James Wesley Marsters was born August 20, 1962. He is originally from Greenville, California, but grew up in Modesto. His father used to be a minister, and his mother, a social worker, almost became a nun. He has one brother and one sister and graduated from Davis High School in Modesto. He studied at Juilliard, the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, and the American Conservatory Theatre. While doing regional theatre in Chicago, he co-founded the New Mercury Theatre company (named after Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre). In 1990, New Mercury's founders packed the operation up and relocated to Seattle in the hopes of finding more opportunity. They played there for a number of years, using any available space, including the basements of restaurants and churches, but eventually found themselves a more permanent space near Pioneer Square. Acting on advice from fellow actors and seeing only meager future earnings on the stage, Marsters eventually departed to seek a more solid salary in Hollywood.
