"That episode was terrifying to me in the beginning," admits Marsters. "The character was revealed to be a nerd. And I did not want to be exposed in that way! I used to be a nerd in junior high school. I was short, I had fuzzy hair and I was a theatre geek. And then I went away to live with my dad for a year. And there the theatre was the best thing in the high school. If you were 'theatre' you were cool. Football was like: 'Who cares?' So, by the time I came back to my home town I didn't care. In fact I didn't want anyone to like me. We were like a group of punk rock kids. We didn't want any of the other people to like us. We didn't want to be accepted. We did not want to fit in.
"But being a nerd in Buffy terrified me and then exhilarated me. Because I had the sense that I was jumping off a cliff. That we were going to fly or go splat. 'We're going to have Spike be a wuss. If it fails it's going to be bad.' But it didn't fail."
"No," he says adamantly, "it was everything I knew internally that I didn't have the specifics for. It clarified things that were already there, and showed me in a way that I did not want other people to see. That's why it was terrifying. But to be with a show for four years and to be artistically terrified is a luxury that I don't know if anyone else has had. I've never heard of that before. So I'm very lucky. To be that challenged so late in the game makes it easy to get up at 4.30am.
"I've done plays before to find myself that terrified. I've always come out, I feel, flying more than splatting. Well, no," he admits with a wry smile, "a couple of times we splatted." JM (The Realm)

"That was a scary episode, actually," he muses. "Until then, the character had been set up pretty much as 100% cool, and we find out that he is, in fact, not that at all, but that he actually made himself. And I was concerned that we were undercutting Spike's 'cool' for comic effect for a year now, with his Hawaiian shirt and the jokes and stuff like that. What I hadn't copped onto was that Joss [Whedon] was leading me from a cardboard villain to a fleshed out person. That script, when I read that he was an absolute fop... you know, it took me about 24 hours to change gears. Then they gave me the full script and I realised how it fit within the story that was being told and I thought it was brilliant. I was so excited!" JM (The Realm)

"I don't think that 'cool' is interesting to Joss," Marsters states thoughtfully. "I think that he can set up cool within about 45 seconds, effortlessly, but it's usually a set-up for something more interesting, something more human, something that has to do with vulnerability and getting humbled by life. That's why he's a good writer. I love him to death." JM (The Realm)

"No. It was terrifying. It was horrifying to find out that my character, who I had enjoyed being so damn cool, was actually not cool at all. He'd been a whinging pomme, a wuss, a patsy. A patsy poet dude! I thought they were flushing my character down the drain," he admits. "It took me a long time to try and embrace the character. Luckily they told me early on and I had a chance to let it boil and then respect him and understand that this was Spike. I went back and watched the very beginning of the character and there was a part of him that was that, very much. Joss had written towards me and that was what pissed me off! He exposed me in a way that I didn't want anyone to see."
So what did he think of the finished result? Did that change his mind - after all, the fans loved it. "My point is, that later on I got very much into it. By the time I got to the costume-fitting stages, I kept saying, 'Not nerdy enough! Not small enough in the shoulders. I want to be pressed in and squinty as possible' (laughs). The same with the hair and the accent. By the time that I saw the actual script and I saw how it all fitted in, I was so excited. I have to say it is the biggest luxury in the world to be terrified by your job, still terrified after five years on the same show! And when I got to do this Shaft-like scene... I loved that. That was such a blast... I got so many bruises that day!" JM (The Realm)

"I can't give you a guarantee, but I can almost give you one," Marsters replies. "It was so successful last year to have her over on Buffy and Angel. I think the only real question this year is whether they want to drop her into Buffy or Angel because they can't do both at this point. That's a shame. They can't drop me in, either, but, you know, it means they can't drop Angel (David Boreanaz) into Sunnydale. So that's OK. Keep that big lovely hunk away from Buffy. Keep him away from my Buffy. He's just too damn good-looking." JM (The Realm)

"I can't say much, but we're going back in time, and there are things we're going to learn about Spike that people may not be able to accept. On the other hand, I think there are some people who are going to like him for the first time. Joss [Whedon, the creator of "Buffy" and "Angel"] has found some really fertile ground for the character without changing him. How do you explain this fully evil character who was also a wonderful boyfriend and truly in love with his girl? And he's very old, but he's only ever loved one girl, so in many ways he's immature and inexperienced. There's a dichotomy there, and I think he's mining that."