"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." JM

"On the one hand he's a sensitive boyfriend and on the other a ruthless killer." JM

"Spike enjoys hurting people and he enjoys people being afraid of him." JM

"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.'" - JM

"He's a sadist and is never happier then when he's killing or hurting people, but when he's in love he's truly sincere. That makes him really beautiful in some way." JM (The Realm)

"I'd like to see him regain his sense of joy in something more fruitful than killing people," he said. "I've always envisioned him giving Buffy a garden that he could never go to in the daytime, to give her something alive for a change." JM (Text)

"I think basically people would like to be freed from the bonds of society the way Spike is. Spike gets what he wants, when he wants it. I think having a lifestyle that's that free is cool to people." - JM

"A vampire takes everything when they take a girl, and there's something inherently sexual about that." - JM

"Oh, nooooooo," Marsters immediately disagrees. "I would say that, first of all... Spike is good as a counterpoint to the good work going on by the Scooby Gang. But he undercuts what is really going on. Now if you just had him undercutting all the time, he might become wearisome, cynical and boring. He might become a bore. It is called the 'Buffy' show, Sarah is the lead and to the extent that all men want Sarah and all women want to be Sarah, then we will always have a television show. The only person who needs to be on the set for it to be Buffy, is Buffy." JM (The Realm)

"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)

Q: I’ve always felt Joss had a Machiavellian idea about how he wanted the show to go but then you came in for a few episodes and ended up staying for all these seasons and evolving with the show. How do you feel about Spike being his wildcard?
JM: Yeah, it was really satisfying because it was so obvious that Spike did not fit into the pegs of this story at all. But in a way, that’s what made it great. He was able to take the theme and put it on its head because the theme is how does one grow up. How does one become one’s best self? I mean it was frustrating a lot because I really would get just two to three pages of dialogue a script. I often felt that I was at this enormous banquet with the best food I’d ever seen in my life but my portion was always that big and I was salivating after everyone else’s plate. But that is a glorious place to be as an actor because what it is not, is having to mumble a bunch of crap - which is death. So, both frustrating and rewarding. Actors are so greedy – we want everything. (Text)

Question: Two questions that you have given conflicting answers for in the past -- how old is Spike (over 200 or 126), and who's his sire (Angel or Dru)??? What are the official answers?

JOSS Whedon: I don't have the math in front of me to figure out Spike's age, but it is closer to 126 than 200. I believe it was in 1850 that Angel made Drusilla and then Drusilla made Spike. Now, this is where it gets confusing for everybody, your sire can mean anybody in the line that made you. So, Drusilla is Spike's sire, but so is Angel in the sense that Angel made Drusilla and Drusilla made Spike. If we were being more literal we would call him a grandsire, but that term does not exist in the vampire world, so sire just means somebody that you are connected to because they came before you on the line. By that reckoning you could say that Darla is Spike's sire since she made Angel.

"He (Spike) sort of represents Buffy's other side. He's her id. He's hang dog because he loves Buffy, and he's not been getting his way. But in some ways I think he's the most powerful. And he's constantly struggling with his nature, which is also a part of Buffy's character arc. So, to me, he is heroic in the Buffy universe, because he's right there representing what the show's about, which is the struggle to be a hero and the other part of you that wants to drag ya on down into the abyss." Boys According to Marti Noxon (Text)

AOL Host: A member named Stargirl wants to know if you knew Spike was going to develop into the complex, enigmatic character he is.
Joss Whedon: You never know. They can be a great character or be killed quickly because they are dull. It is impossible to tell. We thought we had lightning in a bottle with James and Juliet. But, no, we never knew. You keep throwing the things at actors. James can handle everything." Joss Whedon (TEXT)

Question: Who are your heroes in cinema, literature and music?
JM: "Shakespeare. Shakespeare's the dirtiest playwright ever - people think he's polite, that he's classy. No way! Nobody kills more people, or has more sex on stage! As far as cinema goes - Apocalypse Now. I love that movie. Plus Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Kurosawa."

