Zap2it
Mon, Oct 14, 2002 07:27 PM PDT
Will to Live on ABC's 'Alias'
by Kate O'Hare
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Those who create the hit ABC Sunday-night
espionage drama "Alias" know that the character of Will, played by Bradley
Cooper, has not always been a fan favorite. He's the journalist buddy of
secret spy Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), and he spent much of the
show's first season trying to uncover the truth about the death of Sydney's
fiancé -- and unwittingly putting Sydney in mortal danger along the way.
This season, Will has been drawn into Sydney's world, at the expense of his
career and no doubt a big chunk of his peace of mind -- but at least he's
not dead.
"People smartly didn't like Will," says series creator J.J. Abrams, "and
the way he was nosing around, looking for stuff. They felt frustrated by
him. He was annoying."
Asked if he gave serious thought to eliminating Will, Abrams says, "He has
an important role in the show that wasn't being well-told, which is, Will
seems to be the person that was bridging Sydney's normal life with her spy
life. The way it was being done, the audience was ahead of him the whole
time, so we could never be with him. When people started to really like
Will was at the end of the year, when he started realizing, 'Oh my God,
this is what's going on.'"
"He was kidnapped, and suddenly we weren't ahead of him anymore. We were
like, 'What is happening to Will?' This year, we're never ahead of him.
We're always with him."
"To me, the big fault was thinking that he was either going to get himself
or somebody killed, snooping around him. It was hard to like him that way,
especially when you had Vaughn (Sydney's CIA handler, played by Michael
Vartan), who was clearly an immediately likeable guy, and you're thinking,
'Oh my God, is he also a threat to Vaughn? Well, kill him.'"
"We got some letters from people who were like, 'Please kill him.'
Bradley's a really good actor; he's a great guy; and I think his
character's in a really good place."
This is despite the fact that Will screamed when he first spotted Sydney in
spy mode.
"God bless him," says Abrams, "I thought that was the greatest. I loved it."
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