James Marsters says filming controversial Buffy sexual assault scene left him in therapy

A lot has been said over the years about how dark season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer got, and with good reason. The show took a different turn for its sixth season. With Buffy dead and buried, the show constantly took its characters to depressing new lows and the big bad of the season was referred to as each other. Buffy was depressed and suicidal, Willow had a worsening magic addiction, Dawn became a kleptomaniac, Xander left Anya at the alter, Giles left and Tara got shot. Just horrible – but not always in a bad way and I do think the show told the story well. However, there is one major scene that Buffy fans hate – a brutal and hard to watch sexual assault moment where Spike forces himself on the Slayer after she breaks off their situationship. James Marsters, who played Spike, has just been on a podcast and he says the sexual assault scene was pretty much unforgivable.

The scene has been controversial for years. It takes place during Seeing Red – right near the climax of season six. Spike turns up at Buffy’s house after she’s been wounded in a fight and he attempts to have sex with her in an effort to convince her she has feelings for him. A weakened Buffy eventually gets him off her – but it’s a visceral and nasty scene to watch.

Speaking on the Inside of You podcast, James Marsters says “Buffy sent me into therapy, actually. It crushed me. It’s a problematic scene for a lot of people who like the show. It’s the darkest professional day of my life.”

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James explained how this subject matter arrived in the episode. “The writers were being asked to come up with their worst day, the day that they don’t talk about, their dark secret, the one that keeps them up at night, when they really hurt somebody or when they really got hurt or made a big mistake of some kind — and then slap metaphoric fangs on top of that dark secret and tell everybody about it.”

Buffy and Spike during season six

The sexual assault scene was apparently based on an experience one of the female writers had at university, with James Marsters explaining “She had gotten broken up with, and she went to her ex’s place and thought that if they made love one more time, everything would be fixed. And she kind of forced herself, and he had to physically remove her from the premises. And that was just like one of the most painful memories of that time of her life.

“[The show’s writers] thought that since Buffy was a superhero, that they could flip the sexes since Buffy could defend herself very, very easily from this. They thought that they could have a man do it to a woman, and it would be the same thing, I think.”

James Marsters aid he doesn’t engage with any sexual predation scenes in work or watching, and “having to do that to Sarah [Michelle Gellar]” during the Buffy sexual assault scene really took a toll on him.

“Anything that has that to do with it, I don’t audition for those things,” the actor said. “If there’s a movie with that kind of material, I don’t go to see the movie. If it pops up on television, I’ve got to turn the television off before I break it. I have a very visceral reaction to that stuff.”

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