want to be this….” I said, “I want to play the West End.” That was sort of always—
RM: Honestly? Really?
LP: Yeah.
RM: That’s good to know. Maybe—you see that’s another thing, my mum’s Canadian and we got relatives in Canada and south of the border as well. And as a kid I can remember when they came over to visit us, especially for the first time, they were awed by the ancient buildings and everything, the oldness of England and Scotland and Wales.
AH: (eyes wide and shaking her head affirmatively) Uh-huh!
RM: And you say the old buildings—you say in America you rarely have seen a building older than 1980.
AH: Well, it seems that way in Los Angeles. Everything’s just so new and it comes up so quickly and it’s just…it’s, it’s just so nice to be here and just to see history.
RM: (to JF) Tell her how old that inn was that we stayed in last weekend.
JF: Oh, it was—
RM: Fourteenth century, wasn’t it?
JF: No, no. Eleven-something, it was built in; the twelfth century.
RM: It was built in eleven hundred, but the building was actually completed, that we were in, in 1420—
AH: Oh!
RM: It was six hundred years old.
AH: Oh! That’s lovely.
RM: It was, actually.
JF: It was actually a beautiful place.
AH: Yeah, I just—I love it. I love walking down the streets and, like, say, “Is that car actually going to make it down that little road?” (laughs) Like—
RM: Our cars aren’t that bad.
AH: No! It’s just the roads are made for horses and not that—it’s mind boggling.
JF: Well—look, everybody who’s ever seen When Harry Met Sally always thinks of that major scene, you know, that one scene in the restaurant—
AH: I, ah, think I know it.
JF: When Meg and Billy—
LP: Where they roll the carpet out? (laughter)
RM: That’s the one. Yeah. That scene.
AH: The museum scene, yeah (laughs).
RM: Well actually, Meg Ryan herself has said about you (AH), really, in this part, that she hopes it doesn’t spoil your real sex life—
AH: (laughs) Aw.
RM: Because she said it kind of gets into your head.
AH: Well, my husband is still in California, so, so I have no sex life. (laughter)
RM: This will be your sex life. (laughter) Well let’s see the scene and we’ve got something to show you.
(Plays the fake big O restaurant scene from original movie).
AH: That was a great line (referring to “I’ll have what she’s having.”)
RM: That was the director’s mother, wasn’t it? That was the director’s mother who had that punch line, wasn’t it?
AH: Yeah.
(a bit of banter that I couldn’t really understand, about who played that part)
RM: We’ll talk about how you (AH) play that in a second, but for you (LP) that’s got to be a tough scene to play.
LP: I honestly think I have the harder part in the scene.
AH: He does.
RM: I think you do, actually.
LP: Because I’m trying to figure out something to do, and she does it with so much power and so much authority (AH’s eyes go very wide) (laughter) that, um,—
JF: Blimy!
LP: --that even in just the rehearsal process I get embarrassed and I find myself turning red and I don’t know exactly what to do. But I think that’s probably pretty true to the character.
JF: I think that Billy Crystal played it really well, actually. Because it can’t be easy, just reacting to something like that.
LP: Well, he’s very talented, that Billy Crystal; I think he’s got a lot of potential! (laughter)
JF: (to AH) Is yours going to be similar—
RM: to hers.
AH: Well, actually mine has to be a little bigger because it’s on stage.
RM: (laughs) Bigger?!
AH: No, (laughter) the whole performance kind of has to, you know—it—you get away with a lot more subtlety (on film), not that that was subtle, by any means, but I’m talking more in the spectrum of the entire (stage) performance.
RM: I’m awestruck by this news. (laughter) Jeez.
AH: So yeah, I’m going to have to, ah, ‘super size’ it. (laughter)
JF: One of the things that we did today, we got some of our girls in the office to go down to a local restaurant and –
RM: --they’re would-be actresses, aren’t they?
AH: (draws a very surprised breath in almost disbelief).
JF: They’re researchers, and phone girls and make-up girls—and to see what the reaction would be if they did that, and my God they did it well! They really went for it!
AH: Oh really! Do you have that?!
JF: Yeah.
AH: Oh, I’m really excited!
LP: Do you have the winner?
