Mark Metcalf as The Master in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Photo copyright of The WB Network.
In today's Sci-Fi Blast From The Past, Mark Metcalf talks about playing the decidedly nasty Master in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
An accomplished stage, film and television performer, Mark Metcalf recently gave television science fiction and fantasy viewers a double dose of thrills and chills playing two decidedly nasty characters. On the immensely popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer Metcalf stalks Buffy and her teenage friends at Sunnydale High as the king of vampires, The Master. Meanwhile, in the far-off reaches of the Delta Quadrant he was one of several Hirogen hunting the crew of Voyager in the fourth-season Star Trek: Voyager episode The Killing Game.
“I had to audition three times for Buffy,” notes the actor. “I can’t remember the name of the woman who casts the show but she later told me she was convinced I was completely wrong for the part. She had me come in, partly as a favour to my agent, and also because she knew me and enjoyed my work. Most of the time casting people bring in actors who they think are perfect for the part, but they also may bring in someone who’s the opposite just to give the directors and producers a little range and to offer them choices.
For this audition I was in the ‘totally against type’ category but, luckily, there was something about me they really liked. Also, Joss Whedon [series creator] and everyone else responsible for making Buffy are fairly unusual people and I mean that as a compliment,” he says. “They are inspiring and certainly some of the most creative, imaginative and quirky professionals with whom I’ve ever worked. I really love quirky and eccentric and I think that played a big part in their believing in me when it came to casting this role.”
Like most of the unholy creatures Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is called upon to slay, Metcalf had to undergo a lengthy makeup process to transform him into the pasty-skinned, pointy-tooth Master. “The first time they did the makeup it took five-and-a-half hours,” explains the actor. “They eventually got it down to three-and-a-half, which is pretty much what it took to put on my Hirogen makeup when I did Voyager. However, with Buffy this was their first year and they were developing the character, so The Master’s makeup was evolving from episode to episode with some input from me.
“They allowed me to influence the makeup process so that The Master resembled director Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu [from the 1979 movie Nosferatu the Vampyre]. Originally, he was going to have some hair but I lobbied strongly for baldness and then the large ears. I also tried to make The Master a bit more of a monster than Herzog’s creature because Joss really wanted to frighten the viewers. He really disliked Rutgar Hauer’s campy interpretation of the character in the [1992] Buffy feature film, so I went in an entirely different direction.”
The Master makes his debut in the show’s pilot episode Welcome to the Hellmouth and spends most of Buffy’s first season orchestrating his dark deeds from inside an underground church long buried in an earthquake. Although such surroundings helped Metcalf get a better feel for his character one of the special effects used on the set ended up impeding the actor’s performance.
“The set designers really got serious about creating the right atmosphere in the church and covered the floor and everything else with this very fine dust,” says Metcalf. “Every time you walked across the set the dust would rise up and, because we were on a soundstage, it wouldn’t settle right away, so the air was filled with this stuff.
“After the third or fourth episode I lost my voice. The dust had gotten into my lungs and throat and when I tried to talk nothing but air came out. I sounded as if I had a terrible case of laryngitis but it was just a swollen throat. Luckily, I got my voice back fairly quickly and was able to go in and loop [dub] my scenes for those episodes. However, everyone on the set complained about the dust and they finally did away with it when they realized that they could achieve the same effect by pumping in smoke.
“I tend to remember all the little tragedies that happen at work,” jokes the actor. “We had lots of laughs on Buffy, though, and I had a terrific time as The Master that first season. Actors love to play the villain because you simply can’t behave that way in real life. All those feelings may be there but you have to bury them or hide them, so it’s a great way of venting when you’re pretending to be someone so totally evil.”
On Voyager, Metcalf played an Hirogen medic with little bedside manner or tolerance for Voyager’s crew as he helped the ship’s Doctor heal their wounds and then sent them back to battle his comrades on the holodeck. The actor had previously auditioned for this series as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and, although he was always a finalist, things never seemed to click.
“This one came through and they really liked my audition,” says Metcalf happily. “When I was cast in The Killing Game they made a point of telling me, ‘The great thing about doing this part is that it’s in full makeup so no one will see your face. That means we can have you back again as a human or a humanoid-looking character.’ Usually when you appear on one of these programmes they don’t often have you back, so that was a very nice thing for them to say to me.”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of The WB Network, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
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