With thanks to James Marsters.com
15 September - 15 October
There are times when your arms look amazing, specifically your triceps. What exercises do you do to work this part of your arms and do you workout at home or in a gym with a trainer?
JM: I work out at home. I've never had a trainer, never will. I work out with free weights - low weight, high repetition. I have 2 dumbbells of 20 lbs. each and I do 2 sets of 60 reps each.
Which musical instrument would you like to learn how to play?
JM: Piano / keyboard.
Is it easy for you to forgive and forget?
JM: Impossible for both, but I can always pretend.
You are always asked what you and Spike had in common. Besides not being funny when you're angry, can you elaborate on what you and Spike did not have in common?
JM: I have always had friends. I play the guitar and I try to avoid hitting people. Uhmmm... I like myself.
What is your favorite:
Female blues singer? (we normally just hear your male favorites)
JM: Lady Day
Word or phrase that you overuse?
JM: I tend not to finish sentences when I’m trying to think, which can be annoying.
Either/Or:
waffles or pancakes?
JM: waffles any day
hot or cold weather?
JM: hot
eyes that shoot laser beams or x-ray vision?
JM: x-ray vision
Coke or Pepsi?
JM: I like the logo of Coke, but Pepsi tastes better.
A small part in a big budget movie that is going to be seen worldwide or the lead in an independent movie?
JM: I think definitely a small part in a good picture because the better the picture, the better the script and the better the performance.
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15 August - 15 September
Do you generally stay in character on the set and if so, how far do you take it? If you don't, how do you stay focused through the long periods of waiting in between shots/scenes?
JM: I find it best to drop character and then leap without looking back into the scene. This sometimes surprises me and things happen that I didn’t plan.
If you could change one thing about Spike, what would that be?
JM: He would have achieved something for himself, even something small.
I've heard that when you had your own theatre company, you wrote your own plays at times. What did you choose to write about, and why?
JM: I didn't write my own original material. We adapted from short stories, we re-translated from old works, and I also helped young playwrights through the process of original works. I was most proud of Calderon's "Life is a Dream", a 17th century Spanish masterpiece equivalent to "Hamlet" but little known in the English speaking world, and an original piece called "I Might Be Edgar Allen Poe."
What do you do when you get stuck while you're writing? In other words, what's your cure for writer's block?
JM: Let it go and it will come. It’s like a bird - it will fly right away but it will come right on your shoulder when you’re not even asking for it. It’s a mistake to try to force your creative mind with your intelligence. The best thing to do if you are blocked is to find something that is fun.
If money was no object, what would you buy?
JM: A small Lear jet. I spend a lot of time driving. I drive half-way around the earth every year.
You say you are a slave to Shakespeare, but are there any other English playwrights that you admire so passionately? Do you prefer the atmosphere of English theatre or American theatre and why?
JM: I haven’t seen enough English theater to give a preference. I’m a slave to any good playwright, or as any actor would say, a servant to any good text. Another good English-verse playwright is Christopher Fry. One contemporary of Shakespeare’s in Spain was Calderon, arguably Shakespeare’s only equal. Steven Berkoff is a fabulous English playwright, but my favorite right now is an American, John Olive.
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15 July - 15 August
How did you get that little scar on your chin?
JM: The truth is I don't remember. Someone probably hit me with something between 1985 - 1988 and he probably won the fight and hit me really hard. I don't remember.
What is your least favorite:
JM:
Color - I love all color
Sight - Human cruelty
Smell or scent - Rotten meat
Taste or flavor or spice - The piece of candy corn that pushes me over the mountain of sugar rush into the chasm of nausea; worse than that is the 40 I eat after that!
Food - Boiled lima beans. I ate too many before the age of 18. I've never had one since.
Thing to feel (touch) - A chalk board
Thing to feel (emotion) - Fear
Time of day - Morning! Morning! Morning!
Month - There are only twelve of them so I can't be that picky. I love them all.
Word or expression - "for your information" and "didn't you get the memo"
Chore, thing to do which has to be done anyway - Watching the President's speeches
How would you describe your character in Shadow Puppets? Is this movie based on a novel?
JM: He is intelligent, terrified and although you wouldn't first suspect, love-struck. It is an original concept.
Now that some time has passed, what do you miss about Buffy and Angel?
JM: I miss the way I walk in a long, black coat. If you walk that way without a long, black coat you look a little silly.
What would the music be like for the Macbeth movie you are planning?
JM: Hmmm, ummmm, uhhh... low orchestral, traditional Celtic war music and synthesized screeching in the chilly parts. It would be a horror film - I think one of the best horror stories ever told. Make no mistake, it is a slasher film.
What song(s), artist(s), or both get you in that place where you can just close your eyes, put your head back, and let the world fall away -- when you let yourself be totally absorbed by the music?
JM: I don't listen repeatedly to music unless it can cast a spell like that. I've mentioned in the past Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits - to that I would add, in a very different way, Ry Cooder, and especially recommend an album he produced in Cuba called Buena Vista Social Club. It's not a new album, but widely available and absolute magic.
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Questions for June 15 - July 15
What do you do when you find yourself working with an actor who gives you nothing to play against?
JM: Good question. Unfortunately there is no other fix than to take what the actor is giving you. You can’t pretend they are doing something else. You just have to again cleave to your objective and try to wring something out of that person no matter how boring they might be.
Spike was written as being a nit with both women and diabolical plan execution. But he seemed to be an intuitive and shrewd observer of people when it came to calling them on their crap, as in the "you'll never be friends" speech to Buffy and Angel, knowing just how to set the Scoobies against each other, or understanding that Buffy was really mad at herself when she played 'kick the Spike.' Can you talk about that contradiction in his personality, how it was written and how you decided to play it?
JM: I love contradictions in characters and you are right - sometimes Spike would seem very dim and sometimes he would border on wise. But I recognize myself in that too.
Do you believe in fate or do you prefer feeling in control of your own destiny?
JM: I don’t believe in fate but I do not believe that anyone is at all in control of anything in their lives, much less their own destiny. We are in the middle of a beautiful, terrifying mystery and we are just lucky that the earth is being kind to us just now.
When directing/playing Macbeth, is it your intention to make the audience sympathize with the main character?
JM: That is always the intention of story-telling. One hopefully always sympathizes with the lead in a play. I think Shakespeare wanted us to recognize that Macbeth is just like us even when he takes himself into hell. He goes to hell because he is ambitious, but who amongst us isn’t?
Why did you change the title of "Runaway" to "No Promises?"
JM: (Laughs) Because everyone kept singing the chorus. I keep hearing people singing 'please, no promises.'
When you write a new song, does it come from an idea that you have, or an emotion? Along those same lines, if you absolutely had to choose, would you prefer a project that made the audience feel or made them think?
JM: In the world of music it's definitely how you make them feel. I can name 25 albums that have had a major impact on how I view the world, but that all started from an emotional truth that the music spoke to. Music runs afoul when it gets too intellectual. If you compare Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief" to Marvin Gaye's 1970's protest album "What's Going On" you'll see what I mean. Marvin got to the simple emotional truth about war's ability to smash love and is a better anti-war statement than Radiohead has yet devised. If you look at the Sex Pistol's monster album, "Never Mind the Bollocks", you find an incendiary treatise on the sustained class warfare that the rich have been waging on the working class in England for as long as anyone can remember, yet they made that point in a simple screaming, raging statement "No future for me!"
If we looked in your refrigerator, what would we see?
JM: (Laughs) Orange juice, milk, Eggo Waffles, tortellini and old chicken (inedible) Um, um, um... and fruits which are looking questionable.
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Questions for May 15 - June 15
You do such a beautiful job portraying the women in the Dresden audio books. How did you approach these characters emotionally and vocally?
JM: Emotionally it's very easy to portray a woman because women are human beings just like me, so there's not a big need to change the internal. That's the lesson that Shakespeare taught me early on. Shakespeare wrote great women because he wrote great human beings and then cast great transvestites to play them.
Can you explain the different responsibilities of a manager, an agent, and a publicist, and do you have one of each?
JM: An agent gets you the auditions and opportunities. A manager evaluates the opportunities and helps oversee the total career. A publicist handles your image in all forms of the public eye. Yes, I do have all of these people in my professional life.
In season 5 of Angel, Joss was excited about an episode that had Spike in a dress. He even references it in his WB letter on their website. But in the final version of the episode, the scene wasn't included. Can you tell us if it was filmed and if so, why it wasn't included. If it wasn't filmed, do you have any idea why?
JM: The reason was that Steve DeKnight and I were drowning in the toilet trying to complete this episode (I can't remember the title - the only one he directed that year). I tried to make it work but it would have doubled the amount of work that day to have my character change from the black coat to a dress. Pitifully, it was a money issue.
I recently saw a play in a restored theater that is over 150 years old and I felt a strong sense of its history and of all the audiences who had gone before. Does a certain venue or environment have any influence on acting or are you more concerned with your preparation and the people you are collaborating with creating a world within that environment, but not necessarily connected to it.
JM: Every good director respects the space that he is working in. The same play can be changed radically by taking it on the road into different spaces. My favorites, like most actors, are the old spaces because you are right - all the people have left their mark on that space. You can almost smell them. Sometimes you see their ghosts. (Corny but true)
Describe your average day. For example, what did you do today?
JM: I have no average day. At least 3-4 times a month I wake up in a different place than the day before. Within the past week I've been in L.A., Northern California, and Germany. I bought a new home, but still don't feel moved in. I'm looking forward to having an average day.
What does "seven lonely oceans" refer to in your song "Bad?" I've never really understood that lyric.
JM: I was trying to find a phrase that described my lover's deep pain and beautiful mystery. The ocean is probably the most recurring image in all of my songs. I talk about that a lot.
You said in one interview that you believed Shakespeare believed in equality, that he was very modern-minded when it came to the relations between men and women. How then do you interpret "Taming of the Shrew"?
JM: Kate is not a shrew. She's just smarter than everyone else. She's wiser than everyone else and cannot find her equal until Petruchio shows up. He is her equal and it's delightful to watch him prove that - it's a happy ending to watch two people find their equals.
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Questions for April 15 - May 15
Do you have any advice for people who suffer from stage fright/public speaking?
JM: Stage fright is a very natural reaction - everyone has it. In the animal world, creatures only stare at each other when thinking of eating each other, so it's natural to run away. But, as a good acting teacher once told me, "acting is being private in public".
How would you describe yourself in three words and why those three?
JM: I'm just getting to know myself. I'm no where near to being concise about it yet. I can't define myself. Wait a minute - I'm angry, I'm funny and I'm trying.
What did you think of Spike's growing evolution on Buffy and how do you feel the material challenged you as an actor?
JM: They used me as needed on Buffy. If they needed a wacky neighbor, they used me. If they needed a villain, they used me. If they needed a lover, they used me that way. It was my job to reconcile it all into one character and that was the challenge.
You've played in clubs that buzz with high energy, but also are filled with loud people who talk and laugh all through your performance - and you've played in the quieter environments where the audience is seated, but who enjoy your performance with the hush of a true listening audience. As an audience member, I've experienced the pros and cons of both loud and quiet audiences - as an artist, which do you feel most connects your art with your audience and do you prefer one over the other?
JM: I love being able to hear myself clearly in a quiet house so I can really tell if I'm sucking or not. But really my job is to give permission for the audience to exalt and lose control. I also felt that we got a little higher with the louder crowd.
Do you think that Shakespeare's plays have been modernized and performed so much that it would be hard to direct or perform in an original adaptation without the audience saying they've seen it before? How much pressure is on the actors and director to create an exciting and original piece of theatre?
JM: I always argue for not straying from the text. I don't like Shakespeare productions on Mars! Romeo and Juliet should be set in Verona and at the time dictated by Shakespeare. Shakespeare had a 700 year history to draw from, he had good reason to choose the places and times he did. I feel no pressure to come up with something original but rather to just be true to Bill Shakespeare. I am a slave to Shakespeare's original intention!
Not really referring to historical or well-known figures, but rather just ordinary, average people, what in your opinion makes an individual particularly brave or courageous?
JM: Overcoming their fears. All heroes quake with fear, they just choose to keep on going.
Questions for March 15 - April 15
From what I've read, you did a number of things in your theater days that were more behind-the-scenes. What were some of those jobs ?
JM: When you produce non-profit theater you do everything behind-the-scenes. You build and design props, design and build costumes and sets, design and run lighting systems, take tickets, as well as direct, produce and act. The reason is that you can't afford to pay very much money to anyone and my business partner and I didn't want to share power so we did it all ourselves. It was the hardest thing I've done and maybe the best.
Which of your recorded songs came out the closest to what you actually heard in your head when you were writing it?
JM: The best one was the GOTR version of "Over Now" which was not recorded but performed live on tour. It had a lopping lead guitar by Charlie DeMars and a hesitant base line by Kevin McPherson. It was exactly the haunting quality I hoped for. People said they could hear the ocean, which is what I wanted.
Is it difficult for an actor to watch a film or a play and get lost in the story? Or do you find yourself analyzing it as you watch?
JM: I think everybody - actors, directors, prop masters - want to get lost in a movie. So if it's good, we do. We're like little kids waiting for a good story. If the story is good enough, we'll definitely go.
What's the latest on your new CD? Is it still in the works or is it on the back burner while you are more focused on acting?
JM: I am still writing songs. I am infecting myself with the blues. I've got three new blues songs I'm working on but right now I am trying to find work in the rough tempest of LA's pilot season. The waves are high and my boat is small but I am rowing like mad. If nothing else, my arms are getting stronger!
What storylines would you have expected/enjoyed for Spike if there had been a Season 6 of Angel?
JM: I would have liked to have just continued with the themes started in Season 5, particularly in the "Destiny" and "The Girl in Question" episodes. Spike and Angel are on similar journeys, having been ruthless killers and trying to become men. It's both funny and interesting to see how they approach their redemption. In this way Spike would have been a good doppelganger for Angel.
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