Vampire Talk With 12 Stars Of ‘Dark Shadows,’ ‘Buffy,’ ‘Underworld,’ ‘Midnight, Texas,’ And More (EXCLUSIVE)

Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins

Dark Shadows was a gothic horror soap opera that aired Monday through Friday from 1966-71 on ABC, with a total of 1,225 episodes. Although when the show began there was barely any supernatural elements to it, ratings were so anemic that producer Dan Curtis decided to go for broke and added a vampire into the mix. Canadian actor Jonathan Frid played the 175-year-old Barnabas Collins, who was inadvertently freed from his chained coffin (having been placed there by his father in the late 1790s) and began a reign of terror — until the audience responded with huge ratings and turned him into a genuine sensation, which resulted in his being transformed into the first sympathetic and reluctant vampire.

In 1970, he starred in the movie House of Dark Shadows, which retold the Barnabas storyline and, suffice to say, there wasn’t a bit of sympathy in him. Barnabas was a monster through and through.

His Approach: “I Love to play horror for horror’s sake. Inner horror. I never thought I created fear with the fang business of Barnabas. I always felt foolish doing that part of it. The horror part I liked was ‘the lie.’ There’s nothing more horrible than looking someone in the eyes who’s telling you a lie and you know it. Somehow that scares me more than anything else. Of course, I’ve ever been physically attacked by anybody with a knife or a gun… or teeth, and that may be quite horrible. But in terms of the theater, I liked the inner drama rather than the outward manifestation. An inner conflict or emotional confrontation is more of a drama to me. That’s why with Barnabas there were many scenes I was thrilled to do and why the show came alive so many times for me.

“It was Barnabas’ lie, that he was pretending to be something that he wasn’t, which motivated me. That pretense was something the actor playing Barnabas had to remember all the time. He got the lust for blood every once in a while, but always what preyed on his mind was the lie. And of course it played right into my lie as an actor. I was lying that I was calm and comfortable in the studio, just as Barnabas was lying that he was the calm, comfortable cousin from England. He wasn’t at all.”

The Appeal of Barnabas Collins: “Barnabas was a sympathetic vampire. He was a man with an addition who drank blood only to survive. The audience felt pity for him, and many of the women wanted to mother him. Secondly, I’ve always felt that there was a love/hate relationship between the audience — particularly children — and Barnabas. In some ways he was looked upon as a darker version of Santa Claus; friendly enough that you were intrigued by him, yet mysterious enough that he frightened you.”

House of Dark Shadows: “I was not happy with it. I thought the script was merely a rehash of the early episodes and it got too realistic. The show was more Brigadoonish and charmingly naive. The movie had too much zipping, zapping, and too much silly violence for violence sake. I don’t know how many vampires ended up in that thing. I thought it was dull and lacked the charm of the soap opera.”

It Comes To a Close in April 1971: “The end wasn’t really a great shock, because the writing on the wall was always there for me. Every time the show went up another notch, I figured it was peaking and that it would start to go down. It lasted a hell of a lot longer than I thought it would. It wasn’t the average soap opera and they went through all the stories three or four times. We started repeating ourselves and the show burned out.”

Robert Quarry as Count Yorga

California born Robert Quarry made a number of films over the course of his career, though the genuine stand-outs were Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and its sequel, The Return of Count Yorga (1971). In the first film, while pretending to be a friend he reveals himself to be a vampire that hunts down a group of people on his estate. In the sequel, having somehow survived a staking, he moves into a new neighborhood where children start disappearing from a nearby orphanage. Hey, nobody said this was great art!

Origins of Count Yorga: “The people involved had made a soft-core porno film, and with their initial investment of $14,000, they made about $60,000. So [writer/director] Bob Kelljan decided to write a soft-porn vampire movie. We had been friends for a long time, and I called him up and said, ‘Why the hell don’t you do this in the horror genre? There’s a big horror market, and you could make some good bucks. And if you do it that way, I’ll play Count Yorga.'”

The Character: “When I first read it, I just thought it was campy crap. That’s all it was. My approach was to incorporate some humor, but make him real. Originally they wanted to do it with an accent, but there was no way I would be doing all of that crap. I was fighting against the Bela Lugosi image and Christopher Lee’s Dracula. Not that there was anything wrong with either one of them, but they were unreal in a certain way and I wanted to give Yorga a kind of reality and play him straight. Then I could jump out of the woodwork and bite everybody.”

