James Marsters

Hello from Melbourne! It’s 5 am here and I’m sitting in a darkened room with 3 sleeping bodies in beds next to me. The first day went smoothly and James is in fine form. He looks yummy, his disposition is sunny, and he seems relaxed but maintains his frenetic, energetic moving around. Today’s Q&A brought about 80% rehashed stories and 20% new stuff. Apparently, the man loves CareBears and used them as a metaphor with what is wrong with the world! "CareBears ROCK!" The reply was used in the context of what can go wrong with raising kids in the world and how Buffy was a metaphor for going from childhood to adulthood - and the bottom line is even though you find out the world isn’t as terrific as you thought in childhood, you still have to care and that’s what it’s all about - that process of finding out the world sucks but you go about the process of forging ahead anyway - you CARE. And then he uses the CareBears as showing how, on a small scale, this works. You gotta get kids to care at 6, or at 18 they show up with a gun in their hand. Anyway, Talkie leaned over to me and mentioned "I bet he gets a boatload of CareBears in the mail now" and I bet she’s right! LOL!

He was asked if he considered himself a role model and he said "no" without any hesitation at all. He brought up his niece and how he is trying to instill in her the values of standing up for herself and doing what makes her soar, but that should come from within and not by some outside television actor or singer or whoever serving as a role model. "I’m an artist, not a role model."

He was asked about being in Seattle during the grunge rock period and in the telling of that, he got quite emotional when describing about Kurt Cobain’s death and how Courtney Love absolutely destroyed that movement by dissing Kurt during a gathering right after he had died. James said it brought the whole thing to a crashing halt and his voice broke up and he had to compose himself. He said Courtney was an ugly person.

He said the the backing of his movie was from a man he met who invented the MP3 and that the project is on the backburner currently while he gets his structure in place. He also mentioned a series that David Greenwalt has created for him that has been turned down by one network, but was currently being pitched to CBS and that he was due to hear yesterday how that went. He said since he hadn’t heard from David, that CBS probably turned it down too. He went on to say how he was astounded at the attention he’s getting in the industry right now and that heads of a few studios are meeting with him, saying, James we LOVE you,...what can we do to get you into our family?" so, he says he’s in a real happy place right now career wise and feels very positive about the future. Macbeth is still being written and tweaked.

One really funny exchange between this one guy and James had the place howling. The guy gets up there and starts asking James if his celebrity helped him with girls. James shook his head, said no, no, no and went on to describe how it gets in the way, how one time, he was "there, you know, in the MOMENT, and I’m inside her and things are going well and she suddenly says, "do the accent" and James just hangs his head, shakes it and makes a hand gesture like an airplane going down along with sound effects...indicating, you know, the loss of certain functions. It was pretty funny and the room was howling. He and this guy talked about girls and stuff for 3 minutes and it got funnier and funnier. this guy was hysterical, talking about how his girlfriend wanted him to do the accent and be Spike for her. James had a good time with that, embarrassed that people like to have Spike on the tv while they have sex and how weird that was to think about. Much laughing from james and audience about this.

He talked a bit about having to maintain a certain physical image and how the industry refers to actors as human "lollypops" because they tend to hire people with big heads (which film loves) and tiny stick bodies. He says he kept himself hungry for years to play Spike and how that hunger kept him on the balls of his feet in his work. He also said he’s always hungry, and he was hungry right then.

I noticed with pleasure how many men were in the audience and what a nice effect that had on the dynamic between James and the crowd,. Also, the Aussies don’t cut him as much slack, and weren’t as "ga ga" over him as American fans are. I think James relaxed in that and if he wasn’t spending his spare time sleeping, he’d probably be able to move around quite nicely without nearly the fuss as in America. I liked that aspect of the con a lot. It’s nicely run, as far as I can see, with the exception of how they announce the rows for the autograph tables and photos. A bit perplexing and we always had to check with someone to see what row they were up to. Also, there was much gnashing of teeth over what could be signed. Apparently, only the few photos they had for sale there were allowed and much negotiating was encountered. The staff is for the most part informed or was very helpful in finding out information for you. The venue is a lovely hotel and the facilities are good, with a decent sound system, at least from where I sit. They sold each day as a separate event, so today we go through the registration process again, getting new seats and new tickets for the photos and autographs. I’m sure more reports will follow as the mind kicks into gear, but I know the anguish of waiting and wanted to zip out something to you guys.

I managed to recruit two new MTS’ers who promise they will be joining shortly. Go team! I know I’m leaving out a lot but hey it’s 5 am. :rolleyes: