NIGEL BENNETT: LACROIX OF FOREVER KNIGHT ConTour January 1998 By Tracey Gray Copyright 1998 ConTour Magazine. Reprinted with permission. LaCroix... the cross. A name that symbolizes help, refuge, and Christ. It is also a name borne in irony, profaned by the very creature to whom it refers. And it carries with it a sense of poetic justice in that such a powerful, seductive master of darkness should be identified, by name, with one of the holiest of icons. But then, that is part of what defines him... along with the knowledge of what he is. This is how American audiences know him best, through the ever increasing popularity of the defunct television series Forever Knight... the baleful patriarch of a "unique" family, always bestowing advice upon his reluctant "son." How unlike this denizen of the night is Nigel Bennett. I understand that you've had a lot of theatre training. Yeah, I went to the university in Cardiff, at the University of Wales, and studied theatre and history. Then I spent the next 15 years working in theatre in England. It was all theatre. There was almost no television or film at all. How did you get from the stage to playing a vampire in a television series? It was weird because I came over to Canada 10 years ago and the whole thing just flipped completely in terms of the work I was being offered. I went from doing all stage work with a tiny bit of television to suddenly all television with a tiny bit of stage work. And I don't know why, because I was doing exactly the same thing I was doing in England. It just happened that way and now I'm certainly one of the busiest actors in Canada with television and film. What are you doing now that "Forever Knight" is no longer in production? I am a recurring character on PSI Factor which is the series that Dan Aykroyd produces about paranormal phenomenon, and I do guest work on other series such as La Femme Nikita, F/X: The Series, and a new series called John Woo's Once a Thief based on the movie. I just did a new animated series called Silver Surfer by the same people who do the X-Men. Col. Edokk, I think the character's name was. That was fun. I did a couple of voices on X-Men as well, Jason Wyngarde and Master Mould. I'd love to do the Simpsons. Voice is really difficult, actually. It's not as easy as anyone thinks. It's like the difference between stage and television. It's a whole different form of work. Would you consider doing multi media voice overs such as computer games? Yes. I don't know what happened to the idea, but Sony/TriStar were talking about doing an interactive web site on Forever Knight which would feature new episodes acted out on computer. This was a possibility. I'm not sure if they're going ahead with it. I get the feeling that they're not but they have talked about it. And I did the audio version of Keeper of the King and will do the second and the third books as well. Are you interested in doing another regular series? Yeah, I'd love to! It's just a question of someone thinking I'm right for one (he laughs). It's not a question of finding the right role. It's the right role finding me. To what do you attribute the popularity of your character LaCroix? Well, people love a bad guy. Bad guys are always more attractive than good guys for some reason. I don't know why. It's interesting, I used to log onto some of the lists on the Internet about Forever Knight, and it seemed to me that there were more comments about LaCroix than probably anyone else on the series. Bad guys are really attractive because you always end up thinking, "Why are they doing that? Why are they acting that way?" Bad guys are easier to do as an actor as well. It's really hard work to play a good guy. I used to admire Ger (Geraint Wyn Davies) so much, that he could be so nice episode, after episode, after episode. It was so difficult for it not to become boring. For me, as LaCroix, it was easy. We all know that LaCroix is a character of deep, dark secrets. Do you have any secrets? Yes, I'm really a Martian (he says deadpan). No, I don't think so. I'm pretty ordinary. I like to keep my personal life personal, but I don't think there are any big dark secrets there at all. There's not anything in common with you and LaCroix? Well, clearly there has to be some. There has to be some similarity because it came from me. I think the character probably did all the stuff I'd love to do and couldn't. And I think, that again, is a reason why he appealed to a lot of people. He had this wonderful, "To hell with you, I'm gonna do it," attitude. "I will because I can and I don't care." I think that a lot of people would like to be able to do that, say that and none of us can really, because we are so dependent on our jobs and other people. We have to sort of hide our real feelings a lot of the time and he never did. You've just recently published "Keeper of the King" with P.N. Elrod. Is this a "Forever Knight" type novel? Yes, it is, I suppose. The lead character is a vampire, so it