Sisi Stringer And Daniela Nieves On The New Vampire Academy Series

You both play best friends dealing with class struggles, as Lissa is royalty and Rose is almost considered second class as a Dhampir who’s expected to die for her. How did you navigate that dynamic? Did you read the books or watch the movie to get a vibe of what’s been done, or did you want to go in with fresh eyes?

Sisi Stringer: I had read the books and loved [them]. [I] loved the books — was obsessed with them as a teenager, and I watched the movie as well. That was definitely something I loved. I went back to that stuff during the audition process to refresh the subject matter. But I’m a fan. I’ve been a fan. What about you?

Daniela Nieves: I didn’t know about the books when I got the audition, but I knew that I had to read the books because there was such a strong fan base for this, and I almost felt like I owed it to them to read the books. It almost felt like a respectful thing to do. I was like, “You have to.” 

I was more scared to watch the movie, because a book [is] really about the story and the characters, and you’re not putting faces to it. But as an actor, watching another actor’s perception of who Lissa was, I was a little scared that, “Oh, what if it would throw me off, or I’d start to want to make choices like [Lucy Fry] did?” I did want it to be true to me — because I felt like if we were cast, it was for a reason, and there must be something that we can bring to it. But I still ended up watching the movie.

Stringer: We all did, as a guilty pleasure thing. Also, the class divide and the sociopolitical aspect of it is really cool because it’s in the script and it’s in the story, but it’s created visually as well. You see it in the costumes, in the sets, in the things that they’re going through. It’s funny because there’s that divide within the cast because the people who play Moroi, the good vampires, and particularly the royals, they’re dressed head to toe in designer. They look amazing. Their dorms and their houses are so luxurious; they’re castles and things like that. Then the Dhampir is where we’re always in training, learning how to fight, and our sleeping quarters is military stuff. Everyone has a million bunk beds in one tiny, cold room. It’s cool that you get to see it represented aesthetically.