Fang Difficulties: “You couldn’t talk in them for one thing. I had a great line, which I was supposed to say with the fangs in. Then I would go into the studio and dub it. It’s the only line I can remember from any film I’ve done: ‘Soon I will suck from your veins the sweet nectar of life, then we shall be as one in in a lifetime of eternal bliss.’ When I had my teeth in, it went like this: ‘Thoon I will thuck from your veinth the thweet nectar of life, then we thall be ath one in a lifetime of eternal blith.’ I sounded like Daffy Duck!”

Why No Third Yorga Film: “Quite simply, AIP made a lot of money on the first one, so they wanted to do a sequel. That was going to be my first picture for them on the contract. It did very well, though not as well as the original. Then again, most sequels don’t. But the box office did to Count Yorga what a stake through the heart couldn’t.”

Frank Langella as Dracula

In 1979, American born actor Frank Langella took his Broadway role of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and transferred him to the big screen in a film directed by John Badham. Although there’s no shying away from what Dracula is, there is an emphasis on the romance between him and Lucy Seward (Kate Nelligan) — and the fact that he will allow nothing to interfere with it.

His Approach: “I did not go back to look at the old Draculas. I felt that I had to find a way that would make him work today. I came up with an erotic and vulnerable man who is lonely and can fall in love. I never saw him as a guy dripping blood all the time. Basically, I went in trying to hold on to the inner core of the character as best I could.

“Dracula is not a ghoul. I decided to play him as a lonely, troubled monarch with a sense of humor and a unique social problem. I see him as a noble man with a quiet secret. Not a man who goes around attacking victims, but instead seduces them. He is compelled to drink the blood of innocent victims.”

Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge

There were a lot of vampire films in the 1980s, but one of the best was 1985’s Fright Night. In it, a teen (William Ragsdale) discovers that his next door neighbor, Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon), is a vampire, so he turns to local TV horror movie host Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) to help stop him. That’s it in a nutshell, but the film works as horror with a strong streak of humor. Chris Sarandon, born in West Virginia, portrayed the character, bringing equal doses of charm and terror.

Character Appeal: “The thing that appeals to me about Jerry is that he’s totally contemporary. That was something we all strived for, and something I found very interesting about the character, because he wasn’t the Count of legend or Bram Stoker, but a guy who everybody knew and couldn’t believe was being accused of being a vampire. He isn’t the personification of pure evil that vampires are known to be.

“Just think about this guy’s problems. On the one hand you’ve got somebody who’s got something everybody would probably love to have, which is eternal life. Also, he’s tremendously powerful physically, and attractive sexually. What he does, people are, for some reason, attracted to. But at the same time, how would you like to know that if people found out about you, nobody would really want to hang around you? That is, to have eternity, but to spend eternity shunned by any normal kind of society. Not being able to form any kind of normal human relationship. To be, in a way, damned to eternity. There’s a sense of this guy’s tragedy as well as his attractiveness.”

Why Fright Night: “I was sent the script by my agent and immediately sort of got sucked in by the plot, because it’s wonderfully constructed and plotted. After I read it, I said, ‘Gee, this is going to make a great movie. It’s a shame that I’m not really interested in playing this part.’ The reasons for that are that at the time I’d played a few villains and didn’t want to get locked into playing another one. I thought the character was an interesting one, though I didn’t think it was quite fleshed out. Despite my reservations, I had some conversations with [writer/director] Tom Holland, we came up with some ideas and I ended up doing it.”

Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins

In 1991, NBC briefly aired a prime time version of Dark Shadows, which was a one-hour weekly show that retold the early Barnabas storyline from the soap, but in a much quicker fashion. Playing the character was British-born Ben Cross, best known at the time for his role as Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire (1981).

The Appeal of Barnabas Collins: “I think one of the first things is the way women might view a vampire and vampire tale is somewhat different to the way a man would. The series gets to a certain point where we simply have to go back to the past and find out exactly what went on. So we see Barnabas as this really very nice guy. Very happy family, and it’s really like a cautionary tale for married men. He actually has a fling with the wrong person, and the phrase of hell having no fury like a woman scorned is absolutely true, because, in fact, she comes from hell. In a sense he makes a human mistake that a lot of people, if they’re honest, have actually made. He regrets it, and then becomes a victim and a vampire. In a sense, he is as much a victim of his own condition in the way that the people he finds himself biting.

