James Marsters:
Acting, a Psychic Phenomena

James Marsters plays the vampire Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His fans are legion. A lot of us start out swooning over his looks but in an industry where most actors are young, fit, gorgeous and usually charming as well, his appearance just gets him in the door. His looks might even do him some harm with casting directors because he looks to be more supermodel than leading man and supermodels are not known for their ability to act (or walk and chew gum at the same time).

So we start out watching Spike thinking that James Marsters, who is only dim in our minds, is probably some British guy, speaking in his own voice and letting the writer's words and his own personality carry the part. Then we see some tape of the real James Marsters (used to be scads of it on jamesmarsters.com before bandwidth problems resulted in it being pulled), who is not only not British, but so completely "not Spike" that it's like Spike is some kind of spirit possession.

Then we watch more closely and begin to notice what a great actor Marsters is.

At its best acting is a kind of psychic phenomena. It allows us to read the mind of the character we see on the screen, to know what the character is thinking. Marsters excels at this. We think we know what Spike thinks and feels because he shows us, often without words. He adds layers to Spike's scenes making him the multi-faceted character that fascinates so many of us. I'm thinking of the crypt scene in As You Were when Riley finds Buffy and Spike naked together. Spike is doing his male gloating thing and Buffy takes the covers and flees. As she does, Spike interrupts his posturing for about a second, and watches her go. He sighs and his face changes to a bitter and frustrated resignation. You can almost hear him thinking about her running off again, "virtue fluttering," recognizing her shame and how that shames him. Then he turns back to Riley to continue taunting him. That's a lot for a second or two of screen time to carry but Marsters pulls it off seamlessly.

Most actors give us one or two emotions a show, James Marsters can give us a dozen a minute, all flowing easily, believably, one to the next. Most characters are defined by the words the actors speak. That is what we know about them, all we know about them. But with Spike, we think we know a lot more because of what James shows us of Spike's thoughts. He allows us to read Spike's mind and all without calling Ms. Cleo.

And the Emmys had no nomination for James Marsters this year.

Cause they are idiots.