Emerging from a modest Californian upbringing, he studied theatre at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts before a brief, two-year stint at Juilliard ended in expulsion. Gaining widespread recognition as the punk-styled vampire Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel, he later portrayed the alien antagonist Brainiac across Smallville, as well as Captain John Hart in Tor…
