Earth Angel
Angel star Charisma Carpenter gives us a glimpse of heaven
Playboy
June 2004

When Charisma Carpenter first appeared on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, she played a character fans loved to hate. As self-obsessed knockout Cordelia Chase, she spent as much time ridiculing the show’s heroine as she did reluctantly staking demons. But by the time she jumpled over to the spin-off series Angel (bringing along a legion of male viewers with her), the character had mellowed, and when Cordelia perished during Angel‘s current, final season, fans mourned. Since half the show’s characters are technically dead anyway, have we really seen the last of Cordelia if a reunion special or movie version comes to pass?

“I’ve learned during my time in Hollywood never to say never,” says Charisma. “But I can say fairly absolutely, with mild reservation, that no, I would never go back. I think all the stories for Cordelia have been told. As an actress I was getting really comfortable, so it was time for a change.”

Charisma, who tried out for the role of Buffy before being offered the part of her acid-tongued rival, was initially reluctant to play a character similar to her first regular role, on Aaron Spelling’s Malibu Shores. “I didn’t want to get pigeonholed, but it was the best decision I’ve ever made,” she says. “I wanted to be the nice girl and didn’t know how to be a bitch. The Malibu Shores casting director told me, ‘Heather Locklear is one of the nicest people we’ve ever met – but she plays one hell of a bitch.’ So I read my lines over and over with a friend and just found the bitch within.”

Charisma was born in Las Vegas, and yes, that’s her real name, inspired by a 1970s Avon perfume that her mother liked. “It doesn’t smell very good, but it was a good name,” Charisma laughs. “It was either that or Prissy, because my dad loves that name. I asked him if that was going to be short for Priscilla, and he said, ‘No, just Prissy.’ Thankfully Mom won out.” Living up to her magnetic moniker, Charisma started performing with a song-and-dance troupe at Vegas venues (think Travelodge, not Caesars Palace) when she was nine. Later her family relocated to a suburb of San Diego, where her dance skills landed her work as a Chargers cheerleader. But Charisma wasn’t destined to remain on the sidelines long and, while waiting tables to make extra money, was spotted by an agent. “I had no idea what I was going to do,” she says, recounting that she had also taken jobs as an aerobics instructor, a property manager and an English teacher. “Life is weird that way. I was just floating, and I floated into acting.” And what if the winds of fortune hadn’t blown in that particular direction? “Well, if I had nine lives,” says Charisma, “I think one life would have been as a professional tennis player, and another one would have been as a rock star. I would have loved to be a Gwen Stefani. Except that I can’t sing, of course.”

After seven seasons portraying Cordelia, Charisma most recently played opposite Alicia Silverstone on several episodes of Miss Match, a role she hopes to reprise. “My character’s relationship with Alicia is that they went to high school together and are ‘frenemies,’” she says. “They’re friendly but not really friends, so I rib her all the time. I start dating her father, played by Ryan O’Neal. I didn’t think I’d have chemistry with him, but we have one hell of a connection. I never see people in terms of age, and something about this Miss Match thing has gotten me going toward older men. Someone like Colin Farrell doesn’t do it for me. I think I would have lots of chemistry with George Clooney – I like that salt-and-pepper vibe. But don’t tell my husband, okay?”

Charisma and her husband, Damian, have a young son who is now center stage in her life. Even so, she is intent on stretching herself in her profession. “I think the goal as an actress is to get as far removed from yourself as possible and to explore the unknown,” she says. “You have to know what motivates you and what turns you on. If you have to make love to somebody in a scene who has bad breath and acne, you’ve got to make him Viggo Mortensen in your brain. You have to be in tune with yourself.”