‘The Vampire Diaries’ Fangs Gave the Actors Lisps
The actors from CW’s The Vampire Diaries are still talking about their experience on the show — and their acting experience involved a lot of fake blood and false teeth. The fangs the actors wore allegedly gave them speech problems even when they were custom fitted to each actor’s mouth. Here’s what happened on the show.
What kind of fangs did they use in ‘The Vampire Diaries’?
The Vampire Diaries actors who played had to utilize fake fangs fake fangs, of course. Conor McCullagh, the special effects and makeup artist for the show, explained how they made the teeth the actors wore.
“The vampire teeth are simple caps,” McCullagh explained via an Instagram video. “I do take impressions of all the actors that are performing as vampires, and I custom make their caps to them. We actually put on a prosthetic first. It’s a small piece. Once that’s glued down, blended, colored, and so on, then we add the blood.”
According to The Catcher, the stretchy vampire fang caps would also fall off relatively easily. This is also why each actor needed their own pair of caps fit perfectly to their teeth.
‘The Vampire Diaries’ fake fangs reportedly gave the actors lisps
While the fake teeth utilized in The Vampire Diaries could easily fall out, there was another problem — they gave the actors speech issues. Because the fangs gave the actors lisps, they were only used when the actors who played vampires were about to attack one of their victims. This allowed the actors to use the fangs as little as possible while still portraying a blood-thirsty vampire.
Nina Dobrev also talked to Conan O’Brien about giving the perfect vampire look despite maneuvering around the fake blood and fangs. She popped in the fangs she was given while explaining the lisp. “Oh, and by the way, while you try to look sexy with these things, you get a lisp,” she added. “It’s really not sexy at all.”
Dobrev and O’Brien then joked about how real vampires likely would have a lisp due to their fangs. “It’s not hot at all,” Dobrev added.
Production utilized gallons of blood every few months
With the fake fangs comes fake blood. Special effects artist Conor McCullagh said he made his fake blood himself, and he’d make gallons of blood to last “two to three months.”
“The blood I use, I make myself,” McCullagh said. “It’s edible corn syrup-based blood. I add food coloring, some salt as a preservative, and some peppermint extract to make it a little more palatable. I usually make a few gallons at a time, and on a show like this, it last two to three months.”
Damon Salvatore actor Ian Somerhalder also talked about how the fake blood would freeze. “I remember being in that alley — I was like ripping a heart out in freezing cold with all the blood,” he said during the I Was Feeling Epic Con 2022. “I remember the blood would like freeze … [production] had it put it in an igloo cooler with warm heaters in there to keep it from freezing.”
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