- J. O. Y. F. F. A -

Kristine Sutherland

Here you can find all the biographical detail on Kristine we've tracked down, plus links to online interviews of Kristine and reviews of her other work. Scroll on, MacDuff!

Biography

Name:

Kristine Sutherland. Her birth name was Kristine Young. She changed it to avoid being confused with another actress in New York who happened to have the same name.

Date of Birth:

According to imdb she was born on April 17th, 1955, making her 50. With imdb it's difficult to know if this info is accurate, but it seems about right.

Astrological Signs: If imdb's info is correct, Kristine's sun sign is Aries, and she was born in the Chinese year of the Goat.

Place of Birth:

Boise, Idaho. Two reliable sources have confirmed this so we're saying it's the real deal (despite other conflicting reports).

Height: 5 feet 8 inches (according to imdb)

Marital Status:

Married to John Pankow, an actor most famous for his role as Cousin Ira on Mad About You, since 1990. She describes him as "a very special man, one of a kind."

Children:
One, a daughter named Eleanore, born in 1990.

Pets:

Used to have a cat called Donald, who looked like Donald Sutherland.

Other Family: At least one brother. There have been some reports that she has a nephew in the band Four Star Mary, but apparently a nephew of Kristine's merely spoke to the band in an online chat.

Education:

Kristine attended the University of Kentucky, then the Drama Studio in London. An educated lady.

She went back to school after Buffy, and recently graduated from Santa Monica College as a professional photographer. Artistic as well as beautiful.

Address:

She lives near Los Angeles at the moment, but she and her family spent most of season four (i.e. 1999-2000) living in Italy. She also lived in Manhattan for much of her adult life, and still maintains a house there.

Hobbies:

Plays the piano, and enjoys fantasy and sci-fi programmes – but not, ironically, horror. She also likes cooking.

Trivia:

Her parents were also divorced when she was Buffy's age, and her mother also died of a aneurysm.

She is a smoker, and likes to drink white wine. Her favourite food is pasta.

Her favourite movie is La Vita è Bella, and her favourite book The Odyssey.

Kristine needs to wear glasses, and is usually seen with them on off-screen.

She is very claustrophobic - which is why we will never see vampire Joyce, as she is unable to wear the necessary latex prosthetics.

She and her husband are good friends with Ethan Phillips (Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager). Kristine has known Phillips since she lived in New York, and he once drunkenly proposed to Kristine's then room-mate Betsy.

She and David Boreanaz (Angel) auditioned for their respective parts on the same day.

She gets on very well with James Marsters (Spike).

Theater Work:
Known to have worked with:
Lexington Childrens' Theatre Company, Kentucky (early 1970's)
Riverside Shakespeare Company, New York City (late 1970's)

Filmography:

See her imdb listing.

Major thanks to Natalie for some of the info here. Everything else came from published books or articles, other websites and one anonymous source. If you have any other biographical detail, or can clear up any of the confusion, please e-mail us. Thanks!

Online Interviews

Buffyguide.com's interview with Kristine Sutherland (summer 2000)
Transcript of BBC webcast with la Sutherland (winter 2002)
SlayerVerse interviewed Kristine here and here (autumn 2004)

Kristine's other work

Here at JOYFFA HQ, we've been lucky enough to catch some of Kristine's other work prior to her stint on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not exactly Oscar-winning material, it has to be said but every actress has to struggle to reach the top. That can surely be the only explanation for her appearance in California Dreams...

Anyway, our reviews will take the following format, where appropriate:

Title:
Eh, duh.

Year:
See above.

Kristine's Character:

Who she plays.

Overview of Role:

What she does.

Sutherland Style:

If we see it, what she wears.

Best Line:

What she says.

Bouffant Rating:
Our new rating system - 1 bottle of volumising shampoo for a poor display of Kristine's talents, 2 for a mediocre role, 3 for a good role and so on.

Title:
Remington Steele
Episode 3.11 - reviewed by Faithtastic

Year:
1984

Kristine's Character:

Pamela Johns

Overview of Role:

Ms Johns is an English writer of mystery/crime fiction and is under suspicion of embezzlement. Chiefly, she attempts to flirt with Steele (dropping all kinds of loaded comments), makes disparaging remarks about his detective skills, and, oh yes, she has a workshop full of poisonous plants. As you do.

Anyway, Pamela Johns could not be further from Joyce - bitchy, overtly seductive and arrogant. However, like Joyce she's involved in the arts having been the "star pupil" of her writing class at UCLA.

