In Let the Right One In, I had the chance to portray a century old, pre-teen vampire with a hunger for blood, and lots of it! With the heavy need to feed, our crew had to test all kinds of scenarios with blood to make it look realistic, have a proper consistency, and make it easily removable from clothing, skin, and hair. Needless to say, working with stage blood can be very difficult, but gives you a chance to get really creative. We used small plastic bags (imagine bloody detergent pods) that would hide in my mouth until just the right moment to bite. Crew members waited backstage to hand me more blood packs after each scene, so at any given time I’d have one in my hand, one in my mouth, or a few packed in my clothing. 

There was an amazing scene where my character had to bleed from “every orifice of her body,” so we used two large IV bags filled with blood and strapped them under my costume. To start bleeding, I would squeeze the IV bags under my arms, which would cause the blood to shoot upwards through small tubes lining my back and neck. From there, the tubes would send the blood into my hat, where it was distributed by even tinier tubes that poured down over my head and face. It was a great rigging that bathed me in blood and left the stage looking like a crime scene. I believe we even paired down to one IV bag eventually citing that one massive puddle was enough. After the extreme blood moment, I would have to rush backstage, red all over, and throw myself into a bucket of water, while the backstage crew scrubbed me head to toe. We had about 2.5 minutes to wash off all the blood, dry me, throw on new clothes, and get me back on stage in time for the next scene, but we never missed a cue! If you ever see blood on stage, give the crew some extra love. It’s a bloody hard job.