“Angel” Turns 25! How David Boreanaz Turned a Conversation 'About Italian Restaurants' into an Iconic TV Vampire (Exclusive)

The actor star says his career might never have taken off if he hadn't once bonded with a casting director about their love of New York red-sauce haunts

<p>Hulton Archive/Getty</p> David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Gellar in 1998

Hulton Archive/Getty

David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Gellar in 1998

Oct. 5 marks the 25th anniversary of the day the cult vampire series Angel first aired, and the show's star, David Boreanaz says landing the part was pretty much happenstance — and having a lot in common with the casting director.

"I got cast as the character Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer through [casting director] Marcia Shulman," Boreanaz, now 55, told PEOPLE in August of the series that changed his entire career.

"My first meeting with her was an hour and 30 minutes. We mainly talked about Italian restaurants in New York. Then she was like, 'Well, should we read [for the role]?' "

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He added that while he got along swimmingly with Shulman over their shared love of red-sauce restaurants, the producers were also very eager to cast the character who would play Buffy's love interest.

Related: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Cast: Where Are They Now?

<p>Paul Morigi/Getty </p> David Boreanaz in 2023

Paul Morigi/Getty

David Boreanaz in 2023

"This was the ninth hour for them," he recalled. "They need this character in four days. I read with them and thought, 'Oh, I this is going to be horrible.' But then it was, 'Oh my God, I got through that,' and then I got through the next phase, and I got the job."

Boreanaz knows that his success on TV comes down to being able to have great first meetings, and then to also pitch ideas and do what he can to make them happen.

"I'm very quick and impulsive," he said. "I literally can be in a room, and I could think of an idea, and I can take that idea, and I can pitch it to them, and we'd all be like, 'Whoa, that's amazing.' It just happens. It's like a flicker."

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Throughout his success with Buffy, Angel, Bones and later SEAL Team, he said he made sure not to let success ever get to his head.

Related: David Boreanaz Says It Would Be Interesting to 'Tap Back' into the Fantasy World of Angel and Buffy

<p>Hulton Archive/Getty</p> David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Geller in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' in 1999

Hulton Archive/Getty

David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Geller in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' in 1999

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"You have to be very self-aware," he shared of becoming a successful actor. "You have to balance, and you can't let the ego get out of control, and you feel like you just got to check yourself every day on that."

But then, once he lands a job, he devotes himself fully to the work:

"I show up, and I show up as whole as I can, and there are days when I show up, and I'm not there, and I fall like everybody else. I'm a human," he added.

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"So you take your mistakes that you have sometimes with life, you learn from them, and you grow from them, and you become a better person. That's just life, that's the way it is. Just get back up, And show up."

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