Cool cannot be affected. It is a state of being, of movement and thought, the combination of a plethora of physical, emotional and intellectual characteristics melded into one. Errol Flynn possessed it, Humphrey Bogart seeped it, Mickey Roarke lost it, and James Marsters, who portrays British bad-boy vampire Spike on the hit WB show BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, bleeds it. His demeanor exudes none of the standard Hollywood actour narcissism, nor does it the psuedo-intellectualism of many, James coming across as one unaware of his coolness; self-deprecating in regards to his obvious intellect, his knowledge of art and history formidable but used without measured step, his presence affable, honest and engaging. It is no wonder that his portrayal of Spike on BUFFY infused new blood (excuse the pun) into a show which seemed, without a truly interesting villain, to waver during its first season. That of course was all to end the moment James crashed his ‘59 black Desoto into the ‘Welcome to Sunnydale’ sign, bringing to the show an era of black leather, rebellious posture, dry humour and impeccable timing.

Commenting on the role (and how it was he acquired it, as well as his feelings in regards to BUFFY’s social responsibility, the Goth sub-culture, his adolescence and time spent at Julliard and the upcoming seasons of BUFFY and Angel, among others), the twenty-nine year old actor stated to HorrorOnline (in a Venice restaurant of his choice, free from the posturing of more Hollywood-esque eateries), “It was about three months after I moved here when I got the call. I said ‘BUFFY the what?’ There is something about that name that is so Joss Whedon, that it begs you not to take it seriously. I watched the show, and I wanted the part. They had been looking for a ‘Spike’ for a long time and hadn’t found him, so they ‘cast the net’ wider as they say. I went in, and at the time I had just got together with my current girlfriend (actress Liz Stauber of TEACHING MRS. TINGLE) and I felt sexy as hell, so it just came together.”

Described by many as the ‘Sid Vicious’ to Juliet Landau’s character of Druscilla, James expounded upon the original concept of Spike, stating that “they had also thought of exploring a Southern character, so I went in with a Cajun accent, which was sexy in a relaxed way, but I didn’t feel it was as edgy or as dangerous (as the British accent). So I auditioned in both, and I decided to just go for it. I think there is something overtly theatrical about the character... he’s not really bound by realism, so I just decided to unleash. When you do that, you either make a brave fool of yourself, or you get the role, and I have done both in the past!

(In regards to the Sid comparison) I keep getting Billy Idol, which is no offense to Billy, but when you are supposed to be Sid, you think, ‘Man, I’m just not getting it!’” James expounded with laughter. “I remember once, Joss said to me on the set, ‘Can I have a bit more Tim Roth and a bit less Lawrence Olivier, please?’

"We (Juliet and I) just crawled all over each other for about five minutes…"

James didn’t land the part in the initial audition, and upon receiving his call-back was aware that his acceptance was contingent upon Juliet’s approval, as the role of Druscilla had been written implicitly for her. Arriving at his final audition, James found that “Joss (Whedon) and David (Boreanaz) were there, as well as Juliet (Landau). There was a chemistry between us immediately. We had only spoken about five words to one another outside the audition, and I was hoping that she liked me, because I knew that if we ‘clicked’ that I was in.”

In keeping with James unabashed attitude, the audition was not your typical one, James clinging to his sink-or-swim mind-set. “We (Juliet and I) just crawled all over each other for about five minutes, and when it was done David said, ‘I just love these two!’”

Although the characters of Spike and Druscilla have become an integral part of the show, Whedon’s initial concept differed slightly, James’ role being a bit more disposable. “He was supposed to die three to four episodes after being introduced,” James explained. “Supposedly Angel was going to go bad, and Juliet was to be his girlfriend, and Angel was going to kill me as his first bad-boy thing to do.’” It would appear however that sometimes there are things far worse than death, as James was soon to find.

