Asian American actor gets a role he can sink his teeth into

Filipino American actor Jacob Batalon will play vampire Reginald Andres,.

Forget the remake of Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire that recently debuted and has garnered all the publicity the Amazon streaming network could muster, or Vampire Diaries over at HBO Max and Peacock, the vampire series to watch is Reginald the Vampire on the SyFy channel.

First off, Reginald Andres is not your typical blood-sucking, pale-skin immortal. He's brown. He's overweight. He's Filipino American. Reginald is being played by Jacob Batalon, who is best known for being Spidey's best friend Ned Leeds in the latest Spider-Man trilogy.

"Being Filipino and being proud of my heritage, it gives me this great sense of responsibility to be a better person," the actor said in a video released by SyFy.

"It means a lot. I think that I wanted to represent people and to make sure that they know that they are more than enough. They don't need to be a certain way, look a certain way to really be successful. I think it's important to have representation on SYFY because... I mean, why not? I feel like they've given us the platform to do so. I think that that's amazing, and we're gonna continually move forwardly and positively with that."

Not since, Vicente Rodriguez III in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that ended its four-year run in 2019, has a Filipino American man had a lead role in US television. Prior to that series, there had never been a Filipino American, male or female, playing the lead character in a TV series. 

Because of the bias baked into the entertainment industry, an Asian American male lead is still the rarest of rare creatures in US television. John Cho starred in a short-lived Selfie in 2014. 

It took eight years before Hollywood studio heads took another leap casting Raymond Lee as the leading man in the updated Quantum Leap series.

Reginald the Vampire will certainly expand the range of roles played by AANHPI actors. AANHPI male roles, for the most part, get lost in ensembles, relegated to second-banana roles or martial artists. Add vampire to the list.

On representing an ethnic group still not adequately portrayed in the entertainment media, Batalon said in an interview with "Pop Culturist:" "It’s truly an amazing honor. Being people of color in the industry, you don’t really get to see people like us, and the people that we do see are these stereotypical versions. Every marginalized group has felt this heavily in the industry. 

"I would say for Asian Americans and for Filipino Americans, we are seen. We are being heard. I want them to know that this is just the beginning of the narrative. We’re here. We’re going to stay. We’re going to keep winning," he continued.

 Based on the "Fat Vampire" novels by Johnny B Truant, the vampire series delves into the deeper aspects of Reginald beyond his newfound need to suck blood, some of which the actor relates to on a personal level.

Reginald the Vampire is Syfy‘s latest series focused on the nocturnal creature that goes bump in the night, but actor Jacob Batalon promises the titular character is different from the rest. Based on the Fat Vampire novels by Johnny B Truant, the series delves into the deeper aspects of Reginald beyond his newfound need to suck blood, some of which the actor relates to on a personal level.

“My girlfriend and I read the first book … and I very much related to Reginald on such a deep level,” the 25-year-old said in a call with reporters ahead of the premiere, adding that the first season is based largely on the first book in the series. 

“I felt like just as an actor, preparing for it emotionally and mentally very much meant that I had to really deep like dig into the sort of past insecurities that I would have about myself.”

Batalon points out that although the series is introspective on the character and the troubles he faces, Reginald is a delightful guy who would probably get on the nerves of some of the more contemporary vampires in pop culture. 

“I think that Blade probably wouldn’t give him any time of day,” he admitted. “You know, I think Reginald will probably get under his skin really quickly. He’s a very talkative person. And he’s also very neurotic. So he’ll absolutely pick his brain about the weirdest stuff like, ‘what did you have for lunch?’ Like, ‘why do you kill people with a blade?’ ‘Is that like, your whole shtick?’ If he were to speak to Morbius, you know, [he’d’] probably wonder why he’s so like, weirdly brooding.”

Although some adopt an eerie personality after succumbing to vampirism, “Reginald is very normal. He’s a very human person. He doesn’t play into the vampire tropes. That’s probably why I like him, he’s so different.”

WATCH: 'Reginald the Vampire' is available on the SyFy Channel, Wednesdays, 10 p.m.

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