“I was asked if each week would be self-contained; episodic with a beginning, middle and an end. The answer is no. I was not going to be interested in any way, shape or form in that kind of series about a vampire. I feel that there were much more interesting areas. It’s more like a psychological study. An exploration of the whole mythology of vampires. When I was satisfied that it was going in that particular direction, it was fairly easy for me, because it’s an extraordinary story and an extraordinary character. And I can promise you I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s really one of the most challenging roles I’ve ever played, because I have to come up with something new every episode.”

David Boreanaz as Angel

While Buffy the Vampire Slayer was about a high schooler (Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers) who had also been tasked with being humanity’s protector as the Slayer, one (of many) surprising elements was the romance that developed between her and the vampire Angel. On Buffy he was a friend, lover and even immortal enemy during the show’s first three seasons, before he was spun off to his own show that ran for five more years.

As a character, Angel has a fascinating history: during his reign of terror a century or so earlier, he killed a gypsy family, the father cursed him by giving him back his soul (thus causing him to remember every horrific thing he had ever done), the caveat being that if he ever achieved a moment of true happiness, that soul would be whisked away again. Well, right after Buffy and Angel make love for the first time, that’s exactly what happens and the audience sees an amazing transformation of Angel from hero to villain as Angelus (and eventually back again).

From Angel to Angelus: “The transformation of Angel from good guy to bad guy was hard for me, both personally and professionally. I was in tune with Good Angel, but I wasn’t coming home for Evil Guy. I think if you’ve played a character long enough, you subconsciously carry that character with you into your private life. You can shut it off to an extent, but there’s a part of you that still consciously lives with it. On the set, it was particularly hard doing scenes with Sarah Michelle Gellar, because she didn’t see Angel as an evil type and all of a sudden there he was.”

The Buffy/Angel Dynamic: “For the most part the relationship between Buffy and Angel had been almost a Beauty and the Beast type of thing. Buffy knew what Angel was, but she still loved him. Then the transition came, and it was hard for her and also me to adjust. To help Sarah with the transition, after each scene I made it a point to confirm to her that, ‘I’m here for you. I’m not here against you. This is not who I am.’ I believe there has to be a coming down period where you hug the other actor or help the other person, and even help yourself get out of the turmoil that’s been created, instead of being submerged in it. As harrowing as that can be sometimes, it’s part of the acting process and one that I would never even think of giving up.”

The Evolution of Angel: “Within each episode I learned something different about him. Yes, he has a tortured soul and he has a guilty conscience, but at the same time he was trying to rebuild that and make amends for his own true sanity, to make himself a better person. I think we saw that happen slowly but surely.

“I think the self-evolution of his character is ongoing. I don’t think for his type of character that there will be an end to his evolution. As far as where he is and where he was – God, it’s been leaps and bounds. The guy has just completely come out of the shadows, opened up and has become more vulnerable with a better sense of himself from the people around him. The evolution is amazing; emotionally he’s evolved ten-fold.”

The Legacy of Angel: “This show and this character will be remembered for its sense of risk, its sense of style: a uniqueness to deliver story in a different manner; a uniqueness in character to expand with the other characters around him, to evolve into different types of characters, to be ever-changing. The angst of conflict within him. There’s so much to be remembered and so much to be proud of about this show. And it’s use of mythology and verse and language and texture — just the way it was shot. It will be remembered for a lot of things.”

James Marsters as Spike

James Marsters was introduced in the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Spike, a former companion of Angelus (before he became Angel — see the entry on David Boreanaz for more) who was initially designed as a “big bad,” but he evolved over the course of the series. He became Buffy’s ally and eventually her lover after she came back from the dead (too detailed to get into here), ultimately regaining his soul and sacrificing his life to save the world.. until he was resurrected for the final season of Angel.

Approaching Spike: “I did some research into being a soldier and I found someone saying that one of the things that soldiers can’t talk with civilians about is the fact that murder is fun. There’s a rush that happens when you take a life. There’s a sense of power to that. And one of the things that soldiers have to deal with for the rest of their lives is the guilt they feel having felt this animal reaction. Civilians really don’t understand when you talk about it. Luckily, I had already played a role where I became comfortable and didn’t feel guilty about this rush of excitement, imagining doing that act.

