The TV Chick

I love most everything vampire related. The Vampire Diaries and True Blood are two of my all time favorite shows. So when I heard about The Gates, I was definitely going to give it a shot. The Gates centers around life in a gated community, and all the crazy secrets that lie beneath. The series starts with a new chief of police moving into town (after the old one conveniently disappeared), a vampire family just trying to survive under the radar, and the spa owner who clearly has some sort of unknown agenda and how all of their lives intertwine. I have really been enjoying this season so far. It’s a very dark show (I suppose all vampire shows are dark — ha, get it?!) where vampires (and supernatural creatures) are hiding as opposed to assimilating, which is sort of atypical for this genre. I recently had the chance to chat with Chandra West, who plays Devon, the spa owner. We chatted about her characters mysterious, perhaps slightly evil ways, the most challenging part to her role and what sets The Gates apart from a field that is inundated with vampires.

Tell us a little bit more about your character, Devon. She’s very mysterious.
She is. She is mysterious. She’s an interesting character to be because she runs the day spa in town which represents everything healthy and serene and beautiful, meanwhile her seemingly holistic approach to things sort of belies her darker nature. They reveal obviously more and more about that as the season goes on in terms of what she’s doing and why. She is mysterious which is one of the things that drew me to her. It was one of the things that I liked about her character when I first read the pilot script. She was definitely one of those characters where you go “hmmm, wonder what’s going on there.” There’s more there than meets the eye. (laughs)

There is definitely more to her than meets the eye. She is presumably human yet she knows about the vampires and supernatural activity. Is there more to her that we don’t even know yet?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely! Thus far, in what’s aired, they’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of what’s really going on with her. She’s a little bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Pardon the pun, but she’s got a lot going on. And she’s one of those people that knows everything in The Gates, she knows everything that’s going on, she knows everybody’s secrets, and is using that knowledge — putting it to not exactly a good use. Let’s just say she’s got some issues.

(laughs) That makes sense. And one of the things I really loved was when you turned up with the kids. It was such a great, manipulative scene. What was it like taking on two very different persona?
It was fun actually! That was really fun to do because you got the little girls who I was playing with at the beginning of the scene — first of all they are great, and so cute and it just made it so much creepier, because it was this nice, innocent, playful moment that was so loaded obviously between Claire and I. And what I was ultimately threatening her with is so huge and it’s so mean, and it’s cruel. And there was just this underlying tone throughout the whole scene that was very disturbing, (laughs) I thought — which is fun. As an actor, those are things that are fun to play with.

And what has been the most challenging part of playing Devon for you?
I would say with every character that you play, there’s always going to be — to varying degrees — a large part of you that’s in that character, a small part of you that’s in that character, there’s always something that you can connect to. And with Devon, as the series goes on, and you learn more about her dark nature and what it is that she’s doing, that can be a little bit of a stretch because you’re really trying to make sense of it and trying to relate to the character. And when the person is doing things that are (laughs) what normal people consider horrible and horrifying, you really have to stretch your imagination a little bit. But you can always understand it on some level, and to her, what she’s doing is right. So it’s not like she’s walking around thinking she’s a horrible person. What she’s doing, she thinks is completely justified.

We may see this coming up, but do you have an idea of what Devon’s backstory is –where she comes from and what her motivations are?
Yeah, I do. And some of that is what the producers told me before we started, and then of course you fill it in with your own stuff. But what’s interesting to me, because of where we starting in the series, she’s already at this place in her life, but it’s interesting to me because the idea is that she at one time was married to Frank Buckley and just was a very normal, regular girl, and things just went horribly wrong in their marriage and she felt wronged not only by him but by everyone in the town, and then the character of Peg took Devon in and helped her empower herself through witchcraft. And they just took to it in very different ways. (laughs) So, where Peg is this kind of nice, generous, wonderful person whose all about helping people, Devon, I think, while there’s an element of helping people and she does on some level, but it’s also the power that goes along with that, and what she can do and what she knows and how she utilizes that.

For a little bit of evil. (laughs)
Yeah, yeah. (laughs) A little bit.

Do you have a favorite moment from filming the show so far?
There’s a couple things that are coming up that I don’t think I can share. But in the stuff that’s aired so far with me, I really liked at the end of episode two when Claire comes to my shop and is surrendering to me. There’s actually a little scene before the last scene where I’m taking her blood. There’s no dialogue. She comes in, and I’m sort of for a moment thinking she could kill me, she is a vampire. There’s sort of this scary moment that with no dialogue turned into this little victory for me. She’s basically surrendering to me. That shift of power was really fun to play. And fun to play with dialogue. That was interesting.

It was an interesting choice, and I thought it was a really powerful scene.
Yeah, yeah. It was fun.

And now that you are in the midst of filming the show, would you ever live in a community like The Gates?
I don’t think so. (laughs) The gated communities are always — I don’t know if it’s because of doing the show that it permeates into your subconscious — but there’s something about being in an enclosed environment where everyone knows everybody and all the houses look the same and there’s just something a little creepy about it I think.

Agreed. (laughs) The vampire genre is obviously very popular right now. What do you think sets The Gates apart from other vampire shows out there?
I think the show is a little different in that it’s not vampires and werewolves who are just wandering about town, embracing their vampire-hood. They’re kind of reluctant and they’re really just trying to — that’s the thing about people in The Gates — is that they’re really just trying to assimilate and to fit in and lead normal lives. And how do you do that when you’re a mother and you have a kid or you’re married or in a relationship, but you also have this extra thing which is that you are a vampire, or you are a werewolf. So it’s interesting to me, because it’s really about these characters trying to deal with normal, every day problems like relationships and kids and marriage and all that kind of stuff, and then there’s this extra, added element that just makes it a lot more complicated.

Yeah, definitely. I think that in a sense makes it more realistic because it’s the vampires are just trying to live their lives.
Right, right. Exactly.

I’m already enjoying the show, but what would you tell viewers as to why they should tune in?
I think viewers should tune in because I really think there’s something for everybody. I think that if people don’t really care about the whole vampire thing, there’s a lot more to it than that. And if you are someone who is into the whole vampire thing, obviously there’s that element which is really fun and interesting. And then you’ve got kids and the whole teenage, high school love triangle. Then you’ve got the parents and the kids and these rivalries going on. I think it kind of covers all the bases. Anyone that tunes in could find something to relate to, I think.

And I know you can’t spoil too much, but can you give us a little teaser of what’s coming up for Devon?
Let’s just say that there’s a lot of (laughs) — she has a plan, something that she’s trying to do over the course of the series, and it starts to come to fruition over the course of the next several episodes, and things get much darker and pretty crazy. And she’s doing things that affect everyone, it’s not just one person. She’s doing stuff that affects everybody in The Gates, and possibly not in such a good way.

Oooh, interesting. Will we see more of her personal life perhaps?
Little bits, yes. You do get to see little bits of her personal life. She’s a very complicated woman (laughs), to put it mildly.

And will we see more of the relationship with her and Peg?
Yeah, you do. There’s some interesting stuff that actually happens with Peg’s mother, Mia and myself, which is sort of interesting because Peg obviously doesn’t want me anywhere near her daughter, because she thinks I’m a bad influence, which let’s be honest, I am. (laughs) But there’s some interesting stuff there, and kind of ramping up to the end of the season, there’s some interesting big, big things that happen between Peg and I, and between me and sort of almost everybody.

Be sure to tune in tonight at 10 pm to ABC for an all new episode of The Gates.