Daily Inspiration Quote by Julie Benz

"I loved playing Darla" is the kind of clean, press-ready sentence that still leaks plenty of meaning if you read it like a cultural artifact. Julie Benz isn’t just offering a pleasant memory; she’s signaling the actor’s favorite currency: range. Darla is a role you don’t merely inhabit, you get to spar with it. In Angel (and, by extension, Buffy’s universe), Darla is desire with teeth - a character built to yank the story toward temptation, relapse, and moral gray zones. Saying she “loved” it telegraphs that the pleasure was in the complexity, not the likability.

The verb choice matters. “Playing” frames acting as an active, even mischievous craft, not a passive job. It subtly rebuffs the idea that television genre work is second-tier. Benz is implicitly defending the legitimacy of a role that lives in the supernatural, in melodrama, in heightened stakes - exactly the kinds of spaces where an actor can make bolder choices without apologizing for them.

There’s also an industry subtext: actresses are routinely asked to package their past characters as brand extensions. This line is the safest kind of enthusiasm, but it carries a quiet flex. Darla wasn’t a disposable love interest; she was an engine of chaos, a mirror for the male antihero, and a rare female character allowed to be predatory, vulnerable, and tragic without being reduced to a lesson. Loving the role is loving the permission it gave her.