The Vampire from the Being Human Remake… Meh?

Eh, I saw a picture of him just a few minutes ago and couldn’t help but kinda be like “eh…, he’s no Damon Salvatore. Hell, he isn’t even Stefan.” In fact, as far as vampires go, it actually looks as if someone took Stefan Salvator, and Armand (circa Antonio Banderas, IwaV) popped them into a blender, and poured what was left into a human mold, set it to bake at 350F and waited the full 30 minutes, then out popped:

Sam Witwer’s ‘Aidan’

Not that Witwer as a human being isn’t attractive, it’s just that his face doesn’t really convey … vampire, so much as… bureaucrat (I guess you can tell I was really paying attention to Gamer, and all 30 seconds worth of Witwer’s performance in it). Although sure, he doesn’t really look like the kind of guy who’d be any good in such a role, he seems like a really decent chap. On top of that, maybe it is time we had a few less hot vampires on the airways, you know… they kinda distract from the story, really. Besides, maybe it’s just the first picture? Because in the other one, where he’s pictured beside Josh, who plays the werewolf of the house, ‘Aidan’ looks much hotter.

We’ve got a little bit of interview posted from the al.com blog, –which tripped me out, I actually had to look it up, but it’s the Alabama state news blog, I guess. How am I just going to put al.com as a news source? That’d be remiss of me, as a journalist, and we can’t have that!

KENNETH CARTER: What about “Being Human” made you want to play this particular character?

SAM WITWER: What didn’t want to make me play this guy? I thought the whole metaphor about drug addition was absolutely fascinating and a great way to take the vampire thing. But beyond that you get to play a guy who when you wrap your brain around the various genre aspect of being 200 years old, right, so you can imagine that he would be very aloof and had seen it all, hard to impress and very internal. And so you start with that. Then you throw in this whole metaphor about the drug addiction and realize he’s been in a drug haze for 200 years, very formative years of his life. And so you realize, OK, when he came out of that the world would seem like a terrifying place. The world would be very new and  unpredictable in so many ways. And so he cannot predict when he will have very profound emotional reactions to things and he can’t predict what those reactions will be.

He’s a guy who’s completely off his game. You get to play this guy who is hiding from everyone and what’s going on with him. He’s keeping it to himself. He’s presenting one face to the world while going through an entirely different kind of hell underneath. So you have opportunities for humor because he can actually play an upbeat kind of guy if he wants. The range between the pain that he feels inside and the person he’s trying to be is pretty great. It allows for levity; it allows for drama; it allows for all these different kinds of things. And then, just as a cherry on top, you actually get to go back and see this character in previous forms.

Like you get to see him as he was in the ‘50s, see him as he was in the ‘70s, and discover all these new and different things about him. And really I get to play different versions of him, where he walks slightly differently, and talks slightly differently, because these are different eras where he’s trying to blend in the best he can. So really it’s a tremendous acting challenge all the way around. He’s really an incredibly dimensional and layered character — so challenging, and I don’t know if he will ever get boring for that reason.

KENNETH CARTER: You talk about coming out of this drug-like haze, and you get all this new stuff. Can you give an example of what I can expect watching it?

SAM WITWER: You can expect, if you go with the drug analogy, he’s been using as a crutch, he hasn’t been dealing with humanity on humanity’s terms, and he hasn’t been looking his own humanity in the eye for quite some time, so when things happen or when he forms personal attachments to people, those things are very deep for him, and they have the potential to completely lift him up and out of his misery or to destroy him entirely.

And so he’s kind of on this razor’s edge when it comes to that. His emotions are very very active. But the fun of it is trying to hide that behind a veneer of being wizened and having seen it all and having this elevated perspective that 200 and some years of living have given him. But really, it’s all a sham, because inside, he’s just a scared kid.

KENNETH CARTER: Every vampire show, and I hesitate to call this a vampire show, has its own tweaks to legends and myths. For instance, you can walk around in the daytime. I hate to say rule-bending, because you make up your own stuff, but you’ve got this classic mythology that if you’re going to change it you need to explain why you’re going to change it. And I notice that the werewolf, for instance, I find that terrifying because he’s a monster and not a big wolf, which I’m glad to see people going back to. What other classic myths does your show kind of rework in that way.

SAM WITWER: Well, I can’t say that I’m an expert on the whole vampire thing. I haven’t seen any of the “Twilight” movies; I haven’t watched any of the other vampire shows that are on television, so to be honest, I don’t really know. I know that we can walk around in the daytime, and I know that we have some abilities to influence people in an almost hypnotic way, and that we’re faster or stronger. I know that because my character doesn’t drink live blood anymore  that he’s quite a bit weaker on all fronts than he was and from your average vampire.

KENNETH CARTER: So in this show, human blood is the only way you guys can exist, right?

SAM WITWER: Yes. I guess you can kind of survive on animal blood, but it’s not that great for you.

KENNETH CARTER: I notice a lot of the characters you play are dark, yet there’s a sympathetic side to them. Not just with Aidan, but when you portrayed Davis Bloome on Smallville. That was the best part about that season, in my opinion.

Well, thank you.”

…..

There’s actually a lot more, and if you want to know a lot more about the show, where it’s headed, and the vampire character, you’re definitely going to want to read the rest of the interview. I get the drug metaphor, I just think it sucks that we have to use that, –I’m tired of social commentaries getting mixed in with movies. Can’t we have a show that’s pure, unadulterated, bullshit once in a while? I like The Vampire Diaries because they’re not -as obsessed- as some shows I could mention, with being PC, or “saying something about the world”. Sure all the witches are black, (and almost all the vampires are white… and witches and vampires hate each other, hmmm…), but it’s easier to ignore it because Damon is there.

By annimi

Ashley writes for Vampires.com, Werewolves.com, and other sites in the Darksites Network. She's involved in several seedy and disreputable activities, smokes too much, and spends her late nights procrastinating for work on her first novel.

6 comments

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  3. I’m totally in favor of entertainment, but must point out many of the best examples of such (nearly all, in fact) have a theme or themes and are built around ideas. “Young Frankenstein” comes to mind, as does “The Road Warrior” and “A Mighty Wind.”

    Yeah, it can get heavy-handed easily enough. A lot depends on whether the creator(s) want to ask a question or give an answer. Compare “Narnia” to “Lord of the Rings” for example, or Shakespeare versus Johnson.

    The original “Being Human” (like “Let The Right One In”) was an example of the former, and my hope is the American version does the same.

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  5. He was awesome on Smallville! I really didn’t think he was that attractive looking at first either, but then after quite a few episodes he basically grew on me. He’s a pretty good actor, and I really can’t wait to see this show.

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