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Post by PokerKitten on Mar 5, 2010 15:36:57 GMT
Lots of interviews about at the mo because of the Caprica publicity, and I'm not picking up all of them. But here's another: USA WeekendJames Marsters adds ‘pop’ to Syfy’s ‘Caprica’ starting Friday
March 4th, 2010
No one gives back to fandom with his colorful characters quite like James Marsters. The actor rose to geek infamy in the late 1990s playing the deliciously malevolent blond vampire Spike opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then hounded a young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) as the robotic Brainiac on Smallville before throwing down with John Barrowman in the BBC’s popular Torchwood. Marsters adds to the list starting tomorrow, when he begins the first of five episodes on Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Caprica. His Barnabas Greeley is a rogue member of the enigmatic religious zealots known as Soldiers of the One, who believe in a single supreme god. He comes into conflict with Clarice (played by Polly Walker), who heads the STO faction on Caprica. “She’s too much of a pacifist. She’s like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and I’m like Malcolm X,” Marsters says. “He does not really agree with the way she’s doing it, and he’s starting his own faction with his own people.” Marsters just came back from working on a new album in London and New Jersey to spend time with his two kids — son Sullivan, 13, and niece Brittany, 12 — and took time out to talk about Barnabas and his other screen personas.
How much leverage did they give you to make Barnabas your own? I feel like I climbed into a playpen with a bunch of energetic children who were just playing. I got down there and the word was I was going to be in a kilt, which I thought was fabulous. I was running around in kilts the first day. We took pictures of that, the pictures went upstairs and they said, “Nah. Not cool enough.” They started throwing other stuff on me to the point where by the time we were filming, it was just like dark jeans, dark T-shirt and just a LOT of dirt. That worked great. And then a really cool jacket on top.
You’ve played some pretty famous characters over the years. Do you find that shades of any of them feed into Barnabas? As Laurence Olivier said, an actor’s lucky if they have three characters in them and they’re just doing shades of that. I am hoping that there’s more than three. Maybe I have five. [Laughs]
Don’t you already have five by now? [Laughs] I did do MacBeth before anyone knew about me, and that really helped me admit that I could be grossly evil if I was ambitious enough. Spike kind of furthered that, just to give in to being evil and just glory in it and realize that that is part of me. The robot on Smallville taught me how to manipulate the heck out of people and pretend that I care when I don’t. Doing Buzz Aldrin [in the movie Moonshot] and a cowboy for the Syfy movie High Plains Invaders last year helped me be steely, to cut myself off from all the emotions that swirl around the modern head and just be a fighter pilot or a cowboy — someone who does not cry. It all feeds into it. But as far as Barnabas, I feel like I’m maybe exploring a new place. He’s both intellectual but also really firmly rooted in his crotch and his stomach – he’s very visceral but he’s very intelligent at the same time. He’s very passionate about the cause he has. He lost a loved one to decadence, and he wants to help change the world. When was the last time I played a fanatic, someone who is so convinced they were right they were able to destroy things and still think they were good? I’m not sure I have.
Do you consider him a villain? Hell no! You can’t. I’ve never thought [that] of any of the characters I’ve played who were making mistakes or hurting people. We’re all villains! It depends on if you’re hurting people or not on that day.
You’ve got a very fervent fan base, and you’ve kept feeding them cool characters over the years. I’ve been very lucky. When a show needs a character that needs to pop, to really stir up the pot and change things a little bit, they tend to think of me. I keep getting handed these roles that are just designed for you to hit a home run, and they do everything they can to support you. Wow, if that’s my cross, I guess I’ll bear it.
When you were starting out as an actor, did you have that same reputation, in smaller theater groups or with people you worked with? I never really thought about that. I tended to find a way to pop, whether that was supposed to happen or not. [Laughs] I never tried to steal the scene. I was always trying to serve the script, but yeah, I would get good attention and a lot of jealousy from other people. I discovered in fourth grade that I when I got in front of a group of people, we could have a lot of fun together.
