Charisma Carpenter Speaks out on Playing Cordelia Again for New ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Spinoff

After 19 years, Charisma Carpenter is back as Cordelia Chase. The actress is one of many stars returning to the Buffyverse for the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Slayers: A Buffyverse Story. The nine-episode audio story is set to follow James Marster’s Spike as he goes deep undercover in Los Angeles to convince dark forces that he’s back to his evil self. He will meet 16-year-old slayer Indira, voiced by Laya DeLeon Hayes, and a parallel universe’s Cordelia, who is now the one-and-only slayer.

While she is playing a different version of Cordelia, Carpenter tells TVLine that, “I feel like this is #JusticeForCordelia in a big, big way. The way that things ended for her was absolutely not what I wanted for that character.” Fans of Buffy and spinoff Angel know that Cordelia’s story had a tragic end. In the fourth season of Angel, she is possessed by a malevolent deity. She becomes that season’s Big Bad, but it was heavily disliked by both fans and Carpenter. After Cordelia returns for one appearance in the fifth and final season, it’s revealed she died. She fell into a coma after giving birth to the entity that possessed her, as her life force had been trained into it.

Slayers gives Carpenter to explore more of Cordy and get into territory she was never able to on Buffy and Angel. Luckily, this time, it’s not as toxic as . However, it was “complicated,” as the actress spilled. “It was a little bit tricky to slip back into this version of Cordelia because, in the beginning, I wasn’t exactly sure how to create the character this is now a world-weary slayer while also holding on to her snark, wit, and humor. I was really challenged by that, and I had to tell Amber and Chris, ‘I really don’t want to understand how to deliver this line right now.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ and Amber was like, ‘You’re doing it! What you’re doing is working!’ And I was like, ‘OK, OK, so just more of that. Alright!’”

“So, it was challenging, and I never thought I would find that Cordelia had another layer to excavate and dig into,” Carpenter shared. “I just was floored. It felt really delicious. I love to kick ass, but I love that she’s grounded in the kicking of ass, where she understands the consequence of the kicking of ass and all that.”

She may be a different Cordelia, but she is still the same that fans know and love. It’s going to be exciting to see her as a Slayer, even though we won’t actually be seeing her. The fact that her original story ended with her as a villain, and now she’s portraying the hero, it’s pretty emotional, to say the least. Fans will want to tune in to Audible tomorrow, Oct. 12, to listen to all nine episodes of Slayers: A Buffyverse Story.