Nicholas Brendon at nickbrendon.com: The official Web site

For Immediate Release
ACTOR NICHOLAS BRENDON ENTERS REHAB FACILITY

Los Angeles, CA – Actor Nicholas Brendon, best known for portraying Xander on the hit television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, announced today that he has voluntarily entered an alcohol treatment center.

“After realizing that I had a disease that was taking control of my life, I decided that the best way for me to regain my health was to enter a treatment facility,” Brendon said. “I’m grateful for the love and support I’ve gotten from my wife, Tressa; my entire family; my business associates; and my friends.

“Over the past eight years, I’ve discovered that Buffy fans are the most caring and supportive fans in the world,” Brendon continued. “Knowing that they will be behind me, rooting for me as I go through this process, makes everything that much easier. I’m looking forward to leading a happy, sober life.”

In addition to his seven seasons on Buffy, Brendon has appeared in the feature film Psycho Beach Party, and most recently starred in the ABC Family Channel movie Celeste in the City.

Brendon has served as the honorary chairperson of the Stuttering Foundation of America’s Stuttering Awareness Week for an unprecedented three straight years, from 2001 to 2003.

As Nicholas announced at Vulkon’s Cleveland Slayercon Sunday, he has chosen to seek treatment for alcoholism.

BostonHerald.com

Nicholas Brendon is as funny and flippant as the character he played for seven years on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

When asked in a recent telephone interview about his role in the upcoming ABC Family movie Celeste in the City (airing Sunday at 8 p.m.), he said, “I wanted to play Celeste, but they said, ‘No, you still look like a dude.’ ”

Instead, Brendon plays Dana, the gay cousin of Celeste (Majandra Delfino, best known from Roswell), a young journalist who comes to New York Cty in desperate need of a makeover.

“I hate to sound cliched, but I wanted to take something else on,” he said. “It was a lot of fun, really. I’m not playing a romantic lead. On Buffy, I did have a girlfriend. It’s nice to be in a project where I didn’t have a love interest. I was my own love interest.”

Dana and his friends take to Celeste like the gang on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Brendon changed his posture, his walk and his voice for the character. There’s not a trace of the beloved member of the Scooby gang. After joking that he thought of playing Dana like Harvey Fierstein (complete with a spot-on impersonation), Brendon said he was wary of making Dana too much of a stereotype.

“Once I got all the lines down, I just kind of came up with him. He’s based on no one. I could have gone way over the top, and I just choose not to. I wanted to keep him real and still utilize the comedy. It wasn’t written like Sean Hayes’ character on Will & Grace.”

Since “Buffy” ended last spring, Brendon has adjusted to life without the series. “I miss the camaraderie of it,” he said. “It was pretty much all of our first jobs. Seeing the show become what it became, going through that together . . . that’s seven Christmases, seven birthdays - you build a huge bond.”

After filming 145 episodes of Buffy,’ a show full of humor but not exactly lighthearted, Brendon is focusing his efforts on landing a sitcom for the fall.

“I want to do a sitcom in front of a live audience and have fun. I did a sitcom pilot for Fox last year when I was finishing Buffy, and acting in front of an audience is amazing. It’s like theater basically and you get that energy from the audience.”

Also appealing is the schedule of a sitcom, which is often less demanding than a one-hour drama. “If I want to start a family, it’s a lot easier with a sitcom,” Brendon said.

There is still talk of the cast coming together for a big-screen version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ something Brendon, who lists “Once More with Feeling,” “Hush” and “The Zeppo” as his favorite episodes, is definitely open to. But fans won’t be seeing Brendon reprise his character of Xander on the WB series Angel,’ which ends in May.

“Joss (Whedon, executive producer) didn’t ask me to be on Angel because Xander and Angel don’t get along. But there’s not enough conflict to have it make any sense.”

The actor is the spokesman for the Stuttering Foundation of America. He conquered his stuttering through acting classes and practicing tongue twisters. Brendon often corresponds with people who stutter via e-mail and meets them in person.

“There are so many different phases of stuttering, and it always breaks my heart. I always wish I could say, ‘When I’m done hugging you . . . your stuttering will be gone.’ ”

Zap2It talks with Nicholas and his Celeste co-star Majandra Delfino. Read the article.

Out Magazine
By Daniel R. Coleridge

In a new TV movie, Nicholas Brendon plays gay and casts a queer eye on a straight girl in need.

Nicholas Brendon spent seven seasons saving the world as Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So what’s he doing as a follow-up? Makeovers!

On March 14 he appears in Celeste in the City, an ABC Family movie about a country girl (Majandra Delfino) who moves to Manhatten with few connections and even less fashion sense. Fortunately, Celeste contacts her long-lost gay cousin, Dana, who helps zhoozh her up. Enter Brendon as Dana.

It’s a frosty December afternoon in Toronto, where Brendon’s enjoying a day off from shooting Celeste. Having just awakened from a nap, he’s raring to dish about the film in his sarcastic Xander-like way. “Celeste just looks horrible,” he explains. “We make her over, like on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy but with a girl. I’m in charge of the whole thing. In my posse, one does hair, one does style, one does culture, and so on. My specialty is telling people what to do.”

Um, just a wild guess, but was his character at all inspired by Carson Kressley? “I think they wrote it close to Carson, but I’m doing kind of a medley of the Queer Eye guys. I put them all in a pot, mixed it, and came out with Dana.”

Brendon sounds like a fan of Bravo’s hit makeover show. “Yes, I am,” he says. “I just wish they’d pick straight guys who weren’t so disgusting. Some of us actually do moisturize and brush our teeth daily.” (And he’s more than just another pretty, moisturized face: Brendon succeeded as an actor despite being a stutterer most of his life; for the past two years he’s been a spokesman for the Stuttering Foundation of America.) The 32-year-old Los Angeles native jokes that his gay pals “helped me get into character for this part. I love going to [the West Hollywood bar] the Abbey. But guys tend not to hit on me when I’m with my wife.”

Heterosexuality aside, he took the integrity of his homo character very seriously. “I had a joke line like, ‘Oh, you don’t owe me anything. Maybe you have a gay brother you can hook me up with – or better yet, a straight one.’ I refused to say that line because it’s stereotyping. Like, all gay men want straight men? C’mon.”

Apart from that momentary misstep in the script, Brendon insists Celeste’s intentions are good. Although Dana is a fussy fashionista, “the film is saying what’s important is what’s inside, not the outward appearance. It’s the sweetest, least offensive film I’ve ever done. There’s no oil wrestling, like in Psycho Beach Party,” he says, giving a nod to the film in which he costarred.

Sadly, although Brendon’s alter ego runs a swinging gay nightclub, he has no love interest. Yet, like Celeste, he does some growing up, which includes coming out to his estranged family. “My parents don’t know, so at the end of the movie I make the decision to tell them – or more likely confirm – that their Dana is definitely a man-eater!”