Bitten
Elena Michaels (Laura Vandervoort) and Clay Danvers (Greyston Holt) in "Bitten." (Matt Barnes/Syfy)

‘Bitten’ Q&A: Laura Vandervoort, Greyston Holt

“Bitten” ended its first season making Elena and Clay ‘shippers everywhere happy; their favorite werewolf couple got back together.

Co-stars Laura Vandervoort and Greyston Holt recently considered what a “normal” date involving their characters would entail.

“We’d go to some restaurant that serves raw meat and maybe go see ‘[An American] Werewolf in London’ at some old theater,” Vandervoort told writers during a conference call last week. “And then have a nice little fire at StoneHaven.”

“Oh, you’re really hitting it on the nose there,” Holt added, laughing, adding that while in front of that fire at their family’s mansion, they’d probably listen to Duran Duran’s song “Hungry like a Wolf.” “Yes. It sounds about right.”

It’s not likely fans will get to see Elena Michaels and Clay Davis enjoy that date when Season 2 debuts at 8 p.m. April 17 on Syfy. The couple will be too busy fighting an unknown force that pushes their pack into an uneasy alliance with a coven of witches.

The actors promised a lot of action, gore, psychological terrors and exciting new supernatural horrors throughout the upcoming season, all beginning with the two-hour premiere.

“It will be two hours of edge-of-your-seat TV. Or hiding-under-your-pillow TV,” Holt said. “It’s pretty twisted and scary. It’s dark.”

By season’s end, however, “you’ll be using the Kleenex,” Vandervoort added.

Vandervoort and Holt talked more about the season, introducing the witches, Clay and Elena’s relationship and Holt’s hair. You can read an edited transcript of the call after reviewing Season 1 in the video below.

How does the pack’s relationship evolve with the witches? It seems to begin at sort of an enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Greyston Holt: I think initially the werewolves are obviously very wary of the witches and their intentions. But as the season progresses there’s another darker force out there. We realize we need their help and they need our help in order to deal with this new enemy.

Laura Vandervoort: The witches are a whole new supernatural force that we—like most of the world—didn’t know existed. We have brute force and the pack mentality and pack law but when it comes to their abilities, we really have no way to counteract them. And it does seem like they are our enemies but that I think eventually we choose to work together because there’s strength in numbers and combining our abilities could help solve the problem we’re trying to solve this season. 

Holt: The werewolves deal in physicality and strength. And the witches deal in magic and spells. So to see those two sides kind of butt heads and come together is a really interesting dynamic this season.

Does it help Elena at all to sort of have this feminine energy introduced as well since she’s really the lone woman in her pack?

Holt: Hey, Clay has a feminine side.

Vandervoort: He does, he is concerned about his hair and does take a while to get ready before we go out to hunt. It was personally nice for me to have female energy on the set because as much as I love the boys, I was always the only girl. So it was nice to have these wonderful actresses on the show.

For Elena as well, there’s one of the three witches, she has a great relationship with. But there’s a young witch that she sort of takes on a mothering aspect with and has sort of a protective vibe with her throughout the season that just gets stronger as they are sort of forced to be together and to take care of one another. The nurturing side of Elena [comes out]…; this little girl brings out the warm side of her.

Speaking of Clay’s hair, how long does it take for his hair to be camera ready?

Holt: I pretty much always have long hair. … It’s just kind of always the way I like to keep my hair.

Vandervoort: Greyston will come into the trailer and his hair is already perfect. You just have to mess it up. 

Holt: I don’t know, I mean—I’m still like a good 20 minutes in getting my hair ready. So I don’t know what they do but…

Vandervoort: But it’s like that messy like—OK, all right.

Holt: OK? All right? All right? 

Vandervoort: You’re supposed to say you always look like that. 

Holt: I don’t. I’ve been rocking a ponytail lately actually. 

Vandervoort: The man bun.

Holt: Man bun.

Bitten
Witches Paige Winterbourne (Tommie-Amber Pirie) and Ruth Winterbourne (Tammy Isbell) (Shane Mahood/She-Wolf Productions)
How well Clay’s experience with the witches change him this season?

Holt: I think it broadens all of our horizons a little bit. It’s a big bomb to drop in our world that there were others out there with supernatural abilities. … I think it’s just kind of made all of us a little more accepting and trustworthy of the world around us. 

Are you enjoying having more people playing in your universe this season?

Holt: Yes. I think it’s nice to have this female element introduced to our show… It’s been really interesting and challenging to incorporate these witches into our world.

Vandervoort: It completely changes the tone of the show. It’s not that it’s a completely different show but the look and the material that we’re dealing with is completely different.

And for the fans of the witches, they certainly get their share of them this season. And it’s not just the female witches, there is a bad presence that is after the pack and they have to deal with that and you’ll discover who that is as the season goes on and it’s just someone that they really have no way of dealing with. Last season, our threat was either ourselves or the humans and the mutt, this season, it’s a whole new realm of possibilities and dangers for the pack.

Greyston, we find out pretty early in Season 2 that how Clay thought he came into the Danvers family wasn’t exactly correct. Will that weigh on him through the course of this season now that he has more information about his human family?

Holt: Yes, definitely. That was a huge, huge blow to Clay. It just set in stone in Clay’s heart just what needs to be done and that he’s going to get to the bottom of this. Capturing Malcolm is priority No. 1 and brining him to justice because he is not a good dude.

At the end of the last season, Elena and Clay finally reconciled. What can we expect from this relationship? How the relationship–?

Holt: A lot of the big things are out of the way relationship-wise, but we do face a lot of obstacles this season. I think Clay has really taken a step back and just kind of let Elena deal with some of her issues this season.

You guys play a werewolf couple, what advice do you think human couples could learn from Clay and Elena?
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Elena Michaels (Laura Vandervoort) and Clay Danvers (Greyston Holt) in “Bitten.” (Shane Mahood/She-Wolf Productions)

Vandervoort: Passion.

Holt: Passion, yes. That we all have secrets and sometimes you need your partner to help you keep it secret. I don’t know.

Vandervoort: Or to help you get through it. Their relationship is a little in flux Season 1. You have to look at it that Clay is her one true love and she’s destined to be with him and she was fighting that.

And maybe humans in relationships need to look at what their heart is really telling them and to listen to that, because I think we’re all looking for the right fit and sometimes the right fit is the wrong fit. It’s not just someone you truly are in love with and have fun with. That was Clay for her and she tried to deny that. She tried to check off the boxes of what she feels a woman needs in society as a human. But maybe humans need to look at passion and what your heart is truly telling you and not try to check off those boxes.

Holt: Yes. Nailed it. You nailed that answer. 

Vandervoort: Yes. Nothing really more to be said. That was a pretty perfect answer. 

Could you talk about the enhanced side of the horror that we’ll see this season?

Vandervoort: There’s much more blood and gore. Elena is separated from the pack a few episodes in and ends up at a compound. There is a character that has the ability to get into the minds of our pack and sort of put the characters into a  mind palace with their worst fears coming true and they have to deal with them.

For Elena, you can imagine there are a lot of things that she’s had happen in her life and guilt. She’s got to basically confront all that within this mind palace.

We’ve got insane explosions and fight sequences, because Elena is sort of in this assassin mode, she’s ripping body parts off. It did get intense this season. Actually I’m just looking at a photo where I’m covered in blood that I think I’m going to be posting soon.

I had a lot of fun doing that this season. I’m a huge horror fan and one of our writers, Wil Zmak, is aware of that so he wrote an episode I think specifically for me to quench those needs and I had my own little horror movie in one episode which was a lot of fun.

Holt: This is definitely a darker, more heady season. It’s twisted and really affects you on a mental level. There are a lot of unknown forces around us. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening in this world, because our world is physical and this new world is very supernatural and magical and fantastical and it’s really thrown us for a loop. But it’s definitely a bloodier, sexier, more violent season.

We have a new director of photography this season, Boris, and he’s really put a dark tone on the show. … Visually this season it’s just very rich and dark. 

Vandervoort: It’s very cinematic this season. It does look like it should be on the big screen, like a horror film.

Is it physically challenging to do all the action on the show?

Vandervoort: We’re all very eager to do the action. All of the guys actually are very capable of doing all of their own stunts and I wanted to keep up with them.

I think it’s a nice break from the very dramatic, heavy emotional scenes. … We do rehearse on weekends with our stunt coordinator John Stead, who is amazing and comes up with these fight sequences that, especially this season, will blow the audience’s minds I think.

It is tiring but definitely worth it. And I think it’s better for the audience because they can actually see our faces and it’s more believable. We do have amazing stunt people who step in for us when it’s rather dangerous or we’re not able to do it.

Holt: It’s definitely a catharsis because we go through so many different emotions and it’s such a mentally demanding show in that respect. It’s nice just to shut the brain off kind of. We need the brain for the choreography, but the outlet physically is a really nice thing to do every couple of episodes. And it’s fun. … Most days you come home from set and you’re emotionally drained, but it’s nice to like come home and you’re just beaten, bruised.

Vandervoort: I’m usually the one that’s extremely bruised.

Holt: Yes, you bruise easy. I think it’s the way you fight, too.

Vandervoort: I think I just don’t know how to hit lightly.

In the first few episodes, we don’t see as much of the wolves. Was it a creative direction or special effects direction that some of the fight scenes early on you would think at least one of the pack would wolf out to participate in the fight but everybody stayed human?

Holt: Yes, there’s definitely some wolfing out that happens as the season progresses. But in the beginning it’s about introducing these … witches, right? But there are definitely some fights coming up that involve actors in wolf form too.

Early on in the season Clay gets into investigative mode wearing his PhD hat. Will we see him use more of those skills throughout the season?

Holt: Yes, you definitely do. It’s definitely like an investigative element to this season. Like a true detective vibe, you know? Clay definitely calls upon his skills and his knowledge as an anthropology professor and anthropologist to help get to the bottom of this. 

So I think it’s an interesting turn this season, right? It wasn’t just about a wolf instincts, it was about using our brains and really figuring how to deal with this new world of the witches and it’s kind of an unknown world. At first we’re not really sure what to expect and what it is and it’s a lot of just deciphering and decoding the world around us and I just happen to have a good set of skills in this case to help deal with that.

Vandervoort: But you know what’s funny? This season the wolves are using their brains more, but I feel like Elena’s using it less this season.

Holt: Yes, totally.

Vandervoort: This season she’s just very animalistic and in kill mode. She does use her brain at all times obviously, especially you know when investigating the dark presence.  But the most part…

Holt: I think what’s driving you this season though is more of the blood lust.

There’s a scene where Elena has a long overdue conversation, and you just almost vibrate at the table because you’re so angry. I thought that was interesting to see that she really is almost feral this season because she’s so hell bent on correcting what happened at the end of last season.

Vandervoort: Yes. And you know that’s to be expected because this season takes up three days prior to the finale and you know as we all saw in the finale, Philip’s head was in her bed so she—I love how that rhymes every time I say it.

Holt: Real bed head.

Vandervoort: She’s still seeing red and it’s a nice change for me too because Season 1, I was just so emotional and, “Oh, where do I belong?”  And this season, it’s just go time and that was a lot of fun for me, especially when I am separated from the pack midseason. So she is on her own and very instinctual with the young witch and with protecting herself and this young girl. 

Are there any other kind of pairings on the show that you’d like to see or any kind of love connections that you guys as actors would like to see?
Bitten
Clay Danvers (Greyston Holt), Jeremy Danvers (Greg Bryk), Nick Sorrentino (Steve Lund), Logan Jonsen (Michael Xavier) in “Bitten.” (Steve Wilkie/She-Wolf Productions)

Holt: Jeremy, I think … I can’t believe I’m forgetting the police officer in the first season. 

Vandervoort: Yes. They need to get together or I think we need to try to bite a female and help her survive for Jeremy or just find a human. You know he needs a little loving, too.

Holt: What is Jeremy doing to quench his sexual appetite? We don’t know. 

Vandervoort: Well I have a pretty good idea, but he’s our father. We can’t be thinking about that … He’s getting his frustrations out with wall painting and we haven’t seen him paint in a while, so who knows?

Holt: Sure. We know what he’s doing in the painting room. 

Vandervoort: We know what he’s really doing. 

What is the most fun for you guys on the show? 

Holt: Lunchtime. 

Vandervoort: Greyston likes the food. I think for me, it’s working with all the guys. Obviously we love our characters in the show and playing out these characters and all the different scenarios that they have to deal with and watching them grow as we grow. But I just love working with the guys. We all miss each other when we’re not working and we have a lot of fun and we learn from one another. 

Holt: I’d have to say the same thing. We’re so fortunate to be in a show where … we all look forward to coming to work in the morning and just hanging out and getting to act together and work out scenes. Everyone’s very supportive and we go through a lot of heavy emotions in the show and it’s nice to have a group of people that understands the emotions and is there or support.

At the same time because we like each other so much we keep it light. We’re always laughing and having a good time.

Vandervoort: I don’t think any of us have ever gotten into a fight. There’s never been any awkward personal problems with the cast. We all support one another and after scenes, we’re all congratulating each other on the work. It is really nice because actors can be fickle people and you never know when you put a group of them together what will happen. But in this case, it’s been a dream.