Jacob Batalon Talks Reginald The Vampire Season 2 and The Alternate Ending To Tarot
After saving the day and ushering in new leadership for the vampire community, Reginald faces off with a new divine threat in Reginald The Vampire season 2. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with Jacob Batalon about the new season and the alternate ending to his horror movie Tarot.
That’s right, this season of Reginald The Vampire centers on a battle between vampires and… angels? “In our world, obviously vampires are still shallow, vein. The angels explain that in the reasoning as to why they want to wipe us out. Technically angels are still the good guys, but we definitely try to figure out how to defeat them,” Batalon told me. “It's really up to Reginald for some odd reason, every time, for him to save the day.”
Batalon plays double duty both starring in his first leading television role and executive producing the show. “What's very, very comforting for me is that all our directors and all our producers have given me the space to sort of take Reginald anywhere that I'd like to in terms of storytelling and performance,” he said. “They've really just given me that freedom and that's been really nice.”
Reginald might not be your typical vampire, but he has some super cool abilities. “I would say the worst vampire ability would probably either [be] super hearing or glamouring. Glamouring, we do not like giving people the power to control other people. That's a very powerful thing. And eavesdropping on people is very rude. I'd say the best ability honestly might be the super speed or, for Reginald, the super smarts,” shared Batalon. “If I could figure out math, I probably would have skipped so much summer school as a kid.
With the new addition of angels, it opens up the idea of more otherworldly beings or creatures to appear in the Reginald The Vampire world. “It’d be really funny if Resident Alien came on or Chucky too. Honestly any other Syfy shows,” he said. “Frankenstein sounds really funny. I don't know why for some reason I think that's hilarious, or like some famous wolf would be great. Like some Dr Jekyll vibe.”
Along with leading Reginald The Vampire, Batalon just starred in the new film Tarot about a group of friends who begin to be killed off gruesomely after what seems like innocent tarot card readings. Apparently there was an alternate ending to the film that didn’t move forward. “It was more of a quippy action type of ending where we get rid of the tarot box in a different way, but I feel like it didn't really fit the speed and the narrative in which we were trying to go for,” he told me. “I think in that sense, the way we ended it was so much better, especially with the little cut in the end where I get saved. I just always love being the end of the joke, for sure.”
After making over $45 million in the box office, Batalon shares that he’s love to return for a Tarot sequel. “Oh, that'd be amazing. We always love a good franchise and also it's such a great source source material that I know that our directors would love to do another one,” he said. “It'd be great and hopefully we could do it in another different country as well.”
New episodes of Reginald The Vampire season 2 air Wednesdays on Syfy.
