From victim to fully clothed vampire killer
“It’s a pretty kick-ass cast and, of course, I’m in it,” laughs Diora Baird, reflecting the humorous personality she wields like a sword. Sheâs talking to Shock Till You Drop about the upcoming release 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, hitting DVD and Blu-Ray on October 5. In equal parts, she’s right in her sentiment. Fans of the David Slade-directed comic book adaptation 30 Days of Night, which hit cinemas three years ago, will be interested in the cast director Ben Ketai has pulled together, but they’re also interested in seeing Baird wear another hat other than the damsel in distress.
“I play Amber. She’s not in the comic book [written by Steve Niles],” Baird elaborates. “She annoys Stella [Kiele Sanchez] and Paul [Rhys Coiro] during their hot, sexy romance at all times. I’m just the bad attitude young one of the group. I’m there to bump heads with Stella. Create a little bit of friction.”
Baird is also joined by Harold Perrineau. The quartet (Sanchez, Coiro, Perrineau and Baird) make up a vampire-killing crew who set out to find Lilith (Mia Kirshner), the bloodsucker responsible for the Alaskan massacre that occurred in the first film.
“It’s different in the sense that they stayed as true as they could to the comic, they deviated a bit from the comic in the first one. I know with Stella, they wanted to stay as true as they could. There’s no snow this time and it takes place in Los Angeles even though we shot in Vancouver. I love when we’re shooting outside and it starts to hail. I was freezing my ass off,” Baird laughs.
No amount of bloodshed could warm the actress up, even though there was plenty of red to spare. “I think it’s going to be much more gory than the first one, if that’s possible. They shot this as if it was a war film. I think the director wanted to give it that gritty feel like 21 Grams and The Kingdom, two films you never think about when you might be making a vampire film, but it’s interesting. They’re monsters in this, they’re scary.”
And apparently tough to kill. Garlic. Stakes. Screw the old school methods of defeating a fanged fiend in the 30 Days of Night universe, as Slade first showed us in 2007. “Here they’re freakin’ on steroids,” Baird says. “What I loved about the first movie is that it was so edgy and realistic. Not romantic at all. This is the nemesis of Twilight. This isn’t that type of vampire movie. You don’t want them to suck your blood and that’s what’s so awesome about it. It shows them in their truest form.”
With turns in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Night of the Demons, and even the horror-rooted comedy Stan Helsing, it appears Baird is deliberately trying to make a name for herself in the genre, but the actress insists nothing is planned. “Things happen the way they happen, I’ve always done stuff in the comedy world and it’s funny how things happen. I take movies as they come. One brief period after Texas Chainsaw I said I would never do another horror film because it was so hard. I’m such a pussy watching that stuff too. That’s probably why I’m cast in these movies, because of my reaction. It’s not hard to imagine someone chasing me around.”
This fear was palpable on the set of Dark Days.
“There was a point on this movie where I was so freaked out and everyone thought I had a problem. But I was just like, this is the way I am, I wig myself out. It’ll effect me for weeks after the shoot. I was in a weird state of mind after Chainsaw. In this film, I’m more of a fighter, I was surprised. I’m like, so I’m running and I turn around in slow motion and I’m in a bikini, right? No? I’ve never worn so many clothes in a movie before, it was awesome,” she enthuses. “I didn’t shave my legs for weeksâ¦added for extra warmth. I felt super lucky to be able to do this movie. I just kept thinking, can I pull this off? We’ll see. After I did this, I thought I could be an action star.”
Sounds good to us. But we’d recommend shaving those legs first.
Source: Shock Till You Drop
