Horror isn’t only about ghosts or monsters. For example, paranormal romance seems the antithesis of horror. Once you have a sexy, fun vampire who is sweet, and you have a happy ending, it’s not horror.
The thing I love about vampires that I find so fascinating is that, unlike other sci-fi creations, they aren’t monsters from the get-go, they’re human beings first… and so what kind of human you are would dictate what kind of vampire you would be.
Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ wound up teaching me another, accidental lesson: that sometimes you’re so excited to keep going down the road you’re on, you drive right past your destination.
When I was filming ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ in America, for a couple of weeks beforehand we would always fit in a family holiday in California.
I made films, like ‘Shadow of the Vampire,’ and I did not like the work I did on it and then Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Oscar. I made films like ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ with Martin Landau. I thought I would get nominated and it flopped. You never know.
I normally work like a vampire. Around 8 to 9 P.M., what I call ‘the spirits’ actually show up, and then I just go in the booth and scream on top of a track. I only sing on the mic. I don’t sit down and write anything.
With these kinds of figures you can do whatever you want as an actor because there are no guidelines, there are no real vampires. Except in Los Angeles, where everybody’s a vampire, you know?
I never watch television, although, the other night, my wife and I caught an episode of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ from Season Six. It’s the only series of which I’ve ever watched every single episode.
‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ – I had a lot of friends who told me to watch it. And I was like, ‘I’m not buying seven seasons of a frickin’ show.’ It got to the point where, ‘Seriously, you have to watch it.’ Buffy is not my favorite, but it’s amusing.
It was a high-class problem burden, but it was still a burden on ‘The Vampire Diaries,’ in which we had this group of characters that we loved writing for so much and who had so much available story to tell.
I don’t want to be a sexy vampire.
Isn’t that an odd philosophy for a vampire?
Interview With a Vampire’ is one of my favorite movies of all time. ‘Queen of the Damned,’ not so much one of my favorite movies, but it’s one of the best soundtracks of all time.
Becoming a vampire means completely changing your identity.
I never felt like there were things I couldn’t express lyrically in Vampire Weekend. I was always proud of everything that we wrote together.
People really want to set up these rivalries because there’s a lot of vampire books out there. People want to believe we’re all fierce rivals, and really there’s just so much camaraderie with authors. Everyone kind of boosts each other.
