Do we like Anthony Stewart Head?
Our score: 9 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up, plus years of animal charity work and a well-told act of kindness to a struggling fan; the record on his politics is just thin.
For most people he'll always be Rupert Giles, the tweedy librarian and Watcher who spent seven seasons guiding Buffy. He went on to play Rupert Mannion in Ted Lasso and a run of British comedy and drama, and he played Dr Frank-N-Furter in a 1990 West End Rocky Horror. A long, varied career, in other words, not a one-hit wonder.
His one brush with a big Hollywood scandal was as a bystander. In 2021 Charisma Carpenter alleged that Buffy creator Joss Whedon abused his power on set, and Head told UK TV he was “seriously gutted” and had been trying to work out what he'd missed. He said he hoped he'd been a father figure to the young cast, and Whedon had not responded at the time. Nothing was alleged against Head himself.
On the harm test, we looked hard and found nothing. No anti-trans comments, no conspiracy rabbit holes, no culture-war grifting, and no run of projects with the usual suspects. His recent work, such as Ted Lasso, Motherland and the Audible Buffy spin-off, is mainstream and decent. The honest gap is that he didn't shout about politics much, so there's not a lot of his own opinion on record.
The story people keep sharing is about a young fan who was having a hard time with old convention photos. Head reportedly reached out, invited the fan to his farm for the day, took them to lunch, and had new photos printed and signed with the right name. The fan said he spent five hours chatting and then asked them to message when they got home safe. LGBTQ+ outlets picked it up and it was reshared widely after his death.
So where does that leave us? Clean on harm as far as the reporting goes, and a good bloke on the good-person test with no court cases or misconduct allegations against him that we could find. The only caveat is that a thin record on his views means we can't say much about what he thought on the big issues. What we can see is how he treated people, and that is good.