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Post by fredspuffed on Aug 7, 2004 7:45:43 GMT -5
Moderator's note: Rather than have fredspuffed lose the credit for bringing this article to us, I thought I'd just rename her thread and make it the place for all things JM. If it's about the incomparable James Marsters, then this is the place to post it.Many of you are eager to know James’ next project and have e-mailed with lots of supportive suggestions – thank you. James has been very busy with meetings and auditions and reading material, that I am sure will lead to his next project shortly. I know that a lot of you are anxiously following the Dresden book “Storm Front” which is in development with Lions Gate for Sci-Fi channel as a movie of the week. We are following it closely and as of now there is no casting yet. I understand that they are still in the development stages of working out the story for the small screen. James will be recording the next Dresden book on tape “Grave Peril” in late September. As soon as we have a release date, we will share it with you. He is also taking advantage of this much needed downtime in anticipation of revving back up again – getting in lots of rest and exercise and family time. We will do our best to give you, the fans, the most up to date information as soon as we can. Thank you for all the support. Himber Entertainment (management for James) from www.jamesmarsters.com/home.html
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 16:20:11 GMT -5
From Karen:www.tvguide.com/search/editorial/article.asp?keyword=cool%20money&articleId=102992Friday, March 18, 2005 Angel Vamp's Afterlife of Crime by Ben Katner Since Angel was dispatched to TV-show heaven, James Marsters' admirers have had a helluva time getting a fix of the actor formerly known as Spike. (Sadly, The Mountain peaked before his character even had a chance to recur. And the Spike TV-movie is only a fantasy for now.) So Saturday's USA movie, Cool Money (airing at 9 pm/ET), is guaranteed to get fans' blood pumping. In the fact-based drama, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum is career criminal Bobby Comfort — "exactly the kind of guy I want to play," he tells TVGuide.com. "He did some petty crimes that he got caught for almost every time. Never hurt anybody, but he was a smartass to the judge the last time around and got a really heavy sentence — like nine or 10 years for rolling a gas station, I think. "It's a horrible thing to do," he adds quickly, "but [the sentence was a bit much]. So he escaped from prison, got caught and argued in front of a judge that he was over-sentenced the first time around, and even if he was sentenced again for escaping from prison, it still wouldn't make up for unjust time served. And he won!" Clearly, while Marsters doesn't advocate living outside the law, he remains fascinated by his Cool counterpart. So of course, he's bummed that the thief died — of old age, not a prison riot, by the way — before Marsters had a chance to join him for a meal of bread and water. "They say he was a very kind man you wouldn't want to [expletive] with," he says, then quickly corrects himself. "Screw with, excuse me. And those are always my favorite kinds of people." As fond as the thesp grew of his Money-grubbing alter ego, he doesn't see Comfort and himself as kindred spirits who make their living, in essence, by lying. Comfort, after all, conned folks, and Marsters gets paid to play make-believe. Strange as it may sound, he sees his performances as works of truth rather than fiction. "I feel very differently about acting than most people do," he explains. "Good acting is not so much lying or putting on a mask as it is revealing yourself in a truthful way. The art of it is to select those facets of your personality that fit the character and not play upon the ones that don't. "I think it was [Ralph Waldo] Emerson who said, 'Within all men are all men,'" he goes on, "and that's a very potent thing for an actor to contemplate. It gives you the power to play just about anything."
