Fangirl Magazine - The Charming Brian Krause(November 16th, 2008)

The Charming Brian Krause
Fangirl Magazine

The series Charmed is one of the few TV series of the last few years to rival Buffy for popularity and long life in a genre that sees so many shows fall the wayside. One of the reasons for that longevity and love from the fans of the show is the actors and the characters that they created.

From Alyssa Milano to Shannon Doherty the Charmed ones have a loyal following and they’ve got 8 seasons of a show to prove it. But it wasn’t just the gals that made the show so awesome. It was the guys who made many a female fan tune in. Julian McMahon and his diabolicly hot Cole Turner or for a lot of Charmed viewers it was the heroic Leo Wyatt who could save their day any time.

Just in time for Christmas this year you can get that Charmed fan in your life something special. On November 18th the ENTIRE series will be available in a reproduction of the shows Book of Shadows. The thing is MASSIVE and would look amazing on anyone’s coffee table (or alter). The book has illustrations and histories of creatures as well as each page holding the DVD’s for the seasons in order. Right now you can preorder it from Amazon.com for 30 percent off. 8 Seasons in a beautiful reproduction for 174.99 is a pretty good deal. Click the picture to Preorder now!

To celebrate the upcoming release we got to ask a few questions of Leo Wyatt himself, Brian Krause. Brian hasn’t been resting on his laurels since the shows last season. He’s recently done guest roles on the mega hit Mad Men and lots of TV movies including Beyond Loch Ness. Krause will be Leo forever to a lot of fans…but I’ll always think of him as the soul sucking alien who loved to dance in Sleepwalkers. It’s just one of those things.


Were you prepared for the huge fanbase that Charmed has when you started with the show?

BK: It was unexpected. I’ve dealt with features and such but the amount of people that follow the show religiously was quite shocking.

People come up to me all the time. And I think that more people watch it now in reruns now that it is on all the time. They can catch episodes back to back now that it’s on DVD. So it’s bizarre.

Your character had a huge background and quite a history. He had a lot of things change on him. Did that help or hinder your ability to be the character?

BK: Nothing hindered. My character developed greater and greater as more history developed, the more history they gave me the better. As far as keeping track…I had a great communication with Brad Kern who kept us appraised on how everything turned.

And all the girls actually had a really great knowledge of remembering what tied to what so we could always go “Oh remember that and this is this” So we kinda could always together remember a lot and we always had writers around. We were able to keep it all tied together. Plus we had a lot of crew members who were with us from the very beginning that actually remembered a lot of the show “No you did this!” It was fun. We all had a history of it.

Dealing with supernatural things and witches and goblins and people with different powers. Keeping track of that is definitely it’s a piece of work. And kudos to Brad Kern, being able to keep it all in his head. I’m sure he had some book or bible if you will of all the different characters. Not to mention we had the Book of Shadows. If we ever needed to go back and look up a character we could go to that and go “This is his power this is what he did” what episode was that what year. So go back to what that was.

Which did you like better, being an Avatar or being an Elder?

BK: You know its interesting being an avatar because it went to the darker side. That was a lot of fun. Being the Elder…I definitely liked being the Avatar better because it was a lot more fun playing that. As the Elder it just seemed like I was just kind of there being the protector and not being as involved as being an Avatar.

Genre work. Do you enjoy working in horror or do you enjoy doing the fantasy aspect of Charmed better? Or a preference?

BK: Horror and all that, dealing with blood all the time can get tedious. You’re not always doing the most outstandingly…not quality but the kind of work that pushes you as an actor to be the best that you can in emotion and such. A lot of times it is you’re there you scream you die. It’s a lot of reaction to the moment.

You know the fantasy stuff is a lot of make-believe. And its definitely challenging to pretend things were there that weren’t. And try to say lines that are supposed to make sense…but it’s definitely challenging in the fantasy sense. It’s definitely the more challenging.

Sleepwalkers…the racy relationship between the mom and son. Do you remember your reaction of reading the script?

BK: It wasn’t…I guess reading the script and getting a take on it…and talking to Mick Garris. We were basically two aliens, and basically when we transformed into human form Charles and his mother…we weren’t really Mother and Son. We aliens, creature cat people however you want it to be who when we took on the human form pretended to be a mother and son. So it wasn’t so much that mother son when we were people…you know what I mean? That was just part of the identities that we took on.

So for me that we were just like this married Sleepwalking couple who just transformed into this. So it was definitely shocking so we knew it would get a reaction. But I knew with Stephen King and Alice Krieg involved it was nothing that was going to be sleazy or cheesy. It was going to be done right. I think a lot of people were shocked by that.

Hey Baby Girl...I luv your new fan blend pic at the end of your postings..... "Wanna open up my eyes to see your face everyday...doesn't really matter where I stay" WOW!!!!geeez, that statement is really deep....but beautiful! And ya know what, I could see Leo telling Piper that...OR...BK telling Holly that (lol)!!!!

Did you create it yourself...cuz I know how talented your are (smile).

Oh U are so sweet Sis..Yes I made if myself & it means so much to me that U like it
Thank you sooo much!!!

I had been working on this blend for quite some time now cuz I always thought that these 3 photos of BK & HMC were just perfect & special & I wanted to create a blend that'd be equally perfect & special & would do justice to these wonderful photos. But everytime I worked on it & thought I was about to finish it, I felt it needed more work...I mean the background design...its kinda like painting but with a mouse so its a little bit of a tricky business to create the hearts & those swirly designs with smudge brushes...I messed it up quite a lot of times ...& after 10 to 15 drafts I finally finished it today...although I think its still not perfect & needs more work lol

Anyways I'm just really happy that U like it Sis..THANK YOU!

By the way I made another one of them not too long ago...I'd love to know what U think of that one...U can check it out here:
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If your talking about the one with HMC in the white gown and BK sitting down....I like that one but I favor this one with the deep words (smile)....its them to a "T".....its the words that says alot for the picture...."as long as Im with you babe...in your silhouette...Im safe".....its beautiful!

Yeah I like this one better too...Thank you so much again Sis...