Why ‘Vampire Academy’ Is Dramatically Different From ‘The Vampire Diaries’
Preview
The Vampire Diaries franchise may be over, but the show’s creator, Julie Plec, isn’t done with creatures of the night. Plec paired with Marguerite MacIntyre, who played Sheriff Forbes in TVD, to adapt the Vampire Academy novels for the small screen. The fruits of their labor premieres September 15 in Peacock‘s Vampire Academy, starring Daniela Nieves and Sisi Stringer as Lissa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway, two supernatural best friends destined to shake their royal vampire society to its core.
But don’t let Plec and MacIntyre’s resumes fool you: this series won’t look like TVD franchise. That’s mostly because Richelle Mead’s books created a vampire world quite different from others in the genre. Vampire Academy has significant elements typically unseen in these bloodsucking tales.
For example, Nieves and Stringer’s Lissa and Rose have a sisterly bond. Lissa is a royal Moroi vampire, who suddenly finds herself heir to her family’s throne. Rose is a Dhampir, the bodyguard class of vampire/human hybrids assigned to protect the Morois from the evil Strigois — monstrous predators who, unlike the Moroi, are immortal, but at a high price. Lissa and Rose are still in school at St. Vladimir’s Academy and are determined to be assigned together upon graduation. The rest of the royal vampires have other plans in mind. This clash will cause political turmoil throughout the season’s 10 episodes.
There will also be brewing romances between Lissa and Christian Ozera (André Dae Kim) and Rose and Lissa’s “interim” bodyguard Dimitri Belikov (Kieron Moore), but this isn’t the Damon and Elena and Stefan and Caroline kind of main character energy. The true love story in Vampire Academy, according to Nieves and Stringer, is the friendship between the two women.
“Being able to create a female friendship that’s that’s so deep and at the center of the story” was the best part of the filming experience, Nieves tells TV Insider. “It’s not a vampire couple being the center of the story. It’s literally this platonic soulmate bond. Bringing that to life has just been so special, because I just resonate so deeply with the value and importance of female friendships.”
Jose Haro/Peacock
That friendship is powerful enough to destabilize the political sphere in their vampiric society, which is completely devoid of humans (another genre staple you won’t see in this series: vampires trying to assimilate with the human world). Stringer, a lifelong fan of the original books, says the 10-episode season allows the complexities of the class structure and political disorder to get the detailed attention it needs. The 2014 Vampire Academy movie, as she says, just didn’t have enough time to really sink its teeth in. Only getting one film didn’t help either. For avid book fans, Stringer warns not to panic when they see creative liberties taken with Meade’s plot.
“We stayed true to the center and the essence and the soul of the story and the characters, and I think that that’s what makes it work,” Stringer explains. “I think the fans are going to be really excited, even with the differences. I think we did them a service.”
Stringer and Nieves reveal they originally auditioned for each other’s roles at first. But Stringer saw herself as a Rose even when reading the original books, saying “I am a Rose now and I will forever be a Rose. It’s actually awkward how alike Rose and I are. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m being Rose or if I’m being Sisi.” Play what you know, right?
Jose Haro/Peacock
We had to ask: what changes can viewers expect? “I think they’re going to be surprised when they meet Victor [Dashkov],” says Nieves. Played by J. August Richards, Victor is the adoptive father of Mia and Sonya Karp (Mia McKenna-Bruce and Jonetta Kaiser) and close family friend of the Dragomirs. After the family tragedy, Viktor guides Lissa through her royal obligations, but not only for her benefit.
“I don’t think it’s a disappointing thing by any means,” Nieves says of Victor’s intro. “If they read the books and they’re expecting that, I think they’ll just be surprised.” Also “don’t be surprised when we chronologically we start in a different place.”
As for the showrunners, Plec says this is her “mini Game of Thrones.” She tweeted all the way back in 2015 that she dreamed of making a Vampire Academy TV show, but as she tells TV Insider, “When we read the books, I thought instantly this could never be on TV, because the world is too sprawling and nobody’s ever going to give me the money it would cost to make this.” The world of broadcast TV wanted shows like procedurals that have “a hundred episodes of beginning, middle, and an end,” adding “That’s where we were, if everyone remembers, before peak TV.
“It took that six or seven years for television to catch up and to become a medium where you could take this series and make a miniature Game of Thrones.
“I thought I had missed my shot at Vampire Academy because of doing Vampire Diaries, But then, another six, seven, eight, nine years goes by and somebody at Universal said, ‘What’s the show you’ve always wanted to make that you’ve never gotten to make?’ And that answer was Vampire Academy. They said, ‘Great, let’s do it.’ And when that happens to you, you just go, ‘Yeah!'”
MacIntyre says the wait was worth it. “I read those books when Julie read the books, because we were on a vacation together. I think we were working on Kyle XY,” she says. “I didn’t remember anything about it, particularly, until Julie said, ‘OK, I’ve got these books.’ And then going back in and reading them, I realized how much I actually had really liked them and how much I actually remembered going in. I can re-read stuff and be like, ‘Oh, I kind of remember this,’ but [Vampire Academy] was really clear to me.
Jose Haro/Peacock
“I also saw that it was so resonant to now. I’m almost grateful that it wasn’t made back then, because you couldn’t have done the book justice. It’s about a class system that’s falling apart, that is really being stressed, and that has to change. Who’s gonna do that changing? Who’s rubbing up against it? And these two young women at the center of it, their friendship being challenged, everything about it is so resonant of now. You get to have romance and vampires and fighting, but you also get to say something that is gonna be under the radar, but resonant for people.”
MacIntyre thinks Vampire Academy meets the moment our world is at.
“Everybody’s coming to terms of how they feel about right now and what they plan to do about it,” she explains. “Especially if you’re younger, you’re facing an uphill battle. How do you do it? Who’s your ride or die on that road? I think a lot of people are asking a lot of questions of themselves, so now felt good.”
Vampire Academy, Series Premiere, September 15, Peacock
