Angel

Spiking the Punch: James Marsters Interview

Buffy, the Vampire Slayer’s Spike

Any episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer has better action than most of the studio movies released, not to mention emotional subtext. So, the opportunity to interview one of the show’s stars was more exciting to me than most of my daily interviews. James Marsters plays Spike on the show. Spike began as a villain but now that he’s had a chip embedded into his brain, he’s physically prevented from harming a human. After a tumultuous romance with Buffy, Spike ended the season by attempting to rape her. In the season finale, Spike endured a test which was made to appear that he was seeking to have the chip removed. But in the cliffhanger, some magical forces restored his soul.

But guess what? It turns out, we were only supposed to think that the soul was a mistake. Buffy creator Joss Whedon revealed in a panel discussion at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences that we were only supposed to think he wanted his chip removed. Even Marsters was surprised to hear that Spike wanted a soul all along. As he discussed his anticipations for next season’s Buffy, it appeared he only found out about Whedon’s switcheroo that night.

So, now it turns out Spike was actually asking for a soul from the beginning of that whole subplot? They’re switching it up again. I thought I knew what was going on until Joss said what he said. It’s a case of what is the most interesting thing and he’s kept his options open at the end of the scene. I was instructed to play it as if I wanted to get the chip out and was surprised and mad about the soul. But, as a storyteller, he leaves himself the option of going exactly the opposite direction without having to compromise integrity at all. The way that he constructed it, and I think he did it because of that, he left his options open.

Will Spike be a vampire with a soul or a human? Oh, a vampire with a soul. His flesh is still dead. His blood is still cold. But he has to deal with the ramifications of 1000 murders.

Well, I won’t ask you something as lame as how will it be different from Angel? Yeah. It will be. That’s the one thing you can guarantee and I don’t know how it’s going to be different from Angel, but it will be.

How will Spike deal with his attempted rape of Buffy in the next season? Dealing with that is what sent him out to the desert. Obviously, he didn’t deal very well with it. Obviously he blamed her for it and was so angry that he wanted to go do something even more horrible. As often happens, and that’s the point that’s often made on the show, that evil comes about often when people feel very guilty about something that they’ve done but can’t face it. It drives them to further acts of evil. You saw it with Faith and I don’t know where it’s going to lead with Spike. Seriously, I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Will Spike become more of a villain or try to redeem himself? This is the thing. As an actor, I have had the problem of playing - as many actor do - the end of the scene and the beginning of the scene. So, if you’re going to get really mad at someone, you start to play anger too early as opposed to discovering it during the scene. And I discovered that working in TV, you can wholesale eradicate that problem from your performance by not asking what’s going to happen next week. I am as ignorant as my character and I therefore can fight for my character wholly and then be completely up a tree as Spike can be and not even concern myself with what’s going to happen. It’s very scary because sometimes on this show you’re asked to do things that - there have been things on this show that I’ve been asked to do that if a movie came along that asked me to do those things, I might have passed.

Like playing a rapist? Frankly, yeah. Frankly, I don’t like that. I can’t even watch a movie where that’s in there. I get up and want to kill the guy. It’s my personal issue. So, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, not even as a job, because Sarah and I are friends. I told Joss, "Nobody’s safe around here. You cut right to the bone, dude. This is not a safe show."

In general, has the fight choreography on Buffy become more sophisticated in recent seasons? If anything, the fight choreography is better choreographed to my needs so that you see more of me. More and more, the choreography is stuff that I can do well enough that we don’t have to cut to a stunt double, which doesn’t really make Steve [Tartalia] very happy. He gets very bored. I’ve always wanted the fighting to be more street fighting, more dirty moves, street moves which are stuff that I’m more used to as opposed to some of the more sophisticated martial arts stuff. So, I’m always really happy when John [Medlen] choreographs a really dirty elbow move or a punch to the throat. I love that.

And how is working with Michelle Trachtenberg in the Dawn scenes different from working with Sarah Michelle Gellar? They’re different people. Sarah is a machine. Sarah doesn’t know this, but she’s actually a method actor. She is the biggest combination of method acting but also with the proficiency of the other side that I’ve ever seen. She’s able to switch gears very quickly which I’m not. I tend to live in the reality while we shoot. She can flip in and out. Michelle is a very talented actor who’s still keeping her eyes open. But they’re very similar [in that] you don’t realize how much they’re doing until they see it on film. They’re very subtle.