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 17:39:48 GMT -5
Posted by LeeHollins:Angel's James Marsters Rocks On [/center] by Daniel R. Coleridge After Buffy the Vampire Slayer bit the dust, creator Joss Whedon hired James Marsters to join Buffy's spin-off, Angel. How does he like playing Spike, the semi-reformed British bloodsucker, on a whole other series? "I'm really pleased they have a TV show to put me on, baby!" Marsters tells TV Guide Online. "I like acting. I'm so happy I don't have to go look for projects like all my friends from Buffy do. I'm sure they'll find them, but I've got my plate full right here and I love it." When he's not on Angel's set, the actor performs with his band, Ghost of the Robot. His appearance on stage — leather jacket and slicked-back platinum hair — isn't much different from Spike's look. Does his easy recognition as a TV star help Marsters lure rock and roll aficionados to concerts? "We were afraid of a double-edged sword, which is that people will come listen to you, but no one will take you seriously if you're a celebrity band," he says with a smirk. "But we've toured all over the U.S. and Europe, and everywhere we go, people say, 'Right on, dudes! Your music actually is good!'" Life as an almost rock star isn't all a joyride. It takes work. "I'm the lead singer," Marsters says. "I write about 40 percent of the material. In the beginning, I played rhythm guitar, too, but to play and front a band is hard. Because the frontman has to connect with an audience. You have to give them permission to release and exalt, even though they're standing in the middle of a crowd of sweaty strangers. "I also have new respect for bands who sound good live on tour," he says with a grin. "I didn't realize that, singing for rock, you have to sing loud. My singing has improved enormously because it's a physical effort. I've got to stand a certain way, spread my ribs and really let it out!" Ghost of the Robot are currently at work on their second album. More info is available on the band's Web site. [/color] www.tvguide.com/news/insider/040105c.asp
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 17:54:42 GMT -5
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 17:58:19 GMT -5
Posted by Karen:A MUST see. Make sure you watch the whole clip. He is so adorable. The audience is so wild for him and whooping it up like Hollywood Squares has never seen. And see Whoopi Goldberg under James' spell. She is so smitten. A fun clip, for sure. www.impisheyes.com/home.htmlJust had to save this for posterity - whomever they shall be. Spreadin the joy. www.impisheyes.com/home.html
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:04:16 GMT -5
Posted by deborah:Here's something featured on Slayage.com today featuring quotes from James about AtS S5. No actual Spoilers but he does speak in generalities and speculates about what will happen so absolute purists may wish to stay away: thewb.com/Faces/ArtOfBeing/0,11158,128862,00.html
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:24:22 GMT -5
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:41:02 GMT -5
Posted by deborah:Link discovered courtesey of of Mushmouse at MTS board. Listen to James and the boys in the band when they took over FCUK radio station in London on 5/3. www.slayerverse.de/tanet/net_buffy_us/?navi=news.php&id=7711Note, first bit is just a couple of music tracks. Then James announces he's taking over for the next couple of hours. deborah
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:41:53 GMT -5
Posted by deborah:Thar be screen captures of before, during and after the head shaving on Ryan Seacrest. www.gotr-forums.net/index.php?showtopic=337&st=0entry3759Scroll down till you see this post: Screen Captures from Ryan Seacrest! I'm such a geek... I got all teary! But he still looks fabulous! And he said they got $25,000 for charity. One person donated $5000!! Way to go everyone! Before Ryan runs his fingers through it... Really long on top! And there go the clippers.... Skunk Stipe All off the top During... During... Feels good... After... Still beautiful...
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:43:41 GMT -5
Posted by makd:Couldn't sleep, so of course, I booted up and surfed over to the BAPS board. Found a five part interview of James Marsters - from the Angel set. The URL starts here: tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/Bloody_Awful/interrupt?st=2&m=1&done=%2Fgroup%2FBloody_Awful%2Fmessage%2F219924Then, just follow the subject titles. There are five postings, all under The Interview, part one (to five). You may have to hit the back button (previous) to get to 21994. although the members are friendly, technically, the BAPS board is NOT user-friendly. (It's a yahoo-board, not a pro-board.) You must register with Yahoo groups, if you're not already. have fun. Some of the interview is his standard yada yada. Some of the interview is new. The interview came the day after or a couple of days after the nonrenewal announcement. oh, and there are spoilers posted, though not in the interview. They are in the "visit to the set". Forewarning....is forearming....
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:47:08 GMT -5
Posted by Cheddar:no spoilers that I would think are spoilers, just a couple comments about the differences between BtVS and AtS for him as an actor and overall story arc. May require registration to get into article. www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=1204897&TP=getentertainmentTo which Sue replied:Hmm, well, I'm supposed to be moderator for this section of the board so I went to check this out, but I have a personal policy about giving out all the information required to register, so...all I can say is check it out at your own risk!
