Harry Groener -- Articles
Absolute
Power
by Mike Stokes
Buffy the Vampire Slayer official
magazine
Issue 4, Summer 1999
PERCHED ATOP THE HELLMOUTH, HARRY GROENER
LIKES WHAT HE SEES
The mayor of Sunnydale is a tortured man.
His actress wife of 21 years, Dawn, is
teasing him for having the palate of a
10-year-old boy just because his favorite
foods are bananas and potato chips. TV is no
comfort, because reruns have seemingly turned
Shark Week into Shark Millenium on his
beloved Discovery Channel. Adding injury to
insult, the belt on his vacuum cleaner just
broke.
These are not the kind of distractions a man
of the mayor's stature is accustomed to
dealing with. Then again, Harry Groener
isn't really a mayor -- as the old cliche
goes, he just plays one on TV. But seeing as
how no one could have guessed that the little
kid who emigrated with his family from
Augsberg, Germany to San Francisco in 1953
would get that close to political office, it
should still count for something. Unfazed,
Groener easily laughs off these nuisances.
When his thoughts turn to his first order of
business should he ever become a real mayor,
of, say, Los Angeles, his tone becomes deadly
serious.
"Those found making a phone call in a
supermarket will be taken out and made into
hamburger -- and then sold at half price," he
deadpans. "That and anyone with mayonaisse
under their fingernails. It's hard, but
it'll work. You just make a couple examples
of people. It's a tough world, man. You've
got to pay the piper. There are rules and
you've got to follow them."
Okay, so maybe he's not that serious. Fact
is, life is pretty good for Groener, and
it'll take more than the gross misuse of
cellular technology to take the spring out of
his step. Having appeared in dozens of
stage, film, and television productions over
his 20-year acting career, the persnickety
Richard Wilkins III is one of Groener's most
colorful roles to date.
"Joss Whedon is so great at putting in those
funny little quirky lines that make this
character so interesting to play," he
praises. "And it's a really good set.
Everybody seems to really like each other a
lot and have fun and everybody's interested
as to what's going to happen with the
characters. It's really fun to be on the
show, which is great."
Though the groundwork for the character had
been laid months before the part was even
cast, no one was quite prepared for how
peculiar the mayoral germophobe with the
shrunken human heads tucked away in his
office would turn out to be. And whether
it's a deal with the devil, black magic or
bad advice from his guidance counselor that
set him on his current path to evil
incarnate, the mayor has those closest to
him, like Snyder and the police chief,
shaking in their Hush Puppies.
"There's something the mayor knows about the
potential of his power which makes him less
afraid of people who threaten him," Groener
explains. "That's interesting to play,
because the closer we get to absolute power,
the closer we get to the part that corrupts.
When there's no danger, it's fun. You want
to worry about this guy."
"It's interesting, because even the vampires
are sort of scared of him," he adds. "The
vampires are pretty powerful -- they have a
few weaknesses, but they're pretty powerful
-- but the mayor seems to be confident in
strength. He doesn't seem to be too worried
as long as things go along the way they're
supposed to go, and he makes sure that
happens. His whole relationship with the
vampires is interesting. They're worried,
and they work for him. I'm as intrigued
about this as anyone else."
While the details of the mayor's master plan
were still under wraps as of press time, his
undoubtedly evil plot is quickly turning into
one of the most nail-biting mysteries in the
show's brief history.
"People are stopping me in supermarkets and
theaters and saying, 'So what is it? Is he
the devil? What the hell's happening with
the mayor?'" says Groener proudly. "I say,
'Oh man, I wish I could tell you. I wish I
knew.'"
What he has learned is that the Buffy
audience is much more diverse than he
initially realized.
"It's really interesting. You would think
that the bulk of the audience would be a
younger demographic, and it probably is, but
there are so many people in my generation
that love the show. They enjoy it for the
writing and the wit, for the peculiar little
world that Joss has created. I also think he
does a really good job of throwing in a moral
now and then. He's good like that."
That was proven at the first annual TV
Guide Awards in February when Buffy
the Vampire Slayer was named as the best
science fiction/fantasy show by a vote
conducted via the internet. And Groener was
thrilled at the event's grass-roots approach
to giving viewers a voice.
