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Quotes
The good stuff, taken from articles and interviews..
Newest ones at the top.

James on 92.5 Chicago - Radio Interview Transcript
"I was, uh, bummin' around Queens goin' back home after a night's work at a bar and a guy just came up to me and just kind of whacked me with some brass knuckles before he even said anything. And, uh, said 'gimmie your money'."

"Always dignity. That's what I favor, dignity."

Death Becomes him - Gist TV, 04/00
"He can't kill Buffy [Sarah Michelle Gellar], because we'd all be out of work. That would be bad. But he can't try too many times and fail or he becomes ineffectual and bumbling and stupid. So I think it's imperative that they find a way for him to stop trying."

"The point is getting your own action figure. That's every boy's dream. I can go kick Superman's butt now."

Growing up with Buffy - Cult Times Special #13
"Joss called me up out of the blue," the actor tells Cult Times. "I had resigned myself that I would never be able to work with him again. It was too painful to hope for. How many times does lightning strike? How many times do you win the lotto? Do you know what I mean? He is a marvellous writer. He is one of the best America has right now in film, television or stage. Like a lot of things when you let go, it comes to you. He just called me up and said, 'I would like to have you be a cast member'. I picked my tongue up off the floor -- I'm the luckiest actor in Hollywood!"

"They took all the stuff that any Beavis or Butt-Head might lob at that show from the couch -- the 'nancy boy hair gel', 'to the Angel mobile' -- and had the courage to put that in the mouth of one of the characters. I thought that was brilliant. It was so assured and confident."

"If you are fighting Buffy or kissing her, you know you are in the middle of things!" reasons Marsters. "Getting to kiss Buffy was great. I got the script and went, 'Oh my God!' The problem was I was still smoking cigarettes at the time and Sarah hates smokers' mouths. So I was feverishly brushing my teeth in my trailer at all times."

The Seven Deadly Sinners:
"I'm a guy--we like to hit stuff and get scraped up and say, 'Honey, look at this big scratch I got'"

"There's a line that goes down the side of a woman's neck that I just love," he says. "And I love the hair on the nape of the neck, where the tender part meets the very hard part of the skull." Gulp.

"If you can kiss really well I find that women tolerate a lot of different kinds of behavior. As long as a girl knows that she is the center of your universe, you can act out a lot. To tell you the truth, I kind of got all my stuff straight before I met my girl, so thankfully I don't have to put her through too much."

Modesto's Vampire - The Modesto Bee
"This year Spike is confused. But if they hadn't changed him, they would have had to kill him off. Spike wants to kick a-- and kiss girls and suck blood but he can't."

Spike Heel - Fangoria #197, 05/00
"The character was supposed to die in three to five episodes," Marsters recalls. "We did three and I didn't die. We did two more and I didn't die. In the script for the fifth episode, I got conked on the head with an organ, and said, 'Well, that's it--I'm dead.' Then they sent me another script and I was back. It was a pleasant surprise that I didn't die, because I was fully expecting to. All I really wanted was a good body count and a good death, but lo and behold, I got a career."

"The old Spike was a lot of fun to play," says Marsters. "Being balls-out evil is the most fun thing in the world for an actor. You get to say all these things people want to say in real life, but can't. However, if the villain attempts to kill the heroine too many times and fails, then they become pathetic. The villain can't achieve that in a TV show, or the series is dead. I didn't want to do that. The fully evil Spike was certainly delightful to play, but it was not something sustainable."

"I can't say enough about Anthony--he is one of the better actors I've ever worked with," Marsters raves. "He is the shit. He does the heavy lifting for the show with all that exposition. Every week he has to convince us that the world is going to come to an end again and again. He's got to talk about the Box of Tathor or the Talisman of Nigeria or whatever and sell it. He has to give it weight so it doesn't seem repetitious. He does that every time so well. And I knew Spike was a cool character when Anthony said so. So I had always wanted to do a scene with him."

Marsters also relishes the fact that Spike was pretty much the original punk rocker back in 1874. "Spike is 126 years old, and he was the first punk," he says. "The humans finally caught up later, and it was like, 'Anarchy--let's go.'"

Raising the Stakes - Starburst Yearbook, Special #42
"I like the genre," he explains. "It's not something that I targeted specifically when I came to Los Angeles, but I think it's a very useful genre. It frees up the writers to talk about issues that might be relevant to real people in a more and direct way. It's really kind of like the court jester back in the Renaissance and medieval times, who, as long as he was telling a joke, could criticize the king in a way that nobody else could. Of course, if the court jester went too far he'd be killed immediately, but he was usually the king's most valued and trusted advisor." - James on Sci Fi

Bad Blood Sci-Fi TV #9
"Who is Spike?" wonders James Marsters.
He rolls the question around on his tongue like a vampire savoring a delectable trickle of blood. "Ooh, existentialism," he remarks, "Spike is a sociopath. Spike has fun hurting people. Spike is a man without guilt. Spike is a man for whom the world has been opened, and he can get what he wants when he wants it. Spike does not carry a wallet. When Spike sees something, he takes it."

