"I discovered myself as an actor. I discovered I liked it in fourth grade. The best advice I could give is never give up. Don't let anyone tell you you're not good enough. I've had my share of that junk, usually said by people who are jealous or blind of your talents. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is interesting enough to watch. More than anything, the audience pays for a ticket for the right to stare at someone." - JM

"I'm one of those guys who has wanted to do it since fourth grade, when I played Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh. To do well in school, my mother had to convince me that it somehow related to acting, like chemistry and higher math--that was hard to rationalize."' JM (Source)

"There wasn't a lot of entry-level theater in New York, and if I wanted to be an actor, I needed to start doing it. Chicago was certainly the center of everything, as it still is." - JM

"I started my professional career spread-eagled at the Goodman Theater (in Chicago) in Shakespeare's 'The Tempest,' naked, being wheeled out like Da Vinci's perfect man. There's no rewind button, that one's gone." JM (TEXT)
(Déjà vu: Spike has been strapped to a torture wheel this season, but, Mr. Marsters noted, "In `Buffy,' I got to keep my pants on.") JM (Text1 and Text2)

"Most of my life I've done stage. If you live in New York, Chicago, Seattle or San Francisco and like the theater, there's a good chance that you've seen me and didn't know it. However I have a small role in the upcoming Geoffrey Rush movie, "House on Haunted Hill." I'm in the beginning as the TV cameraman who gets scared almost to death. I'm also in a small, independent film called "Winding Road," and I did two episodes in a series called "Northern Exposure" which you can still see in reruns. I had guest roles in two series that have just been canceled, "Maloney" starring Peter Strauss and "Medicine Ball." - JM

"I ran the New Mercury theater for four years. We performed in a church basement on Capitol Hill, but we were much better known when we were down in our own space in a loft in Pioneer Square. Directing is great, but it just burns you out. You also have to be a producer for a small theater, you end up being a janitor, the ticket taker, sweeping out the seats, painting the sets and all the stuff that you can't pay people to do. But directing was fun." - JM

"It's heaven," Marsters says. " Acting, for me, is much simpler and less important than I thought. It feels like every time I learn something new about acting, it's just about simplifying and not acting and letting the words work for you. An actor needs to know enough about structure and quality writing to be able to choose good words. But once you've chosen those words and signed the contract, get out of the way. Don't bring attention to yourself, bring attention to the words and let them make the money for you. At which point it becomes brutally simple and easy to look cool. I always say that a character is defined much more by what they say than how they say it, which means that how the actor says it is important, but it's not nearly as important as what the writer is saying. Acting then becomes the breath and the life under the words. I love my job and I very much respect good acting."
"What happens when Joss is done with Buffy and he just concentrates on features? My God, I can't wait. Well, actually I can wait forever because I don't want Buffy to end." JM (TEXT)

"I miss the interaction between the actors and the audience," he said. "I miss soliloquies, where you can turn boldly to the audience and speak to them. I love talking to one person at a time, if only for maybe three seconds, but specifically looking in people's eyes and watching them jump. Oh, it's wonderful! And dangerous." JM (Text1 and Text2)

When asked whether he hoped to return to the theater, he said: "Yes. Not immediate plans. I came down here and had to really consciously decide to commit to doing film and television. ... But, I ean, (the stage) is my first love. There is a lot about film and television that I am enjoying. It is its own challenge and a worthy effort."

On Stage - Returning

ET: Do you want to get back to theater?
JM: I did a play last summer and once I have time again, I would like to go back to it. I still want to produce Macbeth. I have played the character, but I would like to direct it -- so always, always theater.(Text)

ET: What kind of roles do you like to play?
JM: Roles where it is challenging to keep the audience on your side. Roles that force the audience to look at themselves in ways that might be uncomfortable. I always come back to Macbeth as being a great example. Any time you play the lead and the lead is very faulted and very human then you can say something very profound about human beings being walking failures but human anyway. ANTON CHEKOV is my favorite playwright for that reason. We are all lovable, dear, vulnerable, silly, goofy and striving but failing more often than not. (Text)