“When I took on the role of Spike, there’s a saying in theater: it’s called a play for a reason; no one pays to watch you work. They’ll pay to watch you play really well. And so, it’s always about fun. You have to have fun in what you’re doing. It seemed the way to make Spike work was just have this guy having the best time doing the most vile acts, and that’s just sick. Horrible. But if you can give yourself over to it, it can be a wild, weird ride for the audience. I was able to give myself over to that. And once you do that, you’re just through the looking glass. You’re just in new territory. Spike asked me to enjoy the sadism. That was probably the most enjoyable part of it initially. The character grew way beyond that. But the first rush was that.”

Keeping Spike Alive: “Initially, the idea was that Angel and Buffy were going to have sex, at which point Angel goes evil as many boyfriends do in real life. And Angel would kill Spike, thus becoming the big bad. That was the original plan. And they kept most of that, but then didn’t kill me off. It let Joss kind of explore Spike as the sidekick — as the jealous little brother, rather than the Big Bad that originally came to Sunnydale. Once you decide not to kill Spike off, the problem is how do you get him up off that ladder of cool and back down to Earth so he can actually be explored as a three-dimensional, interesting character? I think ultimately what they came up with was that Spike was the most successful poser in the history of the world. Like most people who want to seem tougher than they are, they just buy some leather pants and the right car or whatever. But Spike actually was made into a vampire so that he could get away with posing. Because he was super strong and could heal quickly and all of that stuff, he actually could pose and get away with it.”

On Spike Developing Romantic Feelings For Buffy: “My idea was that Spike should fall in love with Buffy. Of course she never reciprocates, because he’s way beneath her, but he should fall in love with her and he should try to be good and constantly fail, to comedic effect or to horrifying effect, whichever episode you’re doing. But you can go a lot of directions with that. That wasn’t their idea.”

Spike Sacrificing Himself to Save the World in the Final Episode: “My final scenes were done on second unit . There had already been tearful speeches made about how we began and how we got through it, but that was all in the scene with the Scooby gang [Buffy and friends], so I didn’t have that. But there was something that was kind of right about that, because I never really fit into the gang on screen and that had a reflection in life, too.

“Spike had no idea he was going to be the big hero. He just wanted the freaking necklace that would stop the apocalypse. He just didn’t want Angel to have it and he was just proud that he got it and not Angel. It was just very petty on his part and the things starts glowing and he lights on fire and he’s, like, ‘What the f… oh, no!’ I played it as it wasn’t a big heroic act.”

Joining the Cast of Angel In Its Final Season: “One of the great things about going over to Angel was that I could just be the dick again, like I had been on Buffy in the early years. I could just be the jerk and try to give Angel a headache on a daily basis. My intent joining the show was to make life as miserable as possible for Angel. I just absolutely wanted to be pitted against him; to have to work with him and hate him anyway was absolutely hilarious. Spike functions well with an enemy or someone he can be surly to. David Boreanaz plays that really well, too. I don’t know if it’s about good or evil. Even if Spike’s good, he hates Angel anyway, because Buffy could obviously never get over him. And Angel would hate Spike, because he’s been with her. The dynamic was set up for some delightful conflict between the characters.”

Kate Beckinsale as Selene

Underworld — and its ongoing saga of the war between vampires and werewolves — has encompassed five films so far, four of which have starred Kate Beckinsale as the leather-clad Selene, a Death Dealer (killer of werewolves) who uncovers truths about both species as the struggle between them heats up. At the time of the release of the fourth film — Underworld: Awakenings — Kate discussed what it was like stepping back into the role six years after she had last played it.

Returning as Selene: “It’s weird, because I’ve never done a part multiple times except for this one, and the last time we did it was several years ago. I think every woman who has to put on exactly what they wore eight years ago, the exact same thing, all they’re going to say is, ‘Wow, I look tired,’ you know what I mean? It was great coming back, but you forget how the costume feels after lunch. I remember having a stomach ache for six months on the last one, but this is great. The original Underworld was a very special movie for me, because it changed many things in my life — some of them which I’m still reeling over, some of which I haven’t gotten accustomed to. Just the fact that I get to run around and be this character is still unbelievable to me; it’s so far from what my sensibility is.”

On the Public’s Perception: “I know how these movies are perceived, that there’s no acting required, which actually isn’t the case. It’s just a different set of muscles, and I think for an actor — it’s all very well to stay in whatever your comfort zone is, it’s best to get out of it, and I’m surprised that I get as nervous as I do doing the stunts and action for Underworld, considering that I’ve done them a few times. But I do, every time — it’s like suddenly you’re told you have to dance, and you’re not a dancer — and then it is a bit like riding a bike, but I haven’t reached that point where I’m, like, ‘Yeah, I can do this.’ So those things that scare you and freak you out — I think if you have the opportunity as adults to freak yourself out, it’s a good thing.”

