Vasiliy Fet is taking New York City back from the vampire horde one block at a time. With his knowledge of architecture, explosives and extermination, Fet has been the fan favorite character since the beginning of season one.
Kevin Durand is a character actor, and can be seen in Fruitvale Station and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, and can be seen as a series regular in both The Strain and Starz’s Vikings.
Be sure to check out season two of The Strain on FX Sunday nights at 10PM CT/ET time and my reviews immediately following their airing here on The Young Folks!
Evan via TYF: You’re new to the whole social media thing, but you’ve been live tweeting prevalently through about every episode since last year. How did that come about and what’s it like getting fan reactions almost instantly as you watch the show every Sunday?
Kevin: Well, you know it’s all so new to me and before being a part of it, you go and shoot something, put your heart and soul, you adapt your life so you can go make your art and then you leave it. You don’t have that kind of instantaneous connection with an audience that you would doing theater, and I come from the theater. I was really addicted to that connection, so then all of a sudden you get onto this twitter thing, and when they asked if I wanted to Live-Tweet, I think I got on at maybe episode 11 last year that I joined Twitter. To have that instant reaction from what’s going on on screen with something you worked on, it feels like a form of live theater to me. So I keep thinking to myself, “Oh, I won’t do it this week, I’m doing it too much the fans will get sick of me” and then I start watching and I just have to comment! I have to say stuff! I don’t always say something, but I’m always watching what everyone has to say, it’s a really cool, visceral kind of reaction to it. I love seeing people saying what scares them, it’s been such a pleasure to be a part of that. So even if I’m not tweeting, I am reading what they’re saying!
What an episode huh? Thanks for watching @TheStrainFX See ya next STRAINDAY :-) #TheStrain
— Kevin Durand (@Kevin_Durand) September 7, 2015
Advertisement
Evan via TYF: Between getting the scripts and reading all the books, and then the fan reactions, do they ever have an impact when you’re on set? Or are you just Vasiliy and you’re just in the moment there?
Kevin: I love to hear what people have to say, I process what they have to say, it may have some kind of effect, subconsciously when I work, I’m sure it does. But generally my work, I get really obsessed with it, I learn everything really early, and on the day we’re shooting, it’s there and part of my subconsciousness and I don’t have to remember my lines.
Advertisement
Have you had a favorite action scene throughout filming The Strain?
Kevin: That’s a hard one to pinpoint. I really liked doing the scene with Natalie Brown (Nora) in the last episode when Fet tangoes with the Mother of All Suckers. [laughs] That was really fun, we’re good friends, and Natalie had been training really hard for a long time, she took it really seriously. She’s like “I’m going up against a canadian giant here!” She really bought it, but I honestly love every bit of action I did, especially with this character because he’s so strong…
Is there anything you can tease about the end of the season?
Kevin: Gosh, what can I tease? As you saw with that last episode (Battle for Red Hook), it could have been a finale, and when I read it I was like “oh my gosh, this is bigger than any episode of the first season, where are they gonna go from here?” If you just take that as a gauge of where we’re heading, it just bigger and more explosive… sorry I’m just kind of tip-toeing around, because I also don’t want to give anything up because what’s the fun in that, right?? It just keeps building to the point where no one’s gonna get up to use the bathroom during the next 4 episodes, including me!
Advertisement
Can you talk about that bond with Abraham and is that what keeps him in this fight?
Kevin: Fet is a survivor, and if he was on his own I believe he’d still be alive. He’d be finding his way to survive, but he and Setrakian are so similar in that sense. First off, he genuinely connects with the old fella, as I do with David in real life. But he’s a smart guy, he’s pragmatic, he knows that he has over 60 years of knowledge and to learn from him. He’s pleased to have that knowledge passed down to him as well as they forge ahead. the tender side, I think he’s just a man with a very big spectrum. He’s gentle with people that have earned that from him, but he can turn on a dime as well.
Have you had a favorite scene or arc or moment that’s really resonated with you?
Kevin: I’m constantly thanking the writers and the producers for the amount of fun I’m always having, I do really like to get into it with some of the actors we have on the show going head to head with David day to day and always learning and upping my game, and with Rita… We’ve had some really great scenes this year. She’s always so dynamic and fluid and committed and my main storylines have been with those two. But every time I get to work with Corey I feel the same way. It’s just a wonderful chemistry with a bunch of really dynamic, wonderful actors I get to work with all the time and I count my blessings.
We saw Fet go from being a tough guy in season one to seeing his soft side, are feelings going to get in the way moving forward for him?
Kevin: I wonder if it will, for me as an outsider looking in, and as the guy who plays him. Because I’m a fan of the show as well. I think he just has a lot of common sense, I don’t think he would allow that kind of explosion of emotion that he’s been feeling to interfere with his ability to survive, but I guess we’ll have to tune in to see.
With the season coming to a close, what is it that you’re working on between now and season 3?
Kevin: Well I just finished my second season on Vikings… I honestly booked off most of this hiatus, we just had a little baby girl, my wife and I, and that’s pretty much the greatest thing I’ve ever done… and we’re just having an amazing time! I’m having an amazing time just getting to devote all of my time to her at this point. So it’s all daddy time until I get to jump back into working on The Strain!
Fet’s been going through a lot with his relationship with Dutch, the introduction of Nicki really threw him. He seems to be in a better spot, is he going to try to win back Dutch?
Kevin: I think that he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t believe in fighting for lost causes. He thinks that if this is how she feels and what she wants, that he’d let her find her way, it doesn’t minimize what he feels for her, but when you’re in the midst of a vampocalypse he’s not gonna fight for her if she doesn’t want it back, y’know? If she wants to come back she’s probably going to have to win him over. I don’t know! It’ll be interesting, but that’s just my feeling on it… he’s got to save the world, and he’s got to save his fighting energy to do just that, and he’s not going to cry over spilled milk, but I think time will tell.
