Hark, the Harold Vampire Stings

He once was Lost, but now he's Blade: Harold Perrineau speaks.

From Lost to The Matrix, we generally think of Harold Perrineau as a character caught up in a massively complicated and unfamiliar world. But this time, he's playing a character we already know: Marvel's half-vampire Blade, whose motivations are a whole lot more straightforward: kill every full-blooded version he sees. The anime interpretation of the character makes his debut on G4 this Friday at 11 p.m.; we caught up with Perrineau to discuss taking a stab at Snipes succession.

GeekChicDaily: When you watch the Japanese version, is it weird seeing African-American characters speak like Japanese people?

Harold Perrineau: You would think it would be weird. But like the whole thing is that everybody's Japanese. It's not too weird. It's cohesive. If you were a black guy living in Japan, that's probably how you'd sound. I wish, actually, that I could use some of that Japanese myself. Some of it is [expletive deleted] cool. I mean, like Deacon Frost, every time Blade calls his name it's like, "DEEEEEACON FROSTU!!!" and I'm like, damn, if I could only do that.

GCD: You've done some voice-over in the Matrix video games, but is this your first time voice-acting for an animated show?

HP: It is. I've done some tiny little stuff years ago - I did a voice on, I think, a Spider-Man show a couple of times. But it's not something that comes up for me a lot. So this is the first time I'm really getting a chance, and it's really scary but a lot of fun.

GCD: When you're preparing to do voice-over for an action hero, obviously you don't have to go out and work out to the same level that you would in live-action, but do you do stuff like that anyway, just to get into character?

HP: Well, I've been kinda preparing for another show called The Wedding Band, and I was in that mode, like a get-in-shape mode, where I've been doing a lot of fighting-arts stuff. So that made sense. It was kind of a cool thing that it came, but you know, the preparation I did mostly was watching the movies again. Just to get into that mindset. Because when the movies came out, they were ahead of their time. They were doing stuff that we did in the Matrix movies later on, but they got it first in Blade. I went back because I didn't want to lose what I thought was the great part of that, which is that action heroes talk less, but when they do say stuff, they really mean it. They kinda go for it, and that's the only stuff I thought about. I had a really great director for all the episodes who led me in different ways, and hopefully we got it. I can't wait; I haven't seen it yet. By the time we finished I was way into it, loving the character, loving the show.

GCD: Did you watch the Sticky Fingaz version of Blade for TV, or the various prior animated versions?

HP: I did not. I don't know what Sticky did, but I imagine he did basically the same thing of trying to figure out what Wesley did. I wasn't trying to be exactly what Wesley was, but I was trying to find what that line was that he was walking. Blade's in between a guy with a little bit of swagger, and a cop on a mission.

GCD: In all the versions of Blade so far, aside from seeing his mom get bitten, you don't really get an origin for him - he comes fully formed. Will this delve into that more, like how he became the badass that he is?

HP: Yes, it absolutely will. In that first episode, you get the bit about his mom, but then you get more about what happened to him after he was born, how he was raised and then his master who actually trained him. You'll see one of his other partners show up throughout the series, who was trained by the same master. You get a lot of background.

GCD: Does the story go in very different directions from the movies?

HP: Only in that the Deacon Frost character has a different agenda. And the vampires we get to see are very specific to the different regions that we travel. When we're in Manjalpur (India), those vampires are very different to the ones in Vietnam, that are different to the ones in Japan...They're really region-specific, which is what I think is really great about bringing the Japanese version over here. It's a little bit of a different twist on the vampire stuff.

GCD: How did you come to this role?

HP: I got a call, literally out of the blue. I don't know how many other people they called, but they called me and went, "Would you like it?" and I said "Oh yes, I would." I said I had never done this before, and they were like, "Don't worry, we'll figure this all out." Hopefully we did!

GCD: We've always been fans of The Matrix Reloaded, but not everybody was. Do fans come up and tell you that they like it too? How is the interaction you have with them about that?

HP: You know what, there are two things I get a lot of. One thing is like, "You guys did a great job - you couldn't have been as good as the first one." Because the first one, nobody knew what it was. And I also get a lot of people who love Reloaded, but thought Revolutions...they were really annoyed by it, for some reason. Like the blind thing, they were mad about it. I gotta say, myself? I thought it was great. I love the whole storytelling of it, all the mythology that went into it. I thought it was a great trilogy. Of course, I was a huge fan of The Matrix, and I knew that I was never gonna feel the same about Reloaded as I did about The Matrix, when I didn't know what it was either and was trying to figure the whole thing out. And it was really great, but I was really happy about the whole trilogy. More than most people.

GCD: Has there been any talk of going back to that world; expanding on it?

HP: You know, I heard a couple of rumors. The first couple of years, it was like a definite no. But because different things have changed, technologically speaking, this year, I heard a couple of rumors. I don't know that they're true, but it was the only time I'd ever heard anything, that they may go back, with all these 3-D possibilities. But who knows?

GCD: So which do you think is more complicated: the mythology of The Matrix, or the mythology of Lost?

HP: I would have to say the mythology of Lost is way more complicated, though still steeped in some form of religion that you wouldn't expect the shows to be steeped in. And multiple religions, which is to the credit of both shows. Here's the thing: I'm STILL not sure what the hell happens on Lost. I'm really not sure what went down. The Matrix, I kinda get a handle on. But the mythology of Lost, as it played out...When it ended, and the writers explained that it was always about the characters and why we went on this great ride and it had to come back to the characters, that I understand. From the acting point of view. But if I were to go and try to figure out all the stuff that was happening, yeah, I couldn't.

GCD: You got your start as a dancer on Fame, is that right?

HP: That was one of my first jobs on television; I kinda started as a dancer. I was trying to be an actor, but nobody was trying to hear that.

GCD: Do you still do any dance?

HP: I tried to go back to dancing this year, and wasn't able to feel the same. Also, I tore my meniscus doing some other stuff, so when I went back to dance, you can't make all that movement, like, I gotta get surgery. After that we'll see if I can try it again, but right now I couldn't do it, because it was screwing me up a little bit. I do miss moving like that and having that kind of musculature.

Blade premieres Friday at 11 p.m. on G4.

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