Sutherland Style:

In the first scene she wears a black suit with white blouse, in the second a bizarre 1920s-esque white suit/labcoat and finally, a grey suit with a matching grey necktie. All quite hideous really.

As for the hair, well, it looks like a helmet hairdo from the '60s. Very scary.

Best Line:

There are actually several fabulous lines in this and Kristine delivers them all with gusto. Our favourite is:

"Myself and Gil Fox? Not that I can remember. And I DO try to remember ALL my lovers."

Bouffant Rating:

A bit-part in a naff Eighties Pierce Brosnan vehicle? Nuff said.

Click here for all 24 Remington Steele screencaps, provided by the lovely Jennifer!

Title:
Legal Eagles - reviewed by Faithtastic

Year:
1986

Kristine's Character:

Secretary #2 (Don't laugh.)

Overview of Role:

Kristine's very, very, very minor character works in the claims department in an office... somewhere. Poor Kristine is duped by lawyer Robert Redford in order than he may steal some files relating to a case he's working on.

KS showcases the prototype of the patented perpetually confused look that she would later use to great effect on BtVS.

How we squealed when we saw Kristine's name appear in the credits. Then we rewound the tape and squealed some more. Imagine how exciting this would've been on the big screen...

Sutherland Style:

Big, frizzy hair, lots of eyeshadow. She wears a grey blouse with a tiny '80s collar, a knitted tank top (think - all the leftover bits of wool knitted together), a beige skirt and ugly knee high boots.

Considering it was a tiny part in a relatively low budget movie, the clothes were probably all from her own wardrobe!

Best Line:

Well, she does at least get to speak.

"Yuh, was somebody let go?"

Bouffant Rating:

Her first ever silver screen appearance, alongside the likes of Robert Redford, Debra Winger, and, er, Daryl Hannah, must get her:

Title:
The Art of Being Nick - reviewed by Dolores

Year:
1986

Kristine's Character:

Marlene

Overview of Role:

So awful was this Family Ties spin-off, they cancelled it after only one episode. As such, there's precious little information Kristine's role, but we think she played the sister of the title character, and was a divorced single mother. Not that Kristine got typecast in any way of course - but at least here she was a main character.

It's perhaps only notable for the fact that Kristine co-starred with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who later went on to become Elaine in Seinfeld.

Sutherland Style:

It was the mid eighties, so no doubt colossal shoulderpads were involved.

Best Line:

Unknown.

Bouffant Rating:

A failed pilot of a spin-off of a Michael J Fox sitcom? Alas, we can only give it this:

Title:
Honey I Shrunk the Kids - reviewed by Dolores

Year:
1989

Kristine's Character:

Mae Thompson

Overview of Role:

Kristine plays Mae, mother of the family who lives next door to Rick Moranis (a mad inventor) and his family. She's a loyal homemaker, and puts up with her daft husband's rantings and her bratty children's squabbles with a cheery smile and good-natured humour.

Mae is not a major character (most of the action is concerned with the kids who've been shrunk, and then Rick Moranis' search for them), but she does get a fairly decent and certainly amusing role, more often than not taking the piss out of her husband. However, she's also shown to be devoted and subservient to him - the 1970s liberation movement obviously skipped her by.

Mae is a loving mother, and she reacts to her children's unusual predicament with a little hysteria at first, but by the end of the movie she is whipping on a welding mask to watch with glee as they shrink her husband too. Other strangely familiar traits are also in evidence - the bountiful bouffant is there, and she gets to use her classic 'confused' face when she figures out her kids are missing.

In other words, then, Mae is a proto-Joyce, and I would find it hard to believe Joss Whedon didn't watch this film before he cast Kristine in the role of Joyce, so similar are the two characters. Except I doubt Mae could have the business acumen to run a gallery…

Sutherland Style:

The outfits that poor Kristine is forced to wear in this film defy all known laws of fashion. There's a distressingly huge pale blue nightie with white flowers and pink slippers in her first scene, then a grey tracksuit top on top of a blue polo neck with blue pants and, er, a pink Alice-band. We also see her in a woollen jumper with flowers on top of which is a thin yellow jacket, then a pink jacket over pink trousers and yet another flowery top.

Her only redeeming moment is the last scene when she sports a nice red dress with a patterned shawl.

In her defence it was the late 1980's and no doubt that was considered haute couture at the time. Nevertheless we should be grateful to Joss for ensuring that Joyce wasn't quite as colour-blind.

Best Line:

We entirely forgot to write one down so I'll use instead the opening credits when 'Kristine Sutherland' appears in the opening credits as huge cartoon block capitals that take up the entire screen. It was very exciting - we should have demanded they do it on Buffy too!