“Having not killed me, they needed something to do with the character, so they put me in a wheel-chair. I didn’t really process at the time that it was the better thing to happen; I was just really frustrated. I hated that damn wheel-chair! I wanted to be up fighting Buffy! And then on top of it I had to watch my girlfriend (Druscilla) climb all over Angel, and have him in my face with his ‘roller-boy’ comments! I was quite ready to get out of the chair. In fact, in the scene where I finally get out of it, I kicked it hard enough hoping that if it broke the prop department wouldn’t have enough money to fix it, and would have to let me out!”

"We kind of formed our own group of people, centered around a rock-n-roll band, that didn't care if people liked us or not."

With Spike alive, er, Undead and well, the character is poised to make a return to both BUFFY’s season four and its spin-off ANGEL, and although James’ notoriety has increased, his portrayal earning him countless fans as well as an upcoming feature film role (THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL), things weren’t always so. James, who grew up in California’s central valley, commented on his youth.

“Modesto was a great place to grow up. It was wide-open, and was relatively safe. You could ride your bike outside of town, and play in the orchards, swim in the canals, and play war in the ditches. It was great up until I was about fourteen, and then I wanted to get out as soon as possible, because I wanted things it couldn’t offer.”

In keeping with his perhaps unintended but entirely genuine coolness, James said of his teen years, “I wasn’t really in sync with my class-mates, as far as priorities or world views. I had a good group of friends. We liked to piss people off. We kind of formed our own group of people, centered around a rock-n-roll band, that didn’t care if people liked us or not.”

James however didn’t fit the cliché of your typical, under-achieving rebel, and early on his aspirations were high. He was to find, as so many do not, that these dreams were to come true.

"They kicked my butt out of Julliard; they didn't like me! All the British people hated me."

“From sixth grade on I wanted to be an actor. It’s weird, because I knew what schools I wanted to attend, I knew how long I wanted to hang out and do theater, and I knew that I wanted to come to L.A. It’s strange, because when I finally got to L.A. I remembered that as a child I had set up these goals, and although I had thought that I had forgotten the plan in itself, I suppose that I hadn’t.”

James did indeed do theater, as well as attending the prestigious Julliard, although there things didn’t go as he necessarily had envisioned. Ironically, given his current and amazingly successful portrayal of the English vampire Spike, James said, “They kicked my butt out of Julliard; they didn’t like me! All the British people hated me.”

Put another notch on his coolness belt; James has apparently never been one to indulge in mediocrity, and his concern for exceeding the status quo landed him in trouble. Said the actor, “We were doing this play called the DISCOVERY PLAY, and there was this wonderful Broadway actress who was directing it, but she wasn’t directing us at all! Being that it was the first play of the first year, and that its name was such as it was, I thought they wanted to ‘discover’ what we could do if they just let us go; if we were going to be able to pull the story together, how much help we would need... .”

Continued James, “About a week before opening it seemed to me that everyone was just jerking off, and being very indulgent, and I finally stood up and ragged us all out collectively, saying, ‘People are going to come to watch this! They are going to give us three hours of their lives! We have to care whether we are boring or not!’ Well, apparently the director didn’t like this at all, and it was just downhill from there on out.”

Still, James gleaned quite a bit from the curriculum, and although he perhaps didn’t agree with the methods of teaching, his thirst for knowledge (which was quite obvious during the interview, as well as was his degree of such) didn’t deter him from coming away with varying perspectives. “They have a very technical way of working at Julliard,” James illuminated. “They say they want to strip out your instincts, and then build the actor back up, and I think there is something flawed in that. I have always felt that you should just be yourself, and not ‘act.’ It’s much more brave to just reveal yourself. One of the teachers there did say something which has always stuck with me though; ‘Acting is being private in public.’ It sounds very simple, but is probably something which would take a lifetime to catch.”

James continued, stating, “Someone else once said that ‘the only time animals stare at one another is when they are thinking about eating each other.’ When people stare at you and you are aware of it, on a very instinctual level you want to run, and you have to overcome that, to either be brave enough or desperate enough. Anyway, I’m glad Julliard kicked me out. They were brutal about it, but the way they worked just didn’t work for me.”

