This interview with James Masters is like a year old but I just came across and it made me laugh and laugh: [link]

About two years (laughing). I remember doing those first five episodes and, it must have been episode three, and Joss (Whedon) almost physically pushing me up against a wall and saying, "I don't care how popular you are; you are going to die, die, die." He made it very clear he did not want the show to be taken over by another romantic vampire. He was not enamored with vampires and that's putting it mildly.

(AHAHAHAHA. Oh man.)

To Joss, vampires were supposed to be ugly, evil, and quick to be killed. He got talked into one romantic vampire by his writing partner David Greenwalt and that was Angel. Of course Angel took off like a rocket and when I was cast Joss did not imagine me to be popular; Spike was supposed to be dirty and evil, punk rock, and then dead. Things started to turn out differently and I think Joss was passionate that I would not corrupt his theme, which was basically trying to find a metaphor for all of the problems you encounter during adolescence. Vampires stood in for those problems and I think I endangered that theme by being popular. He did not want people to like me at all.

At first I was supposed to die in 5 episodes and then the decided to keep me around for 10, but at the end of 10 that was it; I was gone and there was no plan to bring me back at all. It was only when they spun off Angel into a series and lost their Cordelia, which was the character who told Buffy she was stupid and about to die, that they needed someone to tell Buffy she was stupid and about to die, and they decided to bring me back. I failed miserably at that because I could never be around in the daytime to tell Buffy she was stupid and going to die because I was a vampire and going to catch on fire. There were two or three burning blanket episodes in season four, during which I thought I was going to be fired because it was very obvious to me I was not working out as Cordelia.

Ha ha ha wow, that's really interesting. I never thought of Spike as taking Cordelia's role.

I think Joss was passionate that I would not corrupt his theme, which was basically trying to find a metaphor for all of the problems you encounter during adolescence. Vampires stood in for those problems and I think I endangered that theme by being popular.

But it strikes me that one of the key challenges of adolescence is precisely that dangerous and scary and evil things are popular.

Ha ha ha wow, that's really interesting. I never thought of Spike as taking Cordelia's role.

Really? Until he started banging Buffy in Season 6 that was pretty clearly his role to me.

But it strikes me that one of the key challenges of adolescence is precisely that dangerous and scary and evil things are popular.

Things look shiny and then cause harm.

I never thought of Spike as taking Cordelia's role.

He was brought on to Angel to do the same thing. But Illyria did it better.

Illyria had the benefit of replacing an annoying character with an awesome one rather than the reverse.

The way things ended aside, Spike was not a downgrade for me when he moved into Sunnydale. That was a gradual process.

Then again, I liked Illyria too, so there's that.

I loved him as a villain in Season 2, but by the time he became their Cordelia surrogate in Buffy: the College Years I think the character was a shadow of his former self.

R.I.P. Robin Sachs. So sad.