The Vampire Diaries creator Julie Plec is returning to the supernatural world with Vampire Academy — a show about romance, royalty, rebellion, and survival in the world of half-human and half-vampires. And of course she has her right hand woman, Marguerite MacIntyre, by her side. Who better to bring on to this project than the woman she worked with on Kyle XY, Vampire Diaries, Legacies and The Originals?
“Vampires are sexy and they’re fun and they’re just very unique and very special,” MacIntyre told Celeb Secrets reporter Blakely McHugh about the reasoning behind making shows with supernatural elements.
While the two saw huge success with The Vampire Diaries — with Plec as the producer and MacIntyre as Sheriff Forbes — their shared interest over the supernatural started years before the wildly popular series on The CW Network.
It began nearly 15 years ago, as they found themselves reading Richelle Mead’s best-selling YA book series, Vampire Academy.
“When I only knew Marguerite MacIntyre as the actor, we both read this book series [Vampire Academy] on a vacation together.” Plec shared. “I was reading it and said, ‘hey this is really fun, why don’t you take a look’ and she read the books as well, and this was before The Vampire Diaries.”
Considering Plec and MacIntyre had already worked on three vampire shows previously, the actress’ first response to Plec when she approached her about being part of the TV adaptation was: “‘I am not making another vampire show, what’s wrong with you?”
“Then I said, ‘by the way, I’m sort of pitching it as there’s a Bridgerton vibe/regency vibe. There’s a royal court and a political intrigue,” the creator shared.
That’s what hooked the actress in.
“We shot in Spain, we have castles, we have all this beautiful imagery, this great artist from Spain, so how do you say no to that?! We were like, ‘let’s jump in, in the deep end!’”
As for if you’ll see MacIntyre in front of the camera again, she says not this time.
“I have a lot to do. This is a busy enough job that I won’t try to do both things.”
She and Plec made a “rule” for themselves for at least the first season of the show. They wouldn’t have any familiar characters from their other supernatural shows crossover into this series.
Although, they didn’t completely rule out the possibility of that happening in the future.
“We wanted to create a world where you really are suspending your belief for a minute. You’re ensconced in this world, and then we can sort of maybe invite some familiar faces. We just wanted to create something new, and I’m not a new face,” MacIntyre said.
The new faces include the main characters Daniela Nieves as Lissa Dragomir and Sisi Stringer as Rose Hathaway, as well as Kieron Moore, André Dae Kim, J. August Richards, Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Mia Mckenna-Bruce, Rhian Blundell, Jonetta Kaiser and Andrew Liner.
They spent eight months in Madrid, Spain making their characters come to life. Andrew Liner says the experience bonded them like family.
“When you live with someone for eight months… your form like a [bond]. We came out of this as brothers and I think that’s something special,” Liner said referring to his cast mates, Kieron Moore and André Dae Kim.
The veteran of the crew, J. August Richards, shared a similar sentiment saying he “loved working with” the cast and complimented the other actors saying “they’re all very passionate about acting.”
It seems like that passion will come across the screen. According to Richards, they created something “beautiful” that the audience has never seen before.
Watch our full interview with Julie and Marguerite below and let us know if you’ll be tuning into the new series by reacting to this article or by sending us a tweet to @celebsecrets.
You can stream the first season of Vampire Academy on Peacock beginning Thursday, September 15, 2022 here.
