FOREVER KNIGHT LEADING MAN, NIGEL BENNETT, GOES FOR THE JUGULAR IN ROLE AS TV VAMPIRE ON LONG-RUNNING SYNDICATED SHOW THAT WON'T DIE Drama-Logue January 26-February 1, 1995 By Abbie Bernstein COPYRIGHT 1995 Drama-Logue. Reprinted with permission. It's not that Nigel Bennett is an especially unlikely cult hero, it's just that the circumstances of the British-born actor's current icon status are rather remarkable. As anyone can attest who is familiar with Forever Knight, it's a toss-up as to what's most unusual: the premise of the one-hour series, the nature of the role Bennett plays or its tangled production history: the show started out as a two-hour prime-time CBS TV movie set in Los Angeles, was recast and reset in Toronto in 1992 as part of CBS's "Crime Time After Prime Time" lineup, then was dropped by the network after a season in favor of David Letterman, only to be revived a year-and-a-half later in late-night syndication (in Los Angeles, Sundays at midnight on KTLA.) What can't be disputed is Forever Knight's popularity--when Bennett and Geraint Wyn Davies, who plays eponymous lead Nick Knight, appeared at a comic book convention at Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium a few weeks ago, 1600 fans showed up. "1,651," Bennett grins, but he's not exaggerating. "Pouring down rain afternoon, they remained. The people who are involved are intelligent, they work in universities, in libraries - they just like what's going on (with Knight.) And it's not only here. I did five conventions last year and I've got another one in February and another in August. I'm from a little tiny village (Essington) in the middle of an industrial backwater in England. I used to dream about this sort of thing, about (people) wanting to meet you. And it's come true. This is just incredible." For the uninitiated, Forever Knight is the syndicated police drama that proudly admits it's set in Toronto rather than pretending to be a nameless U.S. city. To connoisseurs of late night Canadian-made fare, this is distinction enough, but that's just the tip of the incisor. Hero Nick Knight is a Toronto police detective -- who happens to be an 800-year-old vampire who has repented his blood-drinking ways and is trying to regain his mortality. Bennett portrays LaCroix (pronounced La-Kwah), a much older vampire who gave Nick immortal bloodlust all those centuries ago and still revels in the kill. Week after week, LaCroix appears, cheerfully murderous, unrepentant and unpunished, the sort of individual that conventional network Standards and Practices would dispatch in a single episode in the name of making sure evil was not rewarded. In fact, LaCroix did get a stake through the heart in the very first episode and was slated to appear there-after only in plentiful flashback sequences illustrating Nick's earlier, less scrupulous existence when he traveled as part of a trio with LaCroix and female vampire Janette (Knight regular Deborah Duchene). But then, in the first season finale, LaCroix returned to present-day Toronto, unalive and well and ready to bedevil Nick all over again, sometimes in person and sometimes over the airwaves as a radio call-in show host who goes by the nomme de deejay Night Crawler. "I think it was the fan response that prompted them to bring me back fully," Bennett explains. "I remember having this long discussion with co-producer/story editor Naomi Jantzen and she said,'No, you can't bring LaCroix back to life--what do you do with him?' And that's the problem: what do you do with this guy who's more powerful than anyone else. Why should he sit around and take a back seat? Because he wouldn't. Nick Knight being the most powerful good guy in the world and LaCroix's being the most powerful bad guy in the world, and you end up with Superman and Lex Luthor. I think [producers James Parriott and Jon Slan] chose not to resolve it in the second year. [LaCroix is] less aggressive with Nick than he was in the first year. They don't fight, which is kind of good, because Nick would lose in the end, and that's the end of the series. [LaCroix] has become more of a mentor, an advisor. He's using that as the approach now with Nick to try to persuade him nicely that vampirism is the best way, rather than beating him over the head with a brick." Bennett has some experience as a mentor, albeit not to bloodsuckers, "I ended up teaching for a year and a half after I left university but [acting] was all I wanted to do from the age of 1l. I was teaching theatre and there was a new company being established called the Breconshire Theatre Company, which was a group of actor/teachers. It was a very clever setup: you spent the school holidays performing in theatres around the community and during the semesters, you would do drama sessions with the kids in school. So it was almost like a halfway house