James Marsters was born in Greenville, California but was raised in Modesto, California. So, no his Spike accent isn't real. One of James' first acting roles was as Eeyore in a fourth grade production of Winnie the Pooh. James got his start in theatre(*g*) and later moved onto bigger things other than Winnie the Pooh. In highschool he was quite the thesbian, participating in many different productions. His high school experience later led to a brief stint at the performing arts school Juliard. However the school was bit too conventional for James and he found it to be a most unpleasent experience. Leaving school James entered the real world of acting...of course in the theatre.

Not only did James study at Juliard, he also worked with the American Conservatory Theatre and the PCPA. He has performed in countless plays and helped to start a theatre company, The Genisis Theatre Company. Some of the other plays James has participated in include but are not limited to The Tempest, A Marriage of Figaro, and most recently The Why. His favorite theatrical role is Macbeth and he is currently trying to get a film production going on it(keyword trying, as far as I know this is still just a hope and not a thing is concrete about it).

But James soon realized that a passion for theatrical acting alone doesn't pay the bills and he headed back to California to try and strike cold in the moving pictures. He started out as many do, quite the struggling actor with small bits on various television shows, Norhtern Exposure for one. He did however get a break that fateful day when he called to audition for a vampire named Spike on a television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Spike was to be the male side of a vampire duo that series creator Joss Whedon described as the Sid and Nancy of the vampire set. His character was also to be killed off after only a few episodes too. This, of course luckily did not happen. Spike proved to immensely popular amongst the shows fans. But the role was only reoccuring during that second season, and only a one episode appearance in season three, of BtVS and so James continued working on other projects. Among them appearances in television shows like Millennium. He also managed a small spot in the film House On Haunted Hill and in an indie flick called Winding Roads. Recently James has been spotted on Politically Incorrect, The List, Hollywood Squares and Say What Kareoke.

On another note James also has quite the passion for music. Having performed at this summers Nocturnal 2K and also a few sets at a Santa Monica night club(both singing and playing guitar). Some of his favorite musical acts include Radio Head, the Charletens, Miles Davis, Tom Waits, Beck, Morphine, Bob Marley, Nirvana, Lauryn Hill, Marvin Gaye, Charlie Parker, Johnny Lee Hooker, Blink-182, Macy Gray and the Cure. And moving even further along, James of course bleaches out his naturally brown curly hair about every nine days during filming for his role as Spike(and says adding sweet-n-low to the mixture cuts on the pain to the scalp). And has recently been quoted saying(though I'm not actually quoting him) that the look is quite freakish. This summer it was a pretty nice honey-colored blonde.