Lucy Fry and Sami Gayle talk to Den of Geek

Lucy Fry and Sami Gayle talk enrolling in Vampire Academy with Den of Geek.

I’m going to start with the obvious question; were you familiar with the source material?

Lucy Fry: Not before I got cast but as soon as I was cast, I dove into the books and I loved them.

Sami Gayle: I was familiar with it through friends but I had never read the book until I began to get involved with the film, at which point I began to read the book, and I loved it. Richelle Mead is such an incredible author and she came to set, and we all got to meet her on this one day when we had this huge scene, and everyone in the film was in the scene. She’s just such a charismatic, fun personality.

Were you first interested in joining the film based on the script alone or did you want to read the book before you really delved into this?

Sami: I loved the script. I’m such a fan of Daniel Waters, who wrote the script, and also Mark Waters, his brother who directed. Vampire Academy has, I think, an iconic director. Mean Girls, Heathers, which Daniel Waters wrote, Freaky Friday, which Mark directed; those are some of my favorite films.

Lucy: Mean Girls, I’m obsessed with Mean Girls as every teenage girl is. Pretty much everyone is.

Was working with him everything you expected?

Lucy: No, he’s got a great sense of humor too. He’s really quirky and interesting. I guess I wasn’t expected him to be so...when he’s focused he can pay attention to everything at the same time. Like he has 10 eyes, one looking at the actors, one looking at the lighting, one looking at the colors and makeup. He can just see everything and knows exactly how the story needs to fit for the comedy to play well. The way he can make comedy play is just so brilliant. He’s got that down pat.

What exactly drew you to the character specifically?

Lucy: As soon as I read the first script, I loved it because of the friendship between Rose and Lissa [the two central characters played by Zoey Deutch and Ms. Fry, respectively]. It was interesting, because when I got sent the script, I had been backpacking around Europe with one of my best friends, and just the story of their connection, and the psychological bond that it has, felt really in tune with the kind of friendship that I was having at that time. Well I’m still best friends with her, but the connection between the two of them is what really excited me about the story. About Lissa, I loved her sensitivity, and the way that she has so much empathy for everyone and everything, and that she’s got a lot of emotional baggage and is dealing with a lot of psychological problems, but is doing everything she can do get better. Rose is a part of her healing.

Sami: I think that Mia is a manipulative girl who sort of confiscates her motives. She’s interesting to me, because I felt it would be challenging to play that mean girl because I’ve never really done that. I’ve played a prostitute, I’ve played a catholic schoolgirl, and now we’re seeing her be a little less innocent, but I wanted to do something different. I also sort of enjoy this magical, mystical world that I was going to get to sort of put myself in. What was great and best about Mia for me was finding her redeeming quality, because no one wants to see someone on camera that is plain mean for an entire film. There has to be, even if it’s just for one second, an ounce of a redeeming quality. With Mia, I couldn’t really understand Mia as just a vampire. You have to shed that supernatural layer and realize that’s just the icing on the cake and just look at her as the girl that she really is - who is an innocent girl that’s insecure about her social status, her upbringing, her family’s status in society, who’s jealous of Lissa, because she feels that she’s a threat to her boyfriend. So, it was looking at those things that made me insecure to make me realize she was just mean to mask that insecurity. That really made me begin to love Mia and understand her and relate to her. That’s what I brought to the character; that underneath all this meanness is this glimpse that I really am just a normal girl like every other teenager on this planet who’s just trying to find himself or herself.

 

Read more of the Interview HERE