(runs clip of a women in a restaurant replicating the fake big O scene)
AH: That’s fantastic!
RM: That didn’t include Judith’s version, cause you know Judith’s my wife, because what would it amount too?
JF: It’s kind of like (small voice) ‘opps’. (both JF and AH giggle and laugh a lot. None of the men laugh, at first.)
LP: Everybody has their moments. That’s the great thing about the play. I mean there’s something—we can all relate to some part of that.
AH: Mine will also be long.
RM: It’s a lovely story.
LP: Mine will, too.
RM: It’s a lovely (laughs) romance, the story. We must both come and see it.
LP: It is and that’s the thing we love about it that we wanted to share with everybody is that we love this movie just as much as everyone one does. We feel very fortunate to be the first people to be doing it on stage, and just—we’re the custodians of these great characters.
JF: And it’s not the same writer as the person who wrote the movie, is it?
LP: Um, Nora Ephrom wrote the film and it was adapted from the screenplay by a lady named Marcy Kahan, and it’s—I would say it’s (looks at AH)….
AH: I’d say it’s 95 percent—it’s just that some situations don’t quite work on stage. You know the car—so we had to sort of move it.
RM: Well, it’s at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.
AH: A gorgeous theatre.
RM: Well that’s another reason to come to London. We’ve got some of the best theatres in the world.
AH: Definitely.
RM: Briefly before you have to go. I want to talk a little bit about you (to LP). I was fascinated to know—I know this is in your back catalogue, but you know it’s interesting to re-read it. You were born in rural Ohio and you went to L.A. to be an actor when you were eighteen years old. I have this in my head, this picture of this country boy, basically, arriving in Los Angeles of all places.
LP: Had a banjo slung over my back. (laughter).
JF: Straw hat. (laughter)
RM: Did you naively think, or were you very worldly at that age—did you kind of think that just by going to L.A. you’d be sprinkled with stardust, being there? Being in L.A. was the thing?
LP: No, but I was very clear that they weren’t coming to Ohio to get me. I knew I wanted to do it. They just don’t make a lot of movies in Ohio (laughter) and I thought “I’m eighteen, I’ve waited here for eighteen years and no one’s come to get me. I’ve got to go.” (laughter) So I took off and I went out there.
AH: When I first moved to Los Angeles I was much younger, but I would walk home from school waiting to be discovered. It would be like, we’ll this is how it happens, right? (laughter) You just walk home and it’s like, “Where’s the casting directors? I just don’t understand.” And I was just so upset (laughter) when I got home. I’m like (puts on a funny stern face) “Nobody stopped me today.” (laughter) Because I think I had read some girl on the Facts of Life got discovered walking home from school. So I just assumed that’s how it happened. (laughter)
RM: So you just started walking.
JF: We’ll you’ve got it now. Somebody discovered you in the end.
RM: And I know your fans are legion and the stories about your fans are legions, but I mean my favourite one—I didn’t—I hadn’t clocked this one until today—didn’t a fan turn up at your house with a trained horse?
AH: (eyes wide) Yes. She did. She wanted to give me a horse as a gift. (laugher)
RM: So you looked this gift horse in the mouth.
AH: (laughs) You know (pause). Yeah. (laughter). You know it was very—
LP: (makes a horse sound)
AH: She—she was lovely and, um, she trained horses and she said, “I just wanted to share my talent with you.” And I was like, “That’s very sweet. But, um, I don’t really have the room for the horse. Sorry.”
RM: So she took it home?
AH: Yeah.
JF: So she rode it out of town.
LP: Send it to me. I got room.
AH: But it was a gorgeous horse.
RM: Well, listen, it’s been lovely to see you both. And the very best of luck.
JF: Very best of luck, yes.
RM: And you know, it’s a daring thing; as you said the first stage production. I thought it had done something in the States before, but no. Good luck with it.
AH: Thank you.
LP: Thank you very much.
AH: (wide eyes) Come see it.
RM: We will.
JF: Yes, we will.
(End of interview, although there was some slight post-interview banter about pigeons, as the next segment of the show was about racing pigeons.)
Damn that Atlantic Ocean for being in the way of the States and Aly in London.
to Aly and her stage presence during that climactic scene and all others. 
