“When the network ordered the show, they wanted it because, to quote, ‘There was nothing like this on TV,’” Reginald the Vampire executive producer Jeremiah Chechik said during a TCA press conference. There’s been no shortage of vampire showS on TV since the 1990s, but the creative team promises that you’ve never seen anything like this before. “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, the color of our skin. All of these things are really social dynamics which we explore within the wrapping of a vampire show. 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 live better, you can become a better person, or not… 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.”
(SYFY)
“My experiences working on the Spider-Man movies have really informed the way I operate on set,” revealed Jacob Batalon, who stars as Reginald Andres. He set the tone for his costars by being prepared with his lines memorized every day. “Reginald is a very thoughtful and very enigmatic person. He's uncertain about life, but he's so very aware of where he is in a situation, in comparison to how society sees him. That kind of , in a way, made me feel a lot more grounded in my life because it's this idea of either you accept your fate, or you change it. 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, in relation to everyone else's characters, I find that they all affected his life so deeply.”
The vampire world is populated by tall, beautiful, fit, and vain creatures, which is the opposite of who Reginald is. “There's so many wonderful things about Angela that I actually adore,” Savannah Basley said of her character, whom Jacob described as a knife in Reginald’s back. “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.”
“Sarah is a human,” Em Haine shared about who she plays, the love of Reginald’s life whom he can’t be with. “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? It was really fun to work through some stuff.”
(James Dittiger/SYFY)
“This was my first time playing a vampire,” added Mandela Van Peebles, who plays Maurice, Reginald’s mentor. “After a while of doing some research and trying to develop my character, I realized that I had the opportunity to channel people from different generations. 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.”
“The heart of our show is very different than a lot of the other vampire shows out there,” executive producer Lindsay Macadam shared. “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. All those other [vampire] shows don't have Jacob and the cast that we have. We've just nailed it right off the top.”
“The world, in part, that was created by Johnny Truant in the original book really faceted this interesting dichotomy between the vampire world, where vampires are really vapid, vain, runway models, and Reginald, of course, just doesn't fit the mold,” added showrunner and executive producer Harley Peyton. In addition to appealing to fans of supernatural comedies and dramas, Reginald the Vampire comes with a pre-existing base of fans who fell in love with the novels that inspired the series. “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 our own area.”
Find out just how unique Reginald the Vampire is for yourself tonight at 10/9c on SYFY.
(Please note this article contains affiliate links. Your purchase will support LaughingPlace by providing us a small commission, but will not affect your pricing or user experience. Thank you.)