He came. He spoke. He signed.
He was dead tired.
James Marsters arrived virtually unrecognized at around 6:00 a.m. EST, November 13, 1999, to be a guest presenter at a Vulkon Convention held at the Hilton-Orlando in Alamonte Springs, Florida. Much to the disappointment of several fans who woke up early to try to meet the extraordinary actor, Marsters was immediately whisked up to his room on the seventh floor executive level of the hotel for some much-needed shut-eye.
"I worked 20 hours on Friday. I got home and had like two hours at home and then got on the flight. I think I slept on the plane, but I don't really know about that," Marsters admits during the presentation he gave to approximately five hundred fans. Armed with an overnight bag and his Playstation, he came directly from filming his last scene of the week for Buffy, the Vampire Slayer -- a scene that had ended at 4:30 a.m. PST.
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"You don't know what kind of release acting is. I cannot imagine not doing it."
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"Typical Monday, 4:30 a.m., get in, start drinking coffee," Marsters says, describing his workday. "I've already drunk four shots of espresso by the time I've gotten to the set, then I start chug-a-lugging when I get there. [Then I] get to sit down in makeup and just talk in the makeup trailer, which is the actor's safe zone. We can whine and dish on people. It's taken in confidence that certain people won't hear anything you say. Todd McIntosh is a great makeup artist with two reasons: That he's great with makeup and he also has a good environment in his trailer. That is pretty cool.
"Then we go and we rehearse. That's basically just showing the director and the cinematographer where we want to move in the scene. Then we talk about it and see if they can film it that way and ask us to adjust so that they can film it. And then we go away for like half an hour and they light it, come back and do the takes.
"They start with the master, which is the scene that's shot that encompasses the whole scene. Then they move in for what they call coverage, which is like a few shots in close-ups and stuff like that," Marsters explains. He finishes off his typical workday example with a laugh. "And then that process repeats itself for 20 hours!"
No wonder the poor guy was tired. But despite the grueling hours of television, he would never give up acting. "You don't know what kind of release acting is. I cannot imagine not doing it."