between teaching and acting. And that got me my Equity card and started me on the way." Having both studied and taught acting, does Bennett believe training is necessary? "I think a lot of people go to drama school thinking they've going to learn how to act. I think that's a misconception. I don't think you can learn how to act. You can either act or you can't act, it's as simple as that. What you can learn is technique, and you can learn how to polish and improve your basic skill. It's like learning how to paint. You either have an ability and a talent that can be developed or you don't. So in a way, it's not necessary to go to an acting school, although I think it's advisable. There are a lot of very good actors around who never went [but] you do get that wonderful opportunity in a drama school to do things that you probably won't be asked to do professionally for years." "In England, there's the repertory theatre system, which is great--I mean, when I was there, I was playing roles that were in all honesty far beyond me. But at least I was able to have a go at them, I was allowed to take the chance and meet the risk. If you lose, you lose, but at least you lost trying, rather than just saying, 'No, I can't do that.' You take a risk every time you go on stage or go in front of the camera. You have to learn how to take risks and learn from them, and learn from your mistakes and screw-ups. Am I making sense? Wherever you can, whenever you can, whatever you can, just do it and do it and do it. Because the more you do, the more polished you'll get, the better you'll get, the more you'll enjoy it. And it's play. That's why they're called 'plays'--because you're playing. [Professional actors] are just very good players. But it should be fun." Eight years ago, Bennett's then-wife wanted to return to her native Canada; he accompanied her. Fortunately, while still in England, Bennett had met top Canadian agent Larry Goldhar, who offered to represent the actor should he ever come to the Great White North. Goldhar was as good as his word, but Bennett found his career going through a transformation: "I've been acting for 22 years. In England, 99 percent of the work that I did was stage. I worked in the West End, I worked in most of the major repertory theatres around the country, and that was the way I made my living over there. Then when I got to Canada, it totally reversed. I've been on stage in Canada in only three shows in eight years. Most of the work I do is American television made in Canada. I prefer television now. Camera work -- people who say it's easy really are mistaken -- demands a different level of concentration [than stage] and a different type of concentration and I find it immensely satisfying." Bennett's feature credits include Narrow Margin, an all-but deleted subplot in Legends of tbe Fall and co-starring turns in the upcoming Paint Cans and Back in Action. TV appearances seem to encompass almost every thing shot in eastern Canada since 1987. "People walk up to me on the set sometimes, stunt coordinators and cameramen, and say, 'Nigel is there anything you're not in.' And I say, (he parodies a smug grin, sending himself up,) 'No.' I'm very lucky, I just hope I don't burn out--I don't want people to say, oh, no, we've seen enough of him." Although Bennett previously had a recurring stint in The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick as the young hero's piano teacher and now appears occasionally on Avonlea as a banker, Forever Knight is his first series as a weekly regular. "The nice thing about being a regular is you don't have to make an impression. I've done a lot of small parts and the worst in the world is the one day role. It's a nightmare. The one-scene role is the worst nightmare. You sit there and you think, 'I'm working on a big movie with a big director, I've really got to impress.' And you go right over the top just doing too much and it's very difficult to resist that temptation. James B. Sikking said to me on Narrow Margin -- there was a train and there were lots of extras and there was all this stuff, (he mimes overblown farewell gestures,) "and James said, ‘when will people understand that you don't have to do anything? You don't have to attract the camera's attention, it's already looking at you.' And it's very difficult to learn that. So being a regular is very liberating. We all have days when we're not very good, but when you're a regular, you don't have to worry, 'Will this director ever use me again?' " Despite what may strike some Forever Knight viewers as parallels between LaCroix and another popular vampire with a similar-sounding name who also wants to lure his undead protege back, Bennett didn't read the novel Interview with the Vampire until the hiatus between Knight's first and second season. Moreover, although he plans to watch it, so far Bennett still hasn't seen the cinematic incarnation of Lestat. "So whatever I did, it has nothing to do with Anne Rice." Was there anything specific Bennett asked the producers to let him do as LaCroix? "I don't sit there and consciously think. 