"He's a monster, but if he likes you, he'd be your monster, and he would protect you above all things. But he is a monster. I don't think women mind if he's a monster as long as he's their monster. Take note guys", he grins, "You can get away with anything as long as it's all for her!" JM (TEXT)

"Inside my own mind, Spike is exactly the same guy," notes Marsters. "It doesn't feel any different. He's not good. He's just hot for Buffy. He's not going to do anything to piss her off. In a way, he's closer to the Spike we met in Season Two. Originally, I thought the interesting thing about Spike was the contrast between the fact that he was a psychopathic murderer and the most sensitive boyfriend you could ever imagine. These two things didn't seem to fit, and yet they were in the same character, which was kind of mysterious and cool. Later on, they took both of those elements away from the character. Dru left him and he became chipped, so he could no longer have fun killing people and he no longer had a girlfriend to be so gentlemanly for. So now, while I'm still chipped, I'm getting to fight demons and have fun with the violence, and I'm also back in love with a girl, which lets me explore that gentlemanly side that really hasn't been explored for about a year and a half. So, in a weird kind of way, I feel like I'm getting back to the original Spike. He still gets to throw out those nasty asides. So it's still the same guy; I just don't have the body count." JM (The Realm)

"I've learnt that he doesn't have to be killing people to be passionate," he replies. "He existed on a very simple level before. He killed people and kissed Dru - and that was Spike. The thing that made him more interesting than a normal villain was that he was truly in love - I mean profoundly and beautifully in love with his girlfriend. Both of the things that drove him have been taken away and he is still himself, which is a testament to the writing.
"Spike is still basically the same person, he is just physically unable to kill anybody. He has no loyalty to these people at all, so how do you work him into the plot given that? Yet they are still able to do it, and it's really interesting." JM (The Realm)

"One of the other sources for Spike was an Emperor of Rome called Caligula, who was a sick and twisted man. He had an affair with his half sister - her name was Drusilla. So who knows the history of Dru and Spike!" JM

"He's a total contradiction. Going into it, Spike was really sweet to his girl, Drusilla. He really loved her and treated her like a queen. But, he's also a complete psychopathic demon from hell. He's the kind of guy who's inexplicable and interesting at the same time." JM

"One of the components of Spike that I miss is the romance," says Marsters. "That, for me, is what made him more interesting than just another villain. Spike was supposed to be without a soul, but he seems to be completely and truly in love with this girl, which doesn't seem to make sense but makes for some kind of mystery because you want to watch it to see what's going on with him. A lot of stuff with Angel was not explained completely with the audience, so you had these question marks. These people seemed very close. What was going on with them? I loved that stuff. During some of that, Juliet Landau and I were patterning ourselves on Sid Vicious and Nancy I-don't-know-her-last name, so we wanted a little bit of that heroin feel; that strung-out kind of thing. She played it stronger than I did, but we were kind of smoother together than you would think; kind of floating a little together. That's really great for characters that are coming in and out, but you can't have that for three years. So much changed when they decided they wanted to put Spike in front of you every week." JM (TEXT)

"Drusilla and Spike have been together for 120 years and they have sustained a romantic love for that long and - which is kind of inspiring really - and it is in the contrast between the fact that they don't have souls and seem to be pure evil and they also seem to have this incredible love that is even deeper than something we may be able to understand.
They have a very very rich romantic life. And probably a bit twisted sexual life.
And in season two you see both. That love set up very clearly and then completely ripped apart by the end of it. So you're able to explore two characters who might have just been kind of Frankenstein villains and explore revenge, betrayal..." JM

"To my mind, Spike has not changed. He's always been love's bitch, basically." James firmly believes that the fifth season saw an unusual. Evolution rather than a major change in the character. "If Drusilla had had a younger sister, Spike would have tried to save her in the same way, with the same depth of emotion that he did with Buffy's sister. That's what I thought was so attractive about the character to begin with: he had the contrast of being a really soulless vampire, but he was also truly in love. You saw a very romantic, tender side to him, even in the second year. I thought that the conflict and the tension between those two things within him was interesting. That's why he wasn't a flat, cardboard villain - he was a bad-ass, but he was so much in love. He was a real sweetheart to Drusilla. So that was interesting." JM (TEXT)

"The thing is, I felt that what lifted Spike out of the ordinary villain was the fact that he was truly in love with Drusilla, which was strange, because demons are supposedly soul-less, and yet these two people have obviously been in real love for 120 years, so that component of the character was completely gone last season, and I was trying to find Spike without that. I'd like to see Drusilla come back, because I'd like to get back to that side of his character again."
"That's the problem, this has happened a number of times. I think they're interested in working together, but every time they call, I think it's been two or three times now, she's been busy doing films, which is great for her, but it leaves us without our Dru." JM (The Realm)

"He's (Spike) a total contradiction. Going into it, Spike was really sweet to his girl, Drusilla. He really loved her and treated her like a queen. But, he's also a complete psychopathic demon from hell. He's the kind of guy who's inexplicable and interesting at the same time." JM