It was a day like any other, where writer/producer Harley Peyton was having one of his usual meetings. At the end of this particular meeting, however, an executive presented him with a book. “It’s called ‘Fat Vampire‘ and I think you’ll really like it,” the exec told him. Peyton and producing partner Jeremiah Chechik read it, ran with it, optioned it, and sold it to SYFY.
The television adaptation of the book series from author Johnny B. Truant — retitled Reginald the Vampire — makes its delicious debut this October, just in time for the Halloween season. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, series showrunner Harley Peyton discusses his draw to the books, his cast of characters, and more.
“I think the story of the vampire — the titular character — was about his drive and his story, and what’s important that’s inside you is more important than the exterior,” Peyton says of what connected him to the Fat Vampire books. “I think the things about beauty and fat shaming and all those issues in the book that Johnny Truant put in the series of novels deserves a ton of credit. He’s awesome.
“That really attracted it to me even though that then becomes sort of sub rosa in the series because we’re doing a vampire show and it’s a comedy and it’s a drama and it’s all these things. I do my best, but these guys make it work and they do it so well.”
The guys that do it so well are his wonderful cast and the colorful characters they play in the SYFY series. One important thing Peyton wanted to do from the very beginning with Reginald the Vampire was to give each of those characters an arc from start to finish. “I wanted them to be different at the end of that season than at the start,” he explains.
For Reginald’s arc and the main thrust of the show, viewers will get to see how he occupies the new vampire world as well as his vampire life once he is turned into one. “But then he learns — and I think that’s sort of the moral of the story, although we try to bury it a little — is that we all have something special inside us, and Reginald has a whole bunch of shit inside of him that’s very special.”
Alongside Reginald is Angela, played by Savannah Basley, who returns to SYFY fresh from her hauntingly humorous series, SurrealEstate. “I am the vampire deacon, so I kind of run stuff in our area,” Basley says. “And Maurice, I turned him a very long time ago, and [Reginald] is just a big old pain in my butt. She’s a really fun character to play. I’m very excited for everyone to meet her.”
While Reginald is a pain for Angela, it’s his vibe with Maurice that has kept him alive. “Basically, I stumble upon this guy and he’s just got that lovable energy, so I spare him,” Mandela Van Peebles (“Mayor of Kingstown“) says of his character Maurice.
“I think what’s cool about playing vampires is some of us are made in that show and that’s where our origin begins and some of us,” he continues. “Although we look a certain age, we can be centuries old. Having that dynamic in the character as an actor, it’s what you want. You can bring so many elements into it. I think that was fun to play a lot.”
One of the dynamics viewers will see in the series is between Maurice and Angela and his obsession with revenge against his maker. “Does revenge have a shelf life?” Peyton says. “When you can live forever, how long are you going to be pissed off at somebody? So they play that out, too.”
Another character viewers will be introduced to is Sarah, played by Em Haine (“Chilling Adventures of Sabrina“). “Sarah is self-described as a normal girl,” Haine shares. “I think that what I relate to about Sarah is she’s looking to find her place in the world and she does that over the course of Season 1 to some degree.”
The character of Sarah describes herself as a “normal girl,” but Peyton says that that’s “not really” accurate. “She fled from a cult, she’s trying to find her new life, and she finds herself in a world of all this impossibility,” he reveals. “It is that classic thing about, wait a minute — vampires exist? She may or may not learn that lesson, but that’s something I think that works in the story too.”
A lot of things worked and fell perfectly into place in the journey in bringing Johnny B. Truant’s Fat Vampire to television. For the showrunner, he feels grateful that the project landed in his lap serendipitously.
“For me, it was thrilling, and just luck always has a lot to do with this,” Harley Peyton says. “We’re just lucky because that guy didn’t have to mention that book on that day… but he did.”
Reginald the Vampire premieres October 5 on SYFY.
