Even if you’re doing a really sad play, having fun is the centre of it, and I was having a blast. You’ve got to have fun or it’s worth nothing. The audience isn’t going to pay the actor to just walk, they are paying to watch an actor play. There is a saying in theatre that it’s called a play for a reason. That the character fit well, and it gave me a lot of room to manoeuvre – I was having a lot of fun exploring Spike. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for School Hard which is my first episode, that was an intense experience and it was such a good one because I felt from the very first scene that it was working. The other thing about The Body, is that I got the week off, my character wasn’t in that at all so I got time to rest. She goes from being a high school student to starting college to losing her mother and then Dawn arriving in her life, which effectively made her a mother in quick succession. It is when Buffy really must grow up fast. The Body was just an episode about a young woman whose mother died and I think that the show proved that it was dramatically strong. I think Joss really proved that with that, the show didn’t need jokes, it didn’t need vampires or special effects.
JM: Oh, I have many! It’s very hard to pick one! I think my favourite is The Body. Do you have a favourite episode of the show? I think that everyone that worked on Buffy really was at the top of their game, but there really was something about the mixture of everyone that really was more than the sum of their parts. You can’t say that Mick Jagger did the whole thing or that Keith Richards did the whole thing – it was something almost indescribable. Kind of like the Rolling Stones – they are just amazing, but their solo albums, they are not bad, but they are not the Rolling Stones. It’s an alchemy – you don’t quite know why it’s working so well. I also miss the writing, Buffy was the mixture of a lot of good things – kind of like being in a band. One that takes them places that they normally wouldn’t go – both physically and mentally. JM: Yeah! I think that every actor is wanting a role that is very challenging and asks a lot. Spike must have been a real career-defining role for you, do you miss stepping into those shoes? Normally in a television show, you know what kind of things you’re going to be asked to do, but with Joss you really have no idea what you’re going to be put through, or what you’re going to put yourself through in order to get that on film. There were times I was afraid of reading the next script for what Joss was going to make me feel in the next week. He’s not interested characters that are always happy and so if you really give your heart over to the role, which I did, it can hurt you. What was hard is that Joss is not interested in keeping the audience safe. It leads you through your journey so in that way, it was very easy to come up with ideas for the character. You get to follow the script, and when the script is very good – it’s very inspiring. It was easy to be an actor in that you have a script, a piece of art that you are inspired by. JM: It was both very challenging and very easy. Spike bordered the fine line of baddy / goodie / romantic interest for Buffy – how was it developing that character over the seasons? Was it a challenge? You never quite know when any of that is going to happen. JM: Buffy is a rollercoaster ride, it will make you laugh, it will make you very angry and it will break your heart.
Buffy has a devoted fan base, but how would you describe Buffy The Vampire Slayer to new audiences who might not have fallen in love with Sunnydale? So, I think that the writing on Buffy was the sustained act of vulnerability. One of the writers once told me years ago when they were writing scripts for Buffy, Joss told them to come up with their worst day, the day they got hurt or the day they hurt someone so badly that they don’t talk about it. I didn’t make Buffy, I was in Buffy, so I can say without bragging that it really was a good show and the theme resonates with people of all ages.
I think what Joss was saying is that the world hurts sometimes, but it’s worth it and don’t give up. For Joss Whedon, the vampires and the demons of Buffy are just metaphors for challenges that you face when you’re in adolescence and when you discover that the world is not perfect. Specifically, in Buffy it’s about a teenager going through high school. JM: I think that it has a wonderful central theme which is ‘don’t give up’. Buffy is a cult phenomenon - what is it about Buffy that you think audiences have connected with and have stuck with for all these years? To celebrate Buffy The Vampire Slayer launching on All 4 and E4, we sat down (virtually) with James Marsters - who played notorious bad guy Spike - to discuss all things Buffy.
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