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:57:26 GMT -5
Posted by deborah:www.buffy.nu/article.php3?id_article=3142From Dreamwatch Magazine #114 - March 2004 James Marsters - Dreamwatch Magazine Interview From Totallydavidboreanazuk.com 2004 - 02 - 3rd « Previous Article - Next Article » Is that really you swapping blows with David Boreanaz in Destiny? Oh yeah! Toe-to-toe the whole day. Both David and I have done enough fights that it’s pretty much like working with another stuntman. You know, the concerns are the same. Neither of us are professional stuntmen - we’re not that good - but for actors, we’re pretty damn good. And pretty experienced at this point. What’s great about working with David is that you get the acting stuff as well. And I feel like we have a really good trust between the two of us. It’s never, "Oh, he’s going to do that to me - I don’t trust that!" If I had to do a cliff scene and the only thing keeping me from falling over the edge was David, I’d be cool with it. Seriously. You could count on it. On David Directing: David is a great director. He came in and he did better than any first-time director I have seen - stage, movies, TV or anything. He impressed everybody! Has working on Angel turned out to be everything you hoped for? I knew David Boreanaz was a great guy, but I also knew that he’d been doing the world fame thing for six years, and that can really play with your head. But the man is more a man now than when I first met him, and he was a great guy when I met him. He is a really great guy to work with. He just wants to do it and go home to his kid. He’s so respectful. It’s a much happier set than I expected. I expected kind of the norm for television and what I walked into was a really supportive group of people. I’m really lucky to be in this situation and I think it’s coming across on screen too. I think my work is better than it’s ever been. I’m just happy. What’s the hardest part of playing Spike? The pressure to look the same as you did seven years ago, like a vampire would, becomes enormous. You just hope the audience likes the acting well enough to forget what you looked like originally.
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:58:49 GMT -5
Posted by Nan:
From Angel Magazine January 2004 James Marsters - Angel Magazine Interview By Jeremy A. Lawson 2003 - 12 - 31st
When we last saw Spike on Buffy he was, well... well done. He has just sacrificed everything for the love of his death, Buffy Summers, and managed to save all of human-and-demon-kind in the process. So just where does that leave everyone’s favorite bleach-blond vampire with a soul?
Angel Magazine caught up with James Marsters during a break from filming an early season five episode, to get the low-down on his transition to the new series, Spike’s new ghostly (un-life) and lots more...
Interview by Jeremy A. Lawson
ANGEL MAGAZINE: It’s all new for you at the moment - new cast, new crew, new show. How’s the adjustment going?
JAMES MARSTERS: Everyone has welcomed me with open arms here and made me feel really comfortable. A lot of the writers, producers and directors are the same [as on Buffy], so it hasn’t been as much of an adjustment as I thought it would be. I feel very much at home, I’m in the same damn coat, you know?
And how’s Spike adjusting?
He’s hating life. He doesn’t think his reward for saving the world should have to be hanging around Angel, not being able to touch anything or smell anything or get any tail or anything
Does Spike feel under-appreciated by the Angel gang?
I don’t think that Spike really considers himself a champion. I don’t really think he thinks what he did was that amazing, but he’ll use it to try to get them to save him. He’ll put that out and guilt-trip them like crazy, but if you were to ask him, I think he’d probably have to admit that he was just wearing the amulet. He was almost more of a guinea pig than he was a hero.
Did Spike sacrifice himself out of selflessness or did he do it for Buffy?
Oh, for Buffy. Definitely for Buffy. They thought the amulet was going to help but they had no idea what it was going to do. He went in there willing to die to back Buffy up, I don’t know if he cares about saving the world. You know, Buffy? Yeah, save her. She’s cute. But Spike really should move on. She loves Angel.
Does Spike still have hope for his future?
He is very afraid that he’s going to slip away from the world completely. He assumes, and I think correctly, that he will be going to Hell. I don’t think he believes that getting fried by an amulet makes up for all the evil that he ever did. So he’s scared. And desperately trying to get help to stay. But he’s a fighter, man. He’s not going to give up. So he has hope that he’s going to save his ass.
Aside from their shared past as William the Bloody and Angelus and their shared love for Buffy what do Spike and Angel have in common?
