Interview by Rafy Mediavilla w/ Peacock’s “Vampire Academy” Creators – Julie Plec & Marguerite Macintyre. Where we spoke about the adaptation, how far they went with it, and the putting the spotlight on woman being kick ass action stars. Out Now On PeacockTV!
From executive producers Julie Plec & Marguerite MacIntyre comes a story of friendship, romance and danger. In a world of privilege and glamour, two young women’s friendship transcends their strikingly different classes as they prepare to complete their education and enter vampire society. One as a powerful Royal, the other a half-vampire Guardian trained to protect against the savage ‘Strigoi’ who threaten to tear their society apart. That is, if Royal infighting doesn’t do the job first.
Criticólogos:
This being an adaptation of a novel. How much from the first book was adapted to the series, and how much were you able to take it to the limits?
Julie Plec:
Well, what we are saying, and this is to avoid being a little spoilery, is if you’ve read all six books of Vampire Academy, you will likely see most of the things that you love the most from those six books happen at some point in the series of Vampire Academy. You might see something that you thought was happening in book six, happening in season one, and vice versa. So we play with the timeline a little bit. We’re having a little bit of fun in the way that we are telling the story. But all the important elements that were rendered so beautifully in the book by Rochelle Meade that excuse me, those will likely I’ll be there.
Marguerite MacIntyre:
Yeah, I would just say yes, we had great obviously these beautiful set of books to, to, to jump into and like you said, it was a great sandbox to play in and I felt very supported and loved by the studio and network like trusting. I mean, if you have Julie Plec adapting a vampire show and you don’t trust her, it seems silly. So obviously they were very trusting of us. But also everybody let us kind of like find our way with it and tell the story we wanted to tell, which is very respectful to the books, but kind of in our own unique spin. So it was a good process.
Criticólogos:
The subjects which surround the character are very adapted to the times. How much of the characters was left from the novel or how much was just organic?
Julie Plec:
I actually think it was all in the you even said the books are a little bit prescient. It’s all in the books. This is a class system that is starting to fray in these books that people are starting to look at. Wait, why is this operating this way? Is this fair? What’s going on here? So it was all intrinsic in the books. We maybe heightened some stuff here and there, but we I think it was there and then we just kind of like use what was there, use the characters, use the character drives to tell that story, but kept it really grounded in Rose and Lissa, their friendship and what this story is doing to these two friends who the world doesn’t want to be friends. So what does that mean? And how do they fight for their friendship? And then in fighting for their friendship, fight for a better society.
Marguerite MacIntyre:
We were having a lot of fun doing when we contemporaries this and put it on the pages, making sure that it reflected the world that we live in and celebrated communities within the world that we live in, even as we’re telling a story in a mythical community. So we had a lot of fun just adding a modern and a modern voice to that as well. Yeah.
Criticólogos:
How important was it for you guys to translate that as much as you can, having those actors do their action scenes? And to put the spotlight on woman’s being present as bad ass, kick ass individuals?
Julie Plec:
Well, I grew up in the television fan girl community of Buffy and Sydney Bristow. And, you know, I like a young woman that likes to likes to fight. So for me, there was no question about the show was going to have lots of really, really intense stunts, sequences, fight sequences. We built our own language for the fights. We trained all the actors and actresses multiple times a week. They were in physical training, learning all the different movements and the different fighting techniques.
And to have Rose specifically be one of the best pair guardians and novices in her class, to have her be a fierce fighter, to be a leader that people look up to ultimately was so important not just to honor the character in the books, but to create a really strong female heroine at the center of the series.
Marguerite MacIntyre:
I completely agree with that. And also, I think our actors did a great job. You can see when you watch the show, very they they really did all of their stunts. Very often you’re seeing a whole stunt all the way through with our actors. They killed it.
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