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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/Setje/SPANGEL%20incl%20James%20pix/jamesscan1small.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/Setje/SPANGEL%20incl%20James%20pix/jamesscan2small.jpg Buffy Magazine issue 71 April 2005
Transcribed by Setje [CDS]
Marsters Mind
By Natalie Clubb
You might think that since the end of Buffy and Angel, James Marsters would be taking a break and making the most of some well-earned time off – but there’s no such thing for this popular actor ! Buffy Magazine caught up with James to talk about Spike, his new tv roles, his solo album and the possibility of starring in West End Play…
“I’m a big believer in honesty,” says James Marsters. “Good acting is not putting on a mask. Good acting is revealing yourself. So hopefully what you see [on stage] is me.” For the last seven years, what we’ve mainly seen of James is his blond, bad-boy alter-ego, Spike. But there’s a lot more to this actor than peroxide, a pair of fangs and a black leather coat.
Before he landed his first acting role, James earned a living waiting tables in a Chicago hotel lobby. Luckily, it wasn’t long before he got his break in theatre and established a good reputation for himself. The rest, as they say, is history!
Of course, to his legions of fans, James will always be Spike – the role that turned him into a house-hold name – and he is more than happy to reminisce about his time on the show,. But after all those episodes, can James pick the one that he is most proud of?
“ ‘Fool for Love’,” he decides after some deliberation, “because we found out that Spike was not a tough guy before he was a vampire – which I Had always assumed that he was – and the character obviously opened up greatly because of that. I never would have made that transition [without that episode]. And also, ‘Fool for Love’ just because it went well enough that I got a permanent job!” he jokes. “Although, the acting in it sometimes makes me cringe! It’s not as subtle as I’d like, and as I can be now.”
Maybe it isn’t a surprise that the Season Five Spike-centric episode ranks highly in James’ Buffy favourites, but what about his proudest Angel moments? “I don’t know,” he admits. However, after some consideration, he finally comes to a decision. “ ‘The Girl in Question’, because Dvid Greenwalt was directing it, and because I finally got enough scenes with David that we could really start riffing together.
“David is actually one of the better actors I’ve worked with in Hollywood,” James reveals of his Angel co-star. “He has the ability to improvise suddenly between takes so that you’re never trying to recreate a moment, you’re creating another moment. And that was very exciting. At that point, “ he laughs, “I thought Angel should go on for another 20 years!” And if Angel had gone for another season, how does James think Spike and Angel’s relationship would have developed?
“Angel was very clearly the big brother,” he says with a smile.
While there were lots of good times and positive experiences on both shows, James wasn’t always happy with every change his character underwent. “[I didn’t always like] when I had to wear different costumes. The Hawaiian shirt I didn’t fit at all. I’d just come on the show and I was told I was supposed to be the ‘new Cordelia’ – the person that says to Buffy that she’s stupid and she’s going to die. They wanted me to do that, but they kept having me [running about] in a smoking blanket, and it was failing – I was starting to think that my future on the show wasn’t looking that good. Then they put me in a clown suit, and I thought ‘that’s it. Why don’t we just chop the character up and flush him down the toilet!”
However, the costumes weren’t all bad.
“The one time I liked the different costume was in ‘Tabula Rasa’,” he smiles. “That was the one I enjoyed.”
Away from television, James is also an experienced theatre actor. In fact, before joining the Buffyverse, James even owned his own theatre company, The New Mercury Players, and for a while, got to stage the productions that he really anted to see brought to life. “I was at such a low operating cost, I could choose plays solely on how entertaining and thought-provoking they were,” he explains, “so we just read about what everyone was doing, and read the scripts, and chose the ones that excited us the most.
“We were a 60-seat house, and if we sold 35 seats we could cover our operating costs. We ended up covering over 75 per cent of our operating costs over the two-and-a-half years we were operating, which is really good.” Unfortunately, as James explains, things took a turn for the worse. “I had to close my theatre – all the shows were selling out, but I didn’t save the money. And then I had two plays that didn’t sell so well…”
However, the bad experience didn’t put James off of theatre. In fact, he admits that he’d love to follow in the footsteps of his former Buffy colleague, Alyson Hannigan, and tread the boards here in the UK. “I would love to come to London [to do a stage play], “James reveals. “I’d like to do a Stephen Berkoff. Stephen Berkoff is all about sweating and passion? Sounds a bit like Spike if you ask us…
So if that’s James’ ideal play, what would his ideal director be like? “Someone who has a personality that is interesting enough to inspire me and get excited about the ideas,” he shares. “The ability to encapsulate what he’s talking about in a very few number of words, so he can get out of your way and you can get on with it. I don’t want one of those directors who’s so charming that you can’t get him off the stage! And you want a director who can cast well, because if the cast can play well, 85 per cent of the job is done.
