For James Marsters, it was a dream come true, but it also left him feeling a tad overwhelmed.

"I remember having a beer with (fellow cast member) Bob Scoggins," he recalls, "and asking, 'How the hell do you do Shakespeare?' He looked at me and said, 'Kid, stand up straight, say your line and get off stage."'

Marsters laughs. "That may be the most helpful advice anyone's ever given me."

The creators of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the best-known hit in the brief history of the WB network, probably agree that Marsters learned his lesson well. The actor is currently in the midst of his third season as Spike, the English-accented, cruelly funny undead nemesis of the vampire-fighters of Sunnydale, Calif.

Marsters admits he has been the beneficiary of "a lot of frustrated creativity" since joining the show. You see, before Spike, Buffy's nemesis was the Master, a netherworld demon whose plan for global carnage was inhibited by his inability to leave his home and actually confront the heroine, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. (This is known as the "What were we thinking?" school of television.)

By the time Spike came on the scene, the writers had a warehouse full of cold-blooded one-liners just waiting to be delivered -- by a villain who could actually leave his demonic domicile. An example of his bad-guy bon mots: When Spike's recent search for a mysterious gem caused his girlfriend to say, "You love that gem more than you love me," he coolly responded with "I love syphilis more than I love you."

Although Spike's bloodlust and wicked tongue have made him a beloved figure with "Buffy" fans, they posed a potential problem this season when series creator Joss Whedon decided to make Spike a full-time member of "The Scooby Gang." (The name, Marsters explains, comes from the show's resemblance to the old "Scooby-Doo" cartoon -- in which just about every episode ended with the villain saying, "I would've gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for those darn kids!")

Marsters admits that when he heard the news about Spike joining the cast full time, "I was thinking to myself, 'I don't know how Whedon is going to do that, because I'm bad.' A villain has to either win or die. If he keeps trying to kill the main character and fails, it becomes ludicrous." Whedon side-stepped the problem by having a group called The Initiative rewire Spike's brain so that he can't harm another living being without feeling incredible pain. "Spike is undergoing fairly significant humiliation right now," the actor says with a chuckle.

A native of Greenville, Calif. ("a little tiny logging town"), Marsters studied acting at New York's Juilliard School. When it came time to go professional, however, Marsters ditched the Big Apple for Chicago.

"There wasn't a lot of entry-level theater in New York," he says today, "and if I wanted to be an actor, I needed to start doing it. Chicago was certainly the center of everything, as it still is.

"Chicago tends to risk much more, which I think is fabulous. You love to see people jumping off the cliff and hoping to fly. More often than not, they do fly."

It wasn't long before Marsters was practically in orbit. Almost instantly, he found himself in "Tempest" making the most dramatic of entrances: His Ferdinand was "rolled out in an iron hoop, spread eagle and naked, in the style of DaVinci's 'Perfect Man.'"

That was followed by a string of acclaimed roles at Bailiwick Repertory, including the group's 1990 production of "Life is a Dream" and the Jeff Award-winning "Incorruptible."

This six-hour epic put Marsters front and center as Maximilian de Robespierre, the chief architect of the French Revolution and subsequent Reign of Terror. (Conflict of interest alert: This writer was among the cast of 15 who started the revolution with him.)

"'Incorruptible' was huge for me," he says a decade after the fact. Part of it was "being aware I could do a six-hour play, but it also taught me the importance of ensemble acting. Never before or since was there such a strong sense of passing the ball around."

According to Bailiwick artistic director David Zak, "Incorruptible" was a perfect fit for the young actor. "There was a hunger about James," he says, "a determination to really tackle ambitious projects, to not do the same old thing. And what was great about him was that he was equally comfortable in the basement of Cafe Voltaire as he was on the Goodman mainstage. As long as he was excited about the project, the space didn't matter."

Marsters found considerably less excitement in the early '90s when he moved to Seattle, a city that "is a lot more sedate than Chicago. Sometimes that can lead to some wonderful productions, but in general, I tend to like the spit, blood and fire."

Which made him a perfect choice to play a vampire, although Hollywood had never really entered his plans. That changed after an older actor -- one Marsters had long admired -- announced his own intentions to head to Los Angeles. "He just looked at me and said, 'I don't make much more than you do, James. When you're young like you are, I'm sure it feels like (you're making) a good amount of money. But when you get to be my age, you expected a bit more.' I thought, 'Well, if he wants to bug out, I'm going.'"

A childhood friend who had become a Los Angeles casting director helped Marsters find an agent. Small parts on "Northern Exposure" and "Millennium" followed before the audition for Spike.

"All I know is they had been looking for a long time," he recalls. "They were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and there I was."

Still, they were impressed enough to take him on, even dyeing his hair white for the appropriate punk look. ("Dyeing also straightens your hair, which is kind of a side benefit," the naturally curly haired actor admits).

