Partially because it’s now becoming a major motion picture, I’m currently reading Seth Grahame-Smith’s ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, which is an extremely enjoyable experience. It’s interesting now to match the faces of the cast to the characters in the book – although I’ve been somewhat confused as to who Rufus Sewell will be playing. Back in April, it was announced that Sewell was cast as the lead villain in the story. Curious, because the book doesn’t really have such a character. But today I discovered the deal: Sewell’s character is a creation (of Grahame-Smith’s) strictly for the film.
”I guess they needed an uber villain,” Sewell says in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The actor continued to open up a bit about who exactly his character is. ”I’m a 5,000 year old vampire who has seen it all. And the big thing for me was to decide how he was supposed to talk because you can’t do an Aramaic twinge – because if they cut the scene that explains where you came from you just look stupid. So I just picked Old Hollywood – rather, old American, like Roosevelt. He’s a man’s man, cigar room dealmaker who also happens to be the king of the vampires. I just liked the idea of infusing a little Orson Welles too. I just played him as if you were a vampire and you had to vote for someone in some upcoming vampire election, you’d probably vote for him.”
Sewell also lets it be known that he realizes the genre-mashing material isn’t exactly high literature. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s kind of goofy but serious, but it could be very funny. The thing about being a movie called “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter” is it’s not “La Dolce Vita 2” – it’s based on a good book and extremely well written.”
“Goofy but serious” is exactly how I’d describe it. The material is highly ridiculous in many respects, but the tone of the book is completely straight-forward; it wisely doesn’t go the tongue-in-cheek route, and hopefully the movie won’t, either.
To read the entire interview, head on over HERE.
See Rufus butt heads with Honest Abe in the Timur Bebmambetov-directed film when it opens in June of next year.
Abe Lincoln’s wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead