Alone with a vampire. And not just any vampire. Alone with the best-looking bloodsucker this side of the hell-mouth. Only tonight in Sunnydale, scary, sexy, Spike is polite, flu-ridden James Marsters. So, no chance of some neck action. Bummer.

Posh, peroxided Spike played by Marsters, a 27-year old actor from California, is at crises point in Buffy The Vampire Slayer's fith season. Once a vampire gang leader who specialised in getting on Buffy's wick, Spike's now a reconstructed vampire in love with his nemesis. And as the slayer, Buffy's duty-bound to put her new boyfriend out of his misery - like, forever.

But there's nothing hotter than forbidden love, especially when it comes to ratings, so Buffy and Spike are very, very close to peeling off each other's clothes and getting it on. First Angel, now Spike. Lucky Buffy. Marsters is small, perfectly formed, dressed from the neck down in tight black creaky leather. He has beautiful skin, cheekbones quite capable of carving your roast and hair that must hurt, considering the relentless application of peroxide his role demands.

He's also a little flustered. He's got lines to learn and a massive fight scene to shoot later that evening. Flustered, sleepy and yummy. So what is it about Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) being all weak at the knees?

Angel was Buffy's first vampire love, the enigmatic, broody, undead hunk with a conscience to match his bod, played by David Boreanaz. But surely, Buffy has to move on. After all, Angel has his own series now.

Marsters is pretty brave. He hasn't had a cruisy ride to stardom. He grew up in a tiny north Californian logging town, a geeky misfit in a flannel shirt who went bad before coming good.

A self-confessed ex-delinquent, he was expelled from the prestigious Julliard acting school, an institution where only the very bright and very, very talented go. So what happened?

"Every teacher I had at Julliard hated me. Every English teacher I've had hated me. After I got kicked out of college I went through a four or five year very violent, very dark period where I did a lot of very stupid things." Like What? "Well, I never went to prison - I never got caught. I'm very lucky I'm here at all. We're all freaks, but we're beautiful freaks. Loveable fools. That's what Buffy's about. We are most human when we are most vulnerable. I really think that"

"I mean, cool is not all that interesting, not in life and not in art. As an actor, cool is boring. You can act cool in a heartbeat. But to act damaged....."

Come on, enough of the deep stuff. Are you and Buffy going to get it together? I mean, it's so obvious she likes you. He throws his pretty head back and roars.

"She does, don't you think?" "She's trying to hide it, but it's just no good. She want's me bad. But I have to prove to her that I've really changed. I mean let's face it. I am evil".

Before he built up his role in Buffy from guest appearance to undead love god, Marsters played a priest in Northern Exposure and did a whole lot of theatre, mainly plays written by long-dead Russians - the kind of deep and meaningful stuff he adores.

"Chekhov, man, it's all the same thing. Chekhov and Buffy the Vampire Slayer - it's all about beautiful losers".

"It's strange. The more Joss Whedon (Buffy series creator and scriptwriting genius) finds out about my past, the closer the writing gets to me."

While he's scarily talented, Marsters has no real urge to move on. "Why would I? This is the best television, maybe the best ever made. What I really want to do is my job. And my job is to try to get what's on the page on screen."

"Everything here reads a little better than it comes off on the screen - and usually in television it's the opposite. So I'm always feeling like we didn't quite hit it."

"I truly don't think we've ever done that yet, and we need to because the material, the text is brilliant. What's on the page is a challenge."

Does he ever feel a bit odd that Spike is maybe bigger than James Marsters, actor, will ever be?

"Weird thing. There's a song called Babytalk... Everclear's album. It's about a tough guy named Spike, whose girlfriend has got him by the, well, by those things that really hurt. And that's Spike. He's out there, being sung about."

And that makes Marsters really lucky by anyone's standards.