Reginald The Vampire

By starrymag | October 4, 2022

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) Jacob, did you have any notions of what it would be like to play a vampire before you got this role?  And if you did, how does this conform or differ from those expectations? 

 

JACOB BATALON:  Yeah.  I think, you know, we all sort of have preconceived notions of what it’s like to be a vampire, you know, like, in movies and in TV, and whatnot. But I think Harley and our producers have absolutely made a great show and a great story, to which we put those tropes on its head, you know?  We make sure that we base it mostly in reality and not the sort of vain idealism of, like, vampires are only beautiful and vapid and don’t do anything else with their lives.

But that being said, we assumed that there’d be a lot of blood, and there definitely was a lot of blood that got in really bad crevices, I will say.  That was something I was expecting, but it was a lot worse, but in a really fun way (Laughs.)  But other than that, no, I think that, you know, we don’t have shiny skin, you know. We don’t really, like ‑‑ obviously, me, I don’t have long, flowing hair. I’m not really tall. But here we are.  Here we are.  I’m the hero of the story.

 

Q) Did you have any difficulty learning to talk with the fangs in your mouth? 

 

JACOB BATALON:  I think we were actually ‑‑ I feel like we all sort of had difficult times trying to speak with it in our mouths and sort of like got to this conclusion of maybe we should just, like, take it in and out of our mouths (laughs.)  But the first day, I was definitely trying my hardest not to lisp.  And you’ll probably recognize it in the scene.  Maybe; maybe not

 

(Laughing.)

 

Q) I’d like to ask the showrunners, were there any particular vampire movies from the past that any of you really indulged or loved that kind of inspired this whole show, or what? 

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  I mean, you can’t make a show like this and not think about “Buffy.”  And so I think “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” ‑‑ and by the way, someone ‑‑ actually, it was in the Times mentioned that we have ‑‑ our title is “Reginald the Vampire” ‑‑ (speaks in a low tone) ‑‑ “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

So, I do like that symmetry, and it’s, again, hard not to be inspired by that.  Actually, when I was working with Victoria and we were making the show, I watched the last season of “Angel,” which, of course, is just an offshoot of “Buffy.”  But I think, after that, you’re sort of ‑‑ you’re on your own.  And we had a book that was great source of material.  We took that book and then made a lot of changes to it, and we ended up with a kind of rom‑com workplace comedy drama where sometimes all of those tones are in the same scene, and that took us into, I think, our own area.  But, yes, the things you’re inspired by are the ones you’d suspect.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  I mean, I would say, you know, the sum total of all of the tropes of all of the vampire shows that we’ve watched culturally and taken in over our lives really provoked a kind of synergy with Johnny Truant’s books, which really helped us really push and turn all of the normal vampire tropes on their heads, and I think that was really due to how we approached casting, how we approached the, kind of, dynamic of where vampires sit in the culture of vampirism as we historically have known from our culture.  There you go.

 

JACOB BATALON:  That was really a solid answer.  Like, wow.       I literally ‑‑ like, I was really reaching for words, my last answer (laughs).

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Hey, I usually need to have them written. That’s why.

 

JACOB BATALON:  Yes.  Oh, well, like you wouldn’t believe.  Oh, you do know.

 

Q) Jacob, you’re so memorable as Ned in the Spider‑Man movies, and now, you have the opportunity to be the title character.  So, how different is this challenge at anything you did or didn’t expect to come with playing the title character? 

 

JACOB BATALON: I think my experiences working on the Spider‑Man movies, and what not, has really informed my, sort of ‑‑ I guess, like, the way I operate on set, in the way that I found that the most easiest way for us to sort of progress in a shoot is to make sure everyone is, like, happy and comfortable and likes each other.  And, you know, I’m really, really, really lucky to have that ‑‑ like, our showrunner and our producers and the cast are so, so great and so amazing and talented and sweet and willing to work.  I mean, if anything, they made my experience, like, a lot simpler.  And I guess, the unexpected thing I’d say is that you have to, like, come prepared, actually, which is quite shocking, I’d say. (Laughs.)  But other than that ‑‑ no, I think that, again, watching really successful people sort of like operate and work with others has really informed my, like, experience on this show.  And again, I’m just really grateful that everyone was willing to work with me and willing to put up with my divaness because I was literally pushing it (laughs).

