INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE | BAZZA CASH & KAYLEIGH RAWLINSON GIVE THE INSIDE SCOOP ON CURSED SOUL SERIES

Created by Bazza Cash, who also appears in the series as the protagonist, The Cursed Soul promises to be a "fresh take" on the "myths and legends" of vampires.

To ensure the audience are given an amazing viewing experience and to produce the future web series to perfection, Bazza has been working on The Cursed Soul for over 11 years. 

The Southampton-born Bazza wants this series to be "phenomenal". 

Bazza portrays Nicoli Ov-Ski - or simply Nico - who gets transformed into an evil vampire - The Cursed Soul - whose purpose is to destroy humanity as we know it but with a few twists and turns along the way, is Nico's true calling to cause a massacre?  

The nights are dark and terrible things lurk in the shadows but that's the norm in the fictional town of Blighted Vale.

With many twists and turns, viewers will see Nico be both a good guy and an evil one.   It is unclear where Nico's allegiances lie; if he's meant to destroy or defend the town from the sinister anomalies that go bump in the night.  

Of course, Nico won't be alone and neither will Bazza in the production side of things.  Bazza will be joined on and off-screen by Kayleigh Rawlinson who has dual responsibilities on The Cursed Soul.

On-screen; Kayleigh will play Avon Defrockall who has a key role in why Nico is the way he is.  Avon is the lead antagonist in this independent production and will give The Alpha Vampire a lot to deal with in this series.  Off-screen; Kayleigh will serve as co-director with alongside Bazza. 

Let's hope Kayleigh and Bazza like each other's company because there's really no escaping one another, here.

In this exclusive interview, Kayleigh & Bazza gave me the lowdown for AndyGibsonTV.com. 

Here's what the on-screen gruesome twosome had to say. 

Andy Gibson:

What inspired you to create The Cursed Soul series?

Bazza Cash:
(Nicoli Ov-Ski)

I have always been a massive fan of the supernatural, but I think If I had to say one thing that inspired me to write the series the most, that would have to be Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Andy Gibson:

If you weren’t playing Nico, what other character would you have played and why?

Bazza Cash:

Officer Wayne Watson and because he’s very witty and a funny character to write for, I think I would enjoy and have fun playing a comic character.

Andy Gibson:

Can you tell us more about your characters and what drew you to portray them?​

Bazza Cash:​

What drew me to, obviously, Nico is some true elements to my past and present life.  Nico acts like a father-figure to all these supernatural monsters who he has brought up from the past until the present time where the series takes place.  I can relate to that character from being a father myself so I do bring a lot of true-life elements to the character of Nico.  When I started writing for Nico, I got inspired from Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, obviously (Spike) being a Vampire.  I've always wanted to play a Vampire, myself, so that's what took me down the route of writing a series based on Vampires and supernatural beings. 

James Marsters as Spike in Buffy The Vampire Slayer © Walt Disney

Kayleigh Rawlinson:
​(Avon Defrockall)

For me it was pretty much the same, to be honest.  I've always wanted to play the role of a Witch, or not so much like a Witch but a powerhouse woman to just show that women have that power, too.  When I heard about Avon it was actually through a mutual actor-friend of ours.  He told me about the role I just clicked straightaway.  When Bazza told me about the role of Avon, I needed to play her and since I felt such a connection to her role and she's very much the opposite of me, to be honest with you and that's what I enjoy to like completely take myself away from me for that moment and put myself into Avon's position which is very strong, very powerful.  There a lot to come from her which is going to be really exciting - 100%.

Andy Gibson:

In the series, Nico is created by something called Gorgon Magic, can you explain what that is? 

Bazza Cash:

Yeah, so, thousands of years ago Nico was a human being.  He was a hunter for his tribe so he obviously used to hunt animals to feed his tribe.  Romantically, he ended up with the youngest Gorgon sister who was going through training and the older sisters didn't like the fact Nico was distracting her from her training so the two elder sisters basically cursed Nico to be this monster to destroy humanity alongside them.  He now finds the darkness with the youngest Gorgon sister - which is Avon.  It's The Gorgon Curse which the Gorgons place on Nico to create this first-ever Vampire being.  We've took it down a completely different route to how Vampires came about.  We took it down the route of Greek Mythology and we kind of blended it in with modern day and our customised mythology. 

Andy Gibson: 

That sounds really complicated. 

Bazza Cash:

*nods in the yes fashion*

​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

So, basically, Avon created the curse with her sisters but then ultimately turned Nico into a completely different Vampire and brings the love into his life and light and so far away to what we originally created him as this evil monster to being a hero and a father-figure and saving The World, ultimately, so he's quite dynamic.

Bazza Cash:

Yeah. 

Andy Gibson:

Where did the names and the terminology come from - was that Greek Mythology as well?

Bazza Cash:

Some of the names and all that came from the Greek Mythology but I've spent eleven years developing the series so I've had eleven years to make and create my own World, my own mythology my own laws behind the whole Vampires and Warewolf sort of scenario.  It's taken a long time to get to where it is now.  It's changed a lot, obviously, to when I first started writing the series until now.  I think that's what has drawn our actors into the series because it's a completely different take on the supernatural and Vampire laws and mythology and stuff.  Being original, I think that's what's drawn a lot into the series.

​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

It has, definitely. 

Andy Gibson:

You both have multiple roles within the production as actors/directors.  How challenging was that to mix up all of them together? 

