Juliet Landau: The Art of Portraying Multifaceted Characters

Juliet Landau can magnetize the audience with the grace of a ballerina and the terror of a vampire. Her roles in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood as Loretta King, Drusilla in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and Rita Tedesco in Amazon’s Bosch truly showcase the actress’ innate ability to perform multifaceted, emotionally complex personas on screen. “I enjoy getting to play a diverse range of characters. I like when roles are rife with contradictions. That is what makes me tick, and I’ve been really fortunate to get to do that,” revealed Landau.

Physicality and nonverbal communication are a huge component of every character. Juliet Landau’s dance background as a professional ballerina helped her abstract each performance to convey a wide range of emotions. “I love to observe how people move through space, how they navigate, how they present themselves or don’t present themselves, where the weight is when people walk. All of that is delightful and different for each character [that I play].” For example, Landau explained that Drusilla is “very floaty, wafty, ethereal and fluid, which is very specific because she has gone through a lot of trauma, so her reactions can be very unpredictable.”

Working with Tim Burton

Ed Wood is Tim Burton’s love letter to filmmaking, telling the story of the “worst director of all time” whose renewed public fame came posthumously. It’s a fascinating biopic, filled with outstanding performances and meticulous production that immersed Juliet Landau and later the audience in the Hollywood era of the 1950s. Landau portrayed Loretta King (an actress who starred in Wood’s Bride of the Monster), delivering a character driven by enthusiasm for acting with a sparkle of naiveté. The actress vividly remembers meeting Burton for the first time: “We had the most incredible stream of consciousness conversation that I think went on for about an hour and a half. We didn’t talk about the movie at all. We talked about all kinds of other things.”

Fast forward to filming, Landau confessed that it was like a dream working with Tim Burton: “He does a whole series of hair and makeup tests. He’s a very visual director, as you know, and you feel like you’re stepping into this alternate universe. For me, it felt very much like a theater rehearsal process, getting to do all of those tests and refine the look of the character and feel the world that we were all going to be in. And then when shooting, Tim has this ebullient spirit and so when you would be doing a take that he liked, he would jump up and down … you’d see him out of frame and you’d know that you were on to something that he really liked. It was obscenely fun to get to work with him and the cast.”

Portraying Drusilla and Creating RE-VAMPED

Arguably Juliet Landau’s most iconic role to date is Drusilla in the Buffyverse. Ever since the character’s first appearance in Season Two’s episode School Hard alongside Spike (played by James Marsters), Drusilla made an indelible mark in the show thanks to Landau’s layered performance. The actress felt like Drusilla could have been written for the theater, having “elements similar to Ophelia or Lady Macbeth, which was unusual for television, especially at that period.”

The vampiric nature of the character would then surface by the hands of brilliant makeup artist Todd McIntosh. “The first time that I was in the vamp face for Buffy, the prosthetic took about two hours to apply, and I remember looking at it and thinking, this is doing so much of my work for me … the less I do, the more powerful it is. If I just sort of tilt my head down a little bit it gives me something very feral and predatory and scary and eerie.” Juliet Landau added, “The other thing is as they say, ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’, and in filmmaking, the close up is really what gives you so much information and so much emotion, and it’s what’s different from doing stage. With a prosthetic like the vamp face, you still have that portal to communicate, even with the contact lenses.”

Years later, Juliet Landau’s love and experience working on the show led her to create RE-VAMPED, the one and only Buffy podcast with a cast member as the guide. The podcast has everything a Buffy fan is looking for–rewatch episodes, in-depth interviews, spotlight on the fans, and what’s new in the Buffyverse. Landau herself is joined by Sire Rebecca, Watcher Dev, and yes, Dru herself–affectionately nicknamed “Scooby Dru”. “She is a wonderful foil. At this point, she is becoming a bit of a diva and a handful! The show delves into a lot of areas why Buffy resonates and the themes that touch us. Also, in these difficult times that we’re all living in, we want to make people laugh, and Scooby Dru is great for that. Hence, when I’m recording, I’m literally talking back and forth to myself in a schizophrenic kind of way, which is really fun. Her take on everything just brings a lot of humor,” Landau shared. The podcast just crossed 194,000 downloads and recently won Best Podcast at the BreakOut Music, Movie, & Media (BOM) Film Festival. It’s a show that any Buffy and Drusilla fan should not miss!

A Place Among the Dead

Her visionary feature film directorial debut, A Place Among The Dead, expands upon the vampire theme in a personal way. The genre-bending, elevated-horror film explores the repercussions of growing up under the sway of narcissism and psychological abuse. Juliet Landau opened up about being raised by parents with narcissistic personality disorder, something she shares with her husband, Deverill Weekes, who co-produced and co-wrote the film. “We felt like it was important to make the movie searingly personal. As they say, the more personal the more universal. We use our experience as a device to have a much-needed, broad conversation. So many people experienced this, whether it be with family, a partner, an ex, a friend, a boss or a co-worker. The vampire is the perfect metaphor for the ultimate narcissist … it drains everything out of its victim. It is the absolute and applicable metaphor,” said Landau.

Since its release, Jules’s journey (the titular character) has turned the lens back on the audience in terms of their own lives, and a whole community named “A Place Among the Dead Heads” has built up around the film to share their experiences and talk about the detrimental effects that this type of abuse can cause. “Both myself and my husband decided to have no contact with our families at a certain point, and our lives really bloomed. We want people to know that that is a viable and healthy option, to not be told ‘how dare you’, which society very often does,” Landau explained.

Returning as Rita Tedesco in Bosch: Legacy

Landau’s performance as Rita Tedesco in the fifth season of Amazon’s critically acclaimed series Bosch is another example of the actress’ ability to convey so many emotions through physicality. The character, a court stenographer, is secretly married to convicted murderer Preston Borders. Landau revealed that the research for Rita was a fascinating one–understanding the desire for many real people to date and even marry men on death row: “There are a lot of people who live this existence of phone call to phone call or visit to visit and sort of have the rest of their lives on hold. Rita has been married secretly for over two decades. She saw Preston Borders in court and was immediately stricken … she is willing and excited to do all of these things with the idea that they will be together forever.” She then added, “The other thing about Rita is that she’s very canny because between the time we’ve seen her, she has kept herself out of prison. She does know how to take care of herself. And again, that is an interesting level to the character that she understands the system, and she knows how to work it as well.” The actress is set to return as Rita Tedesco in the show’s final installment, Bosch: Legacy, streaming only on Amazon Prime.

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