Kali Rocha Reflects on Her Role as Halfrek in Buffy the Vampire Slayer [Interview]

While Kali Rocha’s two roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer were initially presented to her as separate, fans have wondered whether the vengeance demon Halfrek was intended to be the same character as a character from Season 5, Cecily.

The show seemed to confirm this in one episode, and Rocha agrees that it seems to be the case.

I recently had the chance to chat with Rocha about her memories of working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the difficulties of that vengeance demon makeup, and whether or not Halfrek and Cecily really were one and the same.

“I thought about it a lot, and it is a question I get asked, but I feel like I’m so far out now I’m at a better place to answer it with clarity,” Rocha began.

“I just got this part of Cecily, which was supposed to be a guest star on Buffy, and that, of course, is the episode ‘Fool for Love,’ I believe it’s called, where I meet Spike. He’s a lower-class poet writing terrible poetry or whatever, and I’m an upper-class British society girl, and I spurn him. So then he goes out and gets bitten by Drusilla, and then becomes a vampire.”

“A year passed, and then I got a phone call from my agent at the time saying, “They want you to come back; it’s a different character,'” Rocha said.

It wasn’t until Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6 Episode 14, “Older and Far Away,” when Halfrek calls Spike “William,” and they appear to recognize each other, that it seems clear she’s meant to be the same character. 

“That was the moment when I realized, or I was let in on the secret, that it might be the same person. So subsequent to that, I think, and I’ve read that Joss [Whedon] thinks this too, that it is the same person. Now, again, I don’t know if, in the writer’s room, they had a huge map or chart of what Cecily really is,” Rocha noted.

“I have no idea what their plan was. But it could be that somebody said, ‘Oh my god, wouldn’t that be amazing?’ and then connected the two. I really don’t know.”

“It’s very interesting, after that episode where Spike and I recognize each other, then to carry that forward. So now I would say with definitive confidence, yes, they are the same person. But I don’t think I always knew that.”

Rocha was impressed by how many die-hard Buffy fans were invested in those kinds of details about the show. “Everybody got excited about it. I remember reading a lot about, ‘Is she or isn’t she? And here’s how she could be,'” she recalled.

“So there was a discussion about the tracking of it, as people do when they’re invested in good shows. I think it’s really cool, and I’m honored that I was the vehicle for that.”

As much as Rocha enjoyed working on the show, it wasn’t until she started doing conventions that she understood just how significant the series was in popular culture.

“For me, the Buffy part started as a role. It was my first job in L.A. I’d been here a week. I got an audition to read this character of Cecily, who’s British with ringlets and a corset, and I was like, ‘done,’ because I did theater in New York, and that’s all I did was, like, British time period pieces. So I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that sounds fun.’ I didn’t even know the show,” she said. “Then I got the part, and I had so much fun filming it.”

“But as time went on, I was called back for Halfrek, and then it became a much bigger arc. After that is when I did these conventions, and that’s when I got it. That’s when I got that there are thousands — who knows how many people — who are so deeply invested in this show and who not only care about it on an emotional level but really understand its relevance, the literature of the writing, and the dimensions of it.”

Rocha had a significant interaction at one of those conventions that stands out in her memory.

“I was doing a Q and A in Milton Keynes. That was the first convention I did, and I remember someone in the audience said, ‘You don’t realize this, but your character saved my life. I was in the hospital and I watched all of your episodes back to back to back. I watched all of your arc, and your character saved my life.’ And I remember thinking, ‘What is happening?!’ For me, it was just like a fun job that validated that I might work in L.A. and then developed into something else,” Rocha said.

“It was so moving, and one of the first times — I’ve had this a few times in my career where I was like, what a responsibility I have, not just to do a good job, but to cherish the character and to respect it as much as the fans do.”

Of course, Rocha’s role as Halfrek meant wearing fun costumes and elaborate make-up to create the “vengeance demon” effect. I had to know what it was like for Rocha to make that transformation. 

“It was awful! It was fun the first time because I was like, ‘Look at this, I’m three hours in hair and makeup!’ and you get these molds, and you do the whole straws and the nose thing,” Rocha said. “You go to a warehouse in Burbank, and you do the plaster mold, and that’s really fun, and it’s super cool.”

Going through that process several times, however, was a different story. “It does get really hard,” Rocha said. “It was my entire face, and my bust, like until my décolletage kind of area, and I would say almost like — they weren’t gloves they didn’t slide on — but they were glued on up to my elbows. And then contacts — very strange contacts.”

“My memory is it was three hours to get into it, but the real pain was getting out of it,” she recalled, stating that the process of getting everything off would take around two hours each time.

“It seems wildly archaic now when I think about it, but they would peel it a little bit and pour mineral oil in, and peel it a little bit more. So the idea was that you were loosening it off the hair.”

Rocha went on to recall a story about being in the make-up chair with Emma Caulfield, who also had plenty of experience getting the vengeance demon make-up done but no longer had to by the time Rocha was there. 

“I would go in three hours earlier and get in makeup, and then she’d come in and get street makeup or whatever you call it, and then she and I would do our scenes,” Rocha said.

The two become good friends in the process. “It was fun. It was funny. She was thoughtful and kind as a scene partner. We just really developed a relationship,” she continued.

“Then they decided that Halfrek was no longer going to be presenting as a vengeance demon. So then I was a guidance counselor [and] I was sitting next to Emma in the makeup chair. She was getting her makeup done, and I was trying to talk to her, but she was being kind of cold — just being very polite. And I was like, ‘Oh, strange.’ Then I realized she didn’t recognize me.”

“So I said, ‘Emma, it’s Kali.’ And she was like. ‘Oh my god! Oh my god!’ Her eyes watered, and she was like, ‘You have a baby face! Oh my god, I had no idea! I’m so sorry!’ She literally did not recognize me,” Rocha said. “I’ll just never forget it!”

Rocha also shared one of her favorite memories in filming the show, which happened in Season 6.

“I remember a particular enjoyment was the episode where I’m Dawn’s guidance counselor,” Rocha said. “She basically says, ‘I wish nobody would leave.’ So then I cast a spell on the house so nobody can leave, but then, like, I’m locked in my own spell.” 

That episode gave her the chance to work with much of the cast, which she loved. It also let Rocha explore a different side of Halfrek that she especially enjoyed. “I was able to kind of stretch my comic chops, which is what I’m used to doing,” she added.

“Cecily wasn’t particularly funny, you know, but I think as time went on, Halfrek became kind of funnier and quirkier and more awkward, which I love playing. And so I remember that being particularly fun.”

—

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!