This kind of thoughtful preparation is typical of Sarandon, who is his first screen role earned raves from the critics and an Oscar nomination from his fellow actors for his portayal of Leon, Al Pacino's lover in "Dog Day Afternoon."
"I'm always looking for something very specific and very strong about the characters I play," Sarandon admits, "because people fascinate me and people are all different. I've been told, 'Well, you're a nice-looking man and you should be a romantic lead,' but with the exception of 'Protocol,' I haven't had much luck in finding scripts where I can strongly identify with those characters. Playing a vampire, though, seemed like a real challenge."
A native of West Virginia, and a magna cum laude graduate of the University of West Virginia, Sarandon began his theatrical career as a member of the Catholic University's touring National Players, a troupe which presented plays by Shakespeare and Moliere. Following that, he did stints with an improvisational theater company in Washington D.C., and at Arvin Brown's Long Wharf Theatre in Connecticut before moving to New York. There he was offered a role in TV's "The Guiding Light," created the part of son Jacob in the musical "The Rothschilds," and replaced Raul Julia in the highly successful "Two Gentlemen of Verona."
Since his triumph in "Dog Day Afternoon," which he received an Oscar nomination, "Sarandon has moved easily between stage and screen work. Among his theatrical credits are appearances in Broadway's, "Censored Scenes From King Kong," "Marco Polo Sings a Solo," "The Devil's Disciple" and David Mamet's "The Woods," as well as a season with Canada's Shaw Festival and one with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where he played Laertes in "Hamlet" and Prince Hal in "Henry IV, Part I." He starred in the off-Broadway production of "The Incredibly Famous Willy Rivers."
His film credits, following "Dog Day Afternoon," include starring roles in "Lipstick," "The sentinel," Richard Lester's "Cuba." Sam Peckinpah's "The Osterman Weekend" and, most recently, "Protocol," opposite Goldie Hawn.
On TV, Sarandon played the autobiographical author in Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again"; Jesus, in the critically acclaimed "The Day Christ Died"; the dual role of Sidney Carton and Charles Darnay in the CBS special, "Tale of Two Cities"; and Bud Griggs in CBS's highly rated "Broken Promises."
To help him develop the character of Jerry Dandridge, Sarandon, like the other actors in "Fright Night," created a biography for the vampire which pre-dated the time of the movie's action. "Giving Jerry a history helped crystallize certain aspects of his character," Sarandon says. "This is a man who has been hunted for all his post-human existence, but who has fallen in love a number of times and who, in a sense, longs for a normal existence."
The vampire's more horrible moment's, however, presented a different kind of challenge for the actor. As well as enduring long hours in the makeup chair (as the vampire acquires a more and more bat-like appearance, his makeup took as much as eight hours to apply), Sarandon had no easy references for the character's behavior. "When he's angry or threatened," says Sarandon, "the vampire reverts to being an animal. His reaction is one that he has no control over, and that is inhuman. I tried to do something with my body to match the makeup, but essentially I had to make the leap of imagination."
For more info on Chris Sarandon go to imdb.com.
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BIOGRAPHY