| RAISING THE STAKES |
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Starburst Special (#42) Yearbook 1999/2000 Dave Roberts  |
| Despite being evil, Spike from Buffy and its spin-off Angel has always enjoyed great popularity. Dave Roberts spoke to actor James Marsters.
JAMES Marsters, aka Spike, has a theory. "I think that Joss maps out his seasons pretty carefully in advance, but then he rolls in the margins as the season goes along," he comments, referring to Joss Whedon and the Buffy The Vampire Slayer / Angel creator's knack for amplifying what works and dropping what doesn't on his shows while still in mid-stride. "He kept me around in Season Two, but I was in a wheelchair and kind of sidelined for most of the year. At first that was very hard for me. I thought Spike was going to have a high body count, but what it actually did was give the audience more sympathy for the character. You saw Spike having to deal with being shackled like that.
"Joss stays on his game throughout the season, and that's to his credit. He pulled me aside after I'd done my fifth episode of Buffy. The reaction to Spike had been very good, and things were going very well. He said, 'James, this is not going to become the Spike show. I have many other fish to fry.' He was very clear with me about it, and it was nice to have that kind of honesty. But he did keep me busy. Spike was meant to be a transitory character and, thank God, Joss changed his mind."
Spike returns
Whedon more than kept Marsters busy. He ultimately gave the 28-year-old actor double duty. As everyone on the planet who cares about such things knows by now, Marsters, effective with episode seven, The Initiative, became a series regular on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The show kicked off its fourth season in October, with Spike turning up memorably - and nastier than ever - in The Harsh Light Of Day. He will also make the occasional guest spot on the Buffy spin-off Angel, which débuted the same night as Buffy's season première. Marsters first stab at again portraying everyone's favorite British vampire actually found him on the Angel set (for In the Dark, the Angel half of the Buffy-Angel crossover), face to face with his pal, newly crowned series lead David Boreanaz.
"I was nervous and I hadn't done the character in a long time," recalls Marsters, who went so far as to watch old Buffy tapes in order to rediscover his 200-year-old alter ego. "I didn't know how it would turn out, but it was a fight day. David and I both like to do the fights. David has become very good at doing his fights. I've always been pretty good at fighting because I come from the stage and there are no stuntmen on the stage. You can't cut away and have someone else step in. So, I'm always very happy to step in and fight. That first day I felt like I was back at home. I was just swinging at David again and it all fell into place. When the dailies came back, everybody seemed happy, so I was happy."
Of course, not everything is the same for Marsters. Gone from the proceedings is Juliet Landau, the Drusilla to his Spike. Together and separately on Buffy, in such episodes as School Hard, What's My Line Part 1 & 2 and Becoming Parts I & II, William the Bloody and his lady love wreaked much havoc. "I miss Juliet very much," Marsters says. "We had a really good working relationship and I thought the stuff we came up with was very interesting. I'm just kind of throwing myself off a cliff now, going in a whole new direction, hoping it works and that I don't crash on the sharp rocks. Could Juliet come back? With Joss there's a chance that anything can happen, I could end up in a tutu next week, you know? But, yes, assuming that Juliet's schedule can be worked out, I would imagine that it would be very good to have her come back, especially if they've got Spike hooked up with somebody else, which I think they're going to do with Harmony [Mercedes McNab]. Dru would probably want to scratch my eyes out."
At almost the same time Marsters was roaring back onto the small screen with Buffy and Angel, he appeared on movie screens across America in a grisly remake of William Castle's camp classic Horror tale, The House on Haunted Hill. The film, which shocked Hollywood by débuting in the number one slot at the box office over he Halloween weekend, starred Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen, with Marsters popping up early and briefly. "I play a guy who gets taken for an amusement park ride by Geoffrey Rush," Marsters says, referring to Rush's character, a demented ride creator who soon offers $1 million each to a group of five people if they can survive one night in a very haunted house.
"I only did three days of shooting. I took the job because I wanted to meet Geoffrey Rush. He's the guy. Like many fabulous actors, he's also a very good person. I wasn't busy. I wanted to meet Geoffrey, the director [William Malone] was a Buffy fan and it seemed like it would be fun. And it really was. In fact, I've got a picture in my trailer of me with Geoffrey."
The Genre
Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Angel. The House On Haunted Hill. It would seem as though Marsters has a soft spot for genre work. Hell, he's even turned up on an episode of Millennium. What gives? "I like the genre," he explains. "It's not something that I targeted specifically when I came to Los Angeles, but I think it's a very useful genre. It frees up the writers to talk about issues that might be relevant to real people in a more and direct way. It's really kind of like the court jester back in the Renaissance and medieval times, who, as long as he was telling a joke, could criticize the kind in a way that nobody else could. Of course, if the court jester went too far he'd be killed immediately, but he was usually the king's most valued and trusted advisor."
And, finally, for one last bit of truth from James Marsters: "I wasn't into vampires before Buffy," he admits. "I was no more into them than anybody else, really. I enjoyed vampires. I think everybody does. I just didn't know I'd be making my living playing one. So, I wasn't into them, but I love them now!" |
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