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  I would say something about Jacob that I think should be said is that, I’m assuming, before he did this show, you weren’t doing any 8‑ or 10‑page days.  And so, I think, when we started this show, there was this real feeling, like ‑‑ he was in every scene; right?  And then it’s like, “Is he going to burn out?  I mean, how is this going to work?”  And the fact of the matter is, he was a superstar, you know?  And we’ve been so lucky with our cast.  And that’s everybody here:  Mandela, and Em, and Savannah.  And luck in casting is such a key thing to a successful show, I think.  And having Jacob at the center of that and just never ‑‑ I don’t remember him ever, sort of, having a, kind of, bad day in that sense.  He was always there.  And that leadership is something you can’t ‑‑ you know, you can’t build that. It just has to be there.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  I would definitely second that.  As somebody, you know, who had to kind of keep pushing to extract the best quality of every scene, in terms of the acting range and the tonal shifts that we were after, to do this, you know, with 10 pages of just memorizing and reading these scenes, I don’t recall Jacob showing up after working ten hours of showing up with paper in his hand to read a scene.  He knew every scene, and he set the tone for everyone for that preparation and ‑‑

 

JACOB BATALON:  Thank you, you guys.  Thank you so much, you guys.  I just want to say, literally, like, without you guys being so ‑‑ like, so supportive and, like, there for me, I don’t think I would have been the same.  And, like, I don’t want to take all the credit because without you guys, I’d be ‑‑ I wouldn’t be here.  So, like, thank you.  Like, I truly, truly appreciate you guys really, like, sticking up for me, you know?

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Yeah, we can have some of the credit, but ‑‑

 

JACOB BATALON:  Yeah, absolutely.  I mean, like it is ‑‑ but I am, like, on the title of the show, but whatever.  It’s fine.

 

(Laughter.)

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Can’t say enough, by the way, about all the actors because he ‑‑ Jacob just set a tone for everyone.  And I just felt, directing these things, that there was this great synergy of everyone supporting everyone else.

 

JACOB BATALON.  I’m very thankful that everyone was really great, for sure.

 

Q)  Hey, so, this is for all of the cast that are joining us today.  What’s your favorite part of your character that you play?  So let’s start with Savannah. 

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  There’s so many wonderful things about Angela that I actually adore.  I just love how really strong she is.  She’s very strong and powerful, and she’s a very smart woman, and that is something that I really enjoy, and someone who, I think kind of claims this full autonomy over herself, and that was something that I really enjoyed playing, someone who wasn’t afraid of her sexuality, but someone who also knew that she was very powerful, and she was a very smart woman as well.  So, that was really nice to play.

 

EM HAINE:  Well, Sarah is a human.  So, I think that I held down a lot of the realness.  While things are getting fantastical and kind of crazy in the vampire world, I’m, like, the grounded center for what’s going on.  So I felt like I was able to grow with Sarah as a person, because she’s just out there as a 20‑something trying to find her place in the world, and I get it, you know?  So, yeah, that groundedness.  It was really fun to work through some stuff.

 

Q) Mandela, how about you?

 

MANDELA VAN PEEBLES:  Oh, man.  Just so much fun stuff.  One of the things I really love about the job that I have is I get to do new stuff.  And this was my first time playing a vampire.  And I tried not to have too many expectations going into stuff, but after a while of doing some research and trying to develop my character, I realized that I had the opportunity to channel, you know, people from different generations that ‑‑ you know, playing a vampire, you’re alive for a long time.  So I’m channeling my granddad. I’m channeling my great granddad, sayings that I’ve heard in my family or just around in different cultures that kind of bring different generational traits to a modern character, and I thought that was really fun.  And also, just taking the traditional idea of a vampire and just flipping it on its head.  And we see so many diversities in “Reginald the Vampire” that we don’t usually see with this kind of a supernatural vampire show.  So that was a lot of fun, and I wasn’t expecting it to mean so much to me.  So that was fun, yeah.

 

Q)  Awesome.  Thank you.  And Jacob?

 

JACOB BATALON:  Yeah.  You know, I’d say Reginald is a very thoughtful and very, I guess, enigmatic person, in that, like, he’s very much ‑‑ he’s uncertain about life, but he’s so, like, very aware of where he is in his ‑‑ like, in a situation, in comparison to, like, how society sees him.  And that kind of like, in a way, made me feel a lot more grounded in my life because it’s this idea of ‑‑ I mean, you kind of just have ‑‑ it’s either you just accept your fate, or you change it.  And luckily, for Reginald, he ‑‑ I mean, he didn’t really ask for it. It just happened to him, but he did something with that change, and he became a really great person.  And, you know, in relation to everyone else’s characters, I find that they all affected his life so deeply, you know, with, like, Sarah being, like, the love of his life and Maurice being his mentor and, you know, Angela sort of being, like, the spike in his side or the knife in his back, so to speak.  It’s all very much a unique experience that, yeah, I also I didn’t realize how much I’d love.  It really is just ‑‑ I mean, everything about my part was just very beautiful. Like, this was a very full arc journey, and it’s really great to see where he starts off and where he ends or ‑‑ well, yeah, see where he goes.

