Buffy The Vampire Slayer

This is the transcript from the Saturday Q&A from the James Down Under event in Melbourne, Australia. Sunday’s will come later. Hopefully this will entertain you all until Bookie can do the UK one. :smile:

Buffy Down Under Convention — Melbourne, Australia

James Marsters Q&A — Saturday, July 3, 2004 — PART ONE

NOTE: Comments marked within [ ] are about the audience, by the audience or transcriber notes. Comments within ( ) are to describe James’s actions, expressions, etc.

JM: ... Flash away. I don’t care what they told you. You can flash me to death. I don’t care. [cheers, laughs from audience] What I do best is just answer your questions, so if anybody has anything to ask, just come up and ask it.

[A woman from way in the back shouts out, "Will you marry me?" Audience laughs. Then a man shouts out, "Will you marry ME?" BIG laughs from audience.]

JM: Sorry dude. You’re very pretty but I ... [can’t hear rest over laughter of crowd] (Turning his attention to the first person to approach the microphone) Brave woman!

Q: This is going to be convoluted. [Audience says to speak louder. James says, "Suck up the mic, man. Just kiss it." She gets closer to the microphone.] Can you hear me?

JM: There you go.

Q: For the first four years you’ve described the dual nature of Spike — psychopathic killer/lonely man in love — that was the original hook for you that made you create what you created. That made Spike, Spike for you. You did that for about four years. Then after the sixth season and that thematic shift when you said, "If a man is mean, he’s going to be mean to you", that you decided probably it wasn’t the best way to present bad man/good woman and you decided to change that. You’ve talked a lot about the WHY that had to happen, but I was more curious how, dramatically as an actor, you had to kind of unplug yourself from the direction you’d been going for four years and what else you found in Spike to plug into.

JM: That’s a really good question because I imperiled the theme of that show. The theme of "Buffy" is that vampires are not sexy, that evil is not sexy and evil is to be done away with. And then they cast me. [Loud cheers from audience] They kept telling you not to care about Spike, but (laughing) you guys didn’t listen. [Audience laughs]

Q: But as an actor, how did you unplug from that. I mean, you’d been going in this direction for four years and you had to suddenly jump the train and go in another direction.

JM: The thing is, internally, it all made sense, and so it didn’t feel like I was jumping tracks. It felt like they finally found a way to put me into the theme so I wasn’t diametrically opposed to the theme of the show anymore. I actually, I was plugged into it because I was trying to redeem myself. We were saying, "Look man, that was evil. You go out and kill people, that’s evil. It might look good, but it’s really not good." [Audience laughs] And I, you know, the first four years of the show, it was very uncomfortable for me because I felt like this was an irresponsible message to put out there.

Q: But you had said that was what you initially hooked into it. That that delighted you, that duality...

JM: (Thinking, kind of unsure tone) Yeah.

Q: ... you said that was a meaty thing to play.

JM: (Still kind of unsure tone) Yeah. Well, evil is fun. [Audience laughs] I mean, in order to play the character, I had to go back and admit to myself that there were times in my life when I hurt people and I had a good time doing it. And, uh, I’m older now. (Laughing) Hopefully, a little wiser, you know, but that wasn’t WISE. I, I ended up in too many jails, in too many hospitals and that’s ridiculous. If you keep doing that in your life, you’re going to end up in prison. And, uh, so I, I had kind of, by the time I got to "Buffy" I had kind of lived through that and gotten through it. And I really was trying to tell people that (getting more emphatic) that’s not a lifestyle you want to do. That’s NOT fun, guys. And everyone’s like, (in funny fan-ish voice) "But you’re so sexy when you kill people." [Audience laughs]

But, hey, I was employed (laughs), so whatever you guys like. If it will keep me employed, that’s cool. But I was very happy when Joss decided to give the character a soul and we could start to really approach the character realistically.

Q: So that was your hook after?

JM: Yeah, yeah. I got to play everything in that role. Finally I could try to be redeemed and in that way I could stop lying to the audience.

Q: Thank you.

JM: Great question. [Audience claps] Are Australians just smarter than other people? [Although the person asking the question had actually been an American.] This is a really cool country, by the way. I’ve gotten into more interesting conversations just meeting people in Australia than any other country I’ve ever been in.

Q: [next questioner] As far as performance, which do you prefer, stage or screen?

JM: Stage. When you’re a stage actor and you come in through the door of the theater and you meet the producer, they’re like, "Hello, Mr. Marsters. A pleasure to meet you." Because they have to trust that the point of sale, that you’re going to create the product and you’re going to sell it to the audience. You’re going to present it to them and the whole thing is you. The producer can go home. He can go watch television and take a bath, but he knows that, in that theater, there are responsible, professional actors who are making the product and delivering it to the audience. And there’s a certain amount of respect that you get. Like in theater, you come into the theater and there’s a little — Everyone’s — The whole cast’s name is right here. All you have to do is initial, "I’m here." And after that you’re expected to be on time for all of your cues. You’re expected to check your props. You’re expected to get your costume ready, and all that’s just what you do.

In Hollywood, you have this guy with a little walkie-talkie following you into the bathroom. (Cupping hands to make voice like talking into a walkie-talkie) "Marsters is in the bathroom now." [Audience laughs.] Yeah, (in funny, frantic tone) I can’t go to the bathroom. (Laughing) I’ve got a thousand people staring at me. [Audience laughs] There is no, the assumption is, in Hollywood as an actor, that you are absolutely irresponsible and can’t be trusted with anybody. And that really irked me. (Big laugh)

I also like to say — In stage — Do you guys have Bennihana here? It’s like Asian food where they chop the stuff right in front of you and they fry it up? [Audience says. "Yes."] In stage, it’s like you’re the Bennihana chef and all of rehearsal and everything is just giving you ingredients because at the point of sale, you’re doing it. But in film, you’re just one of the ingredients and the Bennihanna chef is the editor. So the job collapses down to infinitesimally small, uh, and so it is artistically less satisfying in film. On the other hand, film requires a level of honesty that — You cannot get away with lying on film. You’ve GOT to be true because the camera is so close. A lot of stage actors make a lot of bread by putting on a mask and hiding behind that, but the camera will catch that lie. And so I will say that film is just as challenging as stage, in its own way. It absolutely, it forced me to say I have to be comfortable being watched, right? In nature, the only time when animals stare at each other is when they want to eat somebody. So over the years, I’ve gotten comfortable with people staring at me, but there’s an animal reaction, which is (in high, panicked tone) "RUN!". You have to just get over that and say, "I am worthy of being looked at." [Hoots and cheers from audience.]

The secret is, the secret is that you guys are paying for the right to stare. [Audience laughs] In normal life, if you stare at someone like that, they will f*ckin’ kill you. [Audience laughs] You’re going to get in a fight, if you stare like that. But I am giving you permission to absolutely, unblinkingly stare at me. And what I’ve discovered is that you guys don’t expect better than life or more interesting than life, you guys just want to stare at someone. [Audience laughs.] This job is not to become more interesting than I really am, it’s just to be myself and say, "Hey man, that’s just cool. Look at me." What are you going to do? But that takes so much courage because most of us are like, "Why are you looking at me?" Like, "I’m not worthy. I’m going to bore you." And you come to the conclusion that everybody’s beautiful. EVERYBODY is beautiful.

Q: What kind of theater do you prefer? I’m a performer myself, so I like absurdity, so I wanted to know what sort of theater you like?

JM: I like all theater. Let’s see, some of my favorite playwrights. Shakespeare, Moliere. Moliere kicked a**. Moliere was like (makes some kind of face/expression or motion?). [Audience laughs]

Chekov. Love him. He’s hard, man. Oh, man, he’s hard. I like Steven Berkoff, as far as modern playwrights. He’s English, from the East End, and he’s really fiery and utterly funny and really bitter. George Walker is a GREAT playwright from Toronto that I really like.

I was most excited— My most intense theatrical experiences being in audience come from watching Steppenwolf [a theatre company in Chicago], where they BLEED and SWEAT and, and, but it’s all art... it’s so (really getting passionate in his description... he does something that makes audience laugh) You think that it’s uh, like, Steppenwolf is better than any theater in the world. You have people shouting and sweating and bleeding on stage, but it’s all specific. It’s all, it’s not chaos. It is very artfully devised. So, I like theater that will break that fourth wall and make the audience terrified for a second. (Gasps)

[Questioner says something.]

JM: What’s that?

Q: Like the Italian Theater of Cruelty?

JM: Well, I’m not really into Artaud to tell the truth. I think you can create danger without cruelty. That the best way to create danger is to look the audience in the eye. This is my favorite, this is why I love Shakespeare, because you have, you have, you don’t have monologues in Shakespeare, you have soliloquies. They’re very different. A soliloquy is someone, is a character breaking out of the scene and going, "Hi. I really hate that guy. Watch. Over the next four acts, I’m going to screw him. I’m going to get his wife. I’m going to kill his kids. Watch." And if, as an actor, you do that for real and you don’t just address the audience as if they’re like an unspecific mass, but if you actually say, "Hi. How you doing? To be or not to be, that’s the question. I don’t f*ckin’— Why don’t we kill ourselves?" [Audience laughs] You should, it’s so beautiful." I’ll be watching people go (makes reaction noise).

Yeah, so I like dangerous situations but you can be, you can create danger with love. So the Theater of Cruelty— (sighs) It’s a way to reach out and to connect between the playwright and the audience, but you’re connecting over something that’s kind of demeaning and cruel and I think we should try to do better than that.

[next questioner]

Q: I didn’t really have a question but I wanted to get close to you. [Loud laughs, cheers from audience.] ... Actually, there are lots of things I could ask you, but everyone is asking really good questions. You were in Seattle when Grunge was happening and you really like Grunge, and I just thought there’s a bit of Grunge in Spike — uh, Punk is very grunge — and I can’t remember what you said now when you [Spike] were going through those trials to get your soul, you said, what’s that line? You said, "Here we are now; entertain us." You were in Seattle when Grunge was happening. Can you tell us about it?

JM: Uh, yeah, man. Kurt Cobain is a GREAT singer, man. [Cheers from audience.] You’d be walking along the sidewalk and you’d pass the Alligator Café and it’d be like this voice, it’s just WHAM. (getting more passionate) It’s just so much louder than anything. That’s from God, man.

Q: When I first heard Grunge, it really scared me. [Audience laughs.]

JM: Yeah! Because there’s fury... [Questioner interrupts]

Q: I took courses on popular music, but when Grunge happened, I said, "My God. What is this?" I left it for about five years.

JM: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that the history of Rock is, um, 90% of the history of Rock is crap. And it’s all commercial. It’s all written by middle-aged men behind a desk and then they give it to a young band, and they sing the song. And it’s all, the whole point of it is to make money. And every once in a while, the garage bands take over for like one year. It happened with Punk, and it happened with Grunge. The last time anything real was expressed on American radio was Grunge. We all went back to sleep after that and we’re all listening to Britney Spears. [Audience laughs.] It’s depressing. (in high-pitched, girl voice) Oops, I did it again.

[Big laughs from audience.]

(Getting excited) On one hand, you’ve got Kurt Cobain, (singing low like Kurt), "What else can I say? EVERYONE is gay."

(In normal voice) And then you’ve got Britney Spears, (in high voice again) "Oops I did it again."

[HUGE cheers, applause, laughs from audience]

JM: But it will happen again. Once the audience gets tired of the vapid, the vapidity, the vapid nature. Can I conjugate a word that way? [Audience laughs.] You guys will get tired of Britney. You’ll get so sick of her that you’ll want something new, something real. And then those bands will come forward and for one shining moment, we’ll have sincerity. The whole thing about Grunge, especially with regard to Nirvana, was that they — much like the Beatles — they took the popular art form and said that we can sing about more than just falling in love with a cute girl. That this is an art form that can contain real pain. I can really express my own real pain through pop music. And the Beatles were really one of the first people to really start singing about things other than infatuation and I think Nirvana took it to a whole other step and said we can examine the darkest things in this music and it can hold that.

Q: Was there a bit of a scene in Seattle when you were there or not?

JM: Was there what?

Q: Was there a scene? Did you feel the vibe of it?

JM: God yeah. Oh yeah. I was there, um, I was living about a block and a half away when he died. I went down to the Seattle Center and, hell of a day. (Stops and lets out a breath as he remembers.)

[After a moment, he starts talking again, with an obvious amount of pain and sadness. He became very emotional - both sad and upset.] And Courtney Love gets up there and she takes all the pain that we’re feeling, all this incredible (sighs), and she turns it into a riot! I will NEVER forgive her for that day. So much love in that room, there was so much pain and there’s, there’s, we could have come together as a movement — there was so much electricity that day — and she gets up there and says, "I hate you Kurt. F*ck you Kurt." And we all went INSANE. The whole audience went insane. We couldn’t understand and it didn’t make sense to us and we started fighting cops. And the Grunge scene went down the toilet, frankly. I’ll never forgive her. She’s an ugly person.

[Applause]

JM: (Speaking in calmer, kind of laughing tone to questioner) You’re really wishing you were back in your seat now. [Audience laughs] I’m a passionate guy. I mean, if you ask me a question, you’re going to catch it. So, I’m sorry. (laughing) I love you. I’m not mad at you.

[Audience laughs. Next person comes to microphone and says, "Hi."]

JM: Hi. I’ll be so cool now. [Audience laughs] Very sedate.

Q: I like the hair.

JM: Thank you. IT’S MY OWN HAIR! [Audience cheers.] I look in the mirror now and I’m like, "James! There you are. Where have you been?" To the point that when I look at Spike, I’m like, "Who’s that guy?" (laughing) Weirdo.

Q: What was the most terrifying, but exciting, scene you’ve done on "Buffy"?

JM: God. To be totally honest, a lot of "Buffy" was an exercise in terror. Because you had really good writers there and what really good writers will do is they’ll cannibalize the people around them. Like, they will explore themselves and that will take about three or four scripts, and then they’ll go dry. And then they’ll start to say, "Well, what do I have around me." And I finally, I said to Marti Noxon one day, I said, "You can’t hide around here! Stop exposing me as a human being." Because by the end of it, they were using the metaphor and they were actually, that was me. They were commenting on who they thought I was as a human being. And, uh, I wasn’t necessarily wanting to share that with the whole world. (sighs) So, in that way, I’ll never forgive them and I’ll never be able to thank them enough. Because to be part of a show that you’re in your sixth year and you’re terrified, that is gold, you know. Artistically, you’re in a sweet spot if you’re terrified. And frankly, I always like those projects where we’re either going to fly — because we’re going to jump off a cliff here — and we’re either going to fly or we’re going to splat on the ground. There’s no middle ground here, so you’d better start flapping. And I’ve never failed. It’s like whenever I have that sense, like we’re about to jump off a cliff, I always fly. And so that’s, I love danger. I love having to face that.

Um, so what’s the most terrifying thing? Yeah, doing that rape scene. I, uh, I was in the bathtub that night going, (hurt, upset voice) "I’m not a rapist." It crushed me. It absolutely, um, I can’t watch movies or TV shows that have kids getting attacked or women getting sexually abused. I can’t— I will kick the TV in and say, "Who is the a**hole who wrote that!? I want to meet him. Who’s the sick man who thought that up? Who’s the actor who signed the contract?" Right? But, so, and I’ve passed on lots of projects that have anything to do with that. I’m like, "Pass." I don’t need that in my life.

But I found myself, (sigh) with "Buffy", where I was contractually obligated to do whatever they told me to do. I had to show up whenever they told me to show up and wear or not wear whatever they’ve decided, and do or not do to whoever they decide whatever they decide to do. And, and, by the time we got to that scene, the problem was that everyone was so concerned with Sarah’s mental health with that scene and nobody ever really came to me to say, "How do you feel about it?" And, uh, (sigh) that was the worst day of my life. I wish I could take that back. But artistically, I’m proud of it because that really was, one of the writers was really talking about their own life and about mistakes they’d made and uh, (big sigh). But I really, um, usually if you’re in a TV show, it’s so sedate that even though you’re contractually forced to do whatever they tell you to do, they’re not going to ask you to do anything real. You’re going to be standing, sitting around the kitchen sink talking about your feelings again. But with "Buffy", those writers were so dangerous. They were so honest and so volatile that by the time we were filming that scene, I wanted to quit. Like, "I can’t take it, guys. You’re flaying me alive and I’ve got to get out." But luckily they let him— They did that and then it wasn’t so painful after. That was the worst thing. And I think Sarah and I will be (breathing in) forever forgiving each other for that scene. We didn’t write it and we didn’t want to it, but we did it. And I’ve got to forgive her for it; she’s got to forgive me for it. [Audience claps]

[new questioner]

Q: I’m an academic and I’ve done a lot of research on Spike fans. That’s my excuse for hanging out on the Spike boards. What’s really interesting is that a lot of the female Spike fans found themselves identifying with Spike’s journey more than they did with Buffy’s. I was wondering — that had nothing to do with the sexual attraction of the character [laughs, hoots from audience] that’s the other story I’m looking at — but seriously, they really did feel more empathy with what Spike was going through, particularly the whole redemption journey that he made. So, do you have any theories about why that might have been given that they had a feminist sort of hero but they found themselves identifying a little bit with his journey?

