Buffy the Vampire Slayer Star Opens Up About On-Set Altercation With Joss Whedon

James Marsters is one of a handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumni who weighed in following questions about Joss Whedon’s conduct on the set of the classic fantasy drama. The Angel and Runaways star sat down with Smallville‘s Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside Of You podcast, and addressed questions about what he knew, when he knew it, and how he feels about the situation. He had previously spoken with Rosenbaum about his personal experiences with Whedon, who did not want Angel to be a romantic interest for Buffy and who was resistant to the Spike’s popularity at first.

He reiterated a story he previously told, about how the character’s rising popularity led to network pressure to keep Spike beyond the original five-episode arc. That led to a confrontation wherein Whedon apparently pushed Marsters against a wall.

You can see the interview below.

“I don’t remember how it started,” Marsters admitted, saying that Whedon declared the character would be killed, no matter how popular he was, repeating “You’re dead, dead!”

He recalled thinking of Whedon as a “mad wizard,” who could create magic, but who you didn’t want to make angry.  He said that he always saw Whedon as being under an enormous amount of pressure to live up to the high bar that the early seasons of Buffy  had set.

Still, as of 2020, that had not soured the relationship between the pair.

“If he [Whedon} called me for anything,” he’d be there in a heartbeat, Marsters shared in 2020. “I told Joss, whether it’s one line or 50, I’d come, no matter where I was in the world…but if he wanted to film me doing Spike, he had seven years, because I’m aging and Spike’s a vampire, and I don’t want to play an aged Spike. If there was a way, or if Spike was always in vampire face. Then that might work.”