The grim Buffy the Vampire Slayer scene saw Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy attacked by Spike, and his actor James Marsters said it was the “darkest” day of his career
Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired a scene that was so traumatic that one of the actors went to therapy afterwards.
The supernatural drama about teen vampire slayer Buffy was a huge hit in the nineties, airing from 1997 to 2003. The show, which spanned seven seasons, made Buffy’s Sarah Michelle Gellar into a star and there have recently been talks of a reboot.
Buffy star James Masters has opened up about a particularly disturbing scene he had to shoot with Sarah, who turned 48 on Monday (April 14). He revealed he had to seek therapy after shooting the “problematic” scene, in which his character Spike – a vampire – forces himself on Buffy after she breaks up with him.
He attempts to rape Buffy in her bathroom but she manages to fight him off. Speaking to fellow actor Michael Rosenbaum on the Inside of You podcast, he said: “Buffy sent me into therapy, actually. Buffy crushed me.”
He proceeded to describe the day they shot the assault scene, which appeared in the 2002 episode Seeing Red, as the “darkest” day of his career. “There was a scene where I was paired with Buffy,” he continued.
“She breaks up with me, and I go and I kind of force myself on her, and she kicks me through a wall. It’s a problematic scene for a lot of people who like the show. And it’s the darkest professional day of my life.”
He continued: “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.
“It’s not a show with a bunch of writers telling other people how to live their lives … That’s why it resonates. 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. They 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.”
James explained that he didn’t want to shoot the scene and begged writers to change it as he felt it would make the audience feel really uncomfortable. However, they went ahead with the scene and he didn’t have a choice as he was ‘contracted to do it’.
“I went to them and I said, “You know, guys, we’re providing a vicarious experience for the audience. Everyone who’s watching Buffy is Buffy, and they’re not superheroes, so I’m doing this to every member of the audience, and they’re going to have a very different reaction’.
“We got the scene in the can, and it was hell. I was in a personal hell. I was doing a take and going to the corner of the set and going into the fetal position on the cement.”
Sarah herself has also expressed discomfort with the scene and admitted she won’t re-watch the controversial Seeing Red scene. The actress said she has watched most of the Buffy episodes with her kids Charlotte and Rocky, who she shares with fellow actor Freddie Prinze Jr.
She told the Hollywood Reporter: “We watched seasons one through five. We skipped around a lot on those last two. I have trouble with six. It wasn’t appropriate for them at the time, and I just don’t want to re-watch it.
“I will always be proud of Buffy. I will always be proud of what my castmates did, what I did. Was it an ideal working situation? Absolutely not. But it’s okay to love Buffy for what we created because I think it’s pretty spectacular.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