JM: I think that people responded, um, like I was never part of the group, like on the set. There was the original cast and there was "the other guys". And I was always in "the other guys".

[Someone says, "aww".] (laughs) No, don’t feel sorry for me. There’s no need to feel sorry for me.

The thing is that show was about a group of people who were outsiders and outcasts. They didn’t fit in society. They were goofs and goons, but Spike was rejected by them. Even with this group of outsiders, he’s the outsider. I don’t think they meant to cook it that way. I think it’s just because I joined the cast later and also because I was imperiling the theme, they were actively trying to make you hate me. But the effect of that was the opposite. I was really an outsider. It wasn’t that they were trying to write an outsider. It’s that they really were treating me like an outsider thematically, "Get him out of, get him out." And you guys responded to that. You guys could see it. That’s what I really, that’s what I think it was. I don’t think they meant to do that, but I think that’s how it kind of played out. Is that making sense to anyone?

Q: ... you said you played a little bit of soul before it was given.

JM: Oh yeah. (Laughs)

Q: So that might have been part of that theory. You were projecting ...

JM: Well, yeah. Because I’d get the scripts and I’d say, "Oh, they’re trying to get people to hate me again." Guess what? [Audience laughs] I ain’t gonna do it. I’m going to find a way for the audience to like me anyway. So, yeah. So, the more that they structurally were telling you to hate me, the more I would pump it up with all that vulnerability and tears and all that stuff. ["Aws" from audience.] Yeah, because I was going to balance this out. And so, because what I wanted was that they can take this character anywhere they want to take it and I will make sure the audience stays with me. So, we can go anywhere now. [Audience applauds]

(Laughing) These are really good questions, man.

Q: [question about there being a "Buffy" animated series and other possible "Buffy" projects]

JM: Yeah, apparently there is going to be an animated series. It will not involve Spike. [Disappointment from the audience] (laughing) It’s okay. (laughing) Joss wanted to do a series that was really back to the original theme, that goes to adolescence. He wanted to take those characters back to adolescence because Joss’s crucible of experience, the thing he writes about, the thing he dreams about, is his adolescence. And he goes back to that all the time. So, it makes total sense that when he does the animated thing that he’s going to want to take those characters back to 14. And that means that Spike ain’t around. So, that’s okay.

Fox wants to do TV movies. They would like to have a Spike TV movie, [cheers from audience] an Angel TV movie, a Giles movie. I told Joss, you know, it was so funny. (Laughing disbelief) He was trying to woo me. (laughs) It’s impossible to woo me, I’m your b*tch, man. [Audience laughs]

So he’s like, "You know, we’ll make it right. It will be a really cool TV movie and all."

I’m like, "Joss, whatever role you’ve got. If it’s three lines, if it’s 80 lines, give me a call. I’m there, whatever you’ve got for me, man. But the one thing is, I don’t want to play Spike after five years. Because it’s already been seven years and when I look at ’School Hard’, I can see the difference. And I’m not supposed to be aging and I don’t want you to have to write some stupid line like, ’Well, he’s drinking pig’s blood so there’s a little aging going on.’" [Audience laughs]

Anyone who plays an immortal, we are fixated on that. Like Juliet and I, we are, oh my god, we just sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep because we’re supposed to look the same, man. So the one thing I told him was don’t come to me after five years. I’ll do anything you want, but you’ve got a five-year clock on Spike. And I know Joss. Joss is a rebel. Joss is going to come to me in five and a half years. [Audience laughs.] And, I will tell him no.

[new questioner]

Q: ... besides the possibility of a Spike movie, what else are you going to be doing?

JM: My plate is pretty full right now, actually. I met a man who I think is going to do, uh, I want to do a "Macbeth". I want to produce a film of "Macbeth". I think it’s a ripe plum. It’s one of the five great plays that Shakespeare wrote and it always sucks. We don’t really under— No one— (laughing) See, this is my little arrogance here. No one knows how to do that play, except me. [Audience laughs] I’ve seen like 50 productions of it and it’s true. So, what I’ve needed is a money man. I needed a guy, I have a line producer. I’ve got all the pieces, but what I need is a guy that will go, I need a money man. Someone who will be able to get the funds, but who also understands and appreciates Shakespeare. And, in Hollywood, that’s almost impossible. Whenever I say I want to do "Macbeth", they’re like, "Well, are you going to put it in a high school? What are you going to do with it?" And I’m like, "You know. Kilts, broadswords, blood, like that. Like it’s written."

So, I met a guy who (getting excited) invented the MP3. He invented the MP3! ... Over brunch he will raise $30 million, and he said "I’ll get your $50 million, bro. Don’t worry about it." And so, that’s kind of on the backburner and we’re doing the script right now.

Also, David Greenwalt, who helped Joss develop "’Buffy" as a TV show and also invented the character of Angel, wants to work with me. We’re kind of going through ideas about how to do that. It’s not like, I’m not developing a series with David. It’s like I call him in the middle of the night with my ideas and he says, "That’s dumb." [Audience laughs] But every once and a while, he says, "Wow. That’s beautiful." Kind of like the whole arc of the character is mine. (proudly) I thought that up. [Audience laughs] So, it got pitched to the studio. The studio passed on it and it’s going on to, he’s pitching it to CBS, I think he pitched it yesterday. And I didn’t hear from him so I’m assuming (laughs) it didn’t work out.

And then it’s just, I’m really kind of in a period of my life when I’m just basically just meeting people. I got to Hollywood and I immediately got cast in "Buffy", so no one knows me, right? Because I hadn’t been auditioning for people, so I’m just taking meetings. I forget that anyone watched this show. I was having so much fun making it that it really blows my mind that someone tunes in to watch it after the fact. I’m meeting like the head of Fox, the head of Warner Brothers, the biggest big cheese that you can imagine. He’s like, "I love you. We want you in our family. You’re a great actor." (in surprised voice) "You saw the show?"

So, it’s really kind of a beautiful time in my life. I just get to sit back and be loved (laughs) and you don’t really have to do anything yet. So, yeah. That’s what I’m doing.

Q: You should come to Australia more often.

JM: I would like to. I would like to. [Audience applauds. A guy approaches the microphone.] What’s up?

Q: Hey dude. I’ve got something to do. My girlfriend asked me to do this. [Prepares to take a picture.] Can you give me like a broody look? [Audience laughs and applauds. James laughs and poses for picture] Okay, I’m possibly the only guy that’s sort of stupid enough to stand up here and do this.

JM: So brave, by the way.

Q: Let’s say you’re in a bar and it’s not going so well with a chick that’s really ripe, have you been tempted to slip into the sort of Spike bravado...[Drownedout by audience’s laughter and applause.]

JM: NO WAY IN H*LL!

Q: No "shag"? No "bollocks"? [Audience laughs]

JM: No, I really, if I get intimate with someone, I really want, I’ve got to feel some sort of trust. I don’t have be in love, but I’ve got to feel that there’s some kind of understanding between two people. And it’s happened more than once and I’m like at the MOMENT, right? And you’re in it, and you’re inside [audience laughs] and it’s all going right and she goes, (in woman’s voice) "Do the accent." [Audience laughs.]

(James makes downward motion with hand and "deflating" kind of noise.)

Q: Actually I can relate to that because she wants me to do the same thing. [Lots of laughing from audience. James is really laughing too.]

JM: I go to Britain and they’re like, (in British accent) "Why don’t you do the sexy accent?"

(in kind of hurt voice) "What’s wrong with my accent?" Is an American accent THAT bad? (laughing) Yes. (Slipping into British accent) In a word, yes.

By the way, how many guys are in the house today? How many guys? (Looking around) Oh my god. Okay. Women that dragged your guys here, reward them. [Audience laughs] They are obviously pretty confident with their own sexual ability or they wouldn’t have the balls to come here. So, we’ve got some nice hung guys out there. [Audience laughs]

(Addressing the guy asking the question) Where’s your girl? Where’s your girl?

Q: Um, she’s the one cowering over...

JM: Right on. (Looking toward the part of the audience where the guy points.) Give that guy some sugar, man. [Audience applauds and laughs.] Hell yeah. I wouldn’t do it! If I had a girlfriend and she wanted to go see some TV personality, "Get the f*ck out of here!" [Audience laughs]

(laughing) Because I’m all insecure like that, you know. I give it up to you, man.

Q: I have a certain repertoire that sort of works but after a while, you have to give in to them. [Audience laughs]. I don’t want to peroxide blond my hair so I’ll [???], she’ll get all hot and [???] [Audience roars with laughter]

JM: (laughing) Right on, man. [Audience laughing] I’m just the performing monkey. I’m the sideshow (laughing) so you guys can get it on. [Audience laughs] That’s it. That’s all I do.

Q: [Looking around, posing question to audience] Hands up, how many times has Spike been on TV when you’ve been doing it?

JM: (Really laughing) I don’t want to go there.

[Big laughs from audience. Questioner, looking around at the hands, says, "I knew it."]

JM: (laughing, surprised) It’s true, isn’t it? I would be on television and they’d be having sex. (Big laugh).

[Questioner says, "Reality’s a b*tch."]

JM: (laughing) See, I didn’t ever want to be famous. I never wanted that. I really thought I was going to come down to LA, make some decent money, get the h*ll out. And then this thing happened and so I’m constantly kind of freaked out by it — that I’m in people’s rooms when they’re naked (laughs).

[Big applause from audience as the questioner wraps up and goes back to his seat. Loud applause from audience. A new person comes up to microphone.]

Q: ... I heard Andy Hallett was sick and I wondered if you’d heard about that or how he’s doing?

JM: Yeah. Um, no. I heard that he had a problem and I contacted his manager. [Someone calls out for him to speak into the microphone.] Andy is convalescing. He’s getting better. I tried to contact him but was told it wasn’t a good time. Andy Hallett is one of the most loving people I know.

Q: I saw him in Atlanta last year and he seemed like such a nice person.

JM: He really is, man. He really, he’s totally gold. He’s young enough. He’ll come through it. Yeah. He’s also a great actor. He doesn’t get it. It’s the same thing. Andy Hallett and Nick Brendon, two guys, they don’t understand what great actors they are. I would like, I’d take them by the shoulders like, "You got it. Calm down. Just be relaxed. You have it in your pocket. You’re really great. Just know that, man." They don’t know it. I can’t convince them. If I could do one thing for both those guys, I’d slap upside the head [audience laughs] and tell them that they’re one of the best actors around, man. Yeah.

Q: Quickly, I always thought "Buffy" as a series was a lot stronger than "Angel". I wondered if you felt the same and what would you put that down to — writing, producing? Consistently, I thought the "Buffy" episodes were better.

JM: You know, I think that you’re right. I enjoyed working on "Angel." A lot. I really— David is great to work with. Guys, David is a good guy. [Audience laughs] I hear a lot of stuff from fans like you guys don’t get it. You think he’s a jerk? He’s no jerk, man. He’s a hard working man. He’s a father and he wants to do his job, do it well, get home, feed the baby. That’s David. But I agree with you. I think "Buffy" was more successful because I think that it had a theme. They both had a theme, but we stuck to it in "Buffy". It was all about growing up. And basically "Buffy", thematically, was Joss’s "Hamlet". Because it’s all about how you get from childhood to adulthood. How do you get through adolescence and the inherent disillusionment you have to go through in that period of your life. Because when Hamlet is saying "To be or not to be, why don’t we just kill ourselves? It’s all meaningless anyway", he’s faced— It’s the same thing as "Catcher in the Rye." And so all the vampires and all the fangs, that was just window dressing for the trials of adolescence. And later in the series, we stopped talking about adolescence and started talking about young adulthood, but the metaphor was used very effectively for both situations.

