Actor James Marsters, who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has revealed the aftermath of a scene.

The Buffy Vampire Slayer series (1997-2003) continues to give people something to talk about 20 years after its end. Now, actor James Marsters reveals on RT how the scene in which he sexually assaults the character Sarah Michelle Gellar in episode 19 of the sixth season titled Seeing Red affected him.

“That was the crushing experience I wanted to write about. I think since Buffy is a superhero and she was fully capable of throwing Spike through a wall, they could switch the sexes. The point I was trying to make when I read that script was that everyone who watches Buffy is Buffy, that’s the trick of storytelling… When I see Buffy, I am Buffy. And the people watching Buffy aren’t superheroes. So I’ll do this to you. You can’t change the genders of these characters and not have backtracking, it will have unintended consequences.”

“The other thing is that they were very frustrated because they couldn’t convince the audience to stop rooting for Spike, they didn’t want the audience to say: Spike and Buffy forever, that’s not what they were looking for. They kept making me do worse and worse things trying to get people to notice.”

“Even Spike at one point says: Hey guys, I’m evil. Because the audience refused to do that, they finally landed on that scene. They kept making me do worse and worse and finally they said, okay, we’re just going to make him do that to Buffy, like there’s nothing else we have that’s going to make this point. That was another reason for that scene.” James Marsters said.

It was a very hard time for the actor.

“When you know those things, maybe it will inform you how you react to that scene. I don’t know if that means it was the right thing to do. I know it doesn’t seem to age well, but what I want people to know is that it wasn’t an arrogant decision. It wasn’t just like: Oh well, these things are cool and it could be sexy and spicy if we do this. That wasn’t what the writers were thinking at all.”

“He was highly regarded and came from a good place. It was the hardest day of my professional career, he sent me to therapy. I collapsed on set, I couldn’t even speak, I was shaking. That was a horrible day… When the script came, they hired me to do whatever they told anyone they told them to do. I was legally forced to do that scene. It probably wasn’t fun to watch, but it wasn’t fun to film either.. James Marsters concluded.