 

Q)  So what other magical or mythical creature would you want to enter the universe of “Reginald the Vampire”? 

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  Well, I can ‑‑ without getting into spoiler territories, I think the notion of an angel with a sword of flames is appealing to all of us, and that may or may not be a part of our future.  That’s all I’m willing to say about the angels with the sword of flames.

 

(Laughter.)

 

JACOB BATALON:  Yeah, I would say dragons.  Dragons are really cool.

 

(Laughter.)

 

EM HAINE:  I like dragons.

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  I don’t know if we can afford dragons.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  We can afford the angels, I think.

 

(Laughter.)

 

JACOB BATALON:  I think it would be fun, maybe down the line, if there was some kind of werewolf‑vampire battle, but, you know, we’ll see.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  I think the good tonal approach to the show is anything is possible in a world that we’re creating because these are characters that exist in the real world, and it’s not ‑‑ these are characters that are not generally assumed by everyone to be real.  So they are a minority within the majority of the population.  So there are various cultures that are easily introduced and create conflict and allies that would propel the story forward as it develops.  So anything goes.

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  I think it would be really cool to get, like ‑‑ I love any type of mythology, but, like, a wendigo would be really cool.  I want more wendigos on TV.

 

(Laughter.)

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  Yeah.  There’s so many cool things that you can do with that.

 

MALE SPEAKER:  Chupacabra.

 

EM HAINE:  What are those rabbits with the antlers?

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  Wait.  Wait.  What?

 

JACOB BATALON:  Jackalopes.

 

EM HAINE:  Jackalopes.

 

(Laughter.)

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  A jackalope would almost be more appropriate for our show, and that’s definitely affordable for our special effects.

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY?  Can Angela have a pet jackalope?

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  I think it’s going to be possible.  I tried very hard to do a scene between Mandela and Nicky where they both were holding puppies, and I just begged our line crew, “Please, just get me these two puppies.  I just want them holding puppies.  I don’t care what happens. I don’t care if they run all over the place. There’s no scripted action for the puppies,” but we weren’t able to do it.

 

LINDSAY MACADAM:  I think we can bring back the vampire poodle.

 

EM HAINE:  I think that, like, the absurdity of our show is, like, one of my favorite pieces of what we’re doing.  Like, that humor genre, that’s so fun.  I love that.  I love that shit.  That’s so good.

 

(Laughter.)

 

Q) So, vampire TV shows are popular and there’s a couple other new ones starting up this fall. Plus, there’s one very popular vampire comedy that’s already on the air that a lot of people know about.  My question is: What new elements of vampire mythology does “Reginald the Vampire” bring to the table, and how will your show stand out from these other shows? 

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  Well, I mean, first of all, I think, tonally ‑‑ and you’re right.  I know the show that you’re referring to.  But I think that, for us, the world, in part, that was created by Johnny Truant in the original book really faceted this sort of interesting dichotomy between the vampire world, where vampires are really vapid, vain, runway models; right?  That’s who they are.  They seek a kind of perfect perfection that’s all about beauty, and that’s where we get into issues of body‑shaming and body‑positivity. And Reginald, of course, just doesn’t fit the mold.  So I think that’s something that we follow and work with, whether it’s text or subtext, and I think that’s pretty different from something that I’ve ‑‑ anything that I’ve seen before.  In other words, it’s really ‑‑ the vampire society, they love bureaucracy, they love to look in a mirror because they can see themselves in there, and it’s all about that conflict between what we think of as beauty and what we think of as sort of inner truths and, kind of, the beauty inside us.  So that’s what made it fun for me, certainly as a writer, and going ‑‑

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Yeah.  I think the foundation of our show is very rooted in real emotional dynamics.  That is the rock‑solid foundation, and it’s based on how we fit in, how we present ourselves, what we think of ourselves, how we relate to others, what is expected of us, our sexual orientation ‑‑ you know what I mean ‑‑ the color of our skin.  All of these things are really social dynamics which we explore within the wrapping of a vampire show.  So I think the root of our show is not really to create a horror vampire “I’ll suck your blood” kind of show. It’s really about how, when you die, you can become ‑‑ you can live better, you can become a better person, or not. But those are the real reversal of tropes that stand out.  And, of course, tonally and visually, it doesn’t look like anything you’ve ever seen.  There’s a lollipop, color-pop aspect to it that really works against the tradition of the dark noir vampire world.

