Van Helsing Season 4 Interview: Tricia Helfer on Sinking Her Teeth Into Dracula

Tricia Helfer, most recently seen playing Lucifer Morningstar’s mom in Lucifer, joins the cast of Syfy’s Van Helsing for the show’s fourth season. When the series returns on September 27, 2019, Helfer will be introduced as the most iconic vampire of them all – Dracula.

Tricia Helfer joined her fellow Van Helsing cast members, including series newcomers Nicole Munoz and Keeya King, at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con. During our roundtable interview, Helfer teased what’s in store and praised the genre for its inclusion of strong female characters.

We miss you on Lucifer but now you’re tackling Dracula. How much fun is it to sink your teeth into that?

Tricia Helfer: “It’s so much fun. it really is a character… A lady over there said, she goes, “Normally you play a lot of bad characters but they’re always layered with vulnerability,’ you know, on purpose because you’re trying to show this character has sides to her as well. With Dracula, not so much.


I have not, at least in what I’ve filmed, discovered a soft or a vulnerable side to her. I only have a few episodes in the season. My character is sort of introduced. But it’s delicious I think is how I would describe it to play because you’re just playing this all-powerful, confident being and it’s really fun to play bad.”

Does she have minions?

Tricia Helfer: “She does, yes. She’s been locked away for a very long time so she definitely is relishing the being able to be out and kind of in control, learning also what the world is now like. You know, locked away for a long time.

She doesn’t ever worry. You don’t see her sweat, so to speak, at least so far. It’s an enjoyment factor of what she’s going to discover. But, she also goes right into her mode of demanding things from her minions or an explanation of why something wasn’t done the way she would have expected to have been done.”

Are we going to flashback to see her origin or why she was locked up or who locked you up?

Tricia Helfer: “There will be a discussion. We won’t see it. I don’t know how much more I can say. If there’s a next season, it might go a little bit more into that. Again, she’s just sort of introduced.

There is some discussion though. You find out who locked her away, how she got locked away, but you don’t see it. But there’s some revenge on her part that is wanted. But, again, we don’t see that yet but she has a few people she has to contend with along the way that obviously don’t want her to be out and active again because all hell will probably break loose.”

This genre seems to attract strong, kickass women. Is that why you’ve played in it so often and been so successful?

Tricia Helfer: “I think you nailed it. There are strong female characters. I mean, there’s definitely getting to be a lot more but what I like with Van Helsing, it’s not like, ‘Oh, we’re checking the box.’

You know, the show already is about Vanessa Van Helsing and there’s so many other strong female characters in it that it’s not like, ‘Oh, okay, we have to do this to be whatever.’ So, it feels very organic; it doesn’t feel forced. And I think that’s what I like in the genre is it’s sort of like, ‘Okay, whatever.’ You never feel like it’s checking the box just for the sake of checking the box. And the stories can be broad and dynamic and cover lots of different elements and stories. That’s what the genre is all about.”