TWW: When you accepted the part of Tara, were you at all concerned about possible negative impact on your future career? Even though there is a much greater acceptance of gay characters in films and television now, did you worry that you might not be considered for certain roles later because you played ‘the lesbian on 'Buffy'’?

AB: Well, to tell you the truth, I had no idea that I was going to be playing a lesbian. In fact, it wasn't until like the third episode that Joss and I had "the talk". He pretty much let me know what was going to happen and I was like "Cool. Let's do it." I mean, I did worry that I wouldn't be able to do Tara justice because I wasn't gay. I really worried that I wouldn't come off as 'real'. That people wouldn't buy it. But in the end, I decided that no matter what my sexual orientation was, I could give her something important - humanity.

TWW: Without giving too much away, has anything you have filmed (or read in the scripts) for the new season regarding Tara taken her in a direction that you were not expecting?

AB: Well, the third episode is that 'promised' all naked, all gay episode (David Fury wrote it). But I kinda knew that was going to happen. So, as of right now, things are pretty much following the same pattern as last season - oh, except for the "Tara is really Dawn's sister" part in episode five. But that's pretty much it...

TWW: In terms of the Willow / Tara relationship , if you could get the censors to be more flexible about what can be shown, how far would you like to be able to go? Is it actually more fun in a way to have to creatively get around being explicit?

AB: While I do feel that two girls should be able to kiss on television, I also think that not showing that physical intimacy on screen makes our relationship more 'real' on some level. I mean, you don't go to someone's home and watch them when they are being intimate with their partner, right? What you see (in reality) is that day to day interaction between a couple. That's what a relationship is really about- the bond between two people. I mean, anyone can have sex, but it takes trust, compassion and respect to create love. And that's the vein that the Joss and the other writer's are exploring with the Willow/Tara relationship.

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