has that in common, but that's about all. In our book, our vampires are chosen because of their goodness rather than for evil. They're actually protectors and guardians of people and beliefs. So, our guy was chosen very much because he was a good person, a champion, a brave and honorable man, to be a vampire, to be given the gift of immortality. So, yes, there is a similarity in that they're vampires but they're not the same. Also, their feeding habits are slightly different in that they don't need massive amounts of blood at any one time. They don't kill people to take it. They take it from inside the arm and plant hypnotic suggestions to the person who has given the blood. So, there are huge differences. Will you be writing more books together in the future? Yes, we are commissioned to do three in this series and then maybe more as well. We are a quarter of the way through the second one at the moment which has the same leading characters. Also, there are Forever Knight novelizations. Sony has commissioned three so far which have all been written, although not published, and the publishers have approached me to do some writing for them if there is a fourth one. How did you get into writing? Is this something that you've always dabbled with? Yeah, I used to dabble and I wrote a couple of plays in England. One was performed and the other wasn't. I've got 60 pages of a manuscript that I started to write 10 years ago and haven't got around to finishing yet. So, yes, the writing has always been there and in a way it's just another expression of the same creative urge that acting is based in as well. It really is, for me, a logical development of what I've been doing and I really enjoy it. Although, it's a very different endeavor from acting because acting is very cooperative. It's the most cooperative thing I think you can do, working together on television towards a common goal. Whereas, writing is very insular, very singular. I just sit down with a computer and write. Just do it. It's just me and my fertile, fetid imagination and that's all. I love alliteration (he laughs). Will you be doing any writing on your own or will you continue to do co-authorships? If the Forever Knight novel happens, that will be completely on my own. And I will finish the one I've got 60 pages done so far. Will everything you write be based on vampires and Goth? Oh, no. This one I'm talking about that I started writing 10 years ago, is about an actor who's performing in the west end and has an accident, ends up getting a huge financial settlement, decides to put on his own play in the west end and turns into a mossy log. It's kind of weird (he says laughing). It is weird. So, then your writings on the vampire genre is based on the success and following you've had with Forever Knight. Yes they are, and that's one of the great bonuses I got from doing Forever Knight. The character that I portrayed is the reason that they approached me to co-author these books with Pat (P.N. Elrod). I talk to a lot of people who've written. A guy sent me his novel in Toronto cause he knew that I was published. It's a very good piece of work. He's finished it totally on his own and he was just saying, "Now what do I do with it now? How do I get it published?" And all that angst and difficulty has been totally removed from me because they (the publishers) actually approached me. So, I've been very lucky in that way and that's a gift from Forever Knight. But I want to use it as a starting point. I don't want to end up in this genre. I've got nothing against it at all, but I just want to do more. Yes, I'm sure you don't want to go through the rest of your life known for just that one role. It's strange. It was just a job. It may be difficult for people who watch it on TV to understand that. It was just a job and you have to move on. It was two years ago that it ended and I'm doing other stuff now. Since Forever Knight is a syndicated show, I don't think people realize that it's no longer in production. This happens a lot. A lot of people have come across Forever Knight in syndication after we stopped shooting it. Apparently the Sci Fi Channel will start repeating it from episode one of the first season in September, which is kind of neat. That's good! I might get paid some more money (he says jokingly). Who knows? I think so many people are used to seeing you as LaCroix that they don't realize you're not like that. I've got a huge resume of work that I've done besides Forever Knight which is nothing like Forever Knight. Although I do a lot of bad guys. That's another strange thing that happened when I moved to Canada. Ninety percent of the time when I was on the stage, I was doing comedy. Then suddenly I was on television doing the bad guy. These really cruel, mean, nasty people. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I come to cons, to correct the impression, to send it up a little bit. I love sending it up, Forever Knight. I always call Nick a wimp (he says laughing). People always laugh. I just love it! He's such a wuss. Do you enjoy going to conventions and relating to your fans? Yeah, it's a way of paying back. We would have never been more than a one season series if it weren't for the fans who really harassed Jim Parriott and the powers that be to get us back for a second and third season. So, I owe them a lot for that and it's a way that I can pay them back to an extent. Cons are fun as well. What is the most outrageous or unusual thing that has ever happened to you at a convention? (He starts laughing.) There was a costume contest. Where was it? I think it was in Dallas and this couple came on as a Klingon and his mate. Their costumes were astonishing! They were so good, and their attitude was wonderful. She was wearing very little, a very beautiful lady. I was sitting at the front of the stage as one of the judges and she comes thundering down, and thrusts her body into my face. I had a bottle of wine, she grabs it and goes,'Aaaggg," and downs it! Then realizes, at that point, it's real wine. She wore glasses and wasn't wearing them at that time, so she didn't know who it was she was doing this to. They won the contest and I told her afterwards, when she had her glasses on, what she had done. She was deeply embarrassed, mortified, that she had done that to me. She went, "Oh, my god! I didn't know!" It was funny! So funny. Have you ever had any problems with obsessive fans? There were a couple who were a problem early on, but not now. You just have to tread carefully. I think it's very easy for people to confuse the real person with the character on the screen. They're not the same, ever. I'm kind of glad that I'm not the same sort of person in real life as the character I was playing because that actually makes the difference clearer that I am not LaCroix. I'm Nigel Bennett, very different and a lot more than LaCroix ever was, so that helps. But there were a couple of scary moments. Is there a difference between US and Canadian fans? Oh, Canadian fans are much, much more polite. They really are. Canadians, by nature, are very passive. They are God's talkers, they are. They have discussions about having discussions on discussions. They're good peace keepers because they see both sides of the argument to the extent that they never do anything, which drives you crazy (he says laughing). So, Canadian fans are very polite. They're less outrageous than some of the American fans I've come across. Do you have any projects outside the SF/fantasy/horror genre that you're working on? Oh, yeah. This is a small part of my life, it really is. One of the things that we're working on is a convention called Bridging the Knight, which we did January of this year on the west coast. Basically, it was an auction. I was given all my wardrobe from the series and I just wanted to get rid of it and thought that it would be a neat idea to auction it off for charity. Then, Nick Gray, one of the producers of the series, contributed some props so that we could auction them as well. We all got together over a weekend at the back of the Pacific Bell Center in San Ramon, California and raised nearly $50,000 for charity, which was fabulous. And the idea came to us at that point, (myself and Jon Cassar, who directed on the show), that we could do this on a regular basis as a charitable trust. What we will do is to collect from projects that we're on. We will collect props, get famous people's autographs, and stash this stuff up, little odds and ends, over a six month period and then have an auction just for charity. That's one area that I'm trying to get more involved in at the moment, establishing a charitable trust in Canada and the US. We hope to do it twice a year, once in Canada and once in the US, and make it a regular thing. Is there a specific charity that you will be working for? No. We did on the first one. On the first one it was for two Canadian charities. A place called Casey House, an AIDS hospice in Toronto, which is my personal favorite charity, and the Canadian Diabetes Association because Nick Gray is a diabetic. So, he wanted half of it to go to them. Each charity got $25,000 in US funds, which converted is over $30,000 in Canadian funds. And we're very, very, very appreciative. So, we intend to do that again and I think we'll pick the charity each time. We're going to limit the number of charities we get involved in because there's nothing worse than raising $50,000 and there's ten charities. That's $5,000 each. What's the point? It's so diluted. It's much better to have just one or two charities and give them a big chunk of cash. I think in raising that $50,000 our total expenses were well less than two or three thousand that weren't covered by attendance fees. So, the percentage that actually went to charity was huge in comparison to the normal ones in which only ten percent might actually get to the charity and the rest is spent on expenses. We were very happy with that. You