You used to front the band Ghost of the Robot and now you’ve gone solo. Are you still doing a lot of music these days? Yeah, I just did some scratch tracks for a new album with Charlie De Mars, the lead guitarist and songwriter for Ghost of the Robot. He and I have been playing with my son Sullivan, who is monster good at lead guitar now. Just strangely good, like “Where did that come from?” He was really good in baseball, and I just sucked at baseball when I was young. He was a pitcher and I’m trying to catch really fast fastballs and just fearing for my life, because I’m not that good a catcher. So when he picked up guitar, I was like, “Right on! Now he’s in my home turf. Now I’m going to be the guy who shows him all the ropes.” That lasted for about two weeks. I’m a rhythmic guitarist, and he just passed me like I was standing still.
Do your kids have a favorite James Marsters character? No, none of them are interested in the slightest. In general, kids care about what happens after you come back from the office. They don’t care that much about the office itself. Sullivan was interested to see me play Buzz Aldrin and the cowboy, because they were both heroes. When I got Torchwood, I gave him a call and I said, “Dude! I’m playing this time agent, man! I’ve got two guns, a sword and a time wristwatch that lets me go back and forward in time at will. It’s so cool.” And he goes, “Dad, do you win?” I’m like, “What?” And he goes, “At the end of the episode, do you win or do you get your butt kicked like always?” “Well, I’ve got to play the villain so yeah, I get my butt kicked.” He’s like, “Alright. What else do you have to talk about?” He doesn’t want to see me do evil. He wants me to save people.
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Post by PokerKitten on Mar 5, 2010 15:56:14 GMT
And one more: DeadboltFrom Rome to Caprica with Actor James Marsters by Troy Rogers
Although many fans out there still love James Marsters from his role as Spike on the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, Marsters has matured as an actor as a new crop of vampires expand on the legacy James Marsters left behind. This week on March 5 in the episode "Know Thy Enemy", James Marsters joins the Syfy cast of Caprica in the role of Barnabas Greeley, a villainous member of the one God STO movement.
Ahead of "Know Thy Enemy" and the Caprica debut of James Marsters, we scored a few minutes with Marsters on a conference call to learn more about where James Marsters thinks humanity is headed, why Barnabas appears to be a pain freak, and how he views his new Caprica character.
THE DEADBOLT: You recently mentioned that Caprica scares you because it's a look at where humanity is headed. Can you expand on what you meant by that?
JAMES MARSTERS: Well, we are much like Rome, you know? The cycles are going faster now because of technology. So Rome had an empire for thousands of years where ours seems to have lasted about fifty. And I don't know if our culture has gone through [the phases]. They say civilizations go through barbarism, then civilization, then decadence. I don't know where the civilization part happened [laughs]. Maybe it was the '60s, I don't know.
But it may be true. We are starting to become decadent as a society and the cycle is repeated in all societies that dare to call themselves empires. I think the thing that Caprica, you can call it Caprica, you don't have to call it America, you don't have to call it the world. You can even be an audience member and say, "Their world is about to end and they don't know it and I'm going to watch," because we've seen Battlestar Galactica and we know what's going to happen, they don't.
There's something amazingly dramatic in that. But also, it kind of reflects where we are. It gets pretty depressing if you really go there. But if you talk to climatologists, if you talk to the people who are providing energy for the world, if you talk to the world food production, if you talk to people who are experts on water, the fresh water supply, it just gets depressing. Troy, you've got to watch it when you watch the Discovery Channel, it can just trip you out.
So yeah, the people who do fantasy and sci-fi, we can address these issues fairly directly because we just change the name. So we give you some spaceships, laser guns, and robots and stuff, and we can all think about the stuff we don't want to think about but need to anyway.
THE DEADBOLT: What was the deal with the barbed wire around the arm? Is Barnabas a pain freak?
MARSTERS: No, man. It's flagellation. It's got a long history in the Christian church. I don't know, it may have histories in other religions as well, but I know it's from the middle ages. The flagellence, thought to be the black death, the black plague was God's punishment for human sin. So they were punishing themselves, going town to town beating themselves with whips that had these metal pieces in them. And they would spray their backs and their blood all over each town that they went trying to lift the plague by suffering. Besides the rats, they were more responsible for spreading the plague [laughs]. It's this idea that if the Bible says I should be like Christ and Christ suffered on the cross, then I should do that, too.
THE DEADBOLT: How do you see Barnabas? Is he a terrorist or just a criminal?
MARSTERS: No, he's a revolutionary. How I see him is how he sees himself. That's a complex question. I mean, if I'm going to ask, I'll answer as an actor making the guy. You could say that George Washington was a terrorist and he was using different battle techniques. I mean, if you compare the English who were just coming at it in formation, standing people up in an open field and marching forward, and he [Washington] was just hiding in the bushes and shooting, that's a little bit like the new tactics we're facing in Afghanistan and Iraq. So there is a difference.
A terrorist is trying to instill terror in a civilian population and they are definitely expanding the battlefield to the civilian population. But in my mind, Barnabas is trying to save the world, trying to give the world a religion that will give guidance to people. He recognizes that some people, not all but some people, really do need Superman to tell them, "You will not pee in the pool. And if you do, I will kick you out." They need a God and they need the Ten Commandments. They need "thou shalt do this and do that" and you'll burn if you don't and you'll go to heaven if you do. They needed a daddy figure. Without that, you really face what Rome faced, which is people giving in to sensual desire to the point where the whole society wrecks. And that one's true!
You know, the Rome society is the same religion they have on Caprica, which is a multi-deity God mythology. In Rome, the roman mythology had nothing to do with what you should do or what you should try to become. It was just trying to explain human psychology. The Gods behaved in very human ways and it was really explored why we are the way we are. But that doesn't give guidance. You can argue that that's exactly what you should do but Barnabas sees it differently, because he's going into these V-clubs and he's seeing best friends shoot each other down for fun.
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Post by wrigglerosie on Mar 5, 2010 19:49:55 GMT
He did a big conference call with a lot of different mags and websites and they each reported their own bits so it looked like lots of different ones. - there is a complete transcirpt at Pink Ray Gun (complete with hilarious misheard words as it was obviously audio typed - who is this 'Josh Sweden'?? ;D) and its a lovely, in depth Q and A with James being his normal charming enthusiastic self. All because its his first appearence on Caprica tonight in the US.... There are some other exclusive interviews around too - so generally loads of publicity all round which is excellent news!! the boy is doing good!
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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 3, 2010 15:18:28 GMT
James Marsters of Caprica, Smallville, Angel, Buffy at Supanova pop culture expo in Brisbane John O'Brien From: The Courier-Mail April 03, 2010 12:00AM Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size Print Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these? Video Video Caprica - End of Line James Marsters & Son - Moonshot YOU could say he's a master of the sci-fi and fantasy realm.
James Marsters is best known as the peroxide-blond Spike, who helped make vampires sexy and gained a cult following in the process in hip fantasy series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel.
Not bad for a role that wasn't supposed to last.
"No, it was designed to die after five episodes," Marsters recalls.
"I remember (creator) Joss (Whedon) reminding me of that: 'Don't get any ideas.' But I think it went a little better than they thought it would."
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. Related Coverage Screen vampires End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. So well, in fact, that Marsters has made quite a name for himself in sci-fi and fantasy, and is one of the headliners at this year's Supanova fan convention in Brisbane.
Since Buffy and Angel, Marsters has landed roles in two "reimaginings": Smallville, a modern take on Superman; and Caprica, a spin-off of the updated Battlestar Galactica.
But he was never a fan of either original.
"I was more of a Batman guy – Batman was darker," he says.
"I also liked the fact that with Batman, if he got shot, then he'd die, and I always thought that was cool.