Always serious about his acting, he notably winces as he recalls his initial transition from the stage to the soundstage. "If you look back on some of the very early episodes, you can see a lot of acting," he says with a laugh. "I had yet to learn that a lot of the things I had learned about storytelling on stage were not applicable.

"You know that (theater) rehearsal where you discover for the first time something's really happening?" he asks.

"The camera wants that 'first time,' when you don't really know what's going to happen then. I think that's an inherent difference between stage and film, but I think there are things that I will carry back to stage."

Maybe so, but don't line up for tickets yet: Marsters is signed onto "Buffy" until the spring of 2001 and is currently making himself available for summer film work. (He recently appeared opposite Geoffrey Rush in the remake of "House on Haunted Hill.")

He's also writing a screenplay version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth," which ranks high on his list of dream projects.

"It's a play I've done twice," he explains, "and I think I have a pretty good handle on what makes it work and what doesn't make it work. I think it's a real audience pleaser if it's done correctly."

He laughs. "All I need now is for some fool to give me $8 million so I can get it on film."

Playing Buffy's fanged foil Spike, James Marsters puts the ire in vampire.

"Who is Spike?" wonders James Marsters.

He rolls the question around on his tongue like a vampire savoring a delectable trickle of blood. "Ooh, existentialism," he remarks, "Spike is a sociopath. Spike has fun hurting people. Spike is a man without guilt. Spike is a man for whom the world has been opened, and he can get what he wants when he wants it. Spike does not carry a wallet. When Spike sees something, he takes it."

And despite this, audiences like Spike. He's a vampire. He has killed people, lots of them. Hell, he even attempted to destroy the world by unleashing demon hordes. Yet, somehow, he's... likable. "That's because he has fun doing what he's doing," explains Marsters, dropping the British accent he employs as Spike. "And James Marsters is pretty much doing the same thing. Having fun."

How could Marsters not be having fun? After all, he has parlayed a guest bit that initially was to run five episodes into a long-standing recurring gig and now into a role as a Buffy regular and an occasional guest on Angel the red-hot Buffy spin-off. Really, no one needed to twist Marsters' arm to convince him to vamp it up again as Spike. "Oh God, not at all!" shouts the actor, a California native whose credits include episodes of Northern Exposure and Millennium, as well as a small role in the recent horror flick The House on Haunted Hill.

"I danced a jig when they invited me back. I love doing Buffy and Angel. You get to hit people, man. On Angel, the creators are the same guys [Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt] as on Buffy. David Boreanaz, of course, was there too. I was nervous the first day that I shot Angel because I had only played Spike on Buffy ["Lover's Walk"] once in about two years. In fact, I had to review tapes to find the character again. But once I got on the set, I was in full vamp makeup, fighting David again. So it really felt like old times."

Spike made his Buffy debut this year in the show's third episode, "The Harsh Light of Day," in which Spike searches for an ancient ring that makes the vampire who wears it not only impervious to daylight, but pretty much immortal. Later that same night, Spike crossed over to Angel for "In the Dark," as he followed the path of the ring from Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) to the slayer's undead ex-beau. Obviously, Marsters couldn't be any more happy that Buffy's ratings remain formidable and that Angel kicked off with and maintained its stellar ratings. "That's fabulous," he enthuses. "Buffy just keeps getting stronger, and Angel came out of the blocks on fire. There had been a lot of talk about people hoping that Angel wouldn't be too dark and dour. And the episodes I've seen so far have put that concern to rest entirely.

"I loved the beginning scene in the pilot, where Angel does this serious voiceover. 'I move in the night. I save people.' Then they smash cut to him drunk in a bar saying, 'I love girls.' That was just fabulous. Releasing Angel from the heartbreak of loving Buffy and not being able to be with her gives David more maneuvering room to explore different areas of his character. And David is doing that expertly."

Spike will turn up on Angel once or twice more during its freshman season.

As for Buffy, look for scads of the terrible blood drinker, who had previously spiced up such episodes as the "What's My Line" two-parter, "Surprise," "I Only Have Eyes for You" and "Becoming, Part II." Marsters, however, can't reveal much about what's on tap, insisting that one, Whedon demands that his cast and crew keep secrets secret and two, that as an actor, he doesn't receive scripts until shortly before he steps in front of the camera.

The actor does talk a bit about life after Drusilla, though. "Juliet Landau was quite busy," he notes, "unfortunately for us--good for her--doing features and, unlike me, she could not come in." Landau guest spots seem rather likely, though. "I guess it's good to be unemployed once in a while. They're pairing me up with a vamped-up Harmony [Mercedes McNab], a character who used to hang out with Cordelia [Charisma Carpenter] and her gang and got bit last season.