Q: Do you want to go back to theater, produce theater and if so where?
JM: Los Angeles is a pretty frustrating town to try to do theater in. My problem is it’s hard to get people to watch it. It’s just not a theater town. New Yorkers think of theater as part of their city and Los Angeles does not have that at all. I do want to produce again but I think I would have a very frustrating time doing that in L.A. I would do it in New York and Chicago.
I’m trying to talk Joss into doing “Hamlet.” I would like to direct him in “Hamlet.” I saw him do “Hamlet” in his home and I’ve seen a lot of different Hamlets and his was one of the best. It was the most selfless. Most actors when they do Hamlet are Hamlet, you know? They are important now. When in reality, its just about some kid whose thrown a lot more shit than he can deal with and it almost makes him give up on life. That’s “Hamlet” and it’s almost like “Catcher in the Rye” in that way. How do you become an adult? It’s kind of like Buffy actually. Joss mined the humor and I suddenly realized how that play could work because you see Hamlet and you see him whining again and he’s attached to his mommy’s apron strings but the guy is funny. There are a lot of jokes in that play. I’m always going ‘Joss, when are you going to do it? I want to direct you. It’s time. You need to do three “Hamlet’s” because you’re not to get to what you want to do in the first “Hamlet.” You are going to have to do two or three.’ I’m going to break him down one of these days and I can’t wait to direct him. ‘No! You are doing it wrong!’ (Text)

He arrived in Los Angeles in 1997 "willing to sell out, happily." Being cast in "Buffy" was "wonderful irony," he said. "I get more acting jollies from the show than I did from any full season of theater. The writing is not safe. That's the best thing about it. It can be horrifying, but in the most exhilarating way." JM (Text1 and Text2)

"Theater is always going to be for the love and not the money," he says sorrowfully. "So I came to LA completely prepared to be Alf's sidekick or something, and lo and behold I landed in a project where the writing is as deft as any of the new scripts I was doing on stage." Marsters credits his winning the role of Spike to blind luck, saying that Joss was just tired of looking. "I came in at the end of a very long search and I knew my lines." - 'An Undead Kind of Love' - May 1, 1998 by Cynthia Boris

"Typecast as 'the cool guy'?" JM queries. "I think that without the blonde hair and the English accent, I can transform into something almost unrecognisable. Yeah. I think that if there's still a career in Hollywood, that would be nice, but if not then I'll go back and do stage like I did for ten years before I moved down here."
"I am currently drinking very good coffee in the middle of my wonderful kitchen, listening to Charlie Parker, and I couldn't be more pleased with myself!" he says expansively. "You SO wish you were me!" JM (The Realm)

"It's absolutely phenomenal! It's beyond my wildest dreams. Busy is good... I've wanted this all my life. I just drink more coffee!" JM (The Realm)

"Are you kidding me?" he asks, bringing the conversation to an end. "I have been in enough plays to realise that every 10th or 15th play is a really good one, and the other ones, you try, you're aiming high and failing to hit the mark. So when you get that really great play that everyone's talking about and that really works, you feel good about it and enjoy the experience. I'm in that play now and I'm just luck that Buffy's lasting five years and more. My plate is full. The writing on Buffy is of really high quality. The production values are great. My character is great. I'm quite happy to be with Buffy." JM (The Realm)

Q: What was it like filming the last scene of “Beneath You?”
JM: That whole story arc had me finally stopping doing the method. I am a stage actor who came into film realizing the acting techniques for stage don’t apply in film at all. If I wanted to succeed in film, I was going to have to go to techniques developed for film. The techniques developed by Marlon Brando and by the people of The Actor’s Studio. Which is really all about creating a well-detailed fantasy life that you can release yourself into and really believe it. But the thing is, these guys weren’t thinking of TV. They were thinking of submerging themselves for a limited play run or for a specific movie. What I found was that I submerged over the course of two years and it really burned me. It sent me almost over the edge and I learned something about The Method - be careful in TV with The Method. I was playing a man who was riddled by the guilt of all these murders so I had to dredge up all these things that I had core guilt about in my life and just beat myself up with it. When you do that to yourself…and no therapist is going to tell you that’s a good idea. That’s why acting isn’t necessarily healthy all the time. So, I got all my rocket fuel together and we filmed the scene. Dailies came back and Joss didn’t like the lighting and he thought some of the writing needed to be switched around so he rewrote it and came in and directed it again. By that time, I was spent. I had already filmed it and I just came to the set wondering how I was going to rake myself again but it always happens that the words just carry you. There are five or six scenes throughout this season that really were very hard, that were not comfortable, that were not necessarily fun but that I am very proud of. (Text)