"We've basically turned the character in his head this year, and we risked flushing him down the toilet. When I found out that he was going to be a wuss, I was like 'Screw this!' but it's amazing.", he admits. "It's exactly what the producers were hoping for. So it's made the character much more complicated, sweet, pathetic, vulnerable and recognizable." JM (TEXT)

"As far as this last season, the word was that I was to be the new Cordelia; I was going to be the one standing in the corner saying, 'We're stupid, we're all going to die!' and that saves the show from getting too Scooby Doo. I think Emma Caulfield [who plays Anya] fulfilled that place much better and much cleaner and it was very good for them to go to her for that purpose.
"So in this last season, Spike is not really a narrative character. He doesn't drive stories; he's a bit of colour over to the side just to give it a little edge. But again, noting ever stays the same in Joss's universe, and from what I know, we might find him a bit more in the mix this season, although I would perfectly happy to do what I did last season."
"And I really didn't have to work. That's the other thing, is that everyone else on the show was working like dogs and I'd come in, shoot a day out of an episode and leave, and I still got wonderful writing." JM (The Realm)

"What Joss said was, 'You're going to be the new Cordelia.' Which meant to me that I'm the guy in the corner saying, 'You guys are all dumb. It's stupid and this is not going to work. We're all dead and I'm outta here,'" JM (TEXT)

"He's been taken down a peg. He is going through kind of a hero's journey of testing," Marsters said. "But, in typical Whedon fashion, it includes a lot of humiliation. And I just think it's brilliant." JM (TEXT)

"Yeah, he used to be a badass and now he's a wimp." JM (TEXT)

"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)

"Many people think Spike is impotent," the actor explains, "and we should clear that up right now. We should put it in the first paragraph of your article: he can have sex, but he can't kill humans!" ...
"'It's not you, it's me' exchange by the, er, frustrated Spike and a very confused Willow. (during the episode 'The Initiative') If a casual viewer had switched on the episode after the commercial break, "It would've sounded like a failed rape scene," claims Marsters. "I went as far with the beginning of the scene, which was the beginning of the 'rape' and I was remembering De Niro in Cape Fear [in which his character violently assaults a woman] and tried to get as much as I could to get to that. JM (The Realm)

"It's very Shakespearean, he says it right out in that scene, 'This is what I'm going to do,' and we watch him do it. That's the thing, if Spike can't cause physical pain, at least he can mentally torture people." (referring to season's 4 ep. 'The Yoko Factor' where he turns the Scooby members on each other) JM (The Realm)

"The way the last season ended (season 5)," Marsters says, "Spike had completely failed in protecting both Buffy and her younger sister, so that's going to play out. Big time."-comments about Buffy and Spikes relationship

"I don't have knowledge of what's happening in the next episode. Much less do I have control. I always try to keep a balance - when Spike does something really mean, I've always tried to give him a little warmth. I've always thought it was my job to keep the audience with the character." JM (TEXT)

"Spike and Dawn got in contact with each other, so maybe he's not so bad, which of course means they must be setting me up for something. My mind just spins! I don't know what the hell they're up to. I never know what Joss is thinking, I really don't. Nor do I really want to any more. I just want to go through this experience. They've softened me so much that it's made me think I'm going to go evil. Spike's never the same two seasons in a row. Maybe they're going to have to kill me... I have no idea." JM (TEXT)

"And they've (the fans) have a little gleam in their eyes, like it was going to be fun seeing who died (at the end of season 5). And I was like, 'Yes someone is going to die, and you're going to wish you never got excited about that. We're going to kill you guys.' I was just phenomenal. It just made me more and more proud to be on the show. It's like, all bets are off. Just when you think you know what the show is, it's something completely different. I don't know if Joss is showing off, or just testing himself, but if you notice, with every episode that he's directed, Joss has stripped away one of his strong points. People used to say that his dialogue was the best - and then he did 'Hush', the silent episode. Then they said his plots were fabulous, and he did 'Restless', a dream episode with no narrative whatsoever. Then they said he was marvelously funny, and he came up with 'The Body', with not one joke or laugh in the whole thing. I don't know - what the hell is he going to do next?" JM (TEXT)

"Okay, okay, okay," he says, sounding even more like Joe Pesci in the Lethal Weapon films, "here are two great questions: why is Riley such a stud that he can rip his chip out of his chest with his chest, and I just can't get to my little skull deal? This is not complaining, believe me. I'm not saying the writing's bad, but it's interesting. The other question is this: why does Angel get to walk around in sunlight and I burst into flames?
"Truthfully," Marsters says, "if they really didn't bend that rule then the character would be constrained to only coming out at night. That means that wonderful ideas for scripts would be thrown out. It means that the production schedule as far as filming exteriors would be hellacious. I think it's because he's the lead. He has to drive the plot and it can't all be at night." JM (TEXT)

Q: Besides yourself, what actor do you think would have been a good Spike?
JM: There would have been a lot of actors who could have played the role well. It’s a beautifully written role. There is a lot of meat in there and a lot of guys could have been effective. Jude Law would have been wonderful. Oh, for Christsake, Brad Pitt would have kicked ass as Spike. I mean he is a pretty good actor actually. No, really! Did you see Kalifornia? Not bad. Twelve Monkeys? Some of those pretty boys can act. [Laughs] (Text)