Allen Francis Doyle - Writing and Acting

Writing and Acting

• Originally, it was Whistler, an ambiguous demon played by Max Perlich and first seen in the Buffy episode "Becoming, Part One," who was to be a supporting character in the spin-off series starring Angel, but instead, the character of Doyle was created with similar character traits.
• Quinn was asked if he knew Doyle was Irish before he auditioned, he responded "I went and I read it in American and said 'Hey, let's do it in Irish and see where it takes us.'.. The Irish thing just really clicked."
• Whedon considered killing off Doyle early on from the opening episodes, "That was always a plan, and clearly that character didn't mesh. He was a very popular character, but the mesh was very difficult in ways that made it hard to write. Glenn had a kind of intensity that was kind of like David, and David already has that. It could have gone a different way, but that was the plan we had and we decided to execute it. Glenn Quinn knew that it was an issue and he learned pretty early on. I said this is what we're going to do...' and I promised him a hero's exit."
• At the TCA Writer's Guild of America West party in 2000, supervising producer David Fury stated, "Joss has bandied about, 'I love the idea of putting a character in the main credits as one of the stars of the show and then kill him right off the bat.' But in the case of Doyle, he didn't want to kill off Doyle. It just became a situation. The work situation became difficult... It's hard enough to make a television show without the headaches."
• In an interview in Dreamwatch #118, David Fury discussed plans for Doyle to return to the show, perhaps in the role of a "big bad." However, Quinn died before anything could come of the talks.