You really can’t underestimate that crazy vampire stuff that happened between them. I hear tales of guys who come back from war who really can’t talk about it to anyone except someone else who has been through it - there’s no context and too much to explain. I think that’s really true with Angel and Spike. They’ve both done things that we can’t even imagine and then they’ve had to come to terms with it because they both got souls. I think they both know what it is to be alone. When you’re a vampire in the company of humans, you really are alone because they don’t understand you at all.
Does Spike’s presence alone bring little hints of Angelus out in Angel?
That’s what Spike is trying to do. He’s trying to get Angel to cut the bullshit and admit who he really is. Spike doesn’t really understand the journey that Angel has been through, that he’s not just playing champion for the fun of it, so he thinks Angel is being kind of mendacious. I think at some point Spike is going to have to come to a better understanding about what Angel is really trying to do with his life.
In a way, it seems as though Spike is being repaid for his past transgressions against humanity despite what he did to save the world. Would Spike prefer to be dead?
Yep. Go out clean. Go out in a beautiful blaze of glory. Or if you’re going to come back, come back and be able to enjoy life. But to be brought back as a ghost? I don’t think anybody fantasizes about ending up as a ghost. He can’t even go check out the world. If I was a ghost, I’d be hanging out in the locker rooms with the girls, but he can’t even do that. Spike’s gotta hang around Wolfram & Hart.
Who do you prefer playing as an actor, the evil, dark Spike or the kinder, gentler Spike we got to see on Buffy?
I think playing the bad-ass evil guy is always fun, but if I’d only been playing that for the last six years, I’d be bored with the role. I like to play variety. One of my favourite things about the role is that it hasn’t stayed in one place. It’s gone all over the map. I like to say that I started out as a super-villain and went to wacky neighbour for a season and then the wrong boyfriend for a couple of seasons and then the redeemed man. That’s kind of like four roles in one.
It’s a testament to the writers that they can take Spike over such a broad arc successfully... It’s an amazing thing because in the beginning he seemed to be a direct threat to the theme, which was that vampires are not meant to have human aspects. They’re really just meant to be metaphors for the pain of growing up. And that’s why the vampires in this universe are not beautiful when they kill. In other vampire lore, they have pointy teeth and a human face and that’s a very sexy look. That’s something that [series creator] Joss [Whedon] denied the vampires for a specific reason. We’re hideously ugly when we kill. To have a vampire without a soul who the audience responded to and had compassion for was a very weird fit in that universe. It was really amazing when they decided to include Spike in the show as a permanent fixture.
Do you think that Spike’s appeal to the fans was so broad and so vast that Mutant Enemy had to keep him around?
I don’t think Joss lives to please the fans. The fact that the fans reacted well, it does my heart good, but I think ultimately it was the episode where Spike came looking for Drusilla in the third season of Buffy when he was pathetic and drunk and weak, Joss looked at the character and for the first time told me that he thought there was enough mileage to explore the character more. Because evil is not cool to Joss. He doesn’t spend any energy trying to make it look cool. And so it was when Spike got pathetic, Joss thought "that’s interesting".
How tough is it to tap into a situation where you’re really at the base depths of your character’s life?
Horrible. Absolutely horrible. I dabbled with the Method when I started doing television because it’s so intimate that the camera will catch you lying. The quick way of explaining the Method is the actor develops a fantasy life, a fantasy world that is so detailed that he can release into that fantasy and improvise and therefore have real experiences in front of the camera as opposed to deciding intellectually what you’re going to do and mapping it out. But I discovered that the Method will eat you alive in television. If you do the Method for a stage play, first of all it doesn’t work, but it’s only three months long. If you do it for a movie, it’s two or three or maybe four months. But if you do the Method for six years, it can really bite you in the butt. The camera wants to document something actually happening, so if you’re playing a guy who is breaking up, you have to go there.
I went home shivering in tears a lot. I really did put myself through all that crap. And I can’t watch it now because I don’t want to go back there. It’s real. And I know what I was thinking. I can’t watch James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause anymore because all my life I wondered how he came up with that incredible performance and I’m starting to realize that he was simply in that much pain. I don’t know what he was going through, but it was very painful. Yeah. I can’t watch that anymore. Wow.