Bazza Cash:

Yeah, it is very challenging, obviously, when writing the series - I enjoy writing the series - but when it comes to directing and being in the scenes as well, that's when it becomes challenging especially when Nico is in an intimate scene.  It's very difficult when it comes to the intimate scenes because when you're directing someone, you don't want to take it too far because everyone's got comfort zones so you don't want to overstep their boundaries so when directing an intimate scene it does get very challenging.  But me and Kayleigh trust each other 100% so directing our scenes there's nothing to worry about...

Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Yeah, it's not so hard, is it?  A lot of the intimate scenes are based on Avon & Nico.  Mainly through CoronaVirus Lockdown - in all honesty - we've built such a strong bond with each other as friends, as diectors and as professionals that we can direct each other and share our comfortability within those kind of scenes but it is very difficult to portray a role and have the pressure of the directing making sure everyone else is comfortable with their roles and what they're doing.  Not only do you have to know your character off the back of your hand, you need to know every other character and there's a lot of characters in this.  A lot of different personalities and I think that's the hardest part as directors because you have to know everybody's characters in a very strong depth to be a successful director. 

Andy Gibson:

Yeah.

Bazza Cash:

Yep. 

Andy Gibson: 

Do you have a preference on what you want to do whether it be on-screen or behind the camera?

Kayleigh Rawlinson:

I love them both.  For me, I love them both.  Acting has always been my stronger profession and my biggest passion but recently I've wanted to give it a go behind the camera and just experiment with that.  It was just a little challenge for me at first but I've grown to really enjoy it, the different aspects of it and when you've already been an actor or an actress, as such, you can relate to those people you're directing and I do really enjoy that but if I had to choose, it would still be the acting. 

Bazza Cash:

Acting is my forte, but because I write and work on the production stuff I don't like giving another director my work to direct so I prefer to direct myself, if that makes sense. 

Andy Gibson:

With The Cursed Soul being a series exclusively about Vampires, are we going to get any juicy gory bits in the programme?

​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

*giggles excitedly*

​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Oh wow.  Yeah.

Bazza Cash: 

​There is a lot of gore, in the series.  There's a lot of blood, guts and limbs flying off.  It's going to be a very gory and raunchy series.

​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

EXTREMELY!

Andy Gibson:

Extremely?

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Yeah, we've got a great makeup artist behind us as well.  Annemarie Malley will be doing the makeup for that, which is going to be really exciting.

Andy Gibson:

Was it not really sticky and stuff on-set with all the prosthetics? 

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

*giggles*

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

It is, yeah.  A lot, a lot.  It's always fun to be smothered in blood.  It's great. 

Bazza Cash:

*nods in the yes fashion/laughs*

Andy Gibson:

British drama as a whole has suffered massively throughout the ongoing CoronaVirus Pandemic, has COVID-19 affected your production or suffered any challenges with filming at all? 

Bazza Cash: 

*nods in the yes fashion*

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Yeah...

Bazza Cash:

Yeah.  I've spent a lot of money on the series and when we first went into lockdown, I did have a downward spiral when I went in on myself and I lost so much money that I invested in this series and it went in a blink of an eye and I wasn't able to do anything about it.  It was out of our hands and out of our control.  It was a difficult time at the beginning of lockdown.  We have struggled with COVID and filming and sorting out dates for shooting and stuff.  It changed every time because of COVID.  We did film once during the pandemic and that was it and we've still got to reshoot that scene but yeah, COVID has had a massive impact on the series and, obviously, on us as well.  

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Yep, massive impact.  I think especially because we had dates put in-place for filming and we got that all prepared and we was ready.  It was literally a few weeks before that date we was put into a lockdown and obviously that really knocked you back but it has made us stronger as a company, in my opinion, because we've now then had more time to look back on things and change scripts and make it better in some aspects.

Bazza Cash: 

Yeah... 

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

It has also benefited us as well as the knock-backs so we're looking at the positives out of the negatives. 

Andy Gibson:

Who is your favourite character you’ve written for in the series?

Bazza Cash:

Over the years of developing this series I have fallen in love with all of my characters that I write for, but the top three I have a bond with are Eve Simmons, Victor Webster and of course Nico.

Andy Gibson: 

Could there be a sequel to The Cursed Soul? 

Bazza Cash:

Yeah, there is a spin-off series that I've been writing so, yeah, there will be a spin-off but I'm not going to say much more than that. 

​​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Yeah, it's all a bit 'hush hush' at the moment. 

Andy Gibson:

With all things considered, is there a rough estimation as to the timescale in when people will be able to see The Cursed Soul? 

Bazza Cash:

We are planning on releasing the first series in 2023.  It could very well be brought forward depending on COVID.

​​​Kayleigh Rawlinson:

Yeah, it all depends on the lockdown situation.

Bazza Cash:

Our aim, now, is 2023 - at the latest. 

Andy Gibson:

Thank you both for your time and all the very best of luck with everything The Cursed Soul. 

Kayleigh Rawlinson has already been showing her "super witch" skills on social media network, Twitter.

Super witch!! #TheCursedSoul pic.twitter.com/8CGXEfthNC

— Kayleigh Rawlinson (@KayleighRawlin1) March 17, 2020

The Cursed Soul is scheduled to hit your screens in 2023 but make sure you follow @TheCursedSoulS1 on Twitter for all the updated.