10 Casting 'What Ifs' From Buffy The Vampire Slayer

9. Bianca Lawson

Buffy Kendra
Mutant Enemy

Bianca Lawson is best known to the Buffyverse as Kendra Young, a second slayer from Jamaica who appears at the end of Season Two following Buffy's (temporary) death. However, Lawson's involvement in the show could have looked very different if she had taken up the first role offered to her by the producers. Initially, they wanted her to play Cordelia Chase - the "queen bee" of Sunnydale High and reluctant ally to the Scooby Gang.

In a 2012 interview with MyFanBase, Lawson explained that she had to turn the role down because of her ongoing work on Goode Behaviour, and accepted the smaller role of Kendra instead. It was reported in June last year that The WB also had concerns about the planned interracial relationship between Cordelia and Xander - a concern that is unthinkable today. The show's producers resisted the studio's imposition at first, before deciding that it wasn't worth fighting for at the time.

While Buffy was a show that in so many ways pushed into new frontiers of on-screen representation and diversity, Lawson's casting is proof that it could have gone even further. We can only imagine what her version of Cordelia would have looked like.

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Contributor

I write regularly about all things pop culture, and am an individually approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes. I am the Film News Editor for FILMHOUNDS Magazine and a Senior Writer for Starburst Magazine UK. My other credits include bylines in The Guardian, The Quietus and The Indiependent.