"Angel" was really more about redemption. It was more about, uh, once you’re old enough to have made big mistakes in your life — and I’m old enough that I have big mistakes — you have to redeem yourself and how do you do that? I think that’s a great theme, but what I noticed about the scripts was more often than not, they weren’t talking about that. And I was a little frustrated because I thought, like over on "Buffy", I was endangering the theme, right? So I understood why I was sidelined a lot. But when I got over to "Angel", I felt like I was, there’s a term in literature called the Doppelgänger? [Audience says, "yeah" offering that they know the term] I’m in Australia, I don’t have to explain it. I love you people. God. [Audience laughs]

So I was Angel’s Doppelgänger. Thematically I was exactly in his shoes and you could learn about Angel by examining me. I wasn’t the lead, but I was the Doppelgänger. But even then, there were only like two episodes where they actually went there. So, yeah, I think "Buffy" stuck to its original premise religiously, just every time, and "Angel" seemed to waffle away from its own premise. [Audience claps.]

(Kidding tone) Yeah, David Greenwalt’s really going to want to work with me again.

[Audience laughs] Sheez. Like I know anything.

[new questioner]

Q: I was wondering what it was like working with Amber Benson on "Chance"?

JM: So good. Amber, Amber is so talented. She gave me that script and it was such a beautiful script and I wanted to help her become a filmmaker. I was so impressed that she had no money, I used to produce theater with NO money and yet you want to be professional anyway. So you have to act professionally even though you have no money to be professional and you have to set it up anyway. And I was so impressed by the way she, her set was so tight. There was no money every day. The craft service, who knows about that? But everybody shows up on time, knows what the job is and it’s easy. My experience doing that film was just to show up and have fun. That’s when it’s really working. I’ve only seen the film once, but I LOVED it. I thought that— God, I’m doing some— I really like my work in this film. I’m glad I got a good director like that. You will hear more from Amber. In fact, "Chance" just got distributed. She just called me up the other day and said someone wants to distribute it and am I willing to do interviews for it. [Cheers from audience] So right on, but that’s not the last script from Amber Benson. She just tossed that off. She’s going to come up with more. She is probably, 25 years from now you’re not going to remember who anybody else is, but Amber Benson, she’ll last. [Audience claps]

Q: G’day.

JM: (in funny accent voice) ’Allo.

Q: To me the musical was an unexpected, but fascinating surprise. And having some background in music myself, I really appreciated the challenge that that project might be and can imagine that it would have been very entertaining for you and the rest of the crew of "Buffy" to make.

JM: Well, actually, no. [Audience laughs] I was the only one — no, me and Tony Head — we were totally cool with the musical because we’re both singers, so no problem. Everyone else was TERRIFIED. (nervous, frantic voice) "What are you doing to us Joss? I don’t sing. I’m not a singer and you’re going to make me sing in front of the whole nation? I’m going to be exposed as an amateur singer. I didn’t sign up for a musical."

And to Sarah’s credit, she didn’t want to do that musical. She fought him tooth and nail. She’s like, "I am not a musical theater actor. If you want to hire a musical theater actor, you go hire that, but you didn’t hire that in me." And Joss said, "No. You will be for one episode." [Audience laughs]

And Sarah, like Sarah does, dug her heels in and studied and studied and worked and worked and got her voice ready. And so, but basically, it’s abject terror. Everybody was terrified. Everyone was pissed off at Joss. "You’re insane." We didn’t know he could write music. [Audience laughs] I mean, he’s never done that before so what is he thinking.

And so, what he did though is, he quickly edited the first scene he shot the first day, which was the Xander dance number, right? And we all gathered around the monitor and he showed us what he’d done and we’re like, "Oh my god. This is really great." And from that moment on, it was just joy. Because he already had the music all done and he’d have these HUGE, MAMMOTH speakers that would blare out the music when you’re doing your thing. So when we got to the next show after that, was "Tabula Rasa", we were like, "This is boring." When in fact, that’s one of the best shows we ever did. [Audience agrees] So that’s a great show, but in comparison to the experience of doing the musical, it was so pedestrian that, oh my god. "Where’s the playback, man? I want to dance." [Audience laughs]

Q: And from that, you were okay with it from the start, but what were you thinking, like how did it portray everybody else? What did you see the finished product as being before it happened? Do you know what I mean? Like, um, sorry, I’m not a public speaker. [Audience laughs]

JM: (laughing) Neither am I. They just gave me a mic.

Q: I mean, what were your expectations before and what were your views of the finished product?

JM: For me, it was one of those moments where we’re jumping off the cliff and we’re either going splat or fly. Start flappin’, y’all. But my expectation was we’re going to splat. I had, (laughing) I had no trust at all. We were all doing something we’d never done before. We don’t know how to make a musical. It’s going to suck, of course. But, it will be a brave failure. And I’m proud of those. I happen to think it’s impossible to have artistic success without those flaming failures because you have to put yourself out there. You have to try. Sometimes it doesn’t work. So I was like, "It’s going to suck. I don’t care. I’m going." And then he shows that scene, and in the second day of an 11-day schedule, we all realize that it’s not going to suck. It’s actually going to be fabulous. So leading up to doing it was pandemonium and anger and fear and the cast going crazy. And then, two days into the shoot, everybody realizes that Joss actually does know what he’s doing and we’re going to be made (laughing) to look like gods.

What I say about that episode is: I didn’t write it, I didn’t shoot it, I didn’t direct it, I stood on tape and did what I was told to do. But, that gives me the freedom to say I think that’s as good as any episode ever produced in the history of television. [Loud cheers and applause from audience.]

I don’t say that lightly. I’m a big fan of "The Honeymooners" and I happen to think that you can’t touch that, that is perfection, but that one episode, that one episode touches it.

Q: [Little girl asks a question] I want to know what was your reaction when you heard that Buffy was going to die?

JM: To be honest, I went, "Oh, again?" [Audience laughs. Questioner asks something about Spike’s death in the series finale.]

JM: Yeah, Joss came to me at the beginning of the 7th season, and he’s like, "Um, James, we don’t know what to do with your character. Your episode sucks. And, uh, I have no idea except I do want you to be killed." [Audience laughs]

But I knew Joss (laughs) and the episode that sucked at the time was the one actually where I was on the cross. The final scene, we filmed a version of that scene that was really not good. And Joss came in, he rewrote it, he directed that scene again and he made it work. So, yeah. I was, a lot of times Joss doesn’t know what to do to Spike. He’d be, "I don’t know. Get him out of here. He’s in the way." (Laughs) I [Spike] was always in the way of what he was trying to do. I was just happy that he wanted to do something dramatic with me. I was kind of tickled about that. But, in the Joss Universe, death is not the end. (laughs) And I told him, I said, because at the time, there was talk of doing a spin-off with me and Faith and the Principal. [Audience "ahs" sadly at missed opportunities] Yeah, I know. [Audience laughs]

And then I heard he wanted to kill me off. So I go up to him at craft services, and I’m like, "Joss, man. Let’s talk. If you want to kill the spin-off, you don’t have to kill my character. You just tell me. Tell me don’t sign onto this thing. I want it to die. ’Buffy’ is over and it’s over.’"

I was like, "Joss, I’ve been sucking on your teat long enough." [Laughs from audience] I said "teat". It’s okay. [Big laugh from audience.] I’m so embarrassed. (laughing) I’m sorry.

But I really thought he was trying to orchestrate a way that I couldn’t screw him by continuing the Buffy Universe beyond what he wanted to do. So I was like, "Just tell me, Joss."

He’s like, "No. I’m not killing you off to kill the spin-off. It’s just the most romantic thing I can think of. You’re back back. Relax."

[Audience laughs, claps.]

Q: Hi. How you doing?

JM: I am doing pretty good.

Q: Me and my friends want to know what it was like to be beaten up by a wee little puppet man? [Huge cheers, laughs from audience.]

JM: It was really fun! Because it was [a] low-tech thing, they just wired it on with a coat hanger and then basically I just did the rest. So, there’s no special effects in there. It’s just a little puppet on me and I could play action. What that means is, I got total freedom. They could have designed it so the head had to be moving and it would have been very cumbersome and it would have been very hard to get anything really going. But they said, "Nah. Just wire it on him and let James take it." It took like five minutes. We did one take and that was it. I wish I had more. [Audience laughs, applauds]

[new questioner]

Q: The actors and actresses on "Buffy" and "Angel" are just absolutely gorgeous, but every year we noticed that the women get thinner and the men get more muscle-y. [Audience laughs] Why?

JM: To look good for camera with your shirt on, that’s a little hard, but it’s doable. To look good with your shirt off [hoot from someone in audience and rest of audience laughs] that means you’ve got to focus on nothing but working out because any little tiny imperfection is like "ew". It’s hard. I have been in a perpetual state of hunger for the last six years. I am hungry right now. [Audience laughs] What I’ve found, frankly, I find that when you’re hungry, you’re kind of on the balls of your feet because you’ve got to feed and you’re not going to feed so it actually energizes me.

Q: And does that pressure for perfection come from within the actors or is it something from the outside?

JM: Completely from the outside. If I get five pounds overweight, I will be called fatty. If I am five pounds underweight, I will be called anorexic. I have a 10 pound window that I have to maintain and that’s hard. It really is. It’s not natural. It’s not normal. It forces you into behaviors that are not healthy and, uh, but that’s what’s you guys like. (laughing)

Q: Not us mothers. Us mothers don’t like having you too skinny.

JM: Crews refer to LA actors as lollipops because we all have big heads. Because the bigger your head, the better your close up. You always cast someone with a big head. [Audience laughs] Look at all the stars. (laughing) Enormous craniums. [Audience laughs] George Clooney. [Audience laughs. James laughs.]

And then we’re all really skinny. So when you meet us, we really do look like lollipops. Stick figure with a huge head on top. And you know, they laugh at us, but it’s like, "If we’re not a lollipop, you’re going to fire us." That’s just part of the job. Some actors really let it mess with their head and they feel like they’re being pushed down. My reaction is well, if you can’t deal with that, go wait tables. It’s a hard part of the job. It’s probably the hardest part of the job, but that’s the job.

[Audience applauds]

Q: [Man comes up to ask question] My understanding of Spike is, I heard this and I’m not sure if it was from the commentary or from Joss, was that Spike’s character originally was only supposed to be in there for 10 episodes. He was set up as the ultimate cool so that when he went down, that’s just weird and interesting and basically he got so much popularity that they had to keep him in there. Throughout the course of seven years, I don’t think there’s a single character — I don’t think there’s many people around here who would disagree — there aren’t many characters that changed as much as Spike did and it’s quite obvious that they did that to keep him in the plot and that’s probably because he was as popular as he was. But, as you said, the writers and the directors sort of didn’t want much of him and the fans wanted more of him, and do you think that in any way the writing that came off those two different voices, do you think that disadvantaged the character? Do you think that was a detriment to the character that the writers didn’t want him there and the fans did?