"A lot of the sci-fi shows are overlooked
constantly in the major awards because
they're sci-fi shows, I guess. That's
unfortunate, because you can get some really
good work and some really wonderful writing
within the stories. The only difference is
somebody has a crazy thing on their head or
something coming out of their nose," he says.
"But the scenes are still good and they're
just overlooked. They don't get the credit
they deserve."
Groener also casts an accusing eye toward the
ratings system of television and the polls
that are supposed to be a gauge of the
population's attitudes.
"Who are these Nielsen people?! I've never
been asked about shows," he rants. "Also
when you look at the news and they talk about
these political polls. When was the last
time you've been called? I've never been
called about any of these polls. Nobody has
ever asked my opinion about any of the stuff
that's going on in Washington."
And he's a mayor.
"It's a conspiracy all derived from the
mayor's office of Sunnydale," he reveals.
That may be true, seeing that Groener gives
his political alter ego a pretty high
approval rating as a mayor -- evil plots
against his constituency and human sacrifices
aside.
"Well, we know that most politicians do
worship the devil and most of them are
aliens," he jokes (we hope). "I think in his
actual political life, he's a good mayor.
He's probably a fairly conservative
politician. He's into family values and all
of that. He's probably either a very
conservative democrat or a very liberal
republican."
"He likes to keep things clean. He likes
things to be neat. He doesn't like a lot of
clutter, so I imagine he likes to keep his
town that way. I imagine when he rides
around Sunnydale and sees things that are not
nice for the town, he'll pretty much take
care of it right away. It's only this other
thing," Groener says, "that makes him a
little weird. Other than that, he's a fairly
standard mayor who likes to keep things going
smoothly and likes to have everyone in the
town happy."
Equating him to New York City's Mayor Rudolph
Guliani, who has also taken a keen interest
in improving the quality of life in his city
and in trying to oust its seedier elements,
the similarities can get downright eerie.
"No one in Sunnydale is running into the
middle of the street washing your window if
you don't want them to," says Groener, who
splits time between homes in L.A. and New
York. "Not that Guliani has a dark side. He
just has a kid. He has devil-child. You
notice we haven't seen him since he was
inaugurated? He's locked away. He's gonna
be made into a sacrifice."
While fans expect that eventually it'll be
Sunnydale's mayor who will be made a
sacrifice by the time his story arc
concludes, Groener says that he's already
prepared himself for the inevitable. Like
many of the recurring characters on the show,
the mayor was expected to make a limited
number of appearances, which he's already
surpassed. But as long as the Buffy
writers keep penciling him in, the actor will
happily continue to preside over his fair
Hellmouth. And though he senses trouble
ahead for Mayor Richard Wilkins and his evil
cronies, he's as anxious as everyone else to
see how it all turns out.
"When {the producers} call and say they want
another episode, I say good, because he's not
dead yet. As long as I'm still alive, I've
got a job. Keep me alive!" Groener laughs.
"It's like on soaps when they kill somebody
off -- they say, don't believe it until you
see the body. If you don't see the body,
then they're still alive. If you see them
actually die, then they're really dead."
"I don't know what's going to happen with
this guy, and it's very funny because they're
not quite sure where they want to go with
him, either. They know they like him, and
they like that color in the story, but
they're not quite sure where they're going to
go with it or what the end game will be.
Buffy will eventually overpower and kill and
all evil will go," he says. "She has to do
it. She's the title. She has to be the one
who will eventually take out the bad
guy."
Then again, in a town like Sunnydale, you
never know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vital Signs
Birthday: September 10
Favorite Food: Bananas, sushi, potato
chips. "It's kind of weird, but I like to
smell the inside of the bag of potato chips
when I open it. I just love that smell."
TV Show: Homicide, Oz,
Discovery Channel, History Channel
Movies: Life Is Beautiful, Hurly
Burly. "Sean Penn's performance in
Hurly Burly is wonderful."
Music: Jazz. "I've been listening to
Love Scenes by Dianna Krall."
Book: The Liars Club by Mary
Karr, Stones From The River by Ursula
Hegi
Hobbies: Reading, traveling. "I don't
have any specific hobby, {slips into a Boris
Karloff accent} but I do have a laboratory
down in the basement."
Reprinted w/o permission.