Alex Rose was destined to play a vampire. He has a Transylvanian-born grandmother and experience from spots on other CW shows like “The Flash”, “iZombie”, and “Arrow”. Fans will get to know Rose with his role as Brett the Vampire who may-or may not kill some folks in this week’s “Supernatural” mid-season finale Dec. 13, 2018. This talented actor caught the acting bug trying to conquer his stage fright playing violin. Thankfully for us, the drama club became his gig. Alex has some amazing projects in the works. Check him out in the upcoming sci-fi TV series “Another Life” and a dramatic TV Mini-series called “Unspeakable”.
Colleen Bement: What was it like on the set of “Supernatural” with your role in this Thursday’s episode?
Alex Rose: It was great. It was professional, I mean they’ve been doing this show for 14 seasons now so it’s a pretty slick operation. They know what they’re doing and you can have fun within that. It’s pretty comfortable. It’s a nice environment to work under. Sometimes you work on a show that’s in the first season and they figuring things out. It was just really smooth.
CB: I hear that a lot!
AR: Yeah, Jared Padalecki and I worked out some stunts and he was very gracious and very accommodating, and yeah, they do like to joke around.
CB: How did you prepare to play a vampire?
AR: Well my grandmother was born in Transylvania so it’s kind of in my bloodline. There’s a connection there. It’s my first time playing a vampire and for years everybody was saying oh, you’d make a great vampire. No opportunity like that came up. I’ve actually been on “Supernatural” once. It was my first gig ever, back in season 8 and I played a demon. That was a good consolation prize at the time. I was much more excited about this role because it’s a bit bigger, and get to do some fun stuff that may or may not involve some killing. It was a fun thing to get to do.
As far as preparation, what they wrote in the script allowed for a lot of play, it was actually pretty easy. It was really apparent on the page what I was supposed to do. It really helps bring the character to life, or I guess back from the dead!
CB: Let’s chat “Timeless”. You were in the first season. What was that experience like?
AR: It had really neat sets. I shot the episode ‘The Assination of Jesse James’. What was really neat was that we got to do a whole photo shoot for the wanted posters for the 1800s. I actually knew a friend who worked on the set dec on the show and I was able to get a couple of these posters. It’s all of us standing like Billy the Kid and all those famous shots on those wanted posters. It was attention to detail that way. I didn’t even know if you see those posters, but just briefly. They’re just done so well. I think that’s why people really like that show because they pay attention to the detail of those times. Down to the guns they were holding, they were replicas, but they had the feel of a real gun. They were like cannons holding those things.
CB: In the works: TV series “Another Life” and a TV Mini-series called “Unspeakable”. Tell my readers about both of these of projects. They look intense.
AR: It’s a show for Netflix called “Another Life”. I don’t know how much I can say. It’s a sci-fi show about a ship and they’re trying to find life in outer space. Meanwhile, there’s a parallel story on Earth where the scientists are trying to decipher a problem that arises, so there are these parallel storylines that are taking place. I play a scientist on earth who’s kind of like a wry scientist with a bit of a sarcastic streak I would say.
I’m also doing another show, a mini-series called “Unspeakable” that’s going to be released in January. That’s a really cool project because it’s about the tainted blood crisis that happened in the 80s what happened with hemophiliacs and people got blood transfusions ended up contracting AIDS or Hepatitis C because the blood they were getting was coming from very dubious sources. It’s kind of this investigation into what happened. I play a guy who contracted it as a kid and then you see him as he grows older and older. That was a very meaningful project.
CB: Sounds a bit depressing yet there are really good people in it.
AR: Yeah, like Sarah Wayne Callies plays my mom, under heavy old-age makeup by the way. We’re much closer in age. She also directed me in an episode of “Colony” a few years ago.
CB: Any other projects that I’ve missed?
AR: I was just in an episode of “The Flash” a few weeks ago. I got to improvise a bit so yeah, that was great. It was another one of those sets where it was easy. I didn’t have a big role in the show at all, but the people I was working with wanted to improvise so we added in a few lines just to spice it up.
CB: How did you catch the acting bug?
AR: I grew up playing the violin and that was my first thing with music. I had a lot of stage fright playing violin performing for people. When I was in high school I took
CB: Do you happen to have any nerdy type qualities?
AR: Before I called you I was playing Red Dead Redemption, so that’s a nerd quality I would think. I like playing video games. Being in the last “Star Trek: Beyond” I got to actually be on the bridge, and it was really surreal. When you see that in real life and you’ve got Kirk sitting behind you issuing commands, it’s kind of a trip.