James Marsters Press Archive

source: SFX Magazine – SFX Vampire Special
published: June 2009
author: Jayne Nelson
transcript by: deb (thank you)
note: This is just few selected questions and answers from 7 pages long interview. If you have a chance, please go and buy the magazine.

Would you like to play The Doctor?

James: Oh yeah! Are you kidding me? It’s a great role! I think I would take it very seriously, though, I don’t now if my Who would be very goofy Mine would be more serious, like Christopher Ecclestone’s. That would be one of the best roles, yeah!

Who would win in a fight between Captain John and Spike?

James: Does John have his little watch?

Yes

James: With technological support it could be a draw. Unless you can hit Spike in the heart or cut his head off it’s very hard to kill him, John would have to be careful

You look like you’re giving it so much thought!

James: It’s kind of like football man! On any given day any team could win ! It could be whoever connects first

Do you get people throwing themselves at you?

James: All the time. Every day. It’s wasted on me, though I’m a one trick pony.I like to be with one person at a time. I’m a romantic. Plus I’ve got a really great girlfriend.

About Cavemen V Astronauts

James: I still vote for cavemen! I really do! Astronauts aren’t huge men

They’re big in our minds though

James: Oh yeah. They’re big in their brains and they’re big in their… bollocks

You’ve just used a lovely Britishism. I have a theory that before Spike the word “wanker” was never used on US TV and now it is! it’s all down to Spike.It was him!

James: (laughs) It could have been , we take our little triumphs where we can get them I suppose.

It’s a good thing! I’m happy to see language expanded

James: We got away with a lot! We were able to flip people off on American television because people didn’t understand the British way of doing that. We got away with “wanker” we got away with “bollocks”, we got away with a lot.

About music ( long section of interview, this is just a snippet)

James: I’m continuing to write. I’m performing a new song tonight that I wrote while I was filming a cowboy movie for the Sci Fi channel.

As you do

James: Well it was weird, my character was supposed to want to die. In the beginning he shows up in town and has given himself up to be hanged.

Is he a cowboy?

James: Yes

So you’ve now done a vampire and astronaut and a cowboy? That settles it- you’ve got to get that caveman role!

James: (laughs) Life is long! There’s time!

So he wants to die?

James: Yes. In the original script it was because he accidentally caused an old man to have a heart attack whilst robbing a train, and that just didn’t wash with me. I didn’t see why anyone would be suicidal after that. But there was one line in the script where it said my character was in the Indian wars and I know something about the Indian wars, and if you were a US soldier you were burning villages and killing little babies. And that would make me want to die. So we rewrote some of the script but also some of the things I was thinking about made their way into a song.

Most musicians tend to write songs about falling in love and losing love and you’re writing songs about going to the moon and being a suicidal cowboy.

James: I write love songs! In the beginning it was mostly Oh, she done me wrong songs and then I tried to progress past that. It becomes whining if you do it too much.

And from a long section about BTVS

You always do that, deflect any praise back on the writers. It’s like a Pavlovian response!

James: No I’ll take the credit that’s mine but I’ve done enough plays and acting to know how the machine works. It’s the words man! To take my credit though there’s no author that’s actor-proof. Go watch some bad Shakespeare. There’s nothing worse than the best writing in the world inthe mouths of those who can’t serve those words well. You basically get on stage, stand up straight, say your lines clearly and get the heck off ! And everyone goes my God he’s an intelligent man!

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