do seem very involved with your charity work. I heard a story about you auctioning off the buttons on the shirt you were wearing in order to drive up bids. (Laughing.) I'll do anything... almost. Almost anything. They auctioned off my empty beer bottle last night for $25. Twenty-five bucks it went for! Oh, I had a Coke can. I drank a can of Coke at the convention in January, Bridging the Knight, and Jon Cassar saw it and said, "Give me that. Give me that to auction it." He took it up on stage and we started to auction it and I had to bite it. He wanted me to bite it, so I bit it and it went for $300. Three hundred dollars for a Coke can! And it went to a teacher who has a wonderful project. She has a whole lot of celebrity Coke cans, pop cans, whatever, that she collects and keeps in the classroom. They use them as a basis for projects and stuff like that for the kids, which I thought was wonderful. Did you ever think, when you took the role of LaCroix, the show would ever become as big as it has, especially note, that it's no longer in production? No, we were astonished. We did the first year, and then were shut down for a year and a half. It was dead, really, and it was only fan pressure that brought it back. We just couldn't believe the response. The strange thing is, it was originally made for CBS for a thing called Crime Time After Prime Time before David Letterman took over the late night spot. It was made for the American market but made totally in Canada. It was Canadian cast, a Canadian crew, Canadian writers, everything, and it became huge down here but almost no one in Canada had ever heard of it. I saw the original movie years ago.... Yes, with Rick Springfield. .... and LaCroix was killed off in it. Yes, at the end. Well, my agent called me up when we were first looking at it and he said that, "This is a series regular." And I said, "Oh, that's great!" He sent me over the first two scripts and at the end of the second script, I was killed. So, I'm on the phone saying-, "Larry, you said that this was a regular. I'm dead at the end of the second script! What are you talking about?" He called them (the producers) up and they said, "No, no. He'll be in flashbacks. We'll be using him in flashbacks all the way through (the series)." At that time, they weren't going to bring the character back. It was that way all through the first season. The writers kept saying, "No, we can't do that," and it was only in the very last episode of the first season that they decided to bring him back into present day. It's interesting how a series ends up different from the original movie. Yes, this often happens. They take on a life of their own. It's a very organic process. You change the ingredients, it's going to be different every time. So, if you compare the original movie with the original two episodes of the first season, it's very, very different. And we have John Kapelos (Schanke) playing the same role in both and even that's quite different because it's just a different balance. A totally different balance. And then there's the gender switch with the character of the coroner. And that, of course, was hugely important because that gave the whole Nick and Nat relationship, which was a major driving force for the series. How would you characterize LaCroix's relationship with Nicolas? It's a very complex relationship because there's a father son relationship there, a brother relationship, a lover relationship. It's very murky and intermingled. It's not a simple relationship between the two of them at all. And I think we brought that out over the series. One last question. You did an interview on "SF Vortex's War Room" in which you discussed, along with Geraint Wyn Davies and producer Jim Parriott, the possibility of doing a "Forever Knight" reunion movie. Has there been any more talk about that? No, and I think that people misconstrued what we were saying. For all the right reasons, but it's still a misconstruction. The question was asked, if anyone wanted to do a movie, would you three guys be interested in doing it and we all said yes. Jim said he'd love to, Geraint said he'd love to, and I said I'd love to, and that's all. People have misconstrued it to mean that someone, somewhere said,'let's make a movie." Well, no one has, as far as I know, although it would seem a logical thing to do at some point in the future. But, at the moment, there are no definite plans as far as I'm aware. Even if there is never a reunion movie, not all hope is lost. Forever Knight will continue to live on through novelizations, Sci Fi conventions, syndication, and in the hearts and minds of the fans. (Never underestimate the power of the fans!) The series brings to mind another show that ran for a short three years in the late 1960's and was brought back to life by it's fans.., a little show called Star Trek. Nigel Bennett has truly achieved immortality, even if it is only on celluloid.

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