Bouffant Rating:

Probably Kristine's greatest pre-Buffy role. And on the silver screen!

Title:
California Dreams
Episode 3.10 - reviewed by Charles

Year:
1994

Kristine's Character:

Ariel Lang

Overview of Role:

Kristine portrays Ariel Lang, marine biologist. She just happens to be the perfect woman for Tiffani's dad, who also does things with the ocean. But Tiffani is jealous of Ariel's role in her dad's life, leading to a nightmare Tiffani has in which Ariel is a mad scientist. It all ends tragically when Ariel must leave, because she follows the dolphins and they're on the move.

Sutherland Style:

A veritable Kristine fashion show as Ariel wears about six different outfits through the course of the episode. There's casual outfits (t-shirt and jeans), dressier outfits (add a vest and slacks instead of jeans), fancy outfits (a lovely dress worn at the end) and best of all, a mad scientist look (white labcoat, goggles and pearls). She also wears a necklace with most of her outfits. I wasn't able to tell if it was a cross or some sort of whistle.

Best Line:

There are two. One of the characters says, "Oh, like the perfect woman is gonna walk through those doors." And Ariel does.

The other is during Tiffani's nightmare in which Ariel is a mad scientist. Because she's a mad scientist, she has a German accent and tells Tiffani, "Actually, I prefer Doctor Ariel Shtein!"

Bouffant Rating:

I'm going to go with three bottles. Kristine looks like she had fun throughout the episode, particularly during the mad scientist nightmare. And she looks fabulous in all the various outfits.

Title:
Providence
Episode 4.20 - reviewed by Dolores

Year:
2002

Kristine's Character:

Joyce Moore

Overview of Role:

Providence is apparently a family drama featuring a plastic surgeon and her "colorful" realtions in Rhode Island. Which is nice.

Proving that Kristine's appeal is truly global, a Hungarian correspondant to the new defunct KS Online caught the episode and reported that Kristine played another Joyce, chair of the parent/teacher committee. Compassionate characters being Kristine's forte, this Joyce was nobly trying to raise some cash for the school. One of the main characters came up with a really good idea, and, apparently awed by their brilliance, Joyce II handed over the chairpersonship to them, and then disappeared in a puff of purple smoke (maybe).

Sutherland Style:

Sadly unrecorded by the Hungarian fan.

Best Line:

Unknown, although as the fan saw the Hungarian translation it wasn't really Kristine's voice anyway. Mind you, even the mere thought of Kristine talking in a muddy European accent is very entertaining.

Bouffant Rating:

Most recently she's provided the voice to one of the characters in the English language version of a Manga cartoon, a report on that to follow if our spy network can get a hold of a copy.

Kristine was also to be found advertising various products on the television over the years, most famously Hoover vacuum cleaners and most recently painkillers. Do any of the Americans in the audience remember them? If so, let us know and we can add it to the page.

As for her other roles in short-lived 80s dramas Easy Street and Hot Pursuit - well, we can only imagine the true horror of the roles Kristine was forced to play in the name of furthering her career. Suffice to say, as far as we know, all evidence has been burned. But if you know different...

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Name:	Kristine Sutherland. Her birth name was Kristine Young. She changed it to avoid being confused with another actress in New York who happened to have the same name.
Date of Birth:	According to imdb she was born on April 17th, 1955, making her 50. With imdb it's difficult to know if this info is accurate, but it seems about right.
Astrological Signs:	If imdb's info is correct, Kristine's sun sign is Aries, and she was born in the Chinese year of the Goat.
Place of Birth:	Boise, Idaho. Two reliable sources have confirmed this so we're saying it's the real deal (despite other conflicting reports).
Height:	5 feet 8 inches (according to imdb)
Marital Status:	Married to John Pankow, an actor most famous for his role as Cousin Ira on Mad About You, since 1990. She describes him as "a very special man, one of a kind."
Children:	One, a daughter named Eleanore, born in 1990.
Pets:	Used to have a cat called Donald, who looked like Donald Sutherland.
Other Family:	At least one brother. There have been some reports that she has a nephew in the band Four Star Mary, but apparently a nephew of Kristine's merely spoke to the band in an online chat.
Education:	Kristine attended the University of Kentucky, then the Drama Studio in London. An educated lady. She went back to school after Buffy, and recently graduated from Santa Monica College as a professional photographer. Artistic as well as beautiful.
Address:	She lives near Los Angeles at the moment, but she and her family spent most of season four (i.e. 1999-2000) living in Italy. She also lived in Manhattan for much of her adult life, and still maintains a house there.
Hobbies:	Plays the piano, and enjoys fantasy and sci-fi programmes – but not, ironically, horror. She also likes cooking.
Trivia:	Her parents were also divorced when she was Buffy's age, and her mother also died of a aneurysm. She is a smoker, and likes to drink white wine. Her favourite food is pasta. Her favourite movie is La Vita è Bella, and her favourite book The Odyssey. Kristine needs to wear glasses, and is usually seen with them on off-screen. She is very claustrophobic - which is why we will never see vampire Joyce, as she is unable to wear the necessary latex prosthetics. She and her husband are good friends with Ethan Phillips (Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager). Kristine has known Phillips since she lived in New York, and he once drunkenly proposed to Kristine's then room-mate Betsy. She and David Boreanaz (Angel) auditioned for their respective parts on the same day. She gets on very well with James Marsters (Spike).
Theater Work:	Known to have worked with: Lexington Childrens' Theatre Company, Kentucky (early 1970's) Riverside Shakespeare Company, New York City (late 1970's)
Filmography:	See her imdb listing.

