James Marsters - "Buffy" Tv Series - Ew.com Interview

There have been rumors about a Spike spin-off. What can you tell us about that ?

Joss came to me as Angel was coming down and asked me if I would be interested in that, and I said, ’’Heck yeah, I’d love to work with you anytime, call me — I’ll come across the Earth for you.’’ But to do Spike, let’s do him [before] seven years [go by], because otherwise, I’m going to get too old and vampires don’t age. Frankly, I think I’m looking a little better than I thought I would, and with a decent screen test we could find out if it was still possible. It has to be believable.

[But] I don’t think the character of Spike really sparked Joss’ imagination. I think that he was designed to be a throwaway character that got popular with the fans. Personally, he never really got into him. Every character on the show was a version of Joss, but Joss didn’t see Spike that way. Spike was the other guy. He was the guy who might mess up the show, actually, because vampires are supposed to be ugly and hated.

What about Angel ?

Angel was an exception too, but Angel wasn’t Joss’ idea and I think by the time I came on, he was afraid that these good-looking vampires were going to take over the theme. So whenever Joss would write an episode, Spike would have, like, five lines. [Laughs] That’s fine. I mean, the man gave me a job and he’s a great guy and everything. What Joss has said is that he’s done with television.

Any chance he’d take any of the Buffy characters to the big screen ?

I think the only thing he wants to take to the big screen would be Buffy herself, and I don’t think Sarah [Michelle Gellar] is interested. But you know, I can’t talk for her. As far as Spike, there was some interest about a year and a half ago, but it fell apart right away.