Buffy The Vampire Slayer

James Marsters will be forever remembered as the bleached-blond vampire William the Bloody (aka Spike) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. His cockney jibes made him one of the most enduring characters of the whole Buffyverse. After a successful stint on Smallville James is sticking to his sci-fi roots and can next be seen in the BSG spin-off series Caprica. I caught up with James at the recent SFX Weekender where he was the guest of honour, and spoke to him about Twilight, Macbeth, Caprica and, of course, being Spike.

Do you find you get an extra special reception from fans in the UK due to your cockney vampire routes?

No... I get that reception everywhere, it’s weird. In America everyone knows he’s [Spike] English and in England everyone knows he’s English, but in Germany they think he’s German because that character was voiced over by a German actor and they have no concept that he’s from a different place. But the reaction is pretty much the same. I would like to think of myself as a favourite son, in my egotistical moments that thought might flash in, but I think that’s a lie, I’m from California.

Obviously vampire are in vogue at the moment. What do you think of the Twilight series?

I don’t want to denigrate Twilight because I’m raising my niece and I’ve always been trying to get her to read and she wouldn’t. She’s very intelligent but she’s got a real will. But she discovered Twilight and started reading voraciously and started writing her own stories. They’re all about vampires. So I have a deep love for Twilight. However I don’t understand stories that have to dilute the vampire character. I don’t understand why you’d write the character of a vampire who doesn’t want to kill people. I don’t understand a vampire who can withstand sunshine. There are certain things that define a character. There are certain things that work and if you take to many of them away it stops being that icon, and I feel Twilight is dangerously close to turning its back on the icon.

Who would win in a fight between Spike and Edward Cullen?

I don’t want to be egotistical, but Spike is a fighter. He defines himself as someone who fights. He is a character who searches out the slayer, someone who could possibly kill him, and goes and fights that person. He’s crazy. Edward is smarter. He’s wiser. Edward is a peacekeeper and he only fights if he has to. What that means is if they really did mix it up Spike would eat him alive. But it wouldn’t make him more of a man.