"And I hate to tell you, but I was a big Star Trek guy, so I didn't like the original Battlestar. But the more recent Battlestar is just fabulous. I think it's fair just to call it a drama, really. They're exploring some really good moral grey areas."
And Marsters has a pivotal role in Caprica. "I play a man who is living in a society that's becoming unhinged – much like ancient Rome did – where the morality is just completely breaking apart, and people are having fun with human sacrifice and mass orgies, ritualistic death and execution, and just shooting each other for fun," he says.
"In Rome it was all real, it was called the Coliseum, but in Caprica it's a virtual world people can escape into. But it's just as frightening – or it is for my character."
Marsters' character, Barnabas Greeley, decides that a new religion with just one god, and laws of right and wrong, is the only salvation for society.
"I'm a character who's decided that if you have to crack the egg, so be it. To make the omelette, eggs have to be broken, and that's OK. That's a revolution, that's a war," he says.
"So you could say that my character is a terrorist. Or you could also say he's a religious revolutionary. It depends on whose perspective, I guess."
The Caprica scenario is familiar ground for Marsters, who has also done voiceover work for animation and video games, which he says are commanding more respect as an artform than ever.
As for whether Marsters seeks out sci-fi and fantasy roles, or they seek him out, he says it's a bit of both.
"I think I audition well for sci-fi stuff just because I don't have a problem believing in the circumstances," he says.
"When I did the audition for Dragonball I just screamed at the director: 'I WILL DE-STROY YOU!!!' at the top of my lungs. I thought if he knows Dragonball he's gonna appreciate it; if he doesn't he's gonna think I'm insane!"
As with many actors, Marsters' first love is the stage. In the mid-'90s he ran a theatre company in Chicago and Seattle, and he recently recorded some radio plays for the BBC in London.
"When you're on stage the actor's in the driver's seat; the actor's the chef, everybody else is just a support system for the actor, so of course we're gonna love that! In film you're really just an ingredient for another chef called the editor to be chopped up later.
"But right now I'm having success doing television and film, so it would be kind of counterintuitive to do a long run of a play.
"The thing is, I've got two kids, and I can go out of town if I tell them I'm earning lots of money for college, but if I tell them I'm going away for six months, and really not making any money, they kind of look at me like, 'Are you for real?'
"I've got about five more years until they're in college, and then frankly, my dream would be to get back into Chicago and LA and Seattle and New York, and get back to theatre."
Marsters is also something of a musician. "Right now I am working on an album of music with Charlie De Mars, lead guitarist for Ghost of the Robot, which is a band I had," he says.
"It's really good to get back with him."
His son plays guitar on the album.
Marsters' Supanova appearances mark his third visit to Australia, after immensely enjoying his previous Down Under experiences.
And he has a message for attendees: "Come on down to the convention and check us out. It's a wonderful place where you can be cool by being creepy!
"And there aren't many places in the world where that's still allowable."CourierMail
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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 9, 2010 22:26:26 GMT
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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 17, 2010 14:30:49 GMT
Herald SunBuffy the Vampire Slayer's James Marsters guests at Supernova Pop Culture Expo Neala Johnson From: Herald Sun April 15, 2010 10:18AM JAMES Marsters - the man best known to millions of Buffy the Vampire obsessives as Spike - is in Melbourne to attend the Supanova Pop Culture Expo at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds from Friday April 16 -Sunday April 18.
The fan event also features Star Trek Kiwi Karl Urban, Parker Lewis himself, Corin Nemec, Twilight wolf-boy Alex Meraz, a bunch of comic book creators and more.
Herald Sun Hit caught up with Marsters before he flew to Australia, interrupting a Marsters family jam session. “My son, my father and I are all playing ukulele, it’s crazy,” Marsters said.
Marsters, who has also appeared in the film Dragonball, and shows including Torchwood, Smallville, Caprica and Without a Trace, had just returned home from shooting a new Hawaii Five-O pilot on the American island.
There are clips on YouTube of you and your son, Sullivan, performing acoustic songs, but your father gets in on the act too?