'What can I do to make him sympathetic this week?' The only thing we said earlier this year was that there had to be an episode where it explained how LaCroix 'came across' [became a vampire]. I'd like an episode where I get Nick back. Some time before the end he'd recant, but maybe two or three episodes where Nick is once again a real vampire, where he's back, mine, all mine." He laughs, empathizing with LaCroix's possessiveness. "It would be good for Ger as well, his character, to show how dark his character can be. But apart from that, most of the things I've wanted have been done. I have a lot of say in how LaCroix speaks, in what he actually says. What writers tend to do, because he's quite European, this character in the way he speaks and his attitudes--he's a little arch, a little highbrow. And what happens is the writers start to write him that way. Then you've got me performing highbrow [dialogue] highbrow. It goes way over the top. So a lot of the time, I walk onto the set and walk up to the script girl and say, 'Okay, there are the changes,' and I'll just cross lines out and change words and [the producers] are perfectly happy." "It's a real tightrope we walk in terms of going over the top -- it's really close to being over the top the way we do it, especially in the flashbacks. I think the series is very fortunate to have Ger and me and Deborah, who are the main flashback people, who have done a lot of stage and who know how far to go. You have to develop that sixth sense, " [he imitates a warning siren,] " 'I can't do that, I can't do that, that's over the top.' " "If there's one reason that LaCroix becomes very believable and people can identify with him and he's become very popular, it's because I treat him very seriously. He has a reason for everything he does very clearly worked out in his own mind. And I have to work that out, I have to know why he's doing it He's not just being difficult, he's not just being bloody-minded. You have to approach [playing a vampire] with honesty. I worked on Narrow Margin with Gene Hackman and what struck me about him more than anything was the honesty he brought to it. You could never tell when he started [acting]. We'd be chatting away, and the director would call 'Action!' and we'd still be chatting, and I'd suddenly think, 'That's dialogue!' [Hackman] didn't stop talking and go,' [Bennett makes a face,] 'and start acting it was just a complete flow from real life into the character. He could be doing a role in a crappy film, but I've never seen him give a performance that isn't great." In Forever Knight, flowing from life into performance can be a special challenge when the character registers anger and/or hunger with glowing eyes and lengthened canines. "The teeth are difficult in just making the dialogue clear, but you can always ADR it afterwards in the studio. And the eyes are okay. You don't wear them very much, you only wear them for like five, 10 minutes at a time. They have new lenses this year which are double thickness, hard contact lenses. You can't see a thing, you have to be led to your mark." Fortunately, when the glowing eyes are in "most of the time, the only grabbing that they do is to bite [someone] in the neck, which is relatively easy." He laughs. "You just hope they're in the right place when you lunge. With the new lenses, there was one shot where I jumped. And I landed and it popped out, and there I am with one yellow eye and one blue eye." Will there be another season of Forever Knight after the currently airing one? "Nothing's been set yet because since it's in syndication, it has to be resold every year, it's not like the network just picks it up. But it looks pretty definite -- the response we've had has been amazing. Late night, anything [in ratings] over 3.5 is considered a rniracle. We've been doing 4.0 which is incredible. So let's hope." However long Forever Knight lasts, Bennett will continue to act. "I can't imagine doing anything else. I can imagine directing or something like that, but I can't imagine not working in this business. It's given me all the things that I thought it would give me and a lot more. I have no complaints -- when we're standing in the middle of the night exhausted and it's pouring with rain and someone's yelling, 'Don't light the rain!' even then, I feel privileged. It's a piece of cake compared to most work that people do. And I still get the same buzz, I get nervous every time I go in front of a camera, clammy, shaking hands and everything, and it's great."

Return to Interviews

This page last updated September 1, 2000