James Marsters

James Marsters says Spike is the best role he has ever had because it lets him play so many different sides of the character.

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James Marsters has produced more than 70 plays.

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James Marsters's favorite Buffy episode is Once More, with Feeling (2001).

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James Marsters was widely known for his bleached platinum-blond hair. He had to bleach his hair regularly to play Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). In a famous Entertainment Weekly interview, he admitted that he added four to seven packets of Sweet'n Low to the bleach solution to ease the pain. When the series ended, Marsters had his bleached hair shaved off on television (to sell for charity) and returned to his natural brown hair.

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James Marsters is the legal guardian of his niece.

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James Marsters is left-handed but plays the guitar right-handed.

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James Marsters studied at Juilliard, the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts and the American Conservatory Theater.

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Spike was originally meant to be Creole, and James Marsters practiced a Bayou accent. However, producer Joss Whedon decided almost at the last minute that Spike should be English.

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Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) was originally supposed to be killed off in his first season on the show, but he was kept on because of his very popular fan base.

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James Marsters got the scar on his left eyebrow when he was attacked while living in Queens, New York.

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James Marsters says his personal strength is patience and his personal weakness is his temper.

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James Marsters has a son named Sullivan (born 1996) with his ex-wife Liane Davidson.

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James Marsters's appearance at the 2002 Shore Leave science-fiction convention was so popular that many fans had to watch his Q&A sessions on monitors set up outside the conference hall. Despite the nearly Beatlemania-like crowding at the event, he stayed more than 2 hours past his scheduled departure to make sure every fan waiting in line got an autograph.

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As of 2016, James Marsters had narrated 15 audiobooks of Jim Butcher's 'The Dresden Files' as well as the short stories in the 'Side Jobs' anthology. He is so similar to the character Harry Dresden that when a scheduling conflict prevented him from reading book 13, 'Ghost Story', and the book was read by John Glover instead, the fan reaction and desire for continuity led to the book being re-recorded with Marsters and re-released four years later. Although Glover did a good job with the reading, Marsters is truly an actor with his voice in these books; every character is distinguishable from the others and from one book to the next, allowing the listener to become familiar with and attached to them all.

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James Marsters once lived in a house on the beach (and was probably still living there). He once said in an interview that the worst part of living there was that, because of his role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), he could not go out on the sand for long since he was tanned.

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James Marsters graduated from high school with a 3.8 grade point average.

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Because the writers/producers had not decided who they wanted Spike to be, James Marsters was asked to audition in both a Cockney accent and a Southern accent.

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James Marsters is the first live-action actor to play the Superman comics villain Brainiac.

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James Marsters has a HUGE following in the science-fiction/fantasy community. There are (literally) hundreds of websites online dedicated to him and to his extremely popular vampire character 'Spike'.

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James Marsters spent the first ten years of his professional acting career in the theatre, working at various times in New York, Chicago and Seattle.

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In a fan poll conducted by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanzine in 2004, James Marsters ranked first among the Top Ten Sexiest Men of the Buffy / Angel universe.

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According to both Marina Sirtis and Joss Whedon, James Marsters auditioned for the role of Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). At the end of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), his character was sent to Africa so that he could get permission to make the film.

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James Marsters was one of three actors called in to audition for the role of Spike opposite Juliet Landau.

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At the Nocturnal 2K Convention in London, England, James Marsters won the Sexiest Male Vampire Award.

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One of James Marsters's first major theatre roles was in a Chicago production of "The Tempest," in which he was strapped almost naked to a large wooden wheel for his entrance. He claims he has never been shy about appearing nude since then.

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James Marsters's favourite playwright is Anton Chekhov.

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James Marsters has played two of Superman's arch-enemies. He portrayed "Milton Fine", also known as "Brainiac", in the series Smallville (2001). He voiced "Lex Luthor" in the animated video Superman: Doomsday (2007).

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James Marsters appeared in three WB television series that continued in comic-book form: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), Smallville (2001) and Angel (1999).

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James Marsters has two siblings: an older sister (Susan, born 1960) and a younger brother (Paul, born 1964).

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At a recent convention, it was announced that James Marsters had been given the chance to realise his dream: a film version of Macbeth. He is currently working to adapt the Bard's famous tragedy for the big screen. Unfortunately, there are rumours that the film's financing has been cut off.

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James Marsters enjoys playing guitar, watching football and spending time with friends on the beach.

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James Marsters graduated from Davis High School in Modesto, California.

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While doing regional theatre in Chicago, James Marsters founded the New Mercury Theatre company, named after Orson Welles's "Mercury Theatre". In 1990 the founders of New Mercury pulled the operation together and moved to Seattle in the hope of finding more opportunities; they performed there for several years, using any available space, including the basements of restaurants and churches, until they eventually found a more permanent space of their own near Pioneer Square.

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James Marsters was shooting the second season of Torchwood (2006) in Cardiff and performing a concert at The Point 21/7. He also appeared in an episode of TNT's new series Saving Grace (2007).

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James Marsters was a Guest of Honour at the Fright Night Film Festival, held at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky, from 29 June to 1 July 2012.

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James Marsters auditioned for the role of Praetor Shinzon in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).

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James Marsters appeared as Mordred in a bonus scene in the DVD extras of Once Upon a Time Season 5.

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James Marsters became engaged to Patricia Rahman [21 May 2010].

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