Alec Newman as Barnabas Collins

In 2004, the CW produced a pilot for what would have been the third television incarnation of Dark Shadows. While it didn’t go to series, we had the opportunity to speak to Scottish actor Alec Newman right after production wrapped about his portrayal of Barnabas Collins. By all accounts that version of the show would have very much followed the storyline of the other two, though there was a shift to younger actors which could have potentially given it a different sort of energy.

His Approach to Barnabas Collins: “The character may be considered a terrible creep by some people, but he’s a tortured terrible creep, who we should be able to understand why he is the way he is. In the pilot, we delved into some of those areas a little bit. I think he’s a man who, to some extent, is battling his own state. I always look for something very human. I’ve been in some quite far-flung sort of fantasy-esque projects with Dune and certainly Frankenstein. I don’t know whether there’s some pattern emerging, but I like to apply very simple humanity and aim for a very simple truth in these apparently far-flung fantasy epic kind of environments. It seems to work for me.”

Barnabas’ Motivation: “I think there’s en epic love story driving him. What he has is a supernatural ‘condition’ — he doesn’t treat it as a curse. I mean, he knows who he is. Somebody was telling me that in one of the original episodes the character of Dr. Hoffman gave him the option to not be a vampire, and the reason he wanted to do that was to be with Victoria Winters, even though as a man, as a human man, he knows she is not really the reincarnation of his lost love. But such is the height of his pain about what happened 200 years ago. That’s very, very powerful.

“So one of the essential driving forces of Barnabas emotionally is love and regret, and trying to make that love tangible. The director and I were talking about those scenes with Victoria and looking at her like you look at a lover, and she just does not who you are. It must be extremely painful. That’s really the area that I was interested in, and certainly the area that the director, P.J. Hogan, was pushing for. I think there’s a lot of mileage for where that particular element can go.

“It certainly took … a lot of hard work on an airplane trying to bust my way through it sort of psychologically. It almost defies the approach that I would use with any other material. You kind of have to just fly with it and trust the material. So, hopefully, I did that at least a little.”

Vampirism and Barnabas Collins: “There is an exploration on the nature of what he is, and how in control of this affliction he is. And I do think of it as an affliction. There are genuine documented stories about vampires, mostly found in medical journals. That, of course, is no accident, the theory being that it is possibly an actual blood condition. That’s fascinating, and suddenly makes it all very tangible. It’s certainly interesting for me to think about it that way, because this is a man constantly in turmoil emotionally and, perhaps, even physically; as though he’s suffering from a disease. He does what he has to do to survive, which is not necessarily independent of what he wants emotionally. It’s kind of the metaphor for his emotional condition, if you like, while coexisting with that at the same time.

“You keep peeling back the layers and you find more. You get a scene where Barnabas bites blah, blah, and you go, ‘Well, why?’ And once you find out why, you know how to bite them. You know what I mean? I’m looking forward to seeing what the writers come up with.

“An interesting take on the vampire, and one I identify with, was Frank Langella’s Dracula, because he had that romantic element going of wanting his lost love and all that stuff, but yet you wouldn’t screw with him because he could project that sort of menace. It’s just like you wouldn’t screw with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the Creature. And yet he is, in many people’s eyes, the most sympathetic character in that novel. And that’s exactly where these things succeed. I think Frank Langella was probably on to something with Dracula there, you know? Because if he’s unsympathetic in the end, it’s a simple story about good guys and bad guys, and we’ve seen that before.”

Drawn to the Darkness: “My working method is to just very simply try and make things ring true, even if you are a vampire. And coupled with that is … I do seem to be attracted to darker elements in anything that I read, or decide to go and do. I suppose what I mean by dark is those elements of any one of us that are maybe not so nice to look at, although to get the whole picture it’s essential to look at those areas of one’s self. I do hope I’m not purging some kind of extreme doubt about myself as a human being. I don’t think so. Whether it’s the emperor of the universe, or a vampire who’s come back from 200 years prior, the same rules apply, and that’s nice. The way I was trained, you can kind of battle your way into anything using those very similar rules. And it’s a different challenge with every piece. So, yes, I am attracted to maybe the darker side of the human psyche. Maybe I should run off and do a slapstick comedy? Otherwise I’ll probably end up being very depressed. The thing about comedy is that it comes out of the same kind of truth anyway without necessarily being black comedy.”