I’m not really worried. My real sense is that it’s going to take a couple years to establish myself apart from Spike. In a weird way, people don’t really know me as an actor, They know Spike and they love Spike but at the same time, they know that isn’t me so they don’t really think of James Marsters in a role unless it’s a drug addict or a rock star. I think it will take about a year in some supporting roles and some guest appearances to introduce myself to people and at that point, I’ll be really castable. So, that’s my game plan. JM (Text)

Q: What’s it like being on the set?
JM: You know we worked twelve to twenty hours, five days a week. We begin on 4 am on Monday morning and we get out about 5am Saturday morning, which we call Friday night. You know it’s really fun but at the same time there is this quality of exhaustion that is behind everything. My memory of doing the show is a little hazy, frankly. Most of the time I feel like I’m stumbling around and as soon as we get the lines right, we move on and I’m always amazed by how good it looks. I read the scripts and I get these grand ideas on all this stuff I want to do and then the crush of television happens and it’s just about trying to get these scenes filmed in the time we have.
There is a rapport. When you are doing work in front of an audience, you know if you suck right away. When you are really in trouble, is when you hear paper rustling – if they are checking their programs and you can see the flash of paper. Then you see actors turning upstage going “Get the lead out, they’re bored.” For real. Then there is shifting in the seats and you know maybe it’s too warm in the house or maybe your not having a great night. Then there is that nice silence when you know you are doing your job well. And then there is the actual silence where people stop breathing, which is beautiful. You don’t get that in film. You don’t get that dialogue with people so there is something that is less satisfying than doing that. But what makes up the difference is the people – the crew and the cast. We have a lot of really hilarious people around. Nick [Brendon – “Xander”] was just fabulous. In the middle of a twenty-hour day, Nick comes in and starts joking around and all of a sudden everything is all right. I’ve got to say man, Buffy…we did some dangerous things on Buffy. We did a lot of things that scared us. We did a lot of things that we were uncomfortable having to do. It was all in the name of something that I am proud of and something that I think was worthwhile. But actually doing that – you are either doing something emotionally draining or something that is physically really uncomfortable. So, ahh, man…a hard, wonderful, frustrating, enlivening, everything all at once and sooo tired. (Text)

Despite Marsters' experience, he and "Buffy" creator Joss Whedon had to come to an understanding on the set.
" I feel like I'm a broken record about this, it really is true that the script is going to do it for you, if you just let it, if you just get out of its way. Joss and I have finally agreed on what good acting is. It's not messing up good words."
Was there disagreement? "Oh, yeah, because he always appreciates good acting, while I tend to slough it off, frankly, and not want to talk about it, not want to acknowledge it, really, don't want to get too precious."
" If he loves a moment in a scene or something, it's almost hard to talk about because you don't want to become too aware of it when you're doing it. You just want to show up to work and surprise yourself," Marsters said. "But we finally agreed that good acting is not messing up good words, knowing that when you have good words, you don't need to fix them, you don't need to help them, you just need to give yourself over to them. So in that way, a lot of work is being done by the script. But to my credit, I realize that and let it do that." JM (TEXT)

Q: Was it harder playing Spike this year?
JM: Every year, I felt like I was playing a new character. I started as the Boy-Toy for Dru. I was cannon fodder and I was going to be done away with and Dru was the main thing. Then I graduated to villain then I guess I was the wacky neighbor for awhile. [Audience laughs] Then I was the forlorn man in the corner loving the woman who didn’t give anything back, then I was the lover, then I was the unhealthy boyfriend. In this final season, I was the redeemed man or the man in search of that. In a way every year I feel, what am I going to do? He is so completely different! When they brought me on the show, the two things that I thought were the linchpins of the character was one – an extreme pleasure in hurting people and two – real love for my girlfriend, Drusilla. When they brought me on the show [in season four], I had neither one of those and I was like ‘What are we going to play?’ and they found it.
I guess about mid-season, I was hungering for some swagger. I was like ‘Spike, is getting really soft here.’
Even my brother who is so supportive of everything, he was like “Dude, you need to get some balls.” But they worked that out too, the balls will be there.
[Audience laughs] (Text)

