“Good Night, Folks…”

“There’s a hole in the world. Feels like we ought to have known.”

I was going to write a review of Be Kind, Rewind. I was going to write an Actor Spotlight post about someone NOT related to the Whedonverse, since my first was about Giles and Wesley. Instead, I felt the need to write about this guy: Andy Hallett. Most of you probably never heard of him. Even people who have seen him on Angel probably wouldn’t have recognized him on the street. Andy was not the most widely known actor in the world, but those of us who were fortunate enough to catch him on Angel know what a great talent he was. I’m using the past tense here because it was just announced that Andy died on March 29th from a heart ailment. He was 33 years old.

Andy was discovered by Joss Whedon singing in a nightclub, and he was asked to come onboard Angel…as a singer in a nightclub. The big difference was that Andy’s character, Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan (Lorne, to his friends), was a green, horned demon from the dimension of Pylea, one who liked to dress in loud, flashy suits to match his larger than life personality.

Lorne wasn’t supposed to last; he was a green, red-eyed demon! He burst into song on a regular basis! If he didn’t become a caricature, he was destined to be too precious for the show to withstand, a distraction. The great thing about Andy is that he didn’t let Lorne become either cartoony or affected. Despite being “the Life of the Party”, he never let the very overt quirks of his character detract from the main story. In his hands, a character that was designed to be a temporary curiosity, a freak, became a most familiar and welcome face on the show. Lorne was a gentle soul who despised violence and loved music, qualities that made him an outcast in his world. Under his great humor and pizzaz, one sensed an undercurrent of sadness, first for the family that rejected him, and then for his friends, who were being corrupted and damaged by the fight against evil. Despite being a demon, Lorne was the most human and most humane of all the characters on Angel.

By all accounts, Andy the man was not very far removed from his character. He was thrilled to meet fans at conventions, and his colleagues have always spoken very warmly of him. Fan reactions to the news of Andy’s passing have been universal in their affection for the man, and the light he shone wherever he went. I think that bringing laughter and music to people is one of the best legacies a man can leave, so even if you don’t know who Andy was, I can assure you that his legacy was very great, indeed.

Random trivia fact: Joss Whedon has appeared only once in one of his shows, in a cameo as Lorne’s brother Numfar on Angel’s “Through the Looking Glass” episode in the second season. He famously did “the Dance of Joy for three moons” at his mother’s prompting when Lorne disappeared from his home. No longer do the Dance of Joy, Numfar!”

Random trivia fact 2: Andy was a background extra in the “Hush” episode of Buffy. He was sitting in the back of the classroom during Buffy’s dream sequence, in which she is kissed by Riley in the middle of Professor Walsh’s lecture.

-Artemis

~ by Artemis on March 31, 2009.