"I danced a jig when they invited me back. I love doing Buffy and Angel. You get to hit people, man. On Angel, the creators are the same guys [Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt] as on Buffy. David Boreanaz, of course, was there too. I was nervous the first day that I shot Angel because I had only played Spike on Buffy ["Lover's Walk"] once in about two years. In fact, I had to review tapes to find the character again. But once I got on the set, I was in full vamp makeup, fighting David again. So it really felt like old times."

Who's Hot - Ultimate TV.com(now zap2it.com)
"I have had my rough years," he says. "I'm better now, but there were years when I spent a lot more time in emergency rooms and police stations than I do now." Do tell. "Ummm ..." Tell one, then. "Um, god, well, I was up in Harlem trying to, um, complete a business transaction, and a guy pulled a knife on me ..." Was said transaction for merchandise or, er, personal services? "No, no, no, not personal services. That's the part of it I really ... well, anyway, like I said, I'm better now. Guy pulled a knife on me, and I wasn't carrying anything, so he chased me out of the stairwell. As I came out of the stairwell, I saw a two-by-four on the ground, and I hit him full on the head when he came out the door. "Actually, it's kind of a serious story, because I left him there, and I still, to this day, don't know how he did."

"I just don't want them to stake me. When I came on the show, all I wanted was a good body count and a good death. I want to be struck by a train or something. I've got the body count, but I haven't been given the death, and that's even better."

Re-vamped - XPosé Special #9:
"I know absolutely nothing," he laughs. "I'm a fan now. I was only on one episode last year, so I've just been watching the show like everyone else week to week. I'm all caught up in the whole, 'How could Faith do that? I hate her!' syndrome!"

"If you're not fighting with Buffy or kissing Buffy, you really aren't in the mix, so I hope to do one or the other this season. A lot of fans want to see the two characters come together. It would be very interesting. But I don't know if her character will be wanting to go out with a vampire after what happened with Angel!"

Spike Speaks - HorrorOnline.com, 10/99
"We were doing this play called the DISCOVERY PLAY, and there was this wonderful Broadway actress who was directing it, but she wasn't directing us at all! Being that it was the first play of the first year, and that its name was such as it was, I thought they wanted to 'discover' what we could do if they just let us go; if we were going to be able to pull the story together, how much help we would need.     About a week before opening it seemed to me that everyone was just jerking off, and being very indulgent, and I finally stood up and ragged us all out collectively, saying, 'People are going to come to watch this! They are going to give us three hours of their lives! We have to care whether we are boring or not!' Well, apparently the director didn't like this at all, and it was just downhill from there on out."  - James on Julliard

"Ultimately, I would like to get in a position where I can attract money to a project so that I can start picking the stories I want to tell," stated James. "I really want everything. My big dream I guess is that in five years or so enough people will know who I am that I can attract $8 to $10 million to produce MacBeth."

After Midnight
The Official BtVS Magazine, Summer 1999:
Question: If you lost your own soul, what's the first thing you'd do?
James: I'd go and kill Trent Lott. (laughs) I would just rip through the entire House Judiciary Committee. See, the problem is that I'm pretty happy with my life, so I'm not really tempted. I guess the ability to be able to go out and take whatever you want, to be above the concerns of money. That's the thing I've always loved about vampires. Vampires don't carry around a wad of cash. If they want something, they just go take it.

"I've never had an idea squashed, except for the time I wanted to take my shirt off and Joss said no."

Question: We kinda got a flavor of how Spike might react if he lost Dru this season in the episode "Lover's Walk." He basically got smashed.
James: (laughs) Yeah, I'm gonna be drunk all season. I'm just gonna be sipping booze in the back.

Sharp Spike: Cult Times Special #9.
"All I really wanted," says James, "was a spectacular death. A good quip and a chance to kick butt and I'm happy."

An Undead Kind of Love:
"I like makeup and everything," James laughed. "But that was pretty weird. At first it was nice, just like sleeping with a warm pillow over my face. Then after twenty minutes when you're only breathing through your nose you're thinking if I get a stuffy nose I'm gonna die. Then it becomes a problem." - James on Vampires Makeup

Darkhorse Interview:
"I was poor -- eating sandwiches with mayonnaise and nothing else. Spiderman or mayonnaise? Hmmm (laugh)? I needed calories to keep walking, so I opted for the mayonnaise."

" I don't know if I want to examine why I particularly enjoy playing a character who enjoys hurting people (laughs)..."

Q: Does the role wreak havoc on your hair. Isn't it naturally dark?

A: No, not really. Naturally it's blue (laughs)... But now I'm in Hollywood, so God knows what it's going to be day to day. I think I switched hair colors three times in one two-week period once just for doing different projects...

Vampire Bytes - Starburst Issue #246 -
"I dye my hair for the show and anyone who dyes their hair with bleach knows it hurts like a mother, but if you add three or four packets of sweet and low it doesn't hurt anymore. I just learned this from my friend Dawn who taught me! She works at Lather in Los Angeles. It's a beautiful thing and there's got to be some people out there that need to use it."