He started the whole thing. He’s been looking for a baritone ukulele for years but they didn’t make them anymore in America – or I couldn’t find one. I found myself, surprisingly, in Hawaii for a few weeks and I was able to track one down, so he’s a very happy man. I’m not a ukulele player by nature, but apparently the size of your ukulele is very important.
When you were a kid, did you roll your eyes at your dad playing ukulele?
No, I always loved it. My dad’s been playing the guitar and ukulele all my life. That’s one of the reasons I play guitar. In fact that’s one of the reasons I play it for my own son – when he was a baby I played him to sleep every night. Also, selfishly, there was one song by Keb’ Mo – when I hit that song he’d start yawning and go to sleep. At one point, it wasn’t even by my encouragement, I came back from Europe and he he’d picked up the guitar. He very quickly became much better than I ever have been.
How young was Sullivan when he picked up the guitar?
He didn’t start playing until he was almost 12. He’s been playing for about a year and a half now. He was playing baseball, which I’m terrible at. He was on the all-star team as the pitcher, and he was fast-ballin’ and burning it into me. And I was on the worst team in my school – in the whole school system I was in the worst team! So when Sullivan said he had started guitar, I thought “Oh great, now I can be the one showing you how to do it”. That lasted for about two weeks. I’m a rhythm guitarist, I’m pretty good at rhythm but I don’t have all the licks. It’s really wonderful, you keep telling your kids they’re doing a great job, even when they’re just learning something, then suddenly you turn around and they’re doing things you could never do.
You turn 48 this year. What are you still learning?
I think back five years ago and I remember myself as kind of a moron. And I hope that feeling never stops. I hope I’m always learning stuff both about myself and about the world and my own abilities. I always feel like, “Five years ago, I didn’t quite get it yet, did I?” But yeah, my songwriting’s gotten better. I guess I’m a better parent than I was five years ago. What else? I’m better at computer. And I’m better about not watching too much news. It can really play with my head – I’m a news junkie. I can really just spend five hours a day on the news if I’m not careful.
Are you a watcher of The Daily Show style news parodies?
Yeah, that’s the fun way to digest it, I guess. I have to say … let me just admit it, I watch C-SPAN… for fun. I’m one of those. (Note to Australians: the C-SPAN network offers non-stop coverage of US government goings-on. Think ABC ’s Parliament Question Time, if it ran 24 hours a day). My favourite news program though is Rachel Maddow on msnbc, I find her to be both humorous and honest, and not cynical yet.
Are you cynical?
Um… Huh… Good question. I’m clinging on to optimism with my fingernails, put it that way.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended in 2003. Do you feel you’ve managed to sink your teeth into some meaty roles since then?
I’ve been pretty lucky, huh? I got to play Buzz Aldrin for the BBC on a project called Moonshot, and I’m the first person to actually play him as a full character and not a background character. So that was really cool. He was a rock star at NASA, he was the cool one, with enough rough edges to be truly interesting. He saved NASA three times, by the way. He was also a scientist and professor as well as the decoration Colonel in the military. Anyway, I also got to play a cowboy who saves a town from an invasion of alien bugs (in movie High Plains Invaders). That was fun because finally my son, who was tired of me playing villains, got to see me playing a hero. I got to play a demon god in Dragonball, which was mainly about the stunts, and not becoming too afraid. That was a trip – I didn’t really have a stuntman for that movie. I was my own stuntman. A lot of screaming and getting hit a lot and getting yanked around on wires. What else? This year, I got to start in with the cast of (Sci-Fi channel series) Caprica. And I just got finished with a pilot in Hawaii that I think stands a very good chance of becoming a series.
The word on your appearance in the Hawaii Five-O pilot made it sound like it was a guest role. But will it be an ongoing role for you if the pilot is picked up?
Mmm-hmmm! Mmm-hmm. They saw me in a fight sequence and something about it made them think “Let’s keep him around for a little bit”. I’m like a poor man’s Jackie Chan. But I have to say of all of the pilots that I knew about this year, this one stands the best chance of actually making it to the light of day. So I’m pretty hopeful.
