Angel

James Marsters, who plays Spike in The WB’s Angel, dismissed to SCI FI Wire any perceptions that his vampire-with-a-soul character is taking over the show from David Boreanaz’s other vampire-with-a-soul. The tension between Spike and Angel "was in there from the very first, from [the] ’School Hard’ [episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which Spike was introduced]," Marsters said in an interview on the show’s Los Angeles set. "I think because there’s tension between the characters is why this character and not another one from Buffy came over to the show. But yeah, between David and me functionally, there are no sparks at all."

Marsters added that he’s a big fan of Boreanaz. "He directed a show this year, and he’s so good," Marsters said. "I mean, he doesn’t know this really, but he’s so good that we forgot that he’s a first-time director, and we all got lazy with him, and we kind of left him in the ditch a little bit. We had to remind ourselves, ’S—t, David, we should be here for David, because he’s really a first-time director.’ But he had the quality of such confidence in knowing what he wanted to do one step at a time."

For his part, Marsters said that he’s not interested in directing an episode of Angel himself. "I’m more interested in producing, frankly," he said. "As I see how things work in television, specifically, I think the things that interest me as far as larger arcs of characters, as far as finding larger components to put to each other, as far as deciding what the story is that we’re going to tell and how we tell it, I’m kind of leaning towards wanting to do that and hire a director."

Angel airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.