Alyson Hannigan lets a joke carry worry without stopping it being funny. We rate her most highly in an ensemble, where her hesitant delivery gives the awkwardness between people time to register.
Fi1m perspective
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), Alyson Hannigan gives Willow Rosenberg a voice that hesitates even when the line is funny. We felt protective of Willow because Hannigan makes those jokes sound like small risks taken in company. She allows us to hear the doubt without adding a separate plea for sympathy. That is the work we value most: she can be funny and vulnerable within the same sentence.
It helps that Buffy the Vampire Slayer gives her people with quite different ways of speaking. Sarah Michelle Gellar keeps irritation in the heroine's humour, while Charisma Carpenter gives Cordelia Chase a sharpness that makes Hannigan's uncertainty more noticeable. Anthony Stewart Head's reserved Rupert Giles offers another contrast, and the conversations have room for embarrassment rather than just a succession of polished lines. We can hear the characters making one another uncomfortable. The supernatural plotting is uneven, but these exchanges give us a good reason to stay with the programme.
Her breakthrough as Willow was followed by Michelle Flaherty in American Pie (1999), a film role she returned to across the series. American Wedding (2003) gave Michelle a more central place. The part drew on Hannigan's knack for mixing apparent innocence with unexpected raunchiness, a broader use of comic timing than Willow's nervous delivery. Lily Aldrin in How I Met Your Mother (2005) put her back in a long-running television ensemble. There, underplaying the character's quirks helped them feel like ordinary habits, with little pressure on us to find her endearing.
The reservation is how readily such recognisable comic habits can become a narrow brief for an actor. After long associations with Willow and Lily, another part built on sweetness and sudden force might ask too little of her. We would be wary of casting that gives her nothing more to do than be agreeably peculiar. For the clearest reason to value her, start with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and allow for the uneven supernatural plotting.
Biography
Alyson Hannigan is an American actress. Born on 24 March 1974 in Washington, D.C., she began appearing in television commercials at the age of four and made her film debut in Impure Thoughts (1986). She had supporting roles in My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988) and the series Free Spirit (1989) before her breakthrough as Willow Rosenberg in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003).
Hannigan appeared in every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and reprised the role in three episodes of the spin-off Angel. She is also known for playing Michelle Flaherty in the American Pie film series (1999–2012) and Lily Aldrin in How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014). She studied psychology at California State University, Northridge. In 2003 she married actor Alexis Denisof, her co-star from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