"It's strange. I used to think that the two main things with Spike were kick ass and kiss Dru, and I'm not kissing Dru anymore. At least I'm still kicking ass. I'm not very nice to Harmony. I've had my heart broken and I'm very bitter, so, I abuse Harmony. Mercedes is wonderful. She's a very good actor. Let's just say this--we push the boundaries of the 8 p.m. time slot as far as censorship is concerned."

Marsters enjoys just about every aspect of playing Spike. He gets a kick out of portraying the creepy countenance of evil and performing many of his own stunts. Even better, he appreciates the perspective he gains by leaping every so often from the set of Buffy over to Angel. "I didn't need to do any research to play Spike's violent side," he notes. "I think the evil lives in all of us. Spike is simply that side of all of us unleashed. We operate in a world with social constraints, and with Spike, those constraints are completely taken off. There are times for everybody where they want to take a baseball bat to another person. It's just that we don't usually do that. Spike does.

"As far as the physical aspects of Spike, the makeup is fabulous. Todd McIntosh won an Emmy last year and he's absolutely the best there is. He takes his time with the makeup work. And they're comfortable. Spike looks the coolest he has ever looked. Of course, I can't get anyone to kiss me when I have the makeup on. The fights are just heaven. You can bash someone through a wall, but no one has to go to the hospital. My favorite days on set are fight days.

"In terms of doing both shows, what I've noticed is that people seem to be hired with an eye toward professionalism and being able to do their job very well," he continues. "Also, everyone on both sets is very kind. You don't want to mess with them, but if you do your job, they're very nice. Much of that comes from Sarah and from David. They're both real professionals. They don't mess around. They want to make a good show. They want people to be treated well. They're not screwing off, so nobody else has any margin to do that. The fun is had in making the shows. We all work very hard, but we enjoy doing that. There's a lot of continuity between the shows. There's cross-pollination between the makeup and wardrobe people. We have so many familiar faces on Angel that I almost feel like I'm doing Buffy."

The actor must return to the set, so there's little time to review past Buffy episodes.

Marsters, however, does pick a couple of favorites. "I liked 'School Hard,'" he comments, referring to his very first Buffy adventure. "I got a good body count. The character cut a wide swath through the population. But I thought that my acting was a little over the top, frankly. For me, 'Lover's Walk,' where I came back looking for Dru and I was all drunk, is probably my favorite. Doing the scenes with Sarah on top of the police car and with Willow [Alyson Hannigan] in the vampire den was great. I thought those scenes worked really well."

And what rated as Marsters' most wild Buffy moment to date? "I lit my hand on fire," he says, laughing. "I did that in 'Lover's Walk,' which was my one season three show. They were trying to figure out how to get the stuntperson's hand in the shot so they could do the fire gag, and I said, 'Let me! Let me!' I'm always trying to get into doing that stuff, and they let me. We did two takes. I burned the hell out of my hand, but I had a good time doing it."

Fighting. Evil. Vampires. Religious imagery. Buffy aficionados see such things week after week on their favorite show, but it's all too much for many a conservative soul in this cautious era. There's plenty of debate about violence on TV and its effect on society, and, wisely, Marsters does not dismiss it. How can he, really, given that on two occasions the WB has pulled Buffy episodes, in part out of respect for the real-life victims of the Columbine massacre, and in part for fear of stoking the ire of those less-than-open-minded, thereby precipitating a backlash?

"It's a very healthy discussion to be having," he asserts. "All through history, people have made the mistake that just because a storyteller portrays a character doing something, it doesn't necessarily mean that the storyteller agrees with that character. The acid test for me is, 'What are the themes that are being explored?' If it's just simple revenge, if a character just kills people for no particular reason, and that's put up as a good thing, then it rather becomes like watching Christians being fed to lions just for the gore, for the pleasure aspect of it. That can be very destructive and desensitizing.

"But Buffy, at the end of the day, is about a young woman who is trying to grow up and find herself, and who has a job that gets in the way of doing that. She's just trying to hold on to her friends and family and discover who she is. That's very interesting. Violence, when it is portrayed without repercussions, is irresponsible. But I don't think that's the case with Buffy. The show deals with the repercussions and the violence around Buffy at all times. So, in that way, Buffy is a very responsible show."

As the conversation ends, however, Marsters sinks his teeth into an entertaining notion that's sure to amuse Buffy fans and peeve those darn conservatives. Marsters would have Spike not only bite a few real-life people, but also a few of his TV brethren. "I would go to Senate hearings, any Senate hearings, and cut a swath through the Judiciary Committee. Actually," James Marsters speculates, "maybe I could nosh on Katie Holmes from Dawson's Creek. I would love Spike to pop up on The X-Files. That would be sweet. I really think I would have a good time on Seventh Heaven. Spike could teach them all a lesson about life. 'Come here, Minister. Let me really teach you about Heaven.'"