Alex O’Loughlin as Mick St. John

Before he went Hawaiian (as in 5-0), Alex O’Loughlin had developed a cult following as private Investigator Mick St. John on the 2007 series Moonlight. Offers the official description, “In this eerie mystery series, Mick is charismatic, resourceful and undead. He has been a vampire since he was bitten by his bloodsucking bride, Coraline, 60 years ago. He struggles against his vampire nature, using his sharpened senses to help the living. Mick’s life — undeath, whatever — gets complicated when he falls for Beth Turner, a reporter haunted by dreams of a man who looks like Mick. Is there even a chance Beth would consider joining Mick’s world as his lover?”

Appeal of the Genre: “I’ve been kind of obsessed with the genre since I first discovered it, since I could first get my head around it. I discovered Anne Rice when I was sort of late teens. And I read the first five or six books of ‘The Vampire Chronicles.’ And I loved her character development, I learned so much about the mythology of vampires through her storytelling, some of which she sort of took dramatic license with, but a lot is authentic. In Australia, I grew up with American TV and American cinema, because we didn’t really have that much of our own. And so I grew up with all of the films that you guys did. Lost Boys was a huge film for me when that was made. And The Hunger was also something that I really loved. So, yeah, I have always sort of wanted to play a vampire.”

His Feelings About Mick: “I feel really sorry for Mick sometimes, because he can’t quite break out of the loneliness that he lives with and finds it hard to accept the life that he lives. That being said, it’s a pretty heavy duty life to accept. He has to live from human blood forever more, he will never die or get old. And the fact that he hates himself so desperately is something that makes me really feel for him. But I also enjoy his humor, his wry sensibilities and, though moralistic at times, his slightly amused outlook at the world. I also admire his vigilance in what he believes in.”

Feeling About the Show’s Cancellation After One Season: “It was wonderful to fight for something and keep it alive for longer than it otherwise would have been. It’s great to be a part of a success, even if it was for only a season. The thing is, we were able to tell some really important stories. It wasn’t just about these monstrous creatures and sexual romps. What we went for constantly is the big truth, for the human truth, the human story and that’s the reason we make films in the first place. We didn’t always hit it, but I feel that from time to time we did, and that’s why we held on to the audience, because they sensed that truth.”

Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

For vampire purists it may have been polarizing, but there’s no denying the impact of The Twilight Saga, consisting of Twilight (2008), New Moon (2009), Eclipse (2010), Breaking Dawn — Part 1 (2011), and Breaking Dawn — Part 2 (2012). The reason? The romance between human Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and the challenges of being together as well as the pain of being apart. Prior to Twilight, the British born Robert Pattinson was perhaps best known as Cedric Diggory in the fourth Harry Potter film, The Goblet of Fire.

On Being Cast as Edward Cullen: “The Edward in the book is this sort of perfect creature. It’s like a combination of everything that’s supposed to be perfect about a man, and he just embodies that. So everyone has projected their own image onto him. The amount of different people who the fans kind of wanted for the role was so varied. People were saying people like Leonardo DiCaprio — the guy’s supposed to be 17. It’s completely crazy. But then [author] Stephenie Meyer — who I met with — kind of gave me the okay. Literally overnight all the fans — virtually all of them — completely changed their minds. And then if anyone kind of says anything negative, people will attack them and say, ‘No, Stephenie says he’s right.'”

The Edward/Bella Connection: “I read the book before I read the script and literally every single description was like that. I couldn’t even get through it, because there was just no way to play it. No one in the entire world could play this. And then I read the script and a lot of the descriptor things were taken out, and I was, like, ‘Okay, I kind of get it a little bit more.’ And then I did a screen test with Kristen Stewart, still having no idea how to do it. She just kind of played Bella in a really unexpected way, like really strong. And she’s not really strong in the book. Well, she’s kind of strong, but not really, in the book and Kristen is just naturally quite a sort of tough person. And it made me play Edward as kind of weaker. He’s this kind of all-knowing thing in the book and I went with the character from there, saying he’s this kind of demi-god, but she has all the power over him. And he’s just kind of a wreck, really. She completely dominates him and that’s kind of how I did it. I guess it’s not really the same as in the book, but I just couldn’t figure out a way to play perfect.

