In-Depth Interview with James Marsters (Spike)

A.V. Club has a wonderful in-depth interview with James Marsters talking about his Buffy days with great thoughts on fandom and his days filming the show.

Here he talks about his favorite episodes which are also fan favorites: "The Body," "Tabula Rasa," and "Beneath You." I especially enjoyed this insight into "Beneath You," the scene of Spike on the cross in the church and how hard it was to get the right amount of "shame" into that scene because Spike had earned back his soul:

What is your personal favorite—and least favorite—Buffy episode?

JM: Oh, I’ve got so many favorites. One of them is “The Body,” because: Wow. So different than other episodes. Really proving that the show can be just a very serious drama occasionally. And I had a week off, which, when you’re doing 12 to 20 hours of 22 episodes—I’m not joking—having the week off is life-saving. “Tabula Rasa.” That’s just an awesome show. Loved that one. I have very fond memories of the first one I was in. That was just such an intense experience. I think the director committed career suicide. He got so excited by what was happening in the episode, and birthing this character with me, that he started adding shots. And he was blowing budget, and Gareth Davies came down and told him, “If you don’t rein it in, you are never coming back on this show.” And he came to me and he said, “Look, they just told me I’m never going to be on this show if I don’t rein it in. I’m not reining it in. I don’t care. This episode is going to be amazing. And I’m going to get so much work off it in other places. But I’m going to make this really cool.” And he really did. I think part of the reason the character broke out quickly is because that first episode was so tight, as far as how many shots he got.

New Whedon Biography Gives the Scoop on Firefly

The new biography of Joss Whedon penned by Amy Pascale is being released today, giving us a world of new insights into the Whedonverse. I can't wait to read it!



Read the Firefly Chapter Here on io9

Excerpt:

"I wanted to play with that classic notion of the frontier," Joss said. "Not the people who made history, but the people history stepped on—the people for whom every act is the creation of civilization." And he wanted to do it on a spaceship.
That concept, he hoped, would elevate Firefly above the average sci-fi series. Though he'd clocked countless hours watching movies set in faraway worlds, most TV examples of the genre failed to engage him. Even his love of British television didn't extend to science fiction. "Never watched any British sci-fi," Joss says. "People were always talking to me about [Blake's] 7, Red Dwarf, even Doctor Who, and I just never watched them. I watched one episode of Doctor Who and I was like, 'Did they film that in my basement?' because it looked cheesy." His series aimed to be anything but.

Other tidbits:

• There are nine people in the Firefly crew because that was the number of passengers in the John Ford movie western, Stagecoach. 
• He named the show after the spaceship because he knew that any of the crew members might suddenly leave (or be fired)!!! 
• He wanted a "Preacher" on board to explore the theme of faith.
• Whedon identifies the most with Mal, but every character is part of his personality.
• He insisted that Zoe and Wash had to have a happy marriage, over the protests of the Fox executives who thought it would limit the drama.
•  Nathan Fillion's first impression of Whedon was "little guy in the corner, in a purple sweater with a rip in it. With scraggly hair and a scraggly beard."
• Fillion, who was turned down for the role of Angel in the Buffy series, had to audition 5 times for the role of Mal.
• Adam Baldwin said the director told him the character of Jayne was "not the sharpest tool in the shed."
• To prove his loyalty to both his Mutant Enemy production company, as well as the new show Firefly, Whedon turned down the role of director on the first Iron Man movie!