typical Cali, blue sky, sunny and warm, late afternoon was setting on the second day of the International San Diego Comic-Con in early August. It was five-o'clock and Andy Hallett was pretty much exhausted from singing Karaoke with the fans all day at the Inkworks Trading Cards booth, where they had set up Caritas 2 for the weekend. He was totally loving the interaction and none the least pleased to be able to sing to his heart's content. We (Andy, his publicist Jamie Boatner, Inkworks writer Meloney Chadwick, CoA staff writer Darren Danforth, and myself) moseyed up to the veranda on the upper level of the Convention Center to find a quiet, comfortable place to carry out our interview. We were overlooking the picturesque San Diego harbor, and although the area was milling about with both convention attendees and staff, it was rather ironic yet pleasant that no one bothered us during the entire time we talked and constantly laughed. Due to his idiosyncratic sense of humor, Andy had us in stitches on more than one occasion during his incessant storytelling.

Certainly, most fans know Andy's bio pretty well by now, but I tried to create a fresh approach with my questions. With not a lot of acting credits behind him, Andy being a rather new yet formidable face in the industry, he doesn't have much to draw from at this stage in his career. There are a ton of articles out there on the Internet that pretty much read the same due to the interviewers asking all the same questions. I tried to be fresh and innovative, but Andy still snuck in a couple of stock answers you may have read before. Still, over all, I think we acquired some unique, quality material. You may even get to see a side of him you haven't before. Andy was relaxed and more than eager to make this a fun interview, despite his demanding schedule during the Con, for instance pausing at one point to check out a nearby tugboat on the water! Let the fun begin . . .

It started with Diana, Frank and Patti

Growing up in Osterville, New York did not offer much in the way of inspiring Andy's musical talent. Ironically, his grandmother was the only member of his family to ever actively exercise singing abilities. "I'm an only child. The only person that ever sang in my family was my mom's mom, my grandma." Andy remembers, "She used to sing at the little Bar & Grilles in town. This is a long time ago because -- her birthday's coming up, she's going to 80. She used to sing at the local Cape Cod Melody Tent," he confesses with a laugh. "She tells me I inherited it from her, she always makes sure that she tells me that."

Andy feels that he owes much of his creative discovery to his mother. "This is something I've never said so this is kind of out of the ordinary; my mom has like an 'old school' spirit. In terms of I'm 25 and my mom's 45, she had me when she was 20. Naturally, she's 45 years old but she looks tremendously young, she looks fantastic. All my friends are always hitting on her and everywhere we go everyone thinks that we're brother and sister or boyfriend and girlfriend or something because we look alike a little bit.

". . . and then the second Diana Ross came out I was like, 'Oh my god, this is a Diva.' "

But even though she's young, she has an old spirit," he explains. "She's the one that inspired me with the Frank Sinatra and the Dean Martin and the Sammy Davis Jr. and Harry Connick. Not that Harry Connick is old school but he has that way about him, you know what I'm saying, that style, that real classic, really unique, old school style. And so my mom really got me hooked on that."

However, his love for music culminated about fifteen years ago when his mother made him reluctantly attend a Diana Ross concert. "The funny thing is I don't even know who my musical inspiration used to be. Then one night," Andy recalls, "she got herself and me and my grandmother tickets to go see Diana Ross. My mom was like, 'You are going, we got you tickets,' and I was like, 'I am not going to see Diana Ross. She's an old lady, I don't wanna go see Diana," he admits. Yet Andy's negative attitude did not last for long: "I kicked and screamed the whole way there and then the second Diana Ross came out I was like, 'Oh my god, this is a Diva.' That's when I got hooked on Divas. She came out with the big dress on and the big show, you know, like a performance. Just like a big, huge performance and that's what I love, the grand scheme of things." Andy was entranced by the whole scene and particularly mesmerized by Diana's voice: "she has a beautiful voice but it's low key and I loved her for a long time."

After his love for Diana, Andy surprisingly found himself marveling at the talents of another classic stylist. "All of a sudden I got hooked on Frank Sinatra, I don't know how, just because he's Frank. I mean how else does anybody get hooked on Frank," he confesses. When watching Frank Sinatra's 80th birthday party on television a few years ago Andy found a unique form of inspiration through Patti LaBelle. "Patti LaBelle played his birthday party and she sang one of his old, 'old school' songs, The House I Live In, and Patti LaBelle sang it her own way. That was the first time I ever saw someone, like a black soulful diva, take a song from an old standard type and reinterpret it and do it their own way. That was the first time I was ever inspired to do something my own way. Of course she does it like that all the time. But that was my first real inspiration that I can remember." Patti had entered Andy's mind and made him realize his desire to constantly present himself in new and extraordinary ways: "She was the first to ever introduce me to doing something my own way and making it a unique piece."

The Birth of an Anagogic

Andy Hallett and Joss Whedon, "I'm telling ya now, I'm not singing!"

Andy's involvement with Angel came about in a rather unusual way. "When he [Joss Whedon] first came up with it - I'll never forget it - Jamie and I were singing one night at B.B. Kings up in the Universal City Walk. We were singing some old R&B standards and Joss and his wife [Kai] were there. They just came to chill out and have a few drinks; it's like a dinner theater at B.B. Kings, and Joss didn't say anything at the time." Andy explains as he proceeds to elaborate on the tale, "Then I ran into him about, I don't know, maybe 7 or 8 months later at the airport. I was in LAX coming, he was going, we passed each other and he was like, 'Okay, you're not going to believe this but I've got this really far out idea of this Karaoke singing demon. I think you should audition for you. No promises; don't get your hopes up. Audition for it because it was sort of inspired by you but we're going with probably a more seasoned actor.' So I auditioned for it 3 times and I ended up getting the part," he happily admits, "but like I said, there were no promises, and in the beginning it was only written for a onetime gig."

At this point in the interview a random tugboat cruised by and Andy had to sidetrack and elaborate on one of his secret passions. "Oh, look at that cool boat! I would love to drive that boat. I love driving boats, I swear. I grew up on boats. Boats are my life," he confesses, "I wish I could drive that right now, oh well."

And we continue. However, what could have been a mere one or two-episode character turned into an astonishingly intriguing regular player. "I think that they maybe had hopes for it to be something more because the Host sort of took over for The Oracles from season one. The Oracles were the mystical beings that saw into the future and so forth, and now it's the Host that determines those mystical events and what's going to happen and can read peoples souls and everything. It was suppose to be a one or two time thing and then it ended up being 17 out of 22 episodes so it worked out really well." Andy attributes Lorne's success to a number of factors: "I think it's a combination of things," he analyzes. "I think that I did it; I got in there and I feel like I got the job done, did what they wanted but in the same breath and most importantly the fans really appreciated it and they really dig the character and it kicked off from there. They got a large response from the fans and from some of the people at the Network and so they kept writing him in."