James Marsters

James Marsters regaled fans with stories and anecdotes from his journeys in genre TV. Here’s the highlights from an evening of high nerdery at New York Comic-Con with the original vampire heartthrob.

The Sparkly Vampire Craze

"Every generation has its own version of vampirism. They re-interpret it to mean something for themselves. And it’s a great metaphor because it can be stretched in so many ways. However, for me, if you’re gonna be a vampire, be a vampire! Don’t be a gentleman about it, go feed! We all have a predator within us, we all have a meat-eating predator within us and it’s fun to watch someone just give up and be that. I don’t fault Twilight, it’s all cool. It’s not what I would do, but hey man, vampires, keep ’em alive."

If Joss Whedon Calls...

"That’s one phone call...I don’t expect. I love him, I love Joss Whedon, I really do. I think he’s moved the ball in a significant way toward the right kind of entertainment, towards self-empowerment, which is very, very important. I do love him but he hates me."

Making Out with Captain Jack

"For me, sex scenes on film are not that comfortable. I don’t enjoy them at all. No, man, when I’m gonna kiss a girl, I decide to kiss a girl! I don’t want anyone saying ’action.’ Really, when you’re being paid and you’re wearing a sock and they say ’action, kiss her’ what is your job description exactly? For me it really revolves around do I trust this person? Is this person my friend, are they gonna take care of me if I freak out? Are they gonna be there for me? You know, like that.

“My favorite story about John, I blew the stunt on the kiss scene with the glass. I turned a little bit wrong and I caught some glass in my thigh. And I was bleeding through my costume. So that night and the next morning, I was still bleeding but I didn’t want to tell the producer that I blew the stunt because if you blow the stunt they won’t give you another one.

"So I wrapped my leg in duct tape and did the day, but towards the end of the day, I was bleeding through the duct tape and onto the costume and Johnny comes up to me and goes ’you blew the stunt, didn’t you?’ and I said ’yea, bro’ and he goes, ’dude, get back to your trailer, I’ll have my surgeon come fix you up and take care of the costume and I won’t tell anyone.’ And that’s what he did. He got me stitched up, fixed up and the producers, unless they listen to this, will never know.

"John is a hero and I trust him implicitly. And I’d rather kiss John Barrowman than anyone else I’ve ever kissed on film! My girlfriend directed the kiss. She was in a barstool five feet away and we’d ask ’Is that hot?’ and she said, ’Really hot! But we need another take.’”

Angel or Buffy?

“They were both very wonderful, in different ways. Sarah was a technician. She knew her lines, she could study her lines from the trailer to the set and have ’em down. She never got her blocking wrong. You always knew she was gonna be on. If you got a good take and it would have blown if the other actor wasn’t on the their mark, you could always count on Sarah not to blow your take. She was so professional.

“However when I looked into David’s eyes, I never really knew what was gonna happen there, no matter how many takes we did. It was very subtle. A lot people say he’s wooden or whatever but really when you’re acting with him, when you look into his eyes, there’s a full universe there and you have no idea what he’s about to do. So I don’t know which to pick, they were both absolutely brilliant.”

Coolest Stunt?

"I would say when I lit myself on fire on Buffy. Spike was supposed to be lovelorn and drunk and falling asleep outside and the sun wakes him up by lighting him on fire. And I thought it would be a lot funnier if we let the burn go on a little longer. And it was the one time I didn’t pay attention to the stunt crew and I let it go on for five seconds too long and my hand was just...(pained expression)"

Getting in Touch with His Feminine Side

"I always harken back to Shakespeare because they always say how did Shakespeare write these incredibly rounded, three dimensional female characters when he was existing in a time that did not see women that way. And the thing is Shakespeare was a humanist, so it doesn’t matter if you’re old, young, rich, poor, black, white, male, female, it all doesn’t matter, you’re a human being and I can relate to you on many levels. So he wasn’t writing women, Shakespeare didn’t write women, he wrote human beings. And then he hired really good looking transvestites to play the roles. So when I’m doing female characters I’m not thinking about doing a female, I just pitch the timbre of my voice up and feel what I feel.”

A Pre-Badass Badass

"When I got the script with Spike before he was a vampire, I was like WTF? I assumed he was a badass before. How could you be such a baddass (vampire) without being a baddass before? So my whole thing was he was a badass the whole time, but then once I started playing him on the set, I got really ferociously defensive of the character - like ’don’t you make fun of me!’ I really loved him, William is in my heart and I feel like he’s me.”

A Spike-Off?

"One of the network people came up to me and said that when I came on the show they pressured Joss to say "give him the new show, not Angel." And so I went to Joss one time and I was like "Hey man, what do you think about maybe a spin-off?" He was like "Oh really? A spin-off of a vampire character? Hmm, let’s run that one down. Oh it’s called ’Angel.’ I was like ’Ok Joss, ok.’ So yea, that was the big note."

Life on Caprica

"When I got the part of Barnabas and I read it, I started to really agree with him in that we seem, in this culturel, to be on the road that ancient Rome took, toward fulfilling sensation as opposed to intellect and we are devolving into an orgy. I really think that Caprica is trying to catch a very big fish; I wonder if it will stay on the air because it is so wise. You know the thing where you boil a frog in a thing of water and if you turn it up slowly he won’t jump out? That’s where we are on Earth right now and Caprica is trying to tell us that. And that’s a very hard message. How do you tell the world, you’re ruining the world? How do say that? And only sci-fi can say that. Only sci-fi."

On Getting Emo

“I’m an actor, so...like today I went to sign autographs, got to my hotel and started crying. Because I have a very, very full emotional life. I feel things very deeply and I’m going through huge stuff with my girlfriend, my fiancé, not like serious stuff but just enough to make me cry. (laughs) So basically when you ask an actor to cry it’s like "Oh, now I can let go." Usually an actor has no problem crying. There’s enough in his life, in his past life (to make him cry). What’s harder actually is laughing. That’s the hard thing, to laugh without looking like an idiot."

On Being a Massive Nerd

"I was always the nerd on set going ’Oh my god! We’re touching the nerve of the world! We should learn our lines! Everyone, you wanna learn your lines? And they’d be like ’We’re tired.’ No, seriously, between the words ’action’ and ’cut’ it was heaven because everyone involved was at the top of their game. Between the words ’cut’ and ’action’ it was a little more difficult because some of us were too young for the fame that we got...I spoke the truth. I love the whole cast, I love them all."