http://www.dumb-inc.co.nz/delusions/articles/james17.html

Soul Man
by Abbie Bernstein

Buffy Magazine November 2002

It's just a few short months since we last spoke to James Marsters, but in that time the popular character has undergone some pretty radical changes on the show. We find out what's been going down with the new series regular.

    Flashback: July 2001. Filming on Season Six of Buffy is just getting underway. James Marsters says he doesn't know what's going to happen with his lovestruck vampire Spike now that the Slayer is coming back from the dead, but he's sure of one thing: "Do you think that Buffy will ever reciprocate Spike's affection? No. I think that he repels her. I think I'm totally beneath her."
    The present. About that quote...? "Boy, famous last words," James laughs. "'Wow,' is all I can say."
    'Wow' neatly sums up Spike's Season Six storyline. At some points, he is beneath Buffy - literally speaking - during their tumultuous affair. After Buffy breaks off the liaison, insisting that she cannot love someone without a soul, Spike horrifies both Buffy and himself by attempting to force himself on the Slayer. Fuelled by self-loathing, Spike goes to Africa, where he engages in a life-and-death battle that - as we learn in the last moments of the season finale - leads to Spike regaining his soul.
    After all that, please don't ask James where Spike is going from here. In fact, don't even ask where he'd like Spike to go. "What I want for the character has absolutely no bearing on what's gonna happen. And thank God, because it's much more interesting that way. You know, I have given up my preferences. What I want is usually less interesting than what happens. I learned this like three years ago. I wanted what I later figured out every actor wants, which is to beat up guys and kiss chicks. It always devolves back to what [the actor] wants for next season. He'll give you some great storyline, with all of this subplotting, but it will always come down to, he will be kissing girls and kicking butt. And that's just not as exciting. Marti is paid to come up with stuff much more interesting than that. The characters get whiplashed. If you think of any character on our show, they don't go through the same kind of experiences two seasons in a row. They have radically different journeys every year. At least for myself, it has been impossible to get bored. And so, like I told Joss - you may have heard this before - I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster where the first hump is scary and you're screaming, but by the middle of the ride, your head is back, you're laughing, and you don't care any more where you're headed. You're just having fun."
    Okay, maybe there is one aspect he'd like to revisit: "I'd love to go evil one time," James acknowledges. "I would like to explore the opiate of violence once more."
    Not that violence hasn't been abandoned altogether - evil or good, Spike wouldn't be Spike if he weren't trading punches. How much of this is James? "Well, the same thing holds true as always. The basic fighting and all of those moves, I'm doing. All of that flying up against the wall, that's [stunt double] Steve Tartalia. He rocks; he deserves so much credit. He frappes himself all the time."
    However, we often see James and Sarah Michelle Gellar together, rather than their stunt doubles, in Buffy/Spike fight scenes. "Normally, they don't allow actors to fight actors," James notes, "but Sarah and I have been not hurting each other for enough years now that they trust us. We're not going to tag each other. But I think that I came in a little closer to her than the stunt guys do. They always give about this much distance with their passes," he indicates the space with a gesture, "and I give about this much. They commented on that - 'You're getting to close to Sarah, James.' 'That's just my distance. That's just instinctual - that's what I do."
    For all his battles with Buffy, James says of Spike, "He'd probably willingly die for her. He'd be okay with that."
    Despite his century-plus age, James thinks Spike hasn't really grown up yet. "He wears his heart on his sleeve. He's very immature for a vampire, really. He really is the youngest vampire I can think of. Most of them have some kind of perspective by now. You feel they're old." He adopts a Christopher Lee baritone for a wise vamp utterance: "'I've known this for years, I've seen this before, Buffy.' [Spike has] none of that," James laughs. "He's got the maturity of a 17-year-old!"
    Until recently, Spike always wore the coat he took from Nikki - the last Slayer he killed. Many theories have been put forth as to why Spike left his treasured duster behind on Buffy's staircase - haste or symbolism? Spike is likely to miss it more than James will. "There's so much KY [lubricant jelly] on that jacket," he laughs. "They use it for demons - they rub KY jelly on all the prosthetic stuff to make them shiny and I'm always whacking away at demons, so it's like, 'Oh, my God, this jacket is so gross.' Yes, I would love a new costume."
    Not long ago, Spike was immortalised with his own action figure. James observes the pros and cons of having a doll in his likeness: "Given that he's given so many weapons, you wish that he could hold them," he muses. "The two things about action figures that I always appreciate - and I like action figures - are the ability to stand up easily and the ability to hold onto things - two things which my character lacks woefully. I cannot make my action figure stand. I have tried. It's impossible. But it's amazing to have action figure. It's a great likeness, it's a computer replica of my face, so it's exactly right - it's just cooler than heck. I love having an action figure. but I want a good grip next time!"
    I real life, James often has a guitar in his grip when he's not acting, serving as front man for the five-member rock band Ghost of the Robot. Their debut CD, tentatively titled Mad Brilliant, will be released this year, following live shows in Los Angeles and Paris.
    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."
    Another great work experience for James was co-starring in the independent film Chance, written, directed and produced by Buffy colleague Amber Benson. "I thought it was marvellous," says James, who recently got to see a rough cut of the independent movie, which is currently seeking a distributor. "Amber's able to be biting and kind at the same time in her writing, which was a real gift, and I was really happy and proud to be part of her first film."
    James' early career included some rather mundane employment. "Worst job? Washing dishes for a hospital. All of them would come down at one time, and there'd be like 19 carts of dirty, warm dishes. Or just pushing the juice cart for the hospital and laying in the new milk that would not be drunk and take the warm one away [from a patient] on a resuscitator and, oh, man, that was a hard job. I've had a lot of bad jobs." He also had some rough adventures. "I didn't have to be in the places that I chose for myself, but I put myself there anyway. But I always pulled out of that, because I always knew that I had to save myself, because I wanted to be an actor."
    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."