After a stint in theater honing his skills, James arrived in Los Angeles, quickly securing ( “after a hundred or so auditions” ) the role of Spike. His personification of the character not only communicates an understanding of the horror genre (James stated that the first horror film which affected him was Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, the actor having at the age of four “snuck out in the middle of the night. They were showing it on CREATURE FEATURES when it was hosted by the guy with the big glasses and the cigar (Bob Wilkins). The film was clean and straight-ahead. It stuck with me a long time.” , but has also captured the hearts of a legion of fans, many of them belonging to the often-misunderstood ‘Goth’ sub-culture, whom at times seem to favor him even over the much adored Angel (David Boreanaz). Said James in regards to his supporting character, “I have the advantage of not having to be the lead. With a smaller role, I have always felt that you have the option of painting it with a thicker brush. With a smaller amount of screen time, it enables me to make my point a lot more theatrically.”

"I like Goths. So far as I understand it, it is a romantic movement..'

In regards to his spooky following, James stated, “I like Goths. So far as I understand it, it is a romantic movement, which is anti-intellectual, which I completely dig. I think the intellect is highly overrated. There are voices deeper than the intellect. I don’t want to say that people who are into the Goth movement aren’t smart, it’s that romanticism comes from the heart, which is deeper than the surface intellect which we are so proud of in this culture.”

Yet again, put another notch on his coolness belt; he gets it. Invariably this led to a discussion in regards to the public’s attack on the sub-culture, as well as its venomous assault on Hollywood in the wake of this year’s earlier high school shootings. Commenting on the question of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’S responsibility beneath such politically-motivated finger pointing, and the WB’s decision to pull two of it’s season three episodes to be broadcast at a later date in lieu of such atrocities (EARSHOT and GRADUATION: PART TWO), James communicated eloquently his thoughts.

"I wouldn't like to see story-telling shy away from the darker or more sexual aspects of life…"

“I think that throughout the life of art and story-telling there is a great danger in taking stories to literally, which is to say that just because an author portrays a character doing something, does not necessarily mean that the author agrees with it, and may in fact be making a point that it isn’t the right thing to do. I wouldn’t like to see story-telling shy away from the darker or more sexual aspects of life for safety reasons, but I think the acid test is ‘what is the author saying?’ or ‘what themes is the author exploring?’ I think BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER is about a young girl who is trying to have a successful life in the face of her job, which frankly gets in her way; who is trying to hang onto her friends, and trying to hang onto her boyfriend, and trying to find out who she is. Joss uses horror as a dramatic metaphor for the scary experiences that everybody has while growing up. It is almost a small step to take someone’s normal high-school experience, with all of the people who get in your way and the difficult situations you find yourself in, and add fangs. What that does is allow him to approach these subjects more honestly and bravely than others shows.

Sarah said something very interesting on the subject,” James continued. “After returning from Europe she was hit in the face with the whole Columbine thing. Her response was that BUFFY is aired in Europe as well, and there doesn’t seem to be violence similar to it there. I’m not saying that story-tellers don’t have a responsibility, but I think there is something else going on in America that has a great impact. I think that shows which treat violence as candy are responsible. I really don’t want Joss to stop dealing with these issues. Story-telling is a very potent art form, and it does have an effect on people. I don’t want to skirt that responsibility, but I think that BUFFY is responsible. To really address the issue, you have to start criticizing the motives. It is unfortunately so much easier to attack a particular segment, as opposed to looking more deeply. Kids who are at risk will find a delusional way of looking at things, whether it be through religion, television or what not. It’s psychologically easy to put a face to your fear, as opposed to having to deal with the real issue.”

Although the WB may have held back the aforementioned episodes in regards to sensitivity, it would appear that Joss Whedon and company have no inclination of halting production on either BUFFY or ANGEL (a good thing, in that the series’ topics, although thinly veiled by horror, are topical in regards to today’s youth, dealing with these issues in what I feel is a responsible and moralistic way). Does this mean we get to see the return of Spike, who after being cast from Sunnydale at the end of season two made only a brief, drunken appearance? Of course we do.

“Spike comes back to Sunnydale, and is more vicious than he has ever been before!” stated James. “They are putting me in a lot more, and any worries I may had had that they were going to bland the character of Spike have been put to rest. I will say that I get to make life so very hard for Angel, and that I get to cause him enormous physical pain. As much as I love David, the thought of causing pain to the character of Angel makes me very happy! Suffice it to say that Spike will be around quite a bit on BUFFY, as well as few times on ANGEL!”

James, obviously quite pleased with the role, is also apparently quite impressed with the professionalism and commitment of his ensemble cast. Commenting on David Boreanaz’s thespian endurance, James stated that, “I once saw him break a 2x4 with his head! There was a slight accident on the set, and he went careening, through no fault of his own, through the side of Buffy’s house, and everyone was like, ‘Is David dead? Is David dead?’ And he got up and was like, ‘Wow, well that hurt. Let’s go again.’ He didn’t even whine once.”

James, not content with simply one story in regards to David’s injuries, continued. “When I was on ANGEL last week, he had just been in a car accident, and we had him in chains the whole day; fourteen hours hung up from the ceiling. We never would have known that he was in pain, until I caught him when he thought no one was looking. He was hurting, but he never would have admitted it. I’m really lucky, because I work with some really great people.”

"Optic Nerve amazes me man!"

In addition to Joss Whedon’s amazingly sharp script-writing, as well as BUFFY’s cadre of dedicated talent, the show’s effects have always lent a definite flair. Optic Nerve, BUFFY’s sole provider of prosthetics, monsters and things which go bump in the night has provided time and time again an impressive array of ghoulish goodies, often with little to no budget. Effects artist Nik Carey has designed Mr. Marsters pointies since the beginning, as well as having created the Gingerbread Man, Sunnydale’s Hellmouth and Oz’s werewolf incarnation, among others. Asking James of his past experiences with Nik and Optic Nerve, he emoted, “She’s cool! Optic Nerve amazes me man! The stuff they come up with from week to week is incredible! I remember, one episode I filmed last year, where Buffy and Angel and I go into this magic shop, and I said, ‘Oh look, rat eyes!’ and I picked up the prop, and inside there are like five-hundred little tiny eyes, with pupils and irises and little optic nerves coming out the end, all hand-painted! The detail was amazing!”

In addition to the onslaught of BUFFY’S new season, as well as that of ANGEL (which directly follows it in line-up. premiering October 5th), James has another horrific effort ready to pounce its way onto the screen; Dark Castle and Warner Bros. remake of the classic 1958 Vincent Price vehicle THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Said James in regards to the project, “I took a small part, and play a guy who just gets the shit scared out of him by Geoffrey (Rush)! I had a great time. Nothing against THE HAUNTING, but I read the script and it sucked.”

Chalk up another notch on his coolness belt; it did suck.

“THE HAUNTING was about a lot of special effects,” James expounded. “With HAUNTED HILL, it much more resembles the source material. It’s psychological, it’s character-driven, it’s smart-writing, and it was cheaper to film. THE HAUNTING probably cost about $80 million, where this is in the mid-range, and I think it’s going to be scary and unnerving. They have put a lot more money into post-production as well, which means they are really happy with it.”

Never one to rest on his laurels, James aspirations, although obviously still enthusiastic in regards to his work as Spike, are grand, and coming from one who has been held down by little, freeing himself from a small-town, pursuing his goals after Julliard’s less than favorable response to what they mistook for attitude, and securing a role on one of the highest rated shows on television, this isn’t surprising.

“Ultimately, I would like to get in a position where I can attract money to a project so that I can start picking the stories I want to tell,” stated James. “I really want everything. My big dream I guess is that in five years or so enough people will know who I am that I can attract $8 to $10 million to produce MacBeth.”