Tara arrived on the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER scene and just never left.

"I wasn't aware of the fact that it would go on so long," admits Amber Benson, who plays Amber, a student at UC-Sunnydale who was introduced in the fourth-season episode "Hush" and happens to be, in no particular order, a witch, a stutterer, a lesbian and shy as hell. "I thought that I'd do a few episodes or maybe even just one. I wasn't sure. And then it just kind of snowballed, which was fantastic. I'm really lucky that I get to work so much on a show that's so well written and so well put together. After the first couple of episodes, (series creator/writer/executive producer) Joss Whedon talked to me about staying around for a while. And that's when he also started talking to me about the whole lesbian aspect. I had no idea coming into it that Tara was going to be gay. So all of a sudden it was, `You're going to be sticking around and you're going to be Willow's (Alyson Hannigan) girlfriend.'"

Tara's sexuality caught a lot of people off-guard. Willow's turn from straight to gay in Oz' (Seth Green) absence caught a lot of people off-guard. And, make no mistake, that the Tara-Willow relationship evolved beyond a tease, beyond experimentation and into a serious relationship knocked many a fan for a loop. These days, though, people seem as accepting of Tara and Willow as they are of the show's assorted demons and vampires. "The reaction has been pretty positive," says Benson, a Birmingham, Alabama, native whose credits include the films BYE, BYE LOVE (with Eliza Dushku and Lindsay Crouse), IMAGINARY CRIMES, THE CRUSH, Stephen Soderbergh's KING OF THE HILL, CAN'T HARDLY WAIT (her scenes with Seth Green were cut), as well as guest spots on such TV shows as PROMISED LAND and PARTNERS. "I really like the fact that she's a lesbian. I've never played a character that's had this much of an effect on the world. One of the reasons I've enjoyed working on BUFFY so much is that Alyson and I get to do so much interesting work together. We're really building a relationship and it's been done in a positive, beautiful way. Alyson is great and we're both really pleased to be doing it."

As open and talkative as Benson is about Tara and the character's sexual orientation, she's entirely in the closet when it comes to scoop about upcoming episodes. "I can't tell you," she demurs politely. ProddedÖ OK, beggedÖ Benson offers only the following. "Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) is no longer with us," says the actress, who's due next in the fall big screen release THE PRIME GIG with Vince Vaughn, Ed Harris and Julia Ormond, and who's also involved in "WannaBlessedBe" and "Tales of the Slayers," two upcoming BUFFY comic book projects for Dark Horse, not to mention CHANCE, a film that she will direct (as well as star in, write and produce) and which will co-star several familiar BUFFY and ANGEL names, among them Andy Hallett and Jeff Ricketts. "All I can tell you is that we're all going to be dealing with Glory (Clare Kramer) really soon, in episode 20. And Tara really gets a run-in with her. I can't say more than that, except that it's going to be insane. The fans are going to love it. It'll be fantastic."

And what doesn't Benson know yet about Tara, her Wiccan alter ego, that she's eager to explore?

"I want to know about her family," she shoots back in an instant. "We got to see a few of them (in the episode "Family," of course), but I want to know what's up with her mom. Joss and Marti (Noxon) and David (Greenwalt) are so tight-lipped. It's like Fort Knox over there. They don't tell you anything. So even if they were thinking about having Tara's whole family on the show, they wouldn't tell me."

That's OK, though. Benson trusts her bosses. Plus, she's having way too good a time to dare complain. "I get to work with all these great people and play a character that's a role model for a lot of people," Benson says, bringing the conversation to a close. "I get to yell at monsters in Latin. We get to cast all these funky spells. The special effects and the creatures are really cool. BUFFY has got to be one of the coolest shows on TV in that aspect. On your usual TV show you don't get to do all of the funky things we get to do."