Vampire Academy: Interviews with the cast and creatives on the new series

Just in time to kick off Halloween season a new Peacock original series premiered on 16^th September, bringing vampires back to our screens. Based on the young adult novels by Richelle Mead, the show chronicles the daily lives of the students at St Vladimir’s Academy and their royal families. With its gorgeous cast, scheming and plotting characters and glamorously staged parties, Vampire Academy can easily be likened to a supernatural version of Gossip Girl.

Not entirely coincidental, the CW is where Vampire Academy’s showrunner and director Julie Plec sharpened her teeth: she developed and produced The Vampire Diaries as well as its spin-off The Originals. Marguerite MacIntyre, who starred in the former as Sheriff Forbes and amongst other roles joined the writer’s room for the latter, is the producer of Vampire Academy.

The two creators sat down with us to speak about why they continue to be drawn to stories about vampires and how the universes differ from each other in terms of canon and rules.

Vampire Academy’s main protagonist Rose Hathaway is played by Australian actress Sisi Stringer, who viewers may know from 2020’s Children of the Corn or Mortal Kombat. She revealed to us that contrary to what her filmography may suggest, she doesn’t have a particular affinity for the horror genre.

After playing Charles Gunn on Angel, J August Richards returns to the world of mythical bloodsuckers as Victor Dashkov. The actor tells us why he wanted to be part of the action himself this time around and how shooting in Spain helped him re-connect to his Spanish-speaking roots. His co-star Jonetta Kaiser revealed that she had read the books when she was young and this is what got her interested in vampires in the first place.

Similarly, Rhian Blundell had read the novels in the past but tells us, she purposefully didn’t go back to the books during filming to stick to the script version of the story. A fan of vampires, Mia McKenna Bruce shares that she jumped at the chance to play a vampire sharing her first name. For Anita Joy Uwajeh, the fantastical genre was what lured her to the project.

Meanwhile, André Dae Kim, Kieron Moore and Andrew Liner spoke to us about filming in Spain, how it differed from expectations and that they managed to form a close bond as they were away from their homes and families for a longer stretch of time.

Selina Sondermann

The first four episodes of Vampire Academy will be released on Peacock on Sky and Now on 16^th September 2022.

Watch the trailer for Vampire Academy here: