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For eight years Brian Krause was known to genre fans as Leo Wyatt from the WB series “Charmed.” While his portrayal of a good-natured whