Chris Wood Dishes on The Vampire Diaries’ New Villain, Kai
The fifth episode of The Vampire Diaries season six airs tonight and viewers have been teased from producers and cast members alike about the upcoming Homecoming celebration.’ With such an exciting episode on the horizon, new cast member, Chris Wood dished on playing Kai. We’ve gathered the latest interviews and previewed what they had to say. Take a look!
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Chris spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about Kai’s horrible acts and taking on Damon (Ian Somerhalder).
What was your initial reaction to learning that he was a crazy serial killer? …. The important part of that character is he has an extreme apathy to the violent past that he has and he’s justified in his actions in his own mind and he’s unaffected by it. He’s entirely sociopathic toward what he did to his family. From the get go, that’s what attracted me to the character, the way he processes things is so different from you and I, and hopefully from everyone who watches the show.
How does he justify the terrible things that he’s done?…In future episodes, we’re going to learn more about Kai’s past and specifically this day in 1994 and why it’s significant to him personally and why this is his prison world. We heard what he did — that he massacred his family on that day — and we know he’s a member of a coven without his own magic but we don’t know the backstory and why exactly he killed his family.
Is Kai ultimately redeemable? Like I said, I find him redeemable because partly that’s my job too — to find his humanity so I can it believably. But his justification for his actions is probably, nine times out of 10, not going to convince most people. I think that remains to be seen if he’s got a sweetness behind it or if he’s truly so far gone that we’re never going to be able to side with him.
Read the full interview with Chris at The Hollywood Reporte.
Access Hollywood spoke with Chris about how he prepared for the role of Kai.
AccessHollywood.com: What was the description they gave you of this character [when it originally came up]?
Chris Wood: It was similar to – when Julie [Plec] and Caroline [Dries] have talked about the character before the season even began I believe it said, ‘ a true psychopathic villain. He is charming and flirtatious and dangerous,’ I believe was sort of the vibe.Access: How do you get into the headspace of somebody like that, of somebody who — their way of thinking and their framework for thinking about things is completely different to normal, decent humans?
Chris: Yeah, it’s all about perspective and the way that he is emotionally affected, or unaffected, rather, as a sociopath. When someone says something to him, it affects him differently than it affects you and I and most people….I’d spent a good deal of time watching, studying serial killers and psychopaths, and you really find that when you watch them, they’re justified. They don’t villainize themselves. They don’t agree with the perception that other people have of them because in their own minds there’s a misfire happening where they truly believe that what they’re doing is right and if they know that it’s wrong, they know that they like it enough to justify it and they don’t bother with the moral humanity of it and they’re too busy with enjoying the kill to stand aside and process that the wrongness of it is more what needs to be remembered…Access: What are we going to get to see this week….?
Chris: We’ve seen that Kai’s got the answers and they don’t. In this upcoming episode, we learn more specifically that Kai knows how to get home using the eclipse, the ascendant and Bonnie’s magic and he’s going to prep them on how it needs to be done and something that happens is that Bonnie, she wants to know the spell, she wants to know how it’s gonna work and he refuses to show her. He’s withholding until the time [is right] because he doesn’t want to give that away too soon and Bonnie and Damon don’t want to comply with him because he’s sort of proven himself to be untrustworthy.
Read the entire interview at Access Hollywood.
He also spoke to TV Fanatic about Kai, magic, Mystic Falls and more.
TV Fanatic: Let’s start you off with a really hard one: What’s your favorite song from 1994?
Chris Wood: Oh, that IS a hard one! [Lots of “hmm”-ing] Let’s go with “The Sign” by Ace of Base. That’s the kind of song that will make you want to dance or throw the radio out the window.
TVF: Yes! Exactly! Since you’re new to The Vampire Diaries, we have to know: Delena or Stelena?
CW: I’m going to have to go with….Delena. Was that the right answer?
TVF: So, how did Kai end up trapped in Mystic Falls, or is he just trapped in 1994?
CW: Well, he’s not just trapped in 1994. He’s trapped on May 10, 1994. That’s very significant, and there’s a reason for it. But I can’t tell you what that reason is. The prison world has its own rules, and Kai has had plenty of time to figure out some of them. Maybe they’re stuck in Mystic Falls, but maybe they aren’t. Maybe he’s free to roam the world but there’s a reason he’s in Mystic Falls in particular. Maybe.
TVF: True, true. We do want to keep you around after all. Since Kai has been trapped for 20 years, why did he wait another four months before revealing himself to Bonnie and Damon?
CW: He’s a guy who likes to play games, you know? Since he’s been there all this time by himself, he’s a little cracked from living the same day over and over….He especially enjoys screwing with Damon. Kai doesn’t back down from Damon, and that’s been a really great part to play. He seemed scared of him in the grocery store, but maybe that was just an act to get Damon to drink the bourbon. There’s a really great confrontation coming up this week between Kai and Damon that was a lot of fun to shoot. The end result of their interaction is kind of shocking.
Check out the full interview at TV Fanatic.
In an interview with EW, Chris dished on Kai and this week’s episode.
Do you think he’s an irredeemable psychopath?
CHRIS WOOD: I’m going to be biased, because I have to walk around in his skin, and if I thought that I was irredeemable, I might have a harder time existing in the world. So I found some great ground to stand on to justify a lot of Kai’s behavior, and I won’t go into it because then I’m going to seem like a psycho…He’s complicated, but I can’t tell you how you guys are going to feel as we reveal more and more about his past, but we will find out more about him. I’ll be excited to hear what you all think, if you still find him repulsive or charming or what…..
You mentioned getting more on his back story, but my biggest question so far is that if we’re in his personal hell, we’re still in Mystic Falls, so does he have some sort of tie to this area?
Yeah I think that’s a good question and that’s something we’ll discover as time goes on—what are the rules to this world? Is it location-specific in addition to being time-specific? Why is he here in this part of the world? What is his goal besides getting out? What is his goal in terms of using Bonnie and Damon to get what he wants? I think we’ll find out a lot more about that as the story goes on.Aside from being a genius and a psychopath, we know that, in terms of powers, he can steal magic from others. Does he have any other tricks up his sleeve?
I think this is a guy who you can never make an assumption about. At any point in this season, we could be hit with a fact that totally undermines or rewrites everything else that we’ve known about him because he’s so unpredictable and he’s so stealthy and sneaky…
Read the full interview at EW.
E Online got the scoop from Chris on TVD’s latest villain.
“I’m biased a bit, but I think that Kai is probably the most intelligent villain to have graced the show,” Wood told E! News. “Villains are usually pretty smart in order to get themselves in and out of trouble but Kai is a different form of genius and that’s obvious from these first few episodes…
“His unpredictability and the fact that he can go from zero to 60 in any direction, be it joy or rage, makes him just really hard to peg,” Wood said. “You can’t ever assume how he’s going to react or know what he’s thinking. That makes him one of the most dangerous villains to ever be on the show.”
“My favorite word to describe him is erratic. He’s the very definition of that word and we’ll see more and more how that’s Kai’s middle name.”
“I think that he truly is deliciously evil,” Wood said. “He’s hilarious in a way that the writers have found a nice balance of comedy and darkness. He’s entertaining to watch, and I love his apathetic, villainous quips. He’s an engaging nemesis for Damon to go up against because he’s so similar and so unaffected by Damon. That’s one of the most beautiful parts about him. He’s a new force in this world that no one has really seen yet.”
“We’re going to learn more about his past and why that day is significant to him, why he massacred his family on that day, what happened with his coven and his powers and why his family viewed him as an abomination,” Wood revealed….
Get the full scoop at E Online.
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES airs THURSDAYS at 8/7c on the CW