Any good director understands that.”
However, acting, whether it’s in the theatre or on TV, isn’t the only passion in James’ life. For along while now, the actor has made no secret of his love for music.
Until last year, he fronted Ghost of the Robot, but when he dissolved the band because of work commitments, many fans feared that it would be the last we’d hear of James’ vocal talents. Happily, that is not the case – and later this year, following a series of UK solo concerts, James is planning on releasing his first solo album, which features a new acoustic sound from the former rocker. “[The album is] proceeding well and it’s got a softer sound, a more mature sound, and more in the Norah Jones range,” he reveals. “It is also, frankly, the sound that is closer to what I Hear when I’m writing the songs and, this is not a shot against Ghost of the Robot, but whenever you give your song to a band, it gets run through the filter of the band and becomes a band song and the band stamps it as much as you do, almost. So it’s just kind of nice to hear something that’s really close to what I heard when I wrote it.
“[The new album] is mostly material that was going to be on [Ghost of the Robot’s] second album, [although] there’s one old song that I’m going to re-record, called ‘Smile.’ So, if people went to the [Ghost of the Robot] shows they would have heard these songs before, but the are reinterpreted,” he adds with a smile, “And I like what I’m hearing. I think [the album’s] going to grow to 13 songs, but I’m paying for it, so we were talking about 10, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be 13 tracks.”
However, theatre and music aside, James is still very much concentrating on his television career, and has undertaken several projects since the end of Angel. The first of these was a guest spot on the WB drama The Mountain, which, as James explains, he really enjoyed.” [The Mountain] was really great. I took it because the role was flawed, and I Like flawed characters – they give you something to get your teeth into. I play an alcoholic father of a kid who ruins his own chances. He loves his son a lot. The guy playing my son, a guy named Penn, is a really good actor. He’s one of these really good actors who you just look at and he hangs with you and you improvise together. And he loves jazz like I do, so on that level it was really great. Plus, Vancouver rocks!”
Still, it must have seemed strange to be playing such a different character to Spike?
“It was refreshing – less demanding,” he admits. “Staying focused on [Spike’s] accent was a bitch!”
So now that James has undertaken one new TV role, are there any other current shows that he’d like to appear in? “Law and Order. A procedural,” he decides after some reflection. “I think those are brilliant shows because they don’t try to do character development. The big danger in television is that you stand around and talk about your feelings, which is not active. And unfortunately, television is too hard, it takes a lot of sophisticated writing to define a character through action, through what it decides to do, and how it decides to get what it wants. That is the best character development – not standing around and talking about yourself.
“The good thing about procedural shows is that they don’t try to develop characters, so it’s always about story and it’s always active and they cast really good actors who nevertheless create a character, and that’s what they’re there for. I think it’s a great solution to ones of the big problems I’ve seen on television, which is too much of that sentimental talking about your feelings around the kitchen sink. It’s what we didn’t do in Buffy – not much. We did a little, but not much.”
So, having discussed his time in the Buffyverse, the theatre, his music and his new projects, is there anything left for James to say? It would appear so – and he dedicates it to his fans, and the fans of both Buffy and Angel.
“You guys are the coolest!” he exclaims.
“I’ve met a lot of you and you’re hip, frankly. I think you need to be to appreciate [Buffy and Angel]. Both shows call for an appreciation of irony – even the name Buffy the Vampire Slayer is like a line in the sand. It’s like Joss saying, “’people who don’t get it, don’t bother’. So it’s been wonderful and [the fans have] been as passionate about it as I have.
Which I have not previously found. I used to not meet many people that were as passionate as I was about things, and now I’m meeting hundreds. It’s been a great ride,” he concludes with a smile, “a really, really great ride.”
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