"Ever since I met Joss Whedon, I haven't worried about my rent. I cannot tell you what a difference that makes. As a regional-theater actor, I don't know if I went one month without worrying where the next month's rent was coming from. You get used to that stress, and forget that you even have it, until it's taken away. 'You mean poverty's over? What? I'm still collecting twine.'" (TEXT)

"Acting has dictated my lifestyle. It made me very poor for a lot of years, up until I met Joss Whedon... and I've been comfortable ever since." - JM

James' plans for the near future also include a scheduled return to the guest role he created last season on Andromeda, the manipulative Archduke Charlemagne Bolivar. The character was a little more aggressive in James' portrayal than he'd been in the script: "They wanted the character to be a fop, and I wouldn't have it," James states. "I secretly rebelled. I didn't talk to anybody about it - I just made the secret decision that the guy would have balls. I feel like just because someone is a refined aristocrat doesn't make him a fop. When you look at Tim Roth's work in Rob Roy, I think he's able to take a highly sophisticated character that almost seems effeminate, but in reality is not effeminate whatsoever but a cold-blooded killer and very manly in a very evil way. And I remembered that as I was going into [Andromeda]. Not that I can compare that with [Tim Roth's character]. I've got to say, great company of people [on Andromeda]. Kevin Sorbo is a totally great guy." JM (Text)

In the meantime, Marsters satisfies his Shakespearean urges with the help of Whedon.
"We're all reading Shakespeare in his home these days. Oh my god, it's amazing. He's the one person with enough social power to get enough L.A. people together to do Shakespeare, and not just actors. There are only two or three actors, it's writers, friends, just normal people. It's been just brilliant."
" I think next week we're going to do 'Mac.' I want to do 'Mac,' he wants to read 'Hamlet,' and he wants to have Tony Head ('Buffy' co-star Anthony Head) read 'Richard III.' We started with some comedies, but knowing the people so well, casting them perfectly in their roles … in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' the best Lion I'd ever seen from a non-actor, was one of the writers, Jane Espenson. She was perfect. Oh my god, I'd never realized that about the play before. She was the best one I'd ever seen in my life."
" Joss is good. He is really good. Oh my god, I'm looking forward to hearing his 'Hamlet.' I think I may understand things about that play that I never did before." JM (TEXT) 

Q: You mention on the FX Network “Buffy Bites” segments that you and some of the cast would do Shakespeare readings on Sundays at Joss’ house. Did that really happen?
JM: Yeah. They didn’t happen so much this year because Joss was over on Angel but it is something everyone is clamoring for now that we have a little more time.
It all started when we were doing [Season 5 episode] “Fool for Love.” On a Wednesday, I was on the Paramount lot doing total kick ass fight stuff in the New York Subway. [Crowd hollers in appreciation] That was one of the best days of my life! Seventeen hours, Steve [his stunt double] almost never got in –I was fighting the whole time and I loved it. The very next day, I was playing William with the wig and the squinting. There was twelve hours difference between the two and I said to Joss ‘Dude, this is just like Repertory Theater. This is what I dreamt of when I was in high school but when I got out of college all the Rep companies had gone bankrupt and there really isn’t that experience of actors much anymore.’ He got this little look in his eye and said, “Maybe we should continue that philosophy.” And then he started having Shakespeare readings and then at the end of reading the plays, they would start drinking and I would watch them get drunk which is always fun, and we’d start singing. First we started singing old standards and then people started bring out their own material. I started bringing out my own material and finally Joss was like “Well, this sucks but I’ll play it for you” and it would be amazing! Week after week, he would keep coming up with songs and we kept giving him reinforcement saying ‘Joss, you are really good at this.’ Then he decided to go ahead and write the musical. [Audience applauds] It’s one of the wonderful things when artists are put in close proximity and they are allowed to really talk to each other and not kiss ass and really cross-pollinate. (Text)

Excerpts from an interview with JM about the Star Wars rummors.