The Herald Sun last spoke to you five years ago, when for the first time you’d really dived head-first into pilot season. Have you been doing that every year since?
Oh every year, man. Every year you duke it out with everybody else and see what happens.
Hawaii Five-O is another villain role for you. What is it about you that makes people come to you for those roles?
I think frankly it’s because I got known for a villain early on. When I first came to LA, the only job on I’d had was as a very nerdish priest on Northern Exposure. I really lucked into that role. I was actually playing a killer on stage at the time for John Pielmeier who wrote Agnes of God, but I just happened to score this priest role on Northern Exposure.
So when I came down to LA the only thing I had on my reel was this nerd character, so I got put up for a bunch of nerds. I scored a couple of guest spots as people who were uncomfortable in their own skin. Then Buffy was looking for somebody at the last minute, and I don’t know why but they thought I could do accents, so they called me in. And I lucked into that role, and ever since everyone thinks of me as a villain. So, I’ll take it man. The villain is a good role.
Cos when you’re a villain, you’re standing in the shadows, not having to do much, then when the hero walks by you pop him a couple of times, big music sounds, and you go home. Whereas if you’re the hero, you have to have long scenes with guilt, and you have to be running around all night sweating, and then at the very end of the night you get popped in the face by the villain, who looks cool and gets all the credit.
You’ve found your niche and you’re sticking to it.
Oh yeah. Plus, you know, we villains, we age better. Who wants to be an ageing hero?
Five years ago, when everyone was asking whether there would be some kind of Buffy comeback, you told the Herald Sun that you only had a couple of years before you’d be too old to play Spike. Has that window of time passed?
No, you know, I’m holding up better than I thought I was (laughs). I’ve discovered wheat-grass and stretching! I dunno. It’d have to all come down to a camera-test, and is there a way to light the character so that he’ll be pretty much the same? I think it’d be possible, but it would be hard to tell without a real camera-test. I don’t want to play an ageing Spike. If we could really fool the audience into thinking I haven’t aged a day, that would be cool. But we’d need a lot of duct tape. Just kidding, I look gorgeous.
You’re coming down to Australia – is it all work?
No, I’m going to have a full week in Sydney to my own devices. I’m just going to try to keep out of trouble if I can, and see the sights. I was in Sydney years ago but I didn’t get out much because there was a radio station that ran a “Find James Marsters’ hotel room” contest, so I kind of bunkered down. The next time I came I spent about a week in Melbourne, I really liked that.
You’ll be talking to fans and performing your songs at the Supanova Pop Culture Expo events. Is the main reason you do these conventions these days to play your music?
No, you know, this is kind of a long winded answer, but the truth is I used to produce theatre, both in Chicago and Seattle. You’d have these meetings with other theatre producers and the conversation is usually surrounding “How do we create community? How do we take people who are losing contact with each other through computers and television, how do we bring them into one room and enjoy each other?”
And I ended up feeling like we were always preaching to the choir, like the people who came into the theatre were already kind of with the idea of having a community, were already comfortable with the idea of community.
The people we really needed to reach were not coming to the door. And I find that now that I’m doing these conventions I’m in fact building community faster and more efficiently than I ever did producing theatre. The fact that the people who come to these conventions are, as Jimi Hendrix said long ago, letting their freak flag fly, there’s something incredibly beautiful about that.
The fans that I meet, the ones that are interested in Buffy or Smallville or some of the other things I’ve done, tend to have a good sense of humour and tend to have a pretty high intelligence quotient. I have a friend who works at the Large Hadron Collider, the CERN collider in Europe, who is a big fan. Another friend works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
A couple of people from NASA, a couple of people from the CIA… you meet really interesting people if you come to these conventions. They may or may not have a Vulcan costume on (laughs), but man, if you get to talk to them, there’s a lot of really funny and really intelligent people. And if you can be comfortable with people dressing up, then you can meet ’em. And I’m an actor, so I’m very comfortable with dressing up.
You would have stopped doing the conventions years ago if it was just squealing girls, right?
Yeah, that’s really not it. The thing is, there are a group of people who follow me around now, between 100 and 200. And I’m just like an excuse, I’m just a diving board – they’re really there to meet each other at this point. And that makes me really happy. I’m like a poor man’s Grateful Dead.
Do you feel that, simply because you were Spike, your presence alone brings people into any other projects you do?
Yeah, I do enjoy that actually. It’s good for the ego. But also hopefully it just means that people have noticed that I’ve tried my best over the years.
Where are you at with the music? Are you still just doing the solo thing?
Actually, I’m working with Charlie DeMars again, who was the guitarist and songwriter for Ghost of the Robot. He and I and my son are starting to work on an album together. I think it’s going to be a simple acoustic album. We’re just starting scratch tracks, but I’m very excited. I’m having fun again recording in the studio like I used to; like I haven’t since I stopped working with Charlie. So it’s started to turn full circle.
Why did the fun go away?
Oh, we lost our drummer, the band lost its drummer, and that’s really the heart of the band. We got a good guy to come in afterwards, but he wasn’t the same. We weren’t getting up to the mountaintop anymore every night. At that point, little differences and little altercations seem to be more important because there’s not that feeling of joy to wipe everything away. More than anything else, that was it.
Do you think at some point Sullivan will find a strange way to rebel against his cool actor/cool rocker dad?
He’ll start listening to Rush Limbaugh (laughs). Oh god help me. You’re right, I better play Republican for a few years. Everyone finds their own way to rebel, I just hope he doesn’t rebel in a way that will cost him later in his life. I hope he finds a good way to piss me off some other way.
What was your rebellion as a teenager?
I just left. At age 17 and a half I just got out of dodge. That was my rebellion: “Goodbye”.
Are you an actor for life? Will you still be doing this at 80?
You know, I can’t fix cars, man. So yeah.
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Post by Pluto7077 on Apr 17, 2010 17:19:15 GMT
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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 29, 2010 14:27:31 GMT
There's an interview (and pics) with James in the new SFX mag (July #196), which should be in the shops next week (I got my subscriber copy today).
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Post by PokerKitten on Aug 5, 2010 23:24:38 GMT
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Post by Pluto7077 on Aug 6, 2010 16:13:26 GMT
Thanks PK He's looking so darn youthful
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Post by PokerKitten on Aug 19, 2010 23:43:41 GMT
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Post by DeeDee on Aug 20, 2010 13:12:53 GMT
Yay go James ( John Hart and Spike ) ;D ;D
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Post by PokerKitten on Aug 24, 2010 14:20:52 GMT
James has been getting his political rocks off on Rachel Maddow's blog (and he said it was him at the Chicago con, apparently).
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Post by PokerKitten on Mar 11, 2011 19:37:41 GMT
SD LGBT WeeklyJAMES MARSTERS: Vampire, time traveler, rocker Posted by LGBT Weekly Feature Story Thursday, March 10th, 2011 By Jonathan Young, San Diego LGBT Weekly
Music is not one of the first things you might associate with James Marsters. His music, however, is what is bringing him to San Diego this weekend.
The multi-talented artist is probably better known for his re-occurring role as the platinum blonde, blood sucking, and dare we say sexy vampire, Spike, on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its sequel, Angel. He also had a guest role in the short-lived British sci-fi hit Torchwood, as a highly sexual time traveler.
When he’s not in front of the camera, Marsters is behind a microphone, usually with a guitar in hand. He has played in clubs for many years and enjoyed several successful sell-out solo gigs and a successful career as the lead singer of Ghost of the Robot.
We caught up with Marsters, and he spoke to San Diego LGBT Weekly about his start as a vampire, why he is proud of playing gay characters and a preview of his performance at the San Diego IndieFest.