Fet has been a fan favorite since his introduction, but with this season there’s a new fan favorite in Quinlan. The fan base is split online, what’s your take between the two?
Kevin: I think it’s awesome! When I read the books, Quinlan was my second favorite character! I love that character, I had thought “hey if I don’t get to be Fet, maybe I can be Quinlan, that’d be cool.” I am just happy for whatever is good for the show. You watch Rupert Penry-Jones play that character, the first time I saw him deliver lines to myself and Setrakian I was mesmerized, I thought, “That is really working.” What an awesome take on the character, between what Rupert is doing, and just from the look of him, he’s just such a cool character. I love that he’s becoming the favorite, it just means that more people are going to tune in. I just want people to watch the show and see the whole story. So I was a fan of Rupert’s as we were shooting, but now watching I’m a bigger fan.
Has Fet learned his lesson with explosives yet?
Kevin: No, like Setrakian, they’re both into the method of “you have to fail so many times before you succeed.” How many opportunities in real life before this vamp-ocalypse did he have to blow up buildings? To actually blow up a building like he did in that episode, you realize he’s still learning. He’s a smart guy, and so every time he fails he’s coming closer to ultimate success. I don’t think that’s the last time he blows something up.
Can you talk about working with the makeup and effects? What do you think of it?
Kevin: Well the artists are amazing on the show, I’m more in awe than anything, I’ve played a lot of characters in my career, leading up to Fet, where I got to spend anywhere between 3 to 8 hours in a makeup chair doing prosthetic work so I just have a lead of respect for the artists putting it on and also for the actors who have to put up with it. it’s tough! It’s kind of annoying, like if you can imagine waking up 4 or 5 hours earlier than everybody else in the cast and going to the set, it’s cold, it’s Toronto, and then you sit down in a cold trailer and they BASICALLY take a piece of Wonder Bread and coat it with Mayonnaise and slap it to your face and then blow dry it. And then you wear it all day! I’ve done a lot of it, I just really respect the process and it’s amazing to look it and, and they take you where they need to go. At the same time, I look at it and it’s kind of beautiful as well just from the amount of detail that goes into that work is incredible and then they just destroy it at the end of the day, they take it off and they start all over. It’s a cool process.
Do you have a favorite creature on the show?
Kevin: you know, i got to say… the Feelers really get to you. When you see these adorable little kids walk into the trailer and they come out as these little demons and they’re crawling around. that’s gotta be up there. But one of my really good friends on the show, Robert Maillet, who played the first Master, to see him walking around with that makeup on in all his glory, his size, it was just mesmerizing, and you catch yourself kind of just staring. His hands are already giant! But then you add the extra tips to those fingers and all the work they did on him is phenomenal.
What is it about the rebar that Fet loves so much?
Kevin: (laughs) Well first of all it’s in his roots, it’s the weapon that he’s most comfortable with. He was using rebar while exterminating vermin in all 5 boroughs of New York. He’s kind of a ninja with that thing… it packs a punch. When you hold on to an actual piece of rebar, and he’s got about eight different width of rebar, so when you go from the thinnest one to the heaviest most people wouldn’t be able to swing that heaviest one, but he can because he’s kind of a badass. He can cause major damage with that thing. You hand him a gun, a nail gun, anything else and he can get the job done, but it’s not his weapon of choice because it’s not the one he’s been working with for years.
Recently Fet had been paired up with Nora, and he seemed impressed, calling her “a freaking genius”. What can you say about that relationship? How does he view Nora? Is there a tinge of romance?
Kevin: I love that connection because last year (after episode 8) he wasn’t all that impressed. So I feel like they’ve come the furthest, especially in the last four or five episodes. I think they both really have developed a profound respect for each other. I think she sees so much more of him since she called him a “cold hearted killer.” She understands that there’2s more there and that [Fet] makes sense and that his skills are helpful to the group. Fet on the other hand, “She’s a doctor wit the CDC.” He kind of talked down to her, and I think he’s in awe of her, she’s strong, intelligent, she’s come a long way. She went from being a doctor who couldn’t kill a fly to beheading her mother. She’s really taken major strides. There’s a definite mutual respect, and it feels like there is something brewing there… who knows what could happen.
Fet nearly got grazed by the worm, was there an intent to scare us into thinking he could have gotten infected?
Kevin: He’d be a big scary vampire, huh? I bet you the Master would want to jump into that body! When we were shooting it we were like “lets see what the fans think” it was a really close call. I’m new to this whole social media thing, but I’m having a ball on Twitter, so many people were asking if I was infected. You’re gonna have to wait and see! Hopefully he didn’t. I honestly watch the show as a fan, so I was feeling the same thing, It was really close. I hope he didn’t, I like that guy!
What is it about vampires? They’re so prevalent in culture today. What is it you think about vampires that strikes that chord with people?
Kevin: I think it’s the idea of a being that wants to suck the life out of you, it’s so terrifying. I think as human being in general we’re so interested in reading or watching material about our potential demise. You want to write a book about happiness, it won’t sell as well as a book about the world coming to an end. We’re fascinated by it. There’s something about vampires that’s romantic as well, there’s strangely horrifically beautiful about it. Not that Guillermo’s vampires are describable as beautiful, but they’re lingering and ready to take the life out of you at any second. It terrifies us and we need to watch it. But that’s the thing about, Guillermo he’d been having nightmares about these things ever since he was a child, you know? He’d wake up and start sketching these images of these monsters in his dreams. There is something about the way these vampires look in a way that’s so horrific that there’s something beautiful about it.
The Strain airs at 10PM Eastern Time on FX Network, and has recently been renewed for its third season in 2016.
Advertisement