Marstersverse - Джеймс Марстерс

VasquezE(07/08/07 11:32:07)

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Friday Q&A

Q: What about a Buffy movie?

A: When Angel was finishing Joss approached JM about doing a Spike movie. JM was all for this but said there would be a 7 year time frame for it to happen as otherwise he’d be too old. He thinks Spike’s immortality is a vital part of what makes the character so cool and if he gets too old that will ruin it. He also doesn’t like the idea of them having to turn Spike human or come up with some other excuse to explain the aging. Then again he misses Spike terribly and sometimes feels like abandoning any time limits and trust to moisturizing. Joss told him that he was done with TV and they’d not been able to find anyone outside of TV interested in doing it. JM thinks the CW would love to do a Spike movie, especially after Smallville. He doesn’t think they could do a project without Joss, though in his opinion Joss never seemed the main writer for Spike, he named Douglas Petrie as one of the better writers for Spike. Joss is a great writer but ultimately he didn’t really want JM on his show. However, by trying to marginalize Spike he sort of made Spike the ultimate underdog on the show and with a show that speaks to the underdogs this worked out pretty well for Spike. He isn’t sure Joss realized he’d done that but JM liked it.

When discussing the possible Spike movie Joss said he’d an idea about basing it around a line from one of the Lord of the Rings movies about ‘the price of being good’. Joss asked James for his idea and he pitched the Spike finally gets something for himself. His whole pitch was that Spike can’t win everything because he’s been such an outsider. The plot would essentially be that Spike would lose the battle with the bad guy, meet the woman of his dreams and lose her when she found out he was a vampire but that at the start of the end Spike would have his eye on a great pair of shoes and by the end he’d have managed to get them without stealing them. The shoes thing was in part because he’d only ever had one pair all the time he played Spike. Joss evidently liked the idea because it’d be cheap to do! JMs only other reservation was whether Joss still thought of him as an ingénue which he hadn’t appreciated. He thinks they might have to do a screen test with the bleach to see if JM can still look like Spike before anyone committed to it.

Q: Does he read any of the Buffy comics?

A: He read the one featuring the Black Dahlia which was cool. He had done a comic with Dark Horse which he’d welcomed as he’d though it would give him control which he was missing as a Hollywood actor. So he wrote a romance for Spike and Dru but Dark Horse wanted an ugly comic book which didn’t work with the romance story. He ended up having to explain to Juliet Landau who was upset at being made to look so ugly. Now they always make Spike too pretty and he ignores the comics.

Q: About acting with the Angel puppet?

A: The puppeteers on Angel were so good he had no problem believeing it was Angel but blew some takes through laughing.

Q: Is Buffy a horror show?

A: It used a variety of styles including horror and melodrama and farce. They could flip styles in the same scene and it was great writing. He referenced an Irish playwright who did the same. As a result all the actors had to be good at all of the styles which isn’t common on TV.

Q: What happened with Brainiac?

JM: When he took the role the idea was that he’d turn into Zod but the problem was JM was about 20lb over-weight at the time. He tried to get it into his contract not to take his shirt off because he didn’t want them to see his fat but the first scene was a naked one and in fact that was a kind of audition as to whether he’d be in shape to do Zod and they decided he wasn’t and re-worked the story to make Lex Zod. They didn’t tell JM this. He liked the first half of the season as JM knew what the character was up to even though none of the other characters knew what he was up to. James didn’t mind not becoming Zod but didn’t know what his character was doing. Actors are doers rather than thinkers so if you don’t know what your character is doing you can only pose and be a poser. Posing as acting offends him so by the end of the season he just wanted out and left the show at the end of the season. He has no idea what he was doing in the finale, he didn’t even know who the character he was talking to in the field, he thought she was on the show but had no idea.

Q: About his character on Torchwood?

JM: He can’t tell us anything other than it will offend some, excite and titillate others. It’s a European show which means they’re freer about sexuality than in the US. He thinks they wrote the episode to include the coolest character imaginable and then re-did it with even more added coolness. It’s currently being re-written again.

Q: Accents for Torchwood?

A: He wants to do a British accent as then he will be more accepted as just a normal character. He has two basic accents, lower class and the upper class which is more plumy (he gave an example of both). He’d prefer to use his lower class accent.

Q: Would he take a role in the Dresden Files?

A: Yes, because he thinks it comes from good source material. He declined auditioning for the lead because of the filming in Canada and he didn’t want to uproot the children and disrupt their schooling but he’d be fine with a few episodes.

Q: Which character on Dresden does he relate to best?

A: Harry because he reads the books from Harry’s perspective. He sees Harry as a guy who is slightly overloaded by the world which is how he feels. He also loves the guy meting out justice with a big sword.

Q: About audio books?

A: He’d love to do more as he does a lot of driving to visit his son and he’s listened to all the non-fiction on audio he can find.

Q: Acting or singing?

A: He’s better at acting and is trained in it which he didn’t for singing. He has no fear with acting but does for singing.

Q: Was it his decision to jump in the elevator on “House on Haunted Hill”?

