One of the new additions to the cast of FX's The Strain this season is Samantha Mathis (Under the Dome, American Psycho), who plays Councilwoman Justine Feraldo. Daily Dead recently participated in an interview call with Mathis, who discussed her character's determination to kill the bloodthirsty strigoi, Justine's strengths, and much more.
Mathis on early memories of watching vampire movies:
"I remember being five or six years old and sitting in my father’s living room in the summertime, in Brooklyn at night, sort of cuddled between him and my stepmother watching Dracula movies. To see those movies—maybe I wasn’t five or six, maybe I was seven or eight—but those really old Bela Lugosi movies, they terrified me. I think that that sort of continued thematically through several horror movies. Things that go bump in the night. That sort of evil lurking outside your window has always been something that terrified me."
Mathis on Guillermo del Toro, Carlton Cuse, and Chuck Hogan's current take on the creatures of the night:
"They’re really horrifying. I think they took it to the next level, and it’s almost zombie-meets-vampire. I’m a little bit of a wuss. I’m not going to lie to you. On the opening episode, when that scene happened and the one elder vomited all those forms into the other one, I was just like, 'Oh God, oh Jesus, oh wow.' It grosses me out, but in a really fun way.
The reason we’re attracted to something like The Strain is the same reason we want to get on a roller coaster. It’s that adrenaline rush, and we love being afraid and being freaked out. There’s a great sort of practical use for it as a human being. I think we love it."
Mathis on the strong character traits of Councilwoman Justine Feraldo:
"What’s been so refreshing for me on The Strain is that my experience, at least in the last ten years of my work, has been that—I wouldn’t say that I played pushovers—but a lot of the characters that I’ve played have been defined by being someone’s wife, or someone’s mother, or someone’s partner in some way.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a woman, I have to say that what’s been really exciting for me in playing Justine Feraldo is that I am, in fact, a woman who’s standing on her own two feet, who has a history and a past and is very strong.
So that’s been really refreshing for me. In fact, when I first started, I thought, 'What feels different? Oh wait, I’m not playing someone’s wife or mother.' I’m a politician, and I’m there to be a strong woman and to be unapologetically strong and calling bullshit on all the bureaucracy and hypocrisy that she sees."
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"As the second season unfolds, the transformation has begun. It can no longer be denied — New York City is rapidly falling to an evil epidemic, and no one is coming to its rescue. Its citizens must fight or die. Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and his unlikely allies tried to take down the embodiment of this evil — the Master — and failed. Now Eph and Dr. Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) concentrate on creating a biological weapon to wipe out the creatures, while Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley) searches for an ancient book he hopes will reveal the strigoi’s entire history...and possibly a way to kill them. Meanwhile, the Master is out for revenge, unleashing new and even more terrifying breeds of bloodthirsty creatures after our team. Our team must find a way to defeat him before the infection spreads too far and becomes irreparable … before they become monsters themselves."
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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