20 More TV Acting Performances That Are Totally Flawless

Spike was originally meant to be a one-time villain, killed off during the mid-point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's second season to make way for the much more personal threat of Angelus. But that's not what ended up happening, thanks in equal part to James Marsters' effortlessly scene-stealing performance and Spike's unprecedented popularity.

In the role, Marsters had an impossibly hard task, because in order to pull the role off, he had to play more than one version of the character during his six-year tenure on the show (as well as his one-season stay over on Buffy's moody spin-off, Angel).

When he first arrives, Spike is evil through-and-through, a gleeful murderer without a soul intent on ruining - and ending - the lives of Buffy and her friends. But as the series went on, thanks to some striking storytelling, he grew closer the gang and eventually found himself with a soul.

Marsters played Spike as twistedly villainous, self-pitying and romantic, seductive and alluring, and finally heroic and virtuous. The vampire poet's journey was funny, violent, tragic and enrapturing, and Marsters made it so you loved every side of him.