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Watch: Jacob Batalon is pivotal to the ‘Lollipop Noir’ of ‘Reginald the Vampire’
“He’s a real force of gravity for this show.”
Would the subversion of classic tropes and tonal shifts in Reginald the Vampire work without Jacob Batalon? Probably not, and this is something that showrunner Harley Peyton and director Jeremiah Chechik are definitely aware of.
The two men behind SYFY’s lates original series had nothing but praise for the Spider-Man: No Way Home actor at New York Comic Con 2022, saying in the video above that very little of what they are doing with the series would work without Batalon’s talents.
“This is just the beginning for him,” Peyton said. “He’s a real force of gravity for this show.”
A character like Reginald would usually be a comic sidekick in a vampire series, but this show goes a different route and puts him in the lead role. “For our purposes, he’s the star. He’s the hero. This is Reginald’s hero’s journey,” Peyton said.
Reginald is not the suave and sexy vampire that audiences are used to seeing; but he’s caught in that world. He has to navigate it as best he can, and that comes with an entire host of prejudices for Reginald to face.
The series remains colorful and fun while putting those issues front and center. “The foundation is on real issues. Visually, tonally, I like to describe it as ‘Lollipop Noir,’” Chechik said, going on to say that the visual scheme of the show “reverses” tropes as much as the tone.
According to Peyton, the show is a “rom-com workplace vampire comedy drama, and sometimes all within the same scene.” He went on to say that Batalon is always able to “shift gears” accordingly.
Reginald the Vampire gushes out new episodes every Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET on SYFY.