Your background is in stage work. How does acting for the camera differ from theater where you have the instant gratification of the audience?
It’s a whole different job. On stage you’re like a Benihana (hibachi) chef. A lot of people give you the ingredients you need, but when the product is made and sold to the customer, it’s all done by the actor. The actor has to cook it up every night, and that’s a big responsibility. In television or film, you’re just one of the condiments and the chef is the editor later. So your job shrinks down to minutia but within that it’s as challenging as stage because the camera needs you to be much more honest, so much more immediate.
In stage work, you spend a lot of time creating the illusion that `this is happening for the first time’ but the camera will catch that illusion. The camera wants it to really happen for the first time so it’s really about trusting yourself. The audience is paying for the right to stare at you. They’re not expecting anything more interesting than what they live, they just want to stare because you can’t do that in real life. If you were able to stare at any human being this close for an hour you’d learn a lot about them. It takes a lot of courage to stand there and not try to hide.
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 18:59:42 GMT -5
Posted by Nan:
(continued from Part 1)
Is it possible to deliver that same type of performance when acting for the camera?
The greatest example is Sir Lawrence Olivier, who was a great stage actor, one of the best obviously. But on film? Not so great. You can see the man acting. You can see the strings being pulled on the puppet. There’s a great story about Dustin Hoffman staying up all night when he was preparing to do the teeth drilling scene in Marathon Man. Lawrence Olivier looks at him and Hoffman’s eyes are all bloodshot and baggy and Olivier says, "My dear boy, why don’t you try acting?" My response to that is, ’Larry look at the dailies `cause Dustin is kicking your ass!’
On stage, you have to translate the inner workings of a mind and put it into your body. When a character changes his mind or notices something, you have to really physicalize it, push it out and that’s what performance is. You cannot perform for the camera. The camera hates performance. The camera knows what you’re thinking, all you have to do is think it. And you have to be very careful to make that transition or else you’re going to be false.
Have you given any thought to directing film or television?
I could fake my way through it, and I might end up with a really good episode, but I don’t think I’d really earn the money. And until that’s true, it’s kind of a waste of time. I’ve given more thought to producing, actually. I would very much like to produce. I’ve produced a lot of theater, and I’m good at it. I’m good at convincing people, getting people excited to do things they normally wouldn’t do. I would really love to do a film version of Macbeth. It’s never been done well. I would love to act in it, but I’d never direct myself in a film. I give it up to guys like Mel Gibson. Braveheart was phenomenal.
You did a European tour this past summer with your band, Ghost of the Robot, and now you’re playing dates here in the US. How is that going?
We’ve been having really good rehearsals and we’re working on some new material. About half of our set isn’t even on this album it’s gonna be on the new album.
How does acting compare to musicianship? Are they two totally different worlds?
Music is a real taskmaster. Technically, to create something that seems effortless in an emotional expression actually takes slavish devotion to beat and note and one little tiny mistake disrupts the whole thing. In singing, you can’t release to the emotion of the song because it will clam up your voice. You get so into the song and you start to get sloppy, which is a weird thing because music is such a personal expression, such an intangible expression between lyric and melody and chords, but it is a very technical thing to create. I find live music very refreshing because frankly in television, if you mess up you get another take. Psychologically, that’s a big difference from being out in front of an audience. If you hit one string wrong in an hour and a half, that’s what everyone is going to remember. You didn’t carry the audience to that other place, the charm didn’t come. And more importantly, your brothers, your mates are gonna be pissed at you - you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain. You can soundcheck for six hours if you want, but when you hit the stage and you can’t see anybody anymore it’s all different. But through all that crap, you still reach out and find them and come together and that feeling is exhilarating.
Is that a feeling that Spike will ever come to know?
There are very, very few people Spike connects with actually. His connection with Buffy is one of the reasons he was so attracted to her. He doesn’t really include very many people in his life. He’s a total absolute loner. Well, not total absolute…
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Post by Sara on Mar 27, 2005 19:09:47 GMT -5
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