Part 2:
When Angel Magazine first sat down with Vincent Kartheiser, way back at the ‘End of Days’ convention held in May 2003, he was a convention virgin. Although he’d heard lots of things about the way that fans would respond to him, he really wasn’t sue whether he would live up to expectations. Indeed, during the interview, he pointed out that one of the biggest challenges that he’d faced as an actor during his career was himself and his capacity of self-sabotage. “I’ve spend most of my career trying not to be recognized,” he said then. “In fact, I’ve passed on the auditions of some very big films, only because of my fear of walking into a room and people judging or hating or being different with me. One of the things that I think is essential as an actor is the ability to be able to walk into a diner in Cincinnati, sit down with a homeless man and hear his story. I feel for Leonardo Di Caprio, it’s a really hard thing to do. And I think some of the reasons why I shy away from it is that. The other reason is I don’t know if I’m necessarily ready for that kind of adoration.”
Cut forward three years to the Starfury ‘Not Fade Away’ event, and it’s a very different Vincent Kartheiser who is preparing to face the guests on stage, both on his own and with his would-be on screen father, Keith Szarabajka. Not only he is obviously ready for the adoration that the fans bring, but he enjoys the interaction with them. “I think it’s great,” he admits freely. “I like it.”
When he looks back on it with the perspective of a few years, Vincent thinks that he was aware that there was a cult following for both Buffy and Angel. “Whenever you do any sort of sci-fi, you know there going to be a certain amount of following,” he says, as we relax over a drink in a bar at the guest hotel, a short distance from the main event. “I was aware of it because I knew that Buffy had a big following. I’m not sure if I knew if Angel had the same thing, but throughout the history of Buffy there have always been people who you bump into who’ve said, ‘I’ve got to get home, Buffy’s on tonight.’”
