Juliet Landau knows vampires. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel alum spent years playing the vampire Drusilla on those series and now is delving much further into the topic with a documentary she and her husband, Deverill Weekes, are making, A Place Among the Undead

The documentary features an impressive array of talent Landau and Weekes are interviewing for the project, including Joss Whedon, Tim Burton, Gary Oldman, Anne Rice, Willem Dafoe, Charlaine Harris and many more.Landau has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help finish funding the documentary, and I spoke to her about how A Place Among the Undead came about, the appeal of vampires, her interview subjects and why she chose to turn to crowdfunding. Plus, we spoke about her days as Drusilla and the popularity of Spike and Dru among that show’s fandom.

Joss Whedon and Gary Oldman are among the interview participants in A Place Among the Undead.

Juliet Landau and Tim Burton.

You know, it’s been percolating and gestating really since I worked on Buffy. Through the years, whenever I’ve hung out with creators, writers, directors, actors, who’ve lived in the vampire universe, I’ve always had the best conversations. And through the years I’ve always thought, “I wish people could see this.” And I finally decided to start it. My husband and I said, “This is it, we’re gonna do it.” It’s stuff that’s never been shared before. There’s a real camaraderie I think, and an insider's view and a perspective that I thought fans would be super excited about.Working with Joss Whedon and getting to step into that character really is what sparked the interest for me. I just got super excited about the world, and really it was that experience that sort of galvanized me.There are. We’ve shot about 50% of it. My husband and I, we’re self-funding, and it’s grown beyond our wildest expectations. We have so many incredible people who we’ve already interviewed, and so many more amazing- not more amazing- so many additional incredible people who want to come on board. And so we decided to launch our Indiegogo campaign. And largely we decided to do that because we met with a number of production companies who wanted to invest, but we really want to make the film that fans want to see. I was talking about this with my husband earlier. We had one particular meeting where we went in and they were like, “Yeah, this is great, the budget looks great, we’re interested in giving you money.” And then they told us to lose the people that we have from Hammer. They were like, “No, you have all these really amazing, really hip people and current people, and you guys should just get rid of the Hammer interviewees.” And we were like, yeah, you can’t make the definitive vampire documentary and not include Hammer.” That’s just not going to happen. When we sat down with Tim Burton and with Tom Holland, who directed and created Fright Night, they talked about the fact that they largely became filmmakers because of the Hammer movies. They saw that, and seeing that imagery when they were little really made them want to tell stories. And so, we were like, “Yeah, we can’t work with you.” We want partners that not only like the world but really love and understand it.Absolutely. It’s been so incredible and so kind of charmed in terms of people saying, “Yeah, we’d like to do it,” or people coming to us and saying, “We heard you’re doing this and it seems super cool and we want to be a part of it.” But in doing that, it’s things like… I got an email from Tim Burton saying, “I can do this interview, I literally can do it in two days in London.” And we’re in Los Angeles, so we’re like, “Yep, we’re getting on a plane because it’s Tim Burton and we’re going to do it.” But, you know, at a certain point we can’t keep doing this, naturally. We’ve got to keep a roof over our head. So, you know, making projects obviously costs money.Yeah, it’s been so much fun. I mean, everybody has shared stuff that I’ve never seen before, I think because in sitting down and talking and… Whether it’s with people I’ve already worked with like with Tim and Joss, where you already have a short hand, the thing that’s been interesting is it’s kind of happened organically with everybody, and people have shared stuff. I basically have researched everybody, as I’m sure you do when you’re talking to somebody, and I re-read all of Anne Rice’s books when I was going to go and talk to her, re-read all of Charlaine Harris’s books... And so, it’s interesting, because we really have special stuff that I’ve never seen with anybody. Like, when I was talking with Willem Defoe, he was actually in town for one day in Los Angeles, and was like, “Yeah, I’d love to come and hang out and talk.” And I think there’s a side of him that I’ve never seen in an interview of him before, in terms of the footage that we have.I do. I actually think that part of the reason that it is something that has been explored through the ages, and in all societies, and has such staying power and duration, is because, in talking with the creators, all the creators talk about how they use the metaphor of vampirism to look at different elements of the human condition. For instance, with Joss Whedon, he said that Buffy is “high school is a nightmare,” which most people can relate to. With Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, she wrote that when her daughter had died, and her daughter died of leukemia, so she created Claudia - a child vampire character that lives forever, and obviously [represents] blood and blood disease and all that. And she said it was really about loss and grieving. When we talked to Kevin Grevioux - he created Underworld - and he said it was based on his experiences with interracial dating. And he created two species, one being a vampire species, that don’t get along. When we talked to Joss, he said that Angel was largely about exploring addiction. It gives us such a prism with which to reflect our own natures, and I think the fact that it can be used in so many different ways is part of the reason that we’re continually fascinated and continually interested in looking at our own human nature through vampires.

Continue to Page 2 as Landau discusses her own favorite vampire stories and the popularity of Spike and Drusilla.