{"id":17386,"date":"2022-08-23T08:30:26","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T12:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2022-08-25T14:35:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T18:35:30","slug":"jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Batalon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jacob Batalon was catapulted into global stardom in 2017 when he made his first appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as Ned Leeds, Peter Parker\u2019s best friend in Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/em>. He would subsequently appear in the final Avengers<\/em> films and then Spider-Man: Far <\/em>From Home<\/em> and Spider-Man: No Way Home<\/em>, earning legions of fans across the globe for his portrayal as Spidey\u2019s trusted, quippy pal. This year, with Reginald the Vampire<\/em>, Batalon finds himself number one on the call sheet. In the SYFY series, adapted from the Fat Vampire<\/em> books by Johnny B. Truant and premiering this October, Batalon plays Reginald Andres, an unlikely hero navigating the ups and downs of undead life while surrounded by arrogant, beautiful vampires. Produced by Great Pacific Media, a Thunderbird Entertainment company, with Modern Story, December Films and Cineflix Studios, the ten-episode SYFY commission has also been acquired by Hulu in the U.S. for a second window and Prime Video in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Cineflix Rights is managing global distribution. TV Drama Weekly<\/em> caught up with Batalon to talk about his starring turn in Reginald the Vampire<\/em>, serving as co-executive producer of the show and what he learned from his time in the MCU.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> What attracted you to Reginald the Vampire<\/em>?
\nBATALON:<\/strong> It was a sci-fi show where the leading man wouldn\u2019t be a prototypical Hollywood sort. And that really intrigued me. I read the first two episodes and the story was just funny, relatable and very sweet. And then I had a meeting with the showrunner Harley Peyton, [director and EP] Jeremiah S. Chechik and [executive producer] Todd Berger. We discussed the underlying tones of what we wanted the show to be about, and we very much related to each other. We clicked. It\u2019s been a blessing.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Tell me about Reginald Andres.
\nBATALON:<\/strong> Reginald is a thoughtful, neurotic person. He\u2019s dealt with a lot of societal stigma throughout his life because of the way he looks. And he\u2019s never let that deter him from being who he wants to be, even though he may be lost in who he wants to be. That played a big part in how he became a vampire\u2014he found new life through death. It\u2019s a poignant [reflection] of how we let life go by without understanding what we\u2019re doing. That\u2019s Reginald in a nutshell. He\u2019s also selfish and shy and all these things. But we\u2019re all human, right?<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> We\u2019ve seen the sexy Twilight <\/em>and True Blood<\/em> vampires. What are Reginald and his crew like?
\nBATALON:<\/strong> Reginald is the bane of the vampire community. He definitely does not fit into their ways. The main antagonist, the reason she wants him dead, is because he\u2019s a blemish on their perfect community. That\u2019s his deal. Our vampires are obviously all beautiful, cool and suave. I\u2019ve got a few vampires on my side who are amazing.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Everyone knows you best from the Spider-Man<\/em> movies. How was that shift, going from big Hollywood blockbuster movies to the production schedule of a TV show?
\nBATALON:<\/strong> It was a big change in preparedness. With Spider-Man<\/em>, we wait around a lot. You\u2019re filming one scene all day. With Reginald, we go through 10, 11 pages of dialogue every single day. It taught me a lot about being prepared, open and present. We don\u2019t have time to waste. You have to be on your game. Otherwise, you\u2019re throwing everyone else, and the schedule, off. And making sure I am good enough to carry a show and work well with everyone\u2014and to continually bring through Reginald.<\/p>\n

I feel like a lot of actors work toward this idea of knowing that they have the ability to do these things. Coming into work every single day and having people look to you to continually perform and bring the energy and work well with other people and not be difficult\u2014it\u2019s a lot of self-preparation. Everyone\u2019s really counting on you to perform.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> You\u2019re an EP as well. Tell me about being involved in the behind-the-scenes aspects.
\nBATALON:<\/strong> It\u2019s a really cool process. As an actor, you don\u2019t really think about the process\u2014the nuances that come along with producing. As actors, we just care about our performances; we don\u2019t really think about the big picture. But being a producer, you see everything. You have to understand why we do the things we do. The story and the message, making sure that everything is still coming through very clear. A lot of business stuff. I feel like I learned a lot about how things are run. I\u2019ve learned a lot on Spider-Man<\/em>, but to have a hand in the pie was eye-opening.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> What\u2019s your sense of how Hollywood is doing in terms of upping Asian American representation on-screen? Do you feel like real progress has been made?
\nBATALON:<\/strong> Being Filipino, I\u2019d never seen anyone like me on TV, much less be the lead of a show. Especially with Spider-Man<\/em>, we were all happy to be part of this narrative of diversity. A lot of Asian actors are very much deserving of the spotlight. And that\u2019s important. I do feel like the industry is moving to where inclusivity is the name of the game. I want it to be a lot more than what it is. I\u2019m sure it will be, sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Do you plan to continue going back and forth between television and film?
\nBATALON:<\/strong> Hopefully Reginald<\/em> will go on for a bit. I\u2019ll do movies for sure. Now that I\u2019ve been the star of something, I don\u2019t want to be a sidepiece anymore. I want to be like the main dish all the time!<\/p>\n

Reginald the Vampire<\/em> is probably the greatest thing that I\u2019ve ever been a part of besides Spider-Man<\/em>, obviously. It was just a fantastic experience. And to be a part of something where you watch people use their creativity to create something special and unique was a very beautiful experience. I know it\u2019s just a TV show, but it was a very liberating experience to be in something so creative and so full of passion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacob Batalon on his starring turn in Reginald the Vampire, serving as co-executive producer of the show and what he learned from his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":17387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,70],"tags":[3462,5161,4908],"class_list":["post-17386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-cineflix-rights","tag-jacob-batalon","tag-reginald-the-vampire","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nJacob Batalon - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jacob Batalon - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jacob Batalon on his starring turn in Reginald the Vampire, serving as co-executive producer of the show and what he learned from his time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-23T12:30:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-25T18:35:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/07\/JacobBatalon-822.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/\",\"name\":\"Jacob Batalon - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-23T12:30:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-25T18:35:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/jacob-batalon-talks-reginald-the-vampire\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jacob Batalon\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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