the Vampire Slayer Season Twelve (2018) which use Hannigan's likeness and continues Willow's storyline following the television series. Character history Pilot and casting Buffy the Vampire Slayer (often simplified as Buffy) was originally conceived by Joss Whedon for a 1992 feature film. However, in its development Whedon felt it lost some of the quirkiness he considered was the heart of the project, and it was not received as well as he liked. He began to develop for television the concept of a fashion-conscious girl named Buffy, who is imbued with superhuman abilities and attends a high school situated on a portal to hell. Whedon created a group of friends for the main character, including Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. A half-hour pilot was filmed starring Riff Regan as Willow, but it was eventually left unaired and network executives requested that Regan be replaced. Willow's character demanded that she be shy and unsure of herself, and the casting department encountered some difficulty finding actors who could portray this effectively and still be likable. After seven auditions, 23-year-old Alyson Hannigan was hired for the role. She was chosen for being able to spin the character's lines with a self-effacing optimism. She later stated in an interview, "I didn't want to do Willow as someone who's feeling sorry for herself. Especially in the first season, she couldn't talk to guys, and nobody liked her. I was like, 'I don't want to play somebody who's down on herself.'" In the beginning of the series, Hannigan used her own experiences in high school—which she called "overwhelmingly depressing"—to guide her portrayal of Willow: "My theory on high school was, get in, get out and hopefully I won't get hurt. Basically it was a miserable experience, because you're a walking hormone in this place that is just so cruel. There were times that were OK, but it's not the little myth that high school is the best years of your life. No way." Whedon intended Willow to be realistically introverted, saying, "I wanted Willow to have that kind of insanely colorful interior life that truly shy people have. And Alyson has that. She definitely has a loopiness I found creeping into the way Willow talked, which was great. To an extent, all the actors conform to the way I write the character, but it really stands out in Willow's case." Television series (1997–2003) Seasons 1–3 The Buffy