-> Oakland SlayerCon 2004 Q&A Notes

James Marsters
By Kirsten

Note - some of the questions James was asked on Sunday were duplicates of questions he answered on Saturday. I didn’t include the duplicates but did include any additional information he might have given.

- James admitted that people don’t recognize him as much with his natural color hair. James thought that the bleached blonde was a bit of a neon sign above his head that made people pay attention to him.

- James was asked when he might want to go back and time and live. James said that he’s happy in the time right now, particularly because we have plumbing. After a little prompting from the audience, James admitted that he’d love to go back and watch any day Shakespeare produced a play, then said he’d probably leave the theatre thinking “they’re not that good.”

- James was asked if he kept anything from the show and he answered no. In “Buffy” they only had 2 of the leather dusters, so they were unique, but on “Angel” they had around 9 (and thus, not so unique). James also explained that he didn’t keep one of the dusters because he thought what it might be like if 5 or 10 years down the road he pulled the duster out of the closet and put it on thinking about “the good old days.” James decided that’d be pretty pathetic so he just didn’t take one of the dusters.

- James was asked about future projects and said that he is working on “Macbeth” although the money is kinda shakey right now. But James continues to work on it hoping that the money will come through. James is also planning on performing his music again, both solo and with a group. James specifically mentioned 14 Below (the bar in LA where Ghost of the Robot started) as a possibility.

- James was asked about the role of Harry Dresden. James said he wasn’t even sure that the Dresden folks knew about him. And even though he loves the role James isn’t sure he’s the right guy for the role, because Harry Dresden was written tall & lanky (and James is 5’10”). James also said that if the show is shot in LA then it’s a part he’d love to play, but if the show is shot in Vancouver he couldn’t take the role because he couldn’t be away from LA that long.

 - James was asked to sing for the audience but he declined because he didn’t have anything prepared. But when James was asked to recite some Shakespeare, he simply asked if the audience wanted to hear something from “Macbeth” or “The Tempest.” So James gave one of the soliloquies from “The Tempest.” When he was finished, and before the audience could react, James broke out in a huge smile. You can really tell that he loves Shakespeare.

- James was asked to relate any “scary fan” stories and said that he didn’t have any. The audience made a groaning noise and James explained that most of the ‘scary’ stories were ultimately his fault. James described an episode at a Con in the UK where 2 little, white haired ladies came up to him and one asked if James would bend over, so he did. Then one of the ladies grabbed his ass really hard and deep and then asked him to clench. James said that it was his fault because he didn’t think about what might happen. Someone in the audience then asked him about last year’s Dragon*Con and, again, James blamed himself for the incident. James explained that a woman at Dragon*Con asked him to take his shirt off but he didn’t want to so James told the woman that he’d take his shirt off if she took her shirt off. And she did. James said he was trying to make the point that it isn’t easy to take your shirt off in front of a room full of strangers but that backfired. Oh, and he didn’t take his shirt off, either.

- When asked about “Smile Time” James was disappointed that he was only in two scenes and that he was done shooting in one day. James loved the idea and writing so much that he wanted to be in more scenes. James really does love the cartoon version of “The Tick,” too.