Preston Barta / Film Critic
If you’re hoping to erase the bad taste “Twilight” left in your mouth, you may be in luck as the next breed of vampire adaptations are upon us with Richelle Mead’s hit “Vampire Academy” series.
Opening in theaters worldwide today, the first film adaptation in the six-book series shares the tale of a half-vampire and half-human student at St. Vladimir’s Academy named Rosemarie “Rose” Hathaway (Zoey Deutch), who is sworn to protect her full-blooded vampire BFF, Vasilisa “Lissa” Dragomir (Lucy Fry).
Like many who might anticipate in a young adult adaptation involving vampires, there are good guys and bad guys. The good vampires, known as the Moroi, co-exist peacefully among humans and only accept blood from donors. They also possess the ability to control one of the four elements— earth, wind, water and fire. However, sadly, their powers do not combine to form “Captain Planet.” On the other end, the baddies, called Strigoi, are the bloodsucking, evil vampires who drink to kill.
Lissa is the only living, rightful heir to the throne of Moroi through some regal upbringing. So her safety is crucial to the story. But can Rose protect her to the end? Visit your nearest theater to find out. But in the meantime, read our North Texas Daily interview of the aforementioned stars (Deutch and Fry) and Dominic Sherwood, who plays another royal Moroi named Christian Ozera.
In our interview we talked about the film, portraying their characters and the classes they would teach to students at UNT.
Vampire Academy is founded on a hugely popular series, so there’s no doubt that being a part of this film is a real big deal. I wanted to ask, because this is such a big deal, what was the best advice you received before signing on to this and who was it from?
Dominic Sherwood: “That’s a good one.”Zoey Deutch: “Ooh, what’s the best advice we received?”Sherwood: “Yeah, to handle all the pressure.”Deutch: “Don’t have any expectations because you’ll be disappointed either way.”Sherwood: “Who told you that?”Deutch: “Zoey Deutch.”Sherwood: “Zoey Deutch?”Deutch: “No [Laughs]. My mother told me that.”Lucy Fry: “For me, it was if people don’t like the film then it’s just not for them. In the end, it has to be something that you did for you. My friend Christina told me that I believe.”Sherwood: “Yeah, mine is kind of similar. It was said by one of my best friends. He said individuality is key to art— a lot of people won’t like something. But hopefully, for every one person who didn’t like it, there will be two or three people who did like it. And that’s what is important— finding the light and shade in all of it.”
All of the characters you portray have a certain vulnerability about them. Was it hard to tune into the darker side of your characters?
Fry: “I think it was really fun to get the chance to play with a darkness in the characters because that contradiction and juxtaposition of the light and shade is what makes the character interesting. I really enjoyed that exploration and the challenge of facing those darker places to get to the other places.”Sherwood: “I am very much with Lucy on this. I think it’s very cathartic to go through and explore feelings and emotions that are quite dark and kind of reflect your own self. It can feel quite good afterwards. I enjoyed the challenge.”Deutch: “Fans who’ve read the series and know Rose Hathaway will label her, right off the bat, as strong. There are normal things — insights to her vulnerability that are perhaps the most important in her character development, like when she’s wrong. She’s the heroine, the narrator and is supposed to be the decision maker and sometimes the decisions she makes are wrong. I really appreciate that human side to her.”
Obviously, when you create a movie that is based on a novel, filmmakers have to make certain cuts and changes to the source material to kind of spice things up a bit and make the material work as a movie. If someone were to make a movie about your life, what sorts of cuts do you think people would make?
Deutch: “Well, that would be the most boring film of all-time for my life. There are not enough interesting things in my life to make an entire story out of. It would be a boring movie.”
Oh, I highly doubt that.
Deutch: [Laughs]Sherwood: “They would have to cut a lot of my nights out in central London. I think that would have to go.”Fry: “Oh, God. Probably all my time walking around trees or something like that. I bet that would be boring [Laughs].”
If Dimitri and Christian were to take Rose and Lissa on a double date, what would they do and where would they go?
Sherwood: “Oh, good question. I think Christian would take them to some weird, dark poetry reading.”Fry: “Lissa would love that.”Sherwood: “Yes. Lissa would love that. But I think Dimitri would take them to some big, sprawling and really expensive place to kind of show Rose how much she means to him. That’s what I think— some cross between those two. Rose would hate the poetry though“Deutch: “Imagine all of our characters in a pottery making class [Laughs]. That would a phenomenal scene.”Fry: “We should do that as a cutaway scene.”Sherwood: “We should. We’ll have to have a talk with our director, Mark Waters, about it.”
If you could teach a class, what do you think you would teach?
Deutch: “I personally don’t feel confident enough in any realm of intelligence to teach anyone anything. But hypothetically, if I knew everything, I would teach how to speak Ukrainian. That seems peculiar and something that a lot of people don’t know here.”Sherwood: “Perfect. Good answer.”Fry: “I would teach a class on spirit. Yeah [Laughs].”Deutch: “A class on the power that she has in ‘Vampire Academy.’ That’s what she is regarding.”Sherwood: “I would teach a class on psychology. I love looking at the human mind and the choices that we make. If you have knowledge of that, I feel like you could teach anything. So that’s what I would teach.”
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