JM: That’s a really good question actually. I don’t think so. I think what happened really, it was Joss that didn’t, that was, see all the other writers wanted to write for Spike. They loved Spike and they’d write scenes and Joss would cut them out. So what would happen, the effect of that is that the writers, you’d say, "We’re not going to give Spike more than two pages of script." Most of the time, I had two or three pages. That’s all I got. But the writers loved my character so those two pages were really well written and they’re, a lot of energy went into those little tiny vignettes that Spike had. So, I got in a very enviable position. (laughing) I’d show up to set, like I haven’t been here for four days. I’m hanging out at the beach, hanging out with my girlfriend, playing my guitar. And I’d look at Sarah and Sarah went [makes some motion or expression that make audience laugh]. She’s dying. She’s working 20 hours a day. I do my little two scene, two-line scene, I go back to bed and then the episode comes out and everyone talks about my scene. [Audience laughs, applauds]

That was kind of the bummer of going to "Angel" (laughing) is they actually made me work. "I’m here all the time, what’s going on?"

Q: I’ve actually had many discussions — I have an identical twin brother who’s coming tomorrow — and um...

JM: You’re going to mess with me, aren’t you? [Audience laughs]

Q: He’ll be up here, don’t worry about that. I’ve had a lot of arguments over which is the better series, "Buffy" or "Angel". He’s of the opinion that "Angel" is and I’m of the opinion that "Buffy" is pretty much... [someone in audience yells out something]

JM: Hey man, it’s passion.

Q: ... pretty much for the similar reasons that you mentioned that "Angel" deals with themes of the superhero, themes of redemption, themes of murder. Themes that really normal people can’t relate to and "Buffy" deals with high school, it deals with growing up. It deals with living in the real world. Buffy has a real job, she’s...

JM: You hit on the big problem that this, you hit it right on the head. The problem with "Angel" was thematically it was geared toward a middle-aged audience because only middle-aged people have lived long enough to know about making big mistakes that you have to come back from. Seventeen-year-olds, they don’t know that. And yet, it was in a genre that was aimed toward younger people. So, you’re right; thematically it was a fly-by.

Q: You see, but that’s the thing. On one hand we have Buffy where she’s the Slayer and she is also a sister and she is also a daughter and also has a real life. Yet, Dawn, who is the key, and she also has a real life. Then you have Spike who’s a vampire and has all these connections to the supernatural. How did you see them working in an element of reality to his character. How do you see them doing that?

JM: I don’t understand what you mean? I’m an idiot.

Q: They obviously tried, in different areas, to work a human element into Spike. Do you think they did that successfully?

JM: Yeah. [Audience laughs] I was constantly opening up scripts and going, "Oh, that’s my character." I thought I knew what it was and they would open it up and they would increase it. I have to say, every time that they explored the character in any way other than the cool guy who bags chicks and kills guys, made me crazy. Like when they put me in that Hawaiian shirt—.[Audience laughs]

I said — you know, (laughing) Joss almost fired me over this — I was in the make-up trailer and I was just cracking jokes, I was just saying, "Usually when you play Urkel, when you sign the contract, it says Urkel." [Audience laughs] "Usually if you sign up to play a bad-*ss, kick-*ss, sexy guy, you don’t end up playing Urkel. I came down to LA willing to be Urkel. I didn’t have to be cool. I just wanted some money, but I signed on for Spike."

Oh my god. (makes wee-ooo noise to show that it had been stupid for him to say that.) Because, you know, that’s an idiot.

If you ask any actor what they want their character, they’ll come up with some big plot line but it’s all going to devolve down to bagging chicks and kicking butt. That’s it! [Audience laughs] Because we’re all, (in funny voice) "I want to look really cool." You know? And Joss was like, "Well, I want to be more interesting than that." So I think that they deconstruct that character. They set him up so cool and then they spent the next six years deconstructing him. It was really terrifying for me. Because I was like, "Joss (laughs)... [missed the rest of his comment]"

[new questioner]

Q: I, like many people who read what David said about the cancellation of "Angel", I was wondering about your ideas on it.

JM: What did he say about that?

Q: He just couldn’t believe it had happened.

JM: It was kind of weird, man. It was a show that was a little bit on the chopping block and then they brought me in and we doubled the numbers. The audience doubled. [Audience applauds]

And you would think, (laughing) that would be enough. But, in the end, the head of the network said that "This show is costing me too much money." That’s just, I don’t know how that math works out, but it worked out to where we were costing the WB an enormous amount of money. They were paying way more to produce that than they were making back in commercial fees. And so, it’s true, in the real world sometimes doubling the numbers of a show isn’t enough.

Personally, I thought, what I was noticing was there was an invigoration of the writing. That the writers were really starting to get excited about the show. The scripts were becoming more and more fiery,. They grew more excited and I really felt we were really onto something that we could probably maintain for at least four more seasons. I really felt were beginning a really good, a good beginning for a trajectory of four more interesting years in these characters.

But the good thing is that we left and you guys were so sad, you know. Nobody boycotted, there were no posters like, "Bring ’Friends’ back! We need that show!", you know. But you had people handing out "Save Angel" candy bars and billboards going by and that’s just beautiful, you know. Nobody gets that, but we did. And what it did, I mean y’all didn’t save the show, but you really helped everyone’s career. [Audience laughs, cheers] What that means is, when there is a Spike TV movie, what it means is it will have a bigger budget. Yeah. You guys did a lot more than you know. [Audience applauds]

[new questioner]

Q: I had a really good first question, but someone already asked it so I have to revert to my really crappy, second boring question. What is your favorite episode on "Buffy" or "Angel"? Which one will you always remember?

JM: The musical.

Q: Is that because you got to shine and show your wonderful voice?

JM: No. [Audience laughs at how quickly he said no] Actually (laughing) I don’t have that wonderful a voice. No, it was because it was the scariest thing. It was the thing we didn’t know if we could do and we did it anyway. We believed in ourselves and we stuck to our courage and we did it, you know. When you’re being watched by millions of people, it freaks you out. You really, you don’t want to be made a fool of that publicly. And when the cast decided to get over their fears and do their job anyway, I will love them for that my whole life.