Damian Lewis is twinning in the new horror comedy The Radleys. Directed by Euros Lyn, based on the book by Matt Haig, Lewis plays twin vampires Peter and Will, Peter is a vampire who has been living a “normal” suburban life with his wife Helen (Kelly Macdonald) and their kids, while Will is the more rebellious twin that really leans into his vampire side.
“My ego said, ‘Yes go do the movie where you get to play two roles,’ because that’s got to be fun,” Lewis told Yahoo Canada about what interested him in The Radleys. “But it really was the comedic setup of the thing and then the basic theme of the thing.”
“It’s really about addiction, this particular vampire movie. Vampire movies can sort of attach themselves to different metaphors, this one, it’s about love. It’s about trying to find love, trying to hang on to it. What love looks like when it’s really love and it’s not lust and and addiction. And also this very funny premise that this couple have moved their kids to a suburban town to live a normal life, … to just try and stop sucking blood, because they want to live a normal life, and they want their kids to grow up as normal people. Of course, very quickly in the film, the whole thing goes to shit.”
In The Radleys, when Peter and Helen’s daughter Clara (Bo Bragason) discovers she’s a vampire, Peter has to call in his brother Will (also played by Lewis) for backup. Peter is no longer an “active” vampire, abstaining from any cravings for blood. Meanwhile Peter and Helen’s son Rowan (Harry Baxendale) has a crush on a boy named Evan (Jay Lycurgo), as he’s also struggling to understand the reality of his vampirism.
“I’ve always loved vampire films and the operatic blood lust quality of them, and getting scared by them,” Lyn said. “But what I’ve never seen before, that I saw in this script, is the opportunity to see what it would be like if you were a vampire living in your town, how would you cope with that dark desire within you?”
‘Vampire movies have always explored desire’
Speaking about working with Kelly Macdonald, Lewis said they got on “like a house on fire.”
“She’s so lovely to work with. She’s a natural comedian and so she really sort of understood the comedy, but she’s also incredibly touching as an actress,” Lewis said.
“I had to sort of play these two sort of, I suppose, aspects of all our personalities, if you just accept that we’ve all got little dark cells that want to go crazy, and lustful and carnal, visceral parts of ourselves, and then we’ve got the more sensible, rational parts of ourselves, that’s Will and Pete. … Helen, she had to find both those sides of herself as well, because when Will arrives, the rock ‘n’ roll, badass twin brother, he releases those feelings again in her. … You glimpse into her past and what she was like when she was an active vampire, and how deadened and dull her life is now.”
“I think vampire movies have always explored desire and have confused sexual desire with a desire for blood, and a desire for death, and there’s something really dark and weird and compelling about it, which I guess is why the genre has been such a successful genre across the ages,” Lyn added in a separate interview.
Much of The Radleys is also focused on the evolving relationship between Peter and his son Rowan, while we look at Will’s impact on Rowan as well.
“I’m a dad and a uncle in my own life, and everyone knows that it’s kind of easier being the uncle,” Lewis said. “You can come in and you can stir shit up, and just be a bit cool, a bit irresponsible, whatever. But as a dad you can’t do that. I really responded to both of them.”
“Harry Baxendale, the young guy playing Rowan, a fabulous young actor that is going to have a big career. I could see his face light up when he was around Will, and the resentment that his dad had lied to him and hadn’t told them what they were in real life. Peter’s choice to not be a vampire has made him, he’s a bit wimpy, and he’s and a bit weak, and it’s really unattractive, but … him and his wife have made this heroic decision to deny themselves the thing that they most love in life, which is drinking blood, but they don’t want that for their kids. So I really felt for Peter.”
Speaking about working with Lewis, the film’s director praised the actor’s ability to execute characters who are both good and “morally corrupt” with ease.
“Damien’s one of those mercurial actors where he can play goodness and lightness and comedy with such conviction, but he’s also got this ability to play the darkest, the most morally corrupt characters,” Lyn highlighted.
“Having one actor who can explore those different traits, that mimics, in a way, what we wanted to explore in the film. That if you have two twin brothers, both of whom have exactly the same DNA and have the same flaw, … but they both take these very, very different trajectories in life, and what are the moral choices that each has taken to get to where they are? Is kind of the really interesting thing about the film.”
The Radleys is now is now in theatres, on digital and on demand
