First thing's first, was he a VA fan prior to filming?
"If
I'm completely honest, no. I hadn't heard of the series. I did my
research after the first audition — just before the first audition,
actually, when I found out that it was based on the best-selling series.
I started there, then dug a little deeper.
I read the first one, and I've actually made the conscious choice not to
read ahead of what we're filming because — as we've finished the first
one now, and Richelle makes it all illustrative, which is amazing — I'm
not hired to do Richelle Mead's version; I'm hired to do Mark and Dan
Waters' version. It was very important to me that I didn't end up kind
of muddying the water, and confusing one with the other. It's almost
like if you were hired to play Romeo, and going back and watching other
people's performances, you will naturally pick up things from that part
that they've done, and that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to do
Mark and Dan's visioning of it."
On director Mark Waters
It's such a pleasure to work with
Mark. I never had a day where it seemed stressful. I knew what was
happening, and I knew we were working toward deadlines, and Mark was
under some stress, but he never pressured us... It was a really, really
nice relationship. He was always kind of happy to work with us if we
thought that there was something we could potentially do a little
differently; we would always do it his way, then give our way a try as
well. He'd always say at the end of every take, every scene that we did
from every angle, 'You know what? Let’s do one for you guys.' So, it was
this opportunity to kind of do whatever we'd want, which is great, BUT
at the same time, before I knew this about Mark, and before I knew when
he was happy, he'd say, 'Great, check, let's move on.
"Before I knew any of that, I went through my audition process — I did six auditions for
Vampire Academy
— every time I would go in, and I would audition, I'd try and give him
what he wanted, at the end of the audition, he'd just go 'Cool, yeah,
that's it. See you around.' Each time I was like, 'Uhh, I messed up.
That's it; that's all there is. I'm not going any further.' And every
time I got called back, and obviously now I know that's how Mark feels —
when he's happy, that's it. You move on... Six times I went in and six
times I came out miserable thinking I messed up, and I got it, so I'm
eternally grateful to Mark."
+ check out the rest of the interview below!
On his character, Christian Ozera
"He's had a terrible
upbringing because his parents [are] the worst things that are known in
vampire culture; [they've done] the worst thing that they could possibly
do. So all the people at school — I think it would be kind of like [at]
any school, if your parents do something that's seen as criminal or
immoral or whatever, he's neglected, and he's pushed to one side, and
he's segregated and bullied by all the kids at school, so he ends up
very much on his own; he turns to humor and sarcasm and that's how he
kind of defends himself. Lissa has this same sort of thing where she's
locked up and feels alone because of royalty and all the things she's
going through. And then they find each other, which is really nice
because they find love in one another through something that's quite
normal."
On his appearance in Vampire Academy
"My eyes are
different colors normally, in reality. Christian and the entire Ozera
family have these piercing, ice blue eyes. Mark wanted my eyes as is,
which is cool, so I didn't have to go through much of the painstaking
that Lucy did, having to put contacts in every day, getting used to
them, then having to take them out; I didn't have to go through that. I
did have to watch what I [ate]... a little. Christian's, like, skinny...
I didn't want anyone calling me fat basically, that's what I’m trying
to say. We weren't allowed out in the sun when we were filming, which
was over the summer, so that was difficult. But it was cool, it wasn't
sort of too much, it wasn't painstaking."
On his co-star BFF(s)
"I don't think I grew closest to anyone
really in particular. We all ended up being this big family together
because we're all around the same age. Even when the casting call came
out it said that we need to be this age and play young because it's
important that the cast will have this rapport, and really work well
together, but at the same time, have the ability to just be social and
develop friendships. And that's kind of what we all did, we all ended up
being really close, we all ended up going out every weekend... So I
wouldn't say I got close to anyone; we all ended up really, really close
with each other."
On the VA fandom & social media
"I need to get
more into this whole thing because I'm so bad at Twitter and social
media. My agents and everyone, they all know this about me. They keep
telling me every day, ‘'Don't put anything stupid on Twitter because it
will haunt you for the rest of your life.' So I'm being so careful about
everything I do, and I tend to not do anything or follow [many]. But I
do look at my Twitter, and some of the things that people say and how
committed they are — as you say, because the fandom is so inspiring —
it's really nice to know that people are behind us, and they really care
about what we're doing because really that's half the battle — to know
that we're kind of making people happy; to obviously go see the movie
and the movie's gonna make them happy, that's really what matters to
us."
Which of the elements would he want in real life?
"It'd be
fire, hands down. Having done some of the filming and actually having
fire in some of the scenes — there was talk about actually setting my
hands and a couple other things on fire, but we never got to do it. I
was gutted; we never actually got to see it. I was upset that we weren't
going to try it. And now with the new trailer, you get to see what the
fire actually looks like... It'd be fire, 100%."
On other YA franchises
"I'm a big fan of
The Hunger Games
and Jennifer Lawrence; Jennifer Lawrence, in particular... I'm really
excited to see how that kind of starts rounding off and coming to an
end... And I read
Divergent. In the casting process, just before I started going in for
Vampire Academy,
I kind of got my little stake in that, and I obviously know how that’s
gonna end, unless they changed it from that point, but I'm excited to
see that too and see what they've done with it, and all the trailers
look really cool as well."
What's up next, film-wise?
"I'm not allowed to say right now,
unfortunately. I'd really love to. We've got some stuff that we're
working on in the pipeline, but I'm not allowed to say."
Does he see music in his future career?
"I guess maybe if it
was to do with acting, like if I had to sing [for] the part. I've played
Mick Jagger once before, which was amazing. I didn't actually have to
do any music for it, but if something like that came up again, I'd love
to. As far as going into being a singer, being a musician, that's always
been something very personal for me. You know, if I had a bad day, I'll
come in and I'll play my guitar for a little bit. It's really just for
me more than anything else. Music always kind of releases — that's just
sort of me hanging out with my friends, having too many beers and
finding cameras and being like, 'Yeah, let’s do this.'"
Was he really in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
"I
did do some work on it. It was a tiny, tiny little role back when I was
starting off. And that's really interesting that they picked up on that
because I was, like, 13, 14, 15 maybe when that came out — a long time
ago. It was really, really interesting because that was filmed at
Pinewood [Studios in England], and I remember being with all the guys
[filming], and I was just thinking to myself, 'One day, I wanna be here
filming my own movie with a decent-sized role where I'm getting treated
like the actors that I'm watching. That's what I wanna do; that's what I
aspire to be like.' I literally shed a tear when I found out that
Vampire Academy was filming at Pinewood because I was just like, 'Wow, this is kind of it. I'm getting to where I want to be.'"
Valentine's Day Plans?
"Not as of yet. It's my birthday
around the same time as well [— February 6, people! —], and I'm trying
to figure some stuff out. I want my mum to come out with me to the
premiere and stuff, so... I don't know. There's nothing set in stone.
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