 

LINDSAY MACADAM:  I think the heart of our show is very different than a lot of the other vampire shows out there.  And what really appealed to me was just that this is a ‑‑ this is such an underdog story, and there’s a really positive message that’s baked into all the entertainment and comedy.  So it’s very aspirational, and it’s just so much fun.  But all those other shows don’t have Jacob and the cast that we have.  We’ve just nailed it right off the top.

 

(Laughter.)

 

JACOB BATALON:  Speaking to all of that, I’d say that, like, really, we truly are something that ‑‑ like, I don’t think anyone is really going to expect the way this sort of story goes, and I think we’re very quick to judge, as fans, that ‑‑ like, “Oh, another vampire trope,” like – but, again, like, whatever ‑‑ like, what our creators were saying is that, really, like, it’s about the human condition, and, like seeing, like, a human go through a journey of, like, self ‑‑ of, like, self‑love and, like, the connections he has through death.  Like, he learns life through death, and that’s a very poignant and deeper sort of meaning than just, like, wanting to kill people and look super hot.  So, yeah.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Yeah.  And then, we were ‑‑ when the network ordered the show, they wanted it because, to quote, “There was nothing like this on TV.”

 

LINDSAY MACADAM:  Yeah.

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  Yeah.

 

LINSAY MACADAM:  Truly original.

 

Q) Mandela, your dad has told the story about how, when he finally was ready to be an actor, he said ‑‑ he came to his father, and said, “Okay. I’m ready for you to help me.” and Melvin said, “No, you go help yourself.”  I was wondering how it was with you?  Did you decide early you wanted to be an actor?  Did your father and grandfather encourage it, or did they just say, “Go do it yourself”? 

 

MANDELA VAN PEEBLES:  Oh, man.  I graduated college, and I tried getting a regular job, and I got ‑‑ (Laughter) ‑‑ and I just thought, “Wow, that was really hard.”

(Laughter).

And I just thought back to how much, you know, as a child growing up in the industry and being close with my family, I would be traveling with him to Japan or Australia or wherever he was filming, and I just thought back to how much fun, not only was he having at work, but the people around him, how he got to inspire them to have fun and be creative.  And I just felt like the workplace environment on set is a lot more cohesive to how I am as a person than, you know, other office jobs.  And once I kind of put my eggs all in that basket and then went with it, it started to kind of blossom, and I’m happy it did.  I really don’t know what I want to do yet, but this is definitely one of them.  So I’m very excited to be doing this ‑‑

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  I’d stick with this for a while.

 

(Laughter.)

 

Q) Cool.  What was the regular job that you were thinking about taking? 

 

MANDELA VAN PEEBLES:  What was ‑‑ oh, the really good job?  Oh, man. I made smoothies at a health food store down the street called Simply Wholesome.  So that was it.

 

(Simultaneous discussion.)

 

Q)  Jacob, what was one of the most difficult vampire trials that you had to film?  And maybe the showrunners and EPs can talk about what they thought was the most difficult ones to film. 

 

JACOB BATALON:  I’m sorry.  You said “scenes”? Or — I’m sorry.

 

Q) The vampire trials that you had to ‑‑ the trials that you had to go through in order to be a part of the inner sanctum. 

 

JACOB BATALON:  Oh, okay.  I mean, I don’t know how much we can speak on that.  That’s sort of like a theme that we lead to, but like, I can tell that you absolutely paid attention to those stories.  So thank you.

 

(Laughter.)

 

JACOB BATALON:  But I mean, yeah, that’s something we can’t really speak on, but I can tell you ‑‑

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  There are certain arcade games that you are going to have [unintelligible] and those arcade games are impossible.

 

JEREMIAH CHECKIK:  I also will say that one of the biggest trials I think for all of our vampires was vampire karaoke.  And without getting into too much of the details, both as a production issue as a performing issue and as a singing issue, vampire karaoke, was, I think, one of our greatest trials.

 

LINDSAY MACADAM:  Yeah, for me.

 

JACOB BATALON:  It was definitely my ‑‑ it was definitely my issue, yes.

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  Really, anything to do with the blood.  It was sticky and it got everywhere.

 

JACOB BATALON:  Oh, my goodness.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  I would say, just from kind of a side look, there were scenes that had a tremendous volume of red liquid that really was very difficult for dealing with sort of a naturalistic approach to the scenes and sequences.  But you know, in supporting the actors, they all kind of sublimated to that and drank deeply.  So there you go.

 

(Laughter.)

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  There was the one scene where we were literally just ‑‑ nobody moved. Everyone — well, everyone just set up around us, and we were like, “We’re just going to stay here.”

 

(Laughter.)

 

Q) Mandela and Savannah, just besides it being uncomfortable with the stickiness, what was it like for you as an actor and any stories you can tell us about it. 

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  Oh, okay.  It was a lot of fun.  I love horror. I love it, and I love any time I get to do practical-type of stuff.  So any type of the squirting and getting, like, covered in it was so much fun.  Also, because you know that you’re not ‑‑ there’s that kind of like vain part of you that’s like, “Oh, is my makeup okay?” Or “Is my hair okay?” But when you’re in the middle of it and you’re covered in this fake blood, you kind of get the freedom to be, like, “Whatever. I’m a hot mess anyway.”  So you can kind of really hone in on whatever it is that you’re doing in the scene.  So that was a lot of fun.  Yeah, it was just great.  I mean, the stickiness was just kind of like more of an annoyance on the side, but for the most part, it was a lot of fun.

 

MANDELA VAN PEEBLES:  Yeah, I would say, definitely having Jeremiah and such great people behind the camera and being able to trust their vision, it was a big part of it for me.  I’m pretty critical as far as I want to look good if I’m doing a sex scene.

(Laughter.)

So, that’s a big one.  And I think as far as playing with the timeline of things, you know, a lot of the more intimate scenes me and Savannah share, they span across years.  So I wanted to bring some of that, maybe, innocence to some of the earlier ones and more letting her show me the way. And then, towards the later ones, more of the confidence and the strength of someone who has grown up a bit since the first time that you see us interact in that way.  And it’s fun, you know?  It’s definitely ‑‑ you got some blood, you got some fun additions to our love story, and all of that.  And, yeah, I think it’s interesting because, when you live forever, you know, how long can you really hold a grudge for?  I think that’s a nice theme that plays throughout me and Savannah Basley’s relationship, and just seeing that kind of unfold on camera.  It’s fun, and I’m looking forward to seeing it all, yeah.

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Yeah, I would say that these scenes are typically ‑‑ and having done several ‑‑ many of them over the years, that they can be very disquieting. They can be very tense, and they can be very uncomfortable.  In this case, they were anything but.  I mean, you know, I try to work very, very hard at making all the actors feel very comfortable and relaxed.  In the scenes, they’re not self‑conscious in that way.  And once we discuss where we are going to go, where the camera is, protecting what needs to be protected, and making everybody feel good, even in that kind of keeps the blood and passion, that they made it fun and they made it easy to direct and set the stage.  So a tribute to them.

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  Yeah.  And to add on that, I think it’s really important to mention that, like, there was a big feeling of, like, safety on set.  And before we would do these scenes, whether it was between me and Mandela or a bigger ‑‑ more people ‑‑ I’ll just say a bigger group ‑‑ there’s always ‑‑ there was a moment where, you know, everyone would leave, and it would just be me and the other actors or, you know, just us one‑on‑one. And we would just kind of have a moment to be like, “How are you doing?  How are you feeling?  Are you ready to do this type of thing?”

And so that was really great.  And, of course, always working with intimacy coordinators are really great.  You just ‑‑ you feel like there’s just ‑‑ you already know that you’re protected, but you feel – like, there’s an extra level of someone else there that is specifically there for that one thing.  So you know that their eyes are only focused on making sure that everyone feels comfortable and everything is going well.  And so feeling that safety within the cast, within, you know, Jeremiah and everybody, and like, you know, my cast and, like, the crew, and then knowing that the intimacy coordinator was there really, really helped to make those.  Because you’re in such a vulnerable space.  And especially for mine and Mandela’s scenes, like he was saying, there is this long amount of time in our relationship.  And Angela is seen kind of as a ‑‑ I think she can sometimes come across as seeming angry or, like, evil for no reason.  If you’re not a big fan of her, then you can kind of ‑‑ you can get her misunderstood.  And so it was really important to me to make sure that people know that there is this beautiful soft spot to her, and there’s a reason why Maurice fell for her, and there is a reason why she is a loveable person.  Some things just happened within the 400 years that she’s been alive that maybe made her a little bit more ‑‑ put a wall up.

 

HARLEY PEYTON:  She might pull your heart out of your chest, but other than that, she’s very, very soft inside.

 

(Laughter.)

 

JEREMIAH CHECHIK:  Well, I would say, spoken like a true super‑bad person.

 

(Laughter.)

 

SAVANNAH BASLEY:  It’s what’s on the inside.

 

(Laughter.)

 

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*