Q: Can you address the rumors on the Internet that you are being considered for a role in the next Star Wars movie?
JM: I would love that! I got interviewed for the Darth Vader role because George Lucas was aware of me. His daughter is a fan and like every good dad, he loves everything his daughter loves so he loves me. [Laughs] They came to the set. I still have a candle from his daughter. I went on this interview for the Vader role, in which he was supposed to be seventeen. [Chuckles] I said ‘I don’t want to cut myself off at the knees here but I’m not really seventeen.’ And they were like “We know we just wanted to meet you and see if there is anything down the road.” So, I don’t know. Maybe they are percolating something – probably not. (Text)

Q: The stuff I was reading mentioned the role of the young Grand Moth Tarkin.
JM: Yeah, the Peter Cushing role? He and I have those cheekbones, right? [Laughs]
Oh, he destroyed Alderaan, didn’t he? Affecting a British accent he says “Foolish child”
Oh, did you guys notice in that scene, Carrie Fisher has an English accent? Affecting a female British accent saying her line…You can just tell that was the first day of filming and they got the dailies back and George was like “Carrie, never mind the accent, honey.” (Text)

"I'm very ambitious. I want the world. But it also can lead, if one's not careful, to cutting moral corners."

"I remember having a beer with Bob Scoggins, and asking, 'How the hell do you do Shakespeare?' He looked at me and said, 'Kid, stand up straight, say your line and get off stage.' That may be the most helpful advice anyone's ever given me." - JM

"You know what? Support actors and regular actors are exactly the same people, only at different times of their careers," he points out, as though he's given the matter a lot of thought. "I'm in the fat part of my career. Careers go in cycles, and this is the fattest cycle I've ever had." JM (The Realm)

"The hero must, by definition, be generic. Functionally and structurally, the audience must see the world through the eyes of the hero. They can't be so specific as to alienate anyone in the audience. That can mean they can be a bit flat. Now, I'm not saying anything against a good hero (and Robert Redford and Paul Newman do it the best!) but it's an art unto itself to give depth to that job," he explains. "But villains have a very easy way to just blow the camera away. The camera wants to be blown away, you get the cool, low rumbling music, you get to grab people by the throat and throw them against the wall. Yeah, villains are the absolute best you can hope for! Hey, I get to be rude to everyone around me, c'mon!" JM (The Realm)

"Some of the stuff that I adapted for the theater was a readaptation of Life is a Dream, which is the Latin Hamlet. It's a beautiful story, and I was lucky enough to work with someone who had majored in Spanish in college and had done his thesis -- he was a double-major in Spanish and theater -- so he did his thesis on the play -- and so we were able to go back to the original Spanish and see what other translators had done with it. We found huge changes in the plays -- excising scenes, adding their own scenes, changing characters and stuff, and we were really trying to get back to what the playwright had originally done. That was very exciting." - JM

With his California drawl and upbeat demeanour, James appears very different in real life from the caustic and tense English vamp he plays on screen. What goes into creating his TV persona? "It's instinctual and not planned. I'm just responding to the words [in the script]. You read it and it's a lot of work to get what resonates off that page, to actually imprint that on a piece of film. And that's my job, that's the trenches of acting. There is extraordinary power, I've learned, in the close-up. That you can say, 'I'm gonna kill you' in such a way as to mean, 'I love you,' and you can say, 'I love you' in such a way as to mean, 'I'm gonna kill you.' That is my input - it's what you see in my eyes. But as far as what the character goes through, the arcs of the character, the brush strokes, the things that more than anything define the character - those are the words. And those are not me.
" I have tried to learn the lesson that the camera is wanting something real to happen for the first time, wanting to document something real. And so my instinct toward planning things doesn't serve me in film. It serves me well in stage, but it's too artificial for film. And so the best things that are happening [in the performance] are things that I'm not aware of. I call it 'the sandlot.' It's the parameters of the situation. We ask the audience to suspend their disbelief, and there's a way of working in which you suspend your disbelief as well and once you release yourself into that reality, you cannot make a mistake. It's not about planning anything, because really, in your own sick little head, you're really there and you really are Spike. And that's what I'm trying for." JM (Text)