“When you look at what Edward says, it seems that he always says the right thing. He’s always just the perfect gentleman. But when you put it in the context of his actual life situation, it doesn’t compute that he would be this completely easy-going, normal guy. That’s what he was before, but then he got bit. He’s still trying to be a nice guy, but he’s also killed, like, 50 people, so he’s kind of in a state of constant penance. A lot of the story is Edward going against his base instinct. He knows he’s a vampire and he knows what vampires do, what’s kind of the whole idea of being a vampire. Denying that is kind of boring. The more Bella says, ‘I’m not scared of you, you’re not a monster,’ the more I believe it myself and I kind of forget that I am a vampire and what my urges are. I try and kiss her, and obviously it kind of ends up being a nightmare. She has a hormonal rush and I have a kind of ‘I want to kill you’ rush. But it ends up being quite sexy in a weird sort of way.

“He knows his relationship with Bella is right, but he can’t stand the fact that he keeps hanging around her. It’s, like, ‘I know I’m in love with her. I know that’s all well and good, but I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m a vampire, I should just accept that and kill myself now.’ It’s a lot of self-loathing, and I wanted to play it 100% self-loathing the whole time, and nobody would let me. They had to kind of lighten me up a bit.”

Peter Mensah as Lemuel “Lem” Bridger

Currently airing on NBC is Midnight, Texas, based on the novels by Charlaine Harris (who also happens to be the creator of True Blood). The show, in the midst of its second season, deals with a community consisting of humans and supernatural beings, among them a witch, a fallen angel, a demon, a shapeshifter and, of course, a vampire. That vampire — Lemuel “Lem” Bridger —is played by Ghana born Peter Mensah. The character is described as a vampire with a dark past who first came to Midnight in the 1950s and never left. There he met, fell in love with and eventually married freelance assassin Olivia Charity (Arielle Kebbel).

What Drew Him to the Role: “Well, here’s the thing: In the books, Lem is essentially an albino and sort of super white, which is everything that I’m not. First of all, playing vampires is always fascinating, because the vampire lore is so complex and so rich. And then to be called in to play an established character in a novel, and yet to be so different. That brings a challenge in itself to sort of win the fans over and try and bring it to life. And I think the thing that appealed to the creatives was that they decided that Lem was someone who walks into a room and everyone immediately stares at him. It was sort of funny having that going for me.”

Energy Vampire: “We developed the idea of Lem being an energy vampire. Lem is very human as a vampire and he’s very in touch with his emotions and feelings. He doesn’t want to kill, right? So he requires, in his initial phase as a vampire, blood as any vampire does. That usually meant killing people around him. So the fact that he’s a vampire who’s found a way to exist in a community of humans and others without killing, is really fascinating.

“Added to that is the complexity of actually having a role of caring for a partner and caring for his community. So I really enjoyed the complexity of what Lem had to be in order to exist. It’s a lot richer than I could’ve imagined. What’s really fascinating about Lem is he’s in love with a human who is far more volatile than he is. And for all the power that  is within him, he is, as I said, really connected to his feelings. So he’s a fascinating vampire to play. I’m really enjoying it.”

The Evolution of Lem: “In that first season there was a certain amount of exposing of who he is. His part of this story is his relationships within the community of Midnight and especially his relationship with Olivia, who at the end of season one becomes Lem’s wife. Season two pushes further into their relationships and therefore exposes Lem through his connections within the community and how that impacts him and, especially, his relationship with Olivia now that they’re married. The complexity of a vampire/human marriage exposes a lot of the journey that Lem goes through in season two.”

The Appeal of Vampires: “I wish I knew. One of the things that certainly seems to be intriguing about them is they’re human, but not. They have heightened abilities. I think it’s the fact that they are closely related to everyone, but something has shifted in them and they can see beyond where most of us can. I’m sure that has something to do with it. I think we all would like to be a little bit more powerful than we are.  The vampire lore allows so many fantasies to exist within the character of a vampire, which could be part of the appeal as well.”

Where He’d Like to See The Character Go: “In Charlaine Harris’ books, Lem actually takes off and goes exploring the world, trying to discover a number of hidden secrets . I think Lem traveling around the world would be fascinating; going to Africa to find original roots, going into the East to discover the secrets of temples. I’d say Lem traveling around the world would be pretty cool.”