James Marsters Shares How Filming the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical Episode Mirrored the Show’s Theme

James Marsters’ favorite episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one he wasn’t confident in at first.

At GalaxyCon Raleigh this summer, Marsters participated in a Q&A where he talked about his lengthy acting career, including some stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

During the Q&A, he shared why he felt the filming of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s iconic musical episode, “Once More with Feeling,” mirrored one of the show’s central themes. 

“I think that the theme of Buffy is, ‘Don’t give up. The world is not perfect; it hurts. But it’s a mistake to lose hope. And get out there and try to help out,'” Marsters said.

He went on to share what the cast members’ reactions were like when they all first found out they’d be filming a musical episode. It wasn’t with a script, either. The first thing they received was a cassette tape.

“We just got a tape of Joss Whedon singing the songs,” Marsters recalled. “I’m sorry, but he’s not a professional singer. And it’s him plunking on the piano, and those songs sounded cheesy as hell.”

“We got the cassette — we all got it at lunchtime — and we all came out into the sun at the same time, having played 15 minutes of the tape going, ‘What are we doing?'”

“Most of the cast had a really good argument that they were being forced to asked to sing, and they’re not singers, and ‘you’re asking me to do something in front of millions of people that I don’t know how to do, and you’re gonna ruin my career,’ you know? And they had a good point,” Marsters continued.

“I think Sarah [Michelle Gellar] asked if she could juggle chainsaws. She was like, ‘I’m not even kidding, I would rather do that.'”

Marsters went on to say that while he and Anthony Head were comfortable singing, Marsters didn’t like the songs because, at that point, he’d only heard them sung by Joss Whedon on that tape. 

“But after we finished grousing, and whining, and sweating, and worrying about it, we decided that even though we were sure that the show was getting flushed down a toilet and it was all going to go down in flames for sure, we decided to go down swinging,” Marsters said.

“Everyone got to work,” he continued. “The cast hired their own vocal teachers and dance teachers, and we got to work. And we lived up to the theme, actually. We didn’t give up, even though it was hard. And it didn’t suck — my god! But behind the scenes, I think we lived up to the theme, and I’m really proud of us for that.”

Learn more about GalaxyCon Raleigh here.

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