Title:	Eh, duh.
Year:	See above.
Kristine's Character:	Who she plays.
Overview of Role:	What she does.
Sutherland Style:	If we see it, what she wears.
Best Line:	What she says.
Bouffant Rating:	Our new rating system - 1 bottle of volumising shampoo for a poor display of Kristine's talents, 2 for a mediocre role, 3 for a good role and so on.

Title:	Remington Steele Episode 3.11 - reviewed by Faithtastic
Year:	1984
Kristine's Character:	Pamela Johns
Overview of Role:	Ms Johns is an English writer of mystery/crime fiction and is under suspicion of embezzlement. Chiefly, she attempts to flirt with Steele (dropping all kinds of loaded comments), makes disparaging remarks about his detective skills, and, oh yes, she has a workshop full of poisonous plants. As you do. Anyway, Pamela Johns could not be further from Joyce - bitchy, overtly seductive and arrogant. However, like Joyce she's involved in the arts having been the "star pupil" of her writing class at UCLA.
Sutherland Style:	In the first scene she wears a black suit with white blouse, in the second a bizarre 1920s-esque white suit/labcoat and finally, a grey suit with a matching grey necktie. All quite hideous really. As for the hair, well, it looks like a helmet hairdo from the '60s. Very scary.
Best Line:	There are actually several fabulous lines in this and Kristine delivers them all with gusto. Our favourite is: "Myself and Gil Fox? Not that I can remember. And I DO try to remember ALL my lovers."
Bouffant Rating:	A bit-part in a naff Eighties Pierce Brosnan vehicle? Nuff said.

Title:	Legal Eagles - reviewed by Faithtastic
Year:	1986
Kristine's Character:	Secretary #2 (Don't laugh.)
Overview of Role:	Kristine's very, very, very minor character works in the claims department in an office... somewhere. Poor Kristine is duped by lawyer Robert Redford in order than he may steal some files relating to a case he's working on. KS showcases the prototype of the patented perpetually confused look that she would later use to great effect on BtVS. How we squealed when we saw Kristine's name appear in the credits. Then we rewound the tape and squealed some more. Imagine how exciting this would've been on the big screen...
Sutherland Style:	Big, frizzy hair, lots of eyeshadow. She wears a grey blouse with a tiny '80s collar, a knitted tank top (think - all the leftover bits of wool knitted together), a beige skirt and ugly knee high boots. Considering it was a tiny part in a relatively low budget movie, the clothes were probably all from her own wardrobe!
Best Line:	Well, she does at least get to speak. "Yuh, was somebody let go?"
Bouffant Rating:	Her first ever silver screen appearance, alongside the likes of Robert Redford, Debra Winger, and, er, Daryl Hannah, must get her:

Title:	The Art of Being Nick - reviewed by Dolores
Year:	1986
Kristine's Character:	Marlene
Overview of Role:	So awful was this Family Ties spin-off, they cancelled it after only one episode. As such, there's precious little information Kristine's role, but we think she played the sister of the title character, and was a divorced single mother. Not that Kristine got typecast in any way of course - but at least here she was a main character. It's perhaps only notable for the fact that Kristine co-starred with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who later went on to become Elaine in Seinfeld.
Sutherland Style:	It was the mid eighties, so no doubt colossal shoulderpads were involved.
Best Line:	Unknown.
Bouffant Rating:	A failed pilot of a spin-off of a Michael J Fox sitcom? Alas, we can only give it this:

Title:	Honey I Shrunk the Kids - reviewed by Dolores
Year:	1989
Kristine's Character:	Mae Thompson
Overview of Role:	Kristine plays Mae, mother of the family who lives next door to Rick Moranis (a mad inventor) and his family. She's a loyal homemaker, and puts up with her daft husband's rantings and her bratty children's squabbles with a cheery smile and good-natured humour. Mae is not a major character (most of the action is concerned with the kids who've been shrunk, and then Rick Moranis' search for them), but she does get a fairly decent and certainly amusing role, more often than not taking the piss out of her husband. However, she's also shown to be devoted and subservient to him - the 1970s liberation movement obviously skipped her by. Mae is a loving mother, and she reacts to her children's unusual predicament with a little hysteria at first, but by the end of the movie she is whipping on a welding mask to watch with glee as they shrink her husband too. Other strangely familiar traits are also in evidence - the bountiful bouffant is there, and she gets to use her classic 'confused' face when she figures out her kids are missing. In other words, then, Mae is a proto-Joyce, and I would find it hard to believe Joss Whedon didn't watch this film before he cast Kristine in the role of Joyce, so similar are the two characters. Except I doubt Mae could have the business acumen to run a gallery…
Sutherland Style:	The outfits that poor Kristine is forced to wear in this film defy all known laws of fashion. There's a distressingly huge pale blue nightie with white flowers and pink slippers in her first scene, then a grey tracksuit top on top of a blue polo neck with blue pants and, er, a pink Alice-band. We also see her in a woollen jumper with flowers on top of which is a thin yellow jacket, then a pink jacket over pink trousers and yet another flowery top. Her only redeeming moment is the last scene when she sports a nice red dress with a patterned shawl. In her defence it was the late 1980's and no doubt that was considered haute couture at the time. Nevertheless we should be grateful to Joss for ensuring that Joyce wasn't quite as colour-blind.
Best Line:	We entirely forgot to write one down so I'll use instead the opening credits when 'Kristine Sutherland' appears in the opening credits as huge cartoon block capitals that take up the entire screen. It was very exciting - we should have demanded they do it on Buffy too!
Bouffant Rating:	Probably Kristine's greatest pre-Buffy role. And on the silver screen!

Title:	California Dreams Episode 3.10 - reviewed by Charles
Year:	1994
Kristine's Character:	Ariel Lang
Overview of Role:	Kristine portrays Ariel Lang, marine biologist. She just happens to be the perfect woman for Tiffani's dad, who also does things with the ocean. But Tiffani is jealous of Ariel's role in her dad's life, leading to a nightmare Tiffani has in which Ariel is a mad scientist. It all ends tragically when Ariel must leave, because she follows the dolphins and they're on the move.
Sutherland Style:	A veritable Kristine fashion show as Ariel wears about six different outfits through the course of the episode. There's casual outfits (t-shirt and jeans), dressier outfits (add a vest and slacks instead of jeans), fancy outfits (a lovely dress worn at the end) and best of all, a mad scientist look (white labcoat, goggles and pearls). She also wears a necklace with most of her outfits. I wasn't able to tell if it was a cross or some sort of whistle.
Best Line:	There are two. One of the characters says, "Oh, like the perfect woman is gonna walk through those doors." And Ariel does. The other is during Tiffani's nightmare in which Ariel is a mad scientist. Because she's a mad scientist, she has a German accent and tells Tiffani, "Actually, I prefer Doctor Ariel Shtein!"
Bouffant Rating:	I'm going to go with three bottles. Kristine looks like she had fun throughout the episode, particularly during the mad scientist nightmare. And she looks fabulous in all the various outfits.

Title:	Providence Episode 4.20 - reviewed by Dolores
Year:	2002
Kristine's Character:	Joyce Moore
Overview of Role:	Providence is apparently a family drama featuring a plastic surgeon and her "colorful" realtions in Rhode Island. Which is nice. Proving that Kristine's appeal is truly global, a Hungarian correspondant to the new defunct KS Online caught the episode and reported that Kristine played another Joyce, chair of the parent/teacher committee. Compassionate characters being Kristine's forte, this Joyce was nobly trying to raise some cash for the school. One of the main characters came up with a really good idea, and, apparently awed by their brilliance, Joyce II handed over the chairpersonship to them, and then disappeared in a puff of purple smoke (maybe).
Sutherland Style:	Sadly unrecorded by the Hungarian fan.
Best Line:	Unknown, although as the fan saw the Hungarian translation it wasn't really Kristine's voice anyway. Mind you, even the mere thought of Kristine talking in a muddy European accent is very entertaining.
Bouffant Rating: