Читать книгу Blood Brothers - Amy Rickman - Страница 12
ОглавлениеDamon: It’s not like we all hang out together at the vamp bar and grill. (1.11, ‘Bloodlines’)
Vampires had always held a special sway over Ian. For him, they weren’t just a scary childhood bedtime story, though – his fascination with the undead continued well into adulthood. ‘I was so obsessed with The Lost Boys,’ said Ian. ‘Really one of my favourite vampire movies is Shadow of a Vampire because it was just so not this romanticised, physical, sensual beautiful thing; it was really what I always imagined vampires to be. In that film, you almost feel like what it would be like to be cold and death.’ It was also the actors playing the vampires who fascinated him: ‘Willem Dafoe is on another planet as far as how talented he is.’
Being from New Orleans, of course, helped: ‘There’s a lot of vampire mystique and mythology that resonates [in New Orleans], and I was fascinated by it. I always wanted to play one.’ His mother, Edna, used to keep an Anne Rice book by her bedside for a little night-time reading – vampire worship must run in the family!
And then along came HBO’s True Blood, based on the Sookie Stackhouse series of novels by Charlaine Harris. It was a massive show with a big cast and an ambitious, racy script with a new take on the vampire myth: what if a blood substitute was created that enabled vampires to come out into the open? Would they be accepted into society? It looked set to be fun, sexy and a massive hit, with HBO throwing huge sums behind the show and into the marketing and publicity – even going as far as to sell the drink ‘Tru Blood’ in vending machines across the US. True Blood also had a cast of mostly little-known actors, with the exception of the female lead Sookie Stackhouse, who was played by Oscar-winning actress Anna Paquin (also well-known through her stints as Rogue in the X-Men trilogy). The principal male actors, Stephen Moyer (who played the main vampire, Bill Compton) and Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse) would go on to receive a massive boost to their profiles through appearing on the series. Clearly, if you wanted to be big, then you had to be on a vampire show.
Through his previous work on Tell Me You Love Me, Ian already had a good relationship with HBO and as soon as he read the script, he knew he wanted to be a part of it – but that didn’t necessarily make him a shoe-in for the role.
Funnily enough, he wasn’t even auditioning to play a vampire: he was after the role of Jason Stackhouse, the sexy-but-dimwitted brother of the feisty main character Sookie Stackhouse. ‘I wanted to do True Blood so badly,’ he told TV Guide. Unfortunately for Ian, the creators just didn’t see him in the part. ‘I just couldn’t convince Alan Ball [creator of True Blood] that was my role. And then I didn’t get it, and I was very bummed.’ Eventually Ryan Kwanten was picked to play Jason.
‘Bummed’ seems like understatement for the way Ian felt about losing the role. Once again, he felt the cold shadow of failure creep up on him. The shows and movies he had taken part in since Lost had never really felt like the real deal and there were times when he thought he was never going to work again. ‘It’s really funny. As an actor, you always think that whatever job you have is going to be your last. In some way, shape or form, you think you’re going to screw it up and you’re never going to work again. And it literally took five years [after Lost] to find another show.’
After he was rejected from True Blood, Ian couldn’t bring himself to watch the show. Naturally, he wanted as little to do with vampires as possible. So when his manager passed him yet another script for a series called The Vampire Diaries involving teenaged undead, he felt like running a mile. That was until he actually read the script. He was lying in bed with his then-girlfriend, ‘she’s reading Salinger, and I’m reading this script called The Vampire Diaries. And I thought, “You know what, man? This is gonna be the coolest character on television.” There was no doubt about it.’
Ian soon realised this was the opportunity he had been waiting for: he instantly understood the character of Damon, the bad-boy vampire with killer charm. However, there was just one problem: he was nowhere near LA for the time the auditions were happening; he was actually in Las Vegas for a pizza convention. One of his many ventures outside of acting was investments – especially in real estate – which culminated in him owning one third of a gourmet pizza restaurant called McClain’s Pizzeria in Sun Valley, Idaho, along with his sister and brother-in-law. But Ian wasn’t about to give up because of a little distance. ‘I desperately wanted [the part of Damon]. My girlfriend and I were in the desert in Vegas and I realised I’d missed this meeting. My agent called me back and said, “They need you there at 11 in the morning, having memorised nine pages of the script.” It’s now 9 o’clock at night in Vegas. We got up very early and I drove across the desert while she slept. I taped my pages together; that’s how I worked on the material.’
In retrospect, it seems as if Ian’s rush to get back caused him more harm than good for he well and truly fluffed the audition. And although he didn’t know it at the time, he actually had the part in the bag without even having to turn up. The minute that Kevin Williamson, the creator of the show, heard Ian Somerhalder was interested in the part of Damon, he was sold. ‘Ian comes vampire-ready,’ he told TV Guide.
The fact then that Ian blew his audition made the process a little more difficult. After all, it was key in the eyes of the producers, the studio and the network that they should secure the perfect actor to play Damon. Meanwhile, Ian himself knew that it was a great part: ‘It was a tough process getting this show because it was THE show to get. There was a lot of competition. Damon is one of the best characters you could ever dream of playing so I set my sights on him and made it happen.’ It took those in charge of the production 10 days to finally sign off on him as Damon. ‘Ten days of mental torture,’ was how Ian described it.
Meanwhile, Kevin had a job to convince the network execs that Ian truly was Damon: ‘To be honest, the first time [Ian] read for Damon, he didn’t really bring it. Everyone said, “Oh, he’s definitely got the look, he looks like Damon,” but he just didn’t bring it when he read. Still, I knew he had it in him. After talking to him, he said that this was really the exact role he’d been looking for. He wanted it so badly so at that point, for me, it was just about getting him the role, convincing the network to roll the dice with him. Ian was a gamble. We took a gamble on him, and he delivered.’
Later on, Ian explained to Coup De Main magazine why his audition had been such a disaster. It’s clear that he let the nerves take over: ‘If you, for some reason, get nervous, drink too much coffee, take too much B12, guess what? Your energy level skyrockets and you sort of get out of your rhythm and it’s really heartbreaking to find something that you know in the deepest deep of your soul that you can play and you kind of blow it.’ He later added, ‘getting these roles for each and every one of us was extraordinarily horrible.’
But the torture was over – Ian had landed the part of Damon Salvatore. Damon was written up as a vampire without a conscience, who embraces his power over humankind. Manipulative, arrogant, remorseless and drop-dead sexy, he relishes being able to control, feed on and kill humans – the very antithesis to his brother, the broody Stefan.
In the television version of The Vampire Diaries (which differs from the novel and more about that on the Paul side), in the late eighteenth century, just after the American Civil War, Damon is turned into a vampire by the beautiful Katherine Pierce. He believes himself truly in love with Katherine, even though she is playing him off against his brother. The truth is revealed when Damon finds out that Katherine has turned both him and his brother into vampires, even though she promised it would just be him who would receive the ‘privilege’.
Regardless of Katherine’s betrayal, Damon still loves her. He believes that she was trapped beneath a church in Mystic Falls and that now, in the twenty-first century, finally the time has come to free her. Damon is driven halfway mad by his desire for Katherine and it fuels all his anger and frustration. Like his brother, he is intrigued by Elena’s resemblance to Katherine and enjoys toying with his sibling, always threatening to move in on his girl. Of course the danger always looms that one day his threats might turn to reality and he might not be able to help himself.
For Ian, it was the perfect part. ‘Damon is Dionysius,’ he said, comparing his character to the Greek god of wine and ecstasy; ‘he has an appetite for everything.’ Now, all he had to do was figure out just how he was going to play a bloodthirsty, lustful 160-year-old vampire and make him believable. He knew he had a hard job ahead of him: ‘It’s a little strange. I actually don’t like blood – it freaks me out a little bit. But when you think about being hungry, and you think about a time when you were stuck on a plane or you were somewhere without food, or you see people that are starving in the world and you think about how intense that is, and then you imagine being a vampire and having 160 years of life experience, and the knowledge of humanity, love, death and history, and on top of that your senses are heightened by 1,000 per cent, it’s a very intense proposition. So, trying to inhabit someone who has that much knowledge of the world is a feat. I hope I’m doing it right and living it as truthfully as possible.’
And so he turned to some of his acting idols to inform him: ‘I don’t know of one specific actor, I just know that the ones who I’ve always been drawn to, that always amazed me whether they were good or bad – like Cary Grant, Jack Nicholson, Ed Harris – they all have something that was interesting. Whether they were being an antagonist or a protagonist, there’s always something in their eyes. You could never quite tell what they were thinking, you just knew that they were thinking something and it probably wasn’t good.’
The Cary Grant connection was to be a big factor in how Ian played Damon, as he explained to audiences at PaleyFest (the William S. Paley Television Festival dedicated to showcasing new and exciting media): ‘There was a certain sense when you watched these men, when you watch a guy like Cary Grant on screen, you see the effortless fluidity with which he speaks and breathes and moves, and you go, “Ah, whoa!” They’re just carefree and there’s something about that that makes you want to watch every single frame.’ He also took inspiration from former Lost cast-mate, Josh Holloway. Ian had always wanted to play Sawyer and this, in a way, was his chance so he called up Josh and said, ‘Dude, I’m basing a lot of this character off of Sawyer – hope you don’t mind?’ Turned out, Josh didn’t mind a bit.
Ian simply relished getting to play the bad guy for once. He told AOL TV: ‘Damon is a bastard and I love playing him. I’ve spent my entire career brooding, so it’s been great not to take myself too seriously. Damon’s good fun – I would love to hang out with him.’ It also helped that Damon was one of the best characters for Kevin Williamson to pen: ‘I love writing for Damon. It’s just about staying true to what Damon is, and Damon is a killer. He’s driven by this love for Katherine that he’s trying to get back, but at the core Damon is a killer. He’s dark, and if anybody thinks he’s going to suddenly soften up, they’re going to be waiting a long time. He’s a true predator and he needs to feed. Could the love of a woman possibly change him a little bit? Is there some humanity there? Maybe. Maybe, someday, but today is not that day. Don’t hold your breath for that.’
Really, for Ian the beauty of this role was that it had a future – The Vampire Diaries just wouldn’t be the same without him. And because he’s already dead, the chances of him getting killed off are that much slimmer!