Q: How does one select acting roles?
JM: You know, that is the most important question for an actor because I think actors are servants. They do best when they just want to serve the words and let the words do the work for you. I see a lot of actors saying stuff like “Well, I don’t feel comfortable saying that line. Let’s change the line.” I don’t really believe in that. I think that you have all your decision making when you choose the role and after that process, you are just a servant and your job is just to go along and do it.
I like projects that seem to be about something; have more meat for the audience to hook into and I think are much more satisfying than more empty projects or projects that might be saying things we’ve heard a thousand times. So, I look a lot at the overall script and what the effect is going to be on the audience – that is as important to me as how well my role may be or how big it may be. If you are in the middle of a really great project, you just look better even if you have five lines. It’s a hard question. I’ve spent my life looking for good writing and I think I can recognize it. It’s really the overall writing that I look at, if that makes any sense. Does that help at all? A really opaque answer.
One of your co-actors in a previous play talked about how a prop gun didn’t go off and you had to improvise the scene by saying “Bang!”
JM: [Laughs] Is that Scott Lowell? Yeah, he is on Queer As Folk now. He is a great actor, great guy. (Text)

Q: Stories about when things just go up in theater are the most fun. Do you have other stories?
JM: Yeah, you don’t get stuntmen or that beautiful word “Cut! Let’s go again.”
Well, one [story] that didn’t happen to me. I was doing Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” which has thirty different rhinoceros popping over all the time and I was, like, rhinoceros twenty-eight. The third act revolves around a brandy bottle and all the plot points go through the brandy bottle and they forgot to set the bottle [on stage]. [Chuckles] So Toby Anderson, a fabulous older actor in the lead, could not get off stage to get the bottle. There was no exit for him so there was no way to fix it. So, all the interns were gathered around the backstage just watching this fifty-five year old actor figure out how to tell the story off the cuff. Yeah, he came backstage and he exploded. He was just “F---!”
In general it is my favorite time, when things go wrong because something real happens. It gives a chance for the actors to respond in a real way and in a way that can connect with the audience like nothing else. I remember I was doing “The Tempest” in L.A. and a lot of the characters were barefoot. Mine weren’t but my girlfriend’s were and so were a lot of other people and they broke glass on the stage. Somebody dropped something and there was real glass shattered all over the stage. The audience was uncomfortable, the actors were talking and nobody could figure out how to slyly get all that glass. I just said ‘Guys, I’ll take care of it.’ And in my next entrance, I just stopped the play. I picked up the glass and then started my monologue picking up the glass and just got it out and everyone was just like “Thank God!” [Laughs] An older actor once told me a long time ago, if something goes wrong – admit it. You can’t deny it. Five hundred people just saw it happen so the best thing you can do is go “Bang.” [Laughs] (Text)

Q: Of writing, acting or singing, which gives you the most satisfaction?
JM: I can’t split it up. The singing thing is much more vulnerable and scary to me both because it is live and somehow for me, sustaining a note and producing that sound makes you dig into an emotional realm or at least makes you connected to it. Also, the fact that I am singing my own material or material that I was on hand for when it was being made and I really know what it is about. So there is a real terror of ‘God, I’m going to be too honest today’ and then the joy of ‘Hey, they love it!’ I can’t tell this to my own brother, you know. I can’t tell most of this stuff to anybody but I’m just singing it out and they like it.
Acting for film is a little frustrating. I like to say on stage, the actor is like a chef at Benihana. He gets all the ingredients and he has to create the product at the point of sale, so to speak. So it all goes through him and everybody else is simply giving him ingredients to use to create the art at that time. But in film, you are just one of the ingredients and the chef is the editor who creates the art later. It’s freeing to only be concentrating on the minutiae but it’s also a bit of a smaller job so you end up having to do less of a job but you make it look much better and that is really cool. It’s all different. I don’t know if I have a real preference. I have to say being in front of an audience is something that is probably my favorite thing.
As for writing, I’ve kind of written all my life. I had theater companies in Chicago and Seattle and a lot of our plays were taken from other source material and put into a play or original material. At one point, we translated “La Vida es Sueno” which is “Life is a Dream” which is known as the Latin “Hamlet” written by Pedro Calderon De LA Barca. I was so proud of us because we read all the translations and they all sucked. So we went back and retranslated it and discovered that a lot of liberties had been taken with that play and that maybe a lot of people didn’t know a lot about that play. We did a really successful production of it and I’m really proud of that. Writing music forces you to really get down to the core of what you want to talk about because you can’t use that many words. I call it whining, you know, because a lot of my songs are dark, about love not gotten and all of this stuff but if you can take your pain and make it beautiful, I think that is the best thing. At least that is what I tell myself when I think that I am just whining. (Text)