LGBT Weekly: Most people know you as the sexy and mysterious Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Did you ever think Spike would become so popular when you were first presented with the part?
Marsters: No, I was supposed to die in five episodes. Joss (Whedon, executive producer) explained very clearly that he couldn’t wait to kill me. I spent the first year reading the scripts backward looking for my ignoble demise.
How much of an influence were you able to contribute to the character development of Spike?
On the writing, zero. On the costume, zero. On the plots, zero. But an actor can say the words, “I love you,” and make them mean, “I hate you,” or even,” I don’t care about you.” So the truth was that I had a lot of influence. In , directors don’t give a lot of direction. It gets actors thinking too much, up in their heads and not in their guts. So unless it sucks, they move on.
What is the best memory of playing Spike?
The best was lighting myself on fire. I was so proud that the stunt coordinator trusted me not to blow a gag like that.
What would be the worst?
The worst was the same day, because I blew the gag. I let the burn go on twice as long as I was told, and burned the crap out of my hand. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t tell anyone on the set.
Another role our readers would know you from is Captain John Hart on Torchwood. What drew you to this character?
Are you kidding me? John Barryman of course! (A gay actor, Barryman plays Captain Jack Harkness, the show’s lead character.) Getting to kiss him, and then beat the hell out of him was just too good. Plus, the writing. We’ve made all the right people uncomfortable with that show. The theme, “Gay people are kick ass heroes,” is something that I am very proud to have a part in saying.
There have been rumors about you being uncomfortable with Hart’s more gay sexuality. What was it like for you to embrace that part of his character?
First of all, John isn’t gay. He will f**k anything that moves – men, women, a poodle. He’s omnisexual. Getting in touch with that part of the character was horrifyingly easy. God no, I had no discomfort. I’ve played gay people before, darling.
Aside from your roles in Buffy and Torchwood, you have a long list of other great credits. What are some of your favorites? What are you working on now? What roles are coming up for you?
You actually want me to plug myself? OK, here goes, but I warn you. I’m shameless. Favs: Buzz Aldrin in Moonshot, Piccolo in Dragonball and recording the books of The Dresden Files (available on iTunes). Now: Victor Hess in Hawaii Five-O. Coming up: Lex Luther in D.C. Universe, a sprawling new online game that was described as “the greatest Superman movie that they will never make” at this year’s Comic-Con, hopefully a new series (can’t talk about it … very hush, hush) and more Dresden.
Let’s talk about your music. What is your style? What is your influence?
My stuff is rooted in folk and blues with a good dab of pop. I like Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Woody Guthrie, Furry Lewis.
How many albums have you released?
Six, I guess. Ghost of the Robot is about to be available on iTunes.
What draws you to performance venues like IndieFest?
Good weather, happy people and a good sound system.
What can San Diegans expect from your live performance?
The reunion of Ghost of the Robot, the band that I played with all over the western world. We’ve added a new Robot, my son, who kicks ass on the guitar.
Is there anything I missed that would have been an ideal question for James Marsters?
Just thanks to everyone for keeping up with me. Hope I’m not boring anyone. See you at the show!
Oh dear! ;D
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Post by Rainbow on Mar 12, 2011 17:09:45 GMT
and describing Torchwood as a short lived series enjoyed the rest of the interview tho thanks PK
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Post by PokerKitten on Mar 12, 2011 22:33:17 GMT
Perhaps the geezer meant that JM's role was short-lived and it just came out wrong.
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Post by PokerKitten on Jun 10, 2011 17:57:56 GMT
Parramatta Sun - 3 page interview... celery and stealing babies?! Crimes against the language - it's You're not Your - and repeatedly not just a one-off slip up. I mourn the passing of flesh and blood proofreaders
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Post by PokerKitten on Nov 2, 2011 13:54:43 GMT
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Post by Ditto on Nov 2, 2011 15:08:02 GMT
...Sun... He is so right!
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Post by PokerKitten on Nov 8, 2011 14:19:26 GMT
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