James Marsters
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
By Kate O'hare, UltimateTV

He's got bleached-blond hair, black fingernails and a long, black leather coat. And right now, he's just about awake. "The coffee's working," says actor James Marsters, "I'm breathing. It's good. I have to scrunch my lips and talk strange. I'm in the makeup chair. I'm going to be evil Spike. I look terrible, in a really cool way."

The 30-year-old Marsters (currently on the big screen in "The House on Haunted Hill") joined the cast of the WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (Tuesday, 8 p.m. Eastern) in season two, sacrificing his dark locks for Spike's platinum 'do (add four to seven packets of Sweet 'n' Low to the bleaching solution, he advises, much less painful that way).

He appeared in tandem with Juliet Landau (daughter of actor Martin Landau) as half of a British vampire couple, vicious punker Spike (formerly known as William the Bloody, later Spike for his habit of torturing victims with railroad spikes) and unbalanced, clairvoyant Drusilla. After knocking around Sunnydale for a season - and being knocked around by both Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and good/bad/good-again vampire Angel (David Boreanaz) - Spike gathered up Drusilla and left town. Spike later returned - sans Drusilla - for an episode last season.

This fall he officially joined the regular "Buffy" cast of characters, beginning with a two-part crossover between "Buffy" and its Tuesday-night companion and spin-off series, "Angel," in which Spike battled Buffy and then went to Los Angeles with a vampire torturer in tow to impale Angel (hot pokers this time, not railroad spikes). Now, at the tender age of 126, Spike, who was made a vampire by Angel, faces a crossroads in his life in a Nov. 16 episode called "The Initiative," which offers some answers about the strange, combat-suited soldiers who have been skulking around the campus of Buffy's college and snaring vampires since the season premiere.

For Marsters - who spent a decade in regional theater, from Shakespeare in New York to the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, to the American Conservatory Theatre in Seattle - his role as Spike offers many acting opportunities, beyond the perfectly credible North London accent that the California native is asked to don for the character. Although as bad as they come, Spike has a puckish sense of humor and harbored a real love for Drusilla. He's also no slouch in the fighting department. And if Marsters seems comfortable in hand-to-hand situations, there's a reason for that. "I have had my rough years," he says. "I'm better now, but there were years when I spent a lot more time in emergency rooms and police stations than I do now."

Do tell. "Ummm ..." Tell one, then. "Um, god, well, I was up in Harlem trying to, um, complete a business transaction, and a guy pulled a knife on me ..." Was said transaction for merchandise or, er, personal services? "No, no, no, not personal services. That's the part of it I really ... well, anyway, like I said, I'm better now. Guy pulled a knife on me, and I wasn't carrying anything, so he chased me out of the stairwell. As I came out of the stairwell, I saw a two-by-four on the ground, and I hit him full on the head when he came out the door. "Actually, it's kind of a serious story, because I left him there, and I still, to this day, don't know how he did.

"It was in a very rough section of Upper Harlem, and I'm not sure if anybody would have helped him. "See, these stories I have are not really fun fight stories. They're really stuff I'm not actually that proud of, but, anyway, yes, much better now. I'm much happier now." Was acting the thing that turned Marsters around? "I think just ... I needed to go through that. I had that, then I moved on. A lot of people just need a chapter in their lives when they need to break their skin. And having been there, you quickly discover that the ramifications of living that way are very far-reaching.

"That's the nice thing about 'Buffy.' When you get into a street fight for real, you can deal with the aftermath for years. But here, you can throw someone through a wall, and then you just go home. You don't have to go to the police station, you don't have to go to the doctor, and you shake hands with the guy afterwards and smile." His youthful escapades weren't Marsters' only brush with death. As a fifth-grader, he sliced one leg open on a sprinkler head while playing. He wound up off his feet for a year, enduring staph infections and skin grafts. "I got to read a lot of comic books and build a lot of models," he says.
There was also a life lesson in this. "I discovered that during the times when a person has the license to whine, if that person does not whine, you can store up major brownie points and can, in fact, get more models and more comic books." His makeup finally applied, Marsters is cut loose. "Cool," he says, "I can go outside and be an idiot and smoke." These days, Marsters is a most happy fellow, with a girlfriend (actress Liz Stauber, at last report) and a steady job on what he considers one of the "best-written shows on television."

Granted, Spike's wardrobe is limited to black jeans, engineer boots and that coat, but he did get a new shirt this year. "They made a new one, exactly the same red shirt as I had before. Wonder why I didn't notice that?" He only has one wish. "I just don't want them to stake me. When I came on the show, all I wanted was a good body count and a good death. I want to be struck by a train or something. I've got the body count, but I haven't been given the death, and that's even better."