Buffy the Vampire Slayer Actor Needed Therapy After Filming One Particularly Troubling Scene

Often lauded for being one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer empowered a generation of young fans with the confidence to go out into the world and slay the demons of life. Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as the titular hero, the series also featured James Marsters as Spike, Buffy’s on-again/off-again vampire lover. Now, more than 20 years following the conclusion of the seminal series, Marsters reveals the one scene he shot in the show that actually sent him to therapy, and die-hard fans won’t be surprised by which one it is.

Appearing on the Inside of You podcast hosted by Smallville’s Michael Rosenbaum, Marsters touched on what he called “the darkest professional day of my life.” The scene in question comes late in the Season 6 episode “Seeing Red,” and features Spike trying to force himself on Buffy in her bathroom in order to convince her that she really does love him. Known for dealing with a lot of difficult subjects (“The Body,” anyone?), it’s perhaps one of the hardest scenes in the long-running series to watch, because it felt raw. There was no music track underneath it, the camera cuts alternate between wide and close shots, and Marsters and Gellar’s performances drew viewers into the moment in such a way that even if you weren’t a woman, you could feel what Buffy was feeling.

“Buffy sent me into therapy, actually,” he said of the difficult shoot. “It’s a problematic scene for a lot of people who like the show.” It certainly is, as it not only deals with the subject of sexual assault, but it shows a vulnerable side to the Slayer that fans weren’t used to. There was everyone’s hero, the very same one that took down powerful villains such as The Master, Glory, and Adam, lying on the bathroom floor in her robe crying out in pain and begging for Spike to stop. It wasn’t until she managed to kick him off of her that he relented, and as she pointed out, if she hadn’t, Spike would have kept going. With tears in her eyes she says, “Ask me again why I could never love you?” It’s a moment in time that still turns the stomachs of fans to this day.

Who Came Up With the Scene in ‘Seeing Red?’

With the episode being credited to Steven S. DeKnight, who would later go on to create the hit series Spartacus, Marsters also revealed in the same interview with Rosenbaum how the scene in “Seeing Red” came about, mentioning that it took the old adage “write what you know” to a whole new level.

“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.”

While DeKnight might get credit for writing the episode, Marsters said that it was actually one of the women in the writers’ room who conceived the entire moment, drawing from an experience she had in college where she found herself in the role of Spike.

“One of the women writers actually had come up with this idea, because in college 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. She kind of forced herself, and he had to physically remove her from the premises, and that was one of the most painful memories of that time of her life.”

Without question, it’s writing like that which made Buffy one of the most influential shows in the history of television. Thankfully, Marsters found the help he needed to deal with the real-life trauma the scene caused, and has since gone on to have a long and healthy career. He’ll appear next as Reggie in the adult animated sci-fi comedy Isla Monstro, which has yet to set a release date.