Then, one night, she sees the young man Liam in an irish tavern and is so fascinated by him that she turns him into a vampire. From this day they travel together the world to wreck havoc and fear. Darla even leaves the Order of Aurelius to be just with Liam, who calls himself Angelus now, when he promises to give her everything.
They live together as lover for a 150 years, but then they loose it all. A gypsy curse gives Angelus back his soul and he cannot go on, killing and torturing people. But he still has feelings for Darla and so he returns to her. They try to work it out, but finally realize that his soul will always stand between them, so they part again.
A hundred years later they meet again, and Angel ends up staking Darla when she tries to kill his new girlfriend.
Three years later Darla is resurrected, as human. A new chance for two old lovers? It could be, but Darla is dying from syphilis again. Angel tries to save her, but he fails. Darla accepts her death as her destiny, but Lindsey, who is also in love with Darla, gets Drusilla to revamp her.
Together they decide to turn Angel into Angelus again. Angel, who cannot bear the thought that he could not save Darla, hunts them down, but he doesn’t kill them. Instead he decides he wants to be with Darla again and sleeps with her to loose his soul. But guilt keeps him from becoming perfectly happy and so he does not turn into Angelus. Angel realizes he cannot go on this way and sacrifices his love to be able to help the helpless again.
Darla leaves Los Angeles, to never return again, but month later she finds out that she is pregnant, from Angel. When she cannot get rid of the child she goes to “Daddy” for help. At the quickening they find out it is human, a human boy.
With her kid growing inside her Darla starts to love him, love him like she never loved before, but then she finds out that she cannot give birth to him. Feeling her child die she makes the ultimate sacrifice, she stakes herself, to release her son from her womb.
In early 1997, Julie auditioned for the role of Buffy in the series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997), but lost out to Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, she was offered a small role as a vampire girl in which she did such a good job that her part was expanded to a few more episodes in playing the vamp Darla. With that, Julie Benz's career had finally taken off. She also had a small, but memorable, role playing a receptionist in the movie As Good As It Gets (1997).