A: He thought of a Cosby monologue. It was his decision as that moment isn’t rational so he’d be jumping as he wouldn’t want to be hopeless.

Q: About filming Shadow Puppets – acting with nothing there.

A: It’s just like playing when you’re a child. On the stage you do it for 3 hours while for film you have to do it for 15 seconds at a time which is harder and which is why the method is useful.

Q: Craft vs Art of acting.

A: He invoked the sandbox, where you know the range of your characters in your mind and then you just have to play as you know what your character will do. So it’s very like playing when a child. In Hollywood it’s being forced to have fun now or else your fired!

Q: Will he be at comic-con?

A: He has a couple of projects which would like him there but it’s a scheduling problem and they’re trying to work it out. He estimated a 10% chance he’d be there.

Q: About staying fresh for autographs and photographs?

A: Everyone pays the same, and he’s had tougher jobs and he’s lucky people want to see him. The more people who go through the line the more money you make but you still need to give some part of yourself otherwise it’s a rip off.

Q: About courage

A: He has always had a problem in that when he’s in situations when he should be scared he does the opposite which has got him beaten up and in trouble in the past but it just isn’t logical. Like he’d say eff off to the guy with a gun to his head wanting his wallet rather than giving it up.

Q: About love

A: He tries to look at things from a biological standpoint. To him women are like butterflies and men are like freight trains. The important thing for a woman is to choose the best mate for having children which means she has to be able to get out of a relationship quickly if needed. Men in contrast take a long time to get going in relationships but once committed they stay committed. If any of his exes were in real trouble he’d have to help even though he’s no longer with them.

Q: About evolution

A: There hasn’t been time for evolution and we’re essentially the same people who first came out of Africa.

Q: What documentary would he like to do on the Discovery Channel?

A: The birth of the desert religions which all came out of the same place around the same time. They arose from a matriarchal society and seemed to be marked with a shift to patricarchy. The shift to agricultural society gave more power to the women and the desert religions moved it to the patriarchy. He thinks that this works on a pendulum and goes back and forth.

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Sunday's Q&A report.

He opened by talking a little about how he used to go to conventions as a kid with his Spock ears and eyebrows and with his tricorder and never had more fun. He decided he was a freak and that was OK.

Q: Who would win in a fight between puppet Spike and puppet Angel.
A: Spike because he think Spike would fight dirty. Angel is more mature and has found greater peace and would probably try and win without really hurting Spike while Spike would be absolutely trying to kill Angel. Angel isn’t a wimp though and neither was David. During the fight scene in Destiny David had dreadful knee problems and yet they made him do all these fight moves and he just did it. JM has enormous respect for David after all that.

Q: Which puppet part will fall off first?

A: He’d go for the nose.

Q: About his many injuries?

A: He is quite a wreck and he does wonder how much longer he can go on pretending to be youthful. However, if he does the right exercises he’s generally OK. Immediately after Angel he could barely walk and was crawling to the chiropractor. He’s also decided its better to let the stunt men do their job rather than doing stunts himself. Don’t try and prove your manhood via doing stunts let the stunt men make you look good.

Q: What does he do when not working?

A: He likes video games. We come from hunter gatherers but in modern society there isn’t much need for hunters and video games are the place where you can go to be a violent horrible person. He also likes to watch TV – particularly CNN, History Channel, the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. He just saw a show about helium 3 which is going to be the next big fuel source for fusion reactions as it’s better than hydrogen. Sadly there’s no helium 3 on the earth but there’s lots on the moon. This is why the US is going back to the moon which JM thinks will probably be the site for the next big energy war.

Q: Which would he choose to view the future or the past?

A: He’d like to see the future but would be frightened of what he’d see and fears he’d wimp out. As he has children he’d have to choose the future so he could best advise them what to do and where to live ‘Buy Alaskan real estate!’

Q: About Tony Todd being scared of the places they filmed Shadow Puppets and anecdotes about the film?

A: It was a low budget horror film so they couldn’t afford to build sets and instead took them to some really horrid places to shoot and they were all in underwear and barefoot. JM doesn’t think Tony was so much scared as disgusted as there were rats and broken glass lying around. He enjoyed the shoot though. He loved working with Tony who’s a huge guy but really nice to work with. JM loved having fight scenes with Tony especially as they followed a fight with a stuntman who wasn’t so good. Tony Todd did rip James off though as he lent him a video game for his PSP and never got it back but it was OK.

Q: Will he kiss Captain Jack on Torchwood?

A: He’d like to but he’s never seen the guy but assumes he’s hot because everyone is so interested.

Q: As he and Gordon Brown (new UK PM) are both sons of ministers what advice would he give him?

A: JM didn’t mind Tony Blair because he didn’t think any British prime minister could have refused to help America in their war after World War 1 and 2. (Questioner mentions that Harold Wilson did just that when refusing to enter Vietnam which JM conceded was a good point). JM has concerns going to London right now because of the bomb scares and fully expects a cavity search which he will be fine with because the British problems are down to the US. Follow Jesus. JM believes Jesus existed as a human being and he admires the philosophy but isn’t interested in the divine aspect. The key bit being we all screw up and we all need forgiveness from each other and this was adopted by the likes of Ghandi and Martin Luther King. He’d love to know what a modern day Jesus would do to the World Bank considering that back in the day Jesus took a bullwhip to the temple. Wouldn’t he take an Uzzi to anyone who made his wife a whore? He would be a radical and James loves the idea. (Asked about Dick Cheney) He’s created hell on earth but he’d have to live in it.

Q: About production of Civilised Man?

A: He hopes the next CD will be less produced. The producers of CM didn’t really like his songs and they battled with him over it all. He considered firing them but he’d already spent so much it was hard to do. Next time he plans to do just with bass, guitar and drums but definitely no strings.

Q: When will the new CD arrive?

A: His business manager told him he’d lost money on the first CD and he can’t do that as a parent but his manager tells him that’s wrong so he’ll be getting in touch with a producer when he gets back to LA.

Q: About his butterfly and freight train theory and isn’t it patriarchical and that many women do raise children and the fathers do not stay around?

A: He welcomed the chance to have a proper argument. In JMs family the men raise the children and the women disappear. He doesn’t feel he is part of the patriarchy or that he is sexist and was raised in a very feminist household. He just tries to understand humans as animals and while we have elements such as intellect that bring us above animals it is a thin cap over our primate brain. We are still hardwired for the Serengetti and at that level no nothing of birth control. He feels men now need a sexual revolution rather like women did in the 1970s when they stood up and said that men did not see them for what they were but instead saw cartoons and stereotypes and maybe should instead think of women as men. JM would like to stand up and say that women don’t see men for what they are and actually they are very like women. Men can be great parents to their children and it is important that men are just as involved in child rearing as women are. (This last part was the common ground for both JM and the questioner)

Q: About the scene with Lisa Kudrow in PSILY where they discussed whether his character had a butt?

A: The scene consists of Lisa’s character arguing that she can objectify men because she has been objectified as a woman. JM didn’t like this as he thought the argument was sexist. By that logic as he’d been abused sexually as a child that means he could now rape women because it had happened to him and that is doesn’t work that way. He and Lisa discussed it before the scene shot and he’d never met Lisa before and afterwards they had real trouble doing the scene because she didn’t believe it. He was very worried that he’d get into trouble if the director found out and it was his first day of shooting.

Q: Yes but does he have a butt?
A: He has what is termed a black butt –high and round – unless he hasn’t been working out in which case it’s a little whiter.

Q: Ideas for a TV show?

A: He’d had ideas for 2 shows which aren’t possible now. He’d wanted to do a show about a black cop and a white cop who hated each other but had to work together. This occurred to him after the Rodney King fall out. However it’s been done and is an outdated idea. The other idea was for a Star Trek story which he had before they did ‘Enterprise’. He was interested in how they got from the World War to the utopia of Kirk and Picard. He thought out this whole story where the most brutal commander in the war who was the one prepared to drop nuclear bombs on the Muslim enemies is the one called to make the peace and during the peace process he is murdered and this is seen on TV by his young son. The show then leaps forward to the son all grown up and in star fleet and he is sent out to lead the first space mission which is manned by all races who all hate each other and the arc is this commander guy learning to care about things. They’d go off on their first mission see aliens and come racing back because they’d be scared and it’d be a lot of people messing up getting people killed and being scared. He has no idea about cast as you’d just have to see hundreds of people to find your perfect cast.

Q: Why is he surprised by the audience reaction to his music?

A: He thinks it’s normal for people to have problems taking a compliment. Fame is toxic to the soul so he tries to keep some perspective on things.

Q: Moments of awe with his children?

A: His son writing his first song. How his son deals with his younger brothers in a calm but assertive manner and gets them to do what he needs for them to do. JM feels he’s given those skills to his son. His niece winning a cheerleading contest. James was a subversive artist so was shocked to be sitting watching a cheerleading event but then they got up and did their thing and did their pyramid and they won and it was great.

Q: About his farm?

A: It’s mostly walnuts with some almonds and corn. They have a horse and chickens and a big dog. He does no work on the farm himself. He lives in a cottage and the guy who lives in the farmhouse does all the work. James waves and says hi and then gets to spend his time playing with the children rather than farming.

Q: Cat person or dog person?

A: A cat person mostly because he used to have to look after his mothers dogs. He used to have a cat they got in New York. They went intending to get a cute kitten but then found Zachary who just wouldn’t go back in his cage and drew blood. They had to keep him indoors as was the alpha male on the block. He had him for 14 years and he died on his couch during Buffy, he probably kept him a year too long but he felt he didn’t want to lose him.

Q: Difference between boys and girls as a parent.

A: Hard to generalize but girls develop a need for intimacy very early on. Boys play violent games because they want to prove their manhood which is the ability to enforce peace. In contrast girls are all about making friends and connections. Without women no one would talk to each other.

Q from Steve Himber: Why is he so frisky this weekend?

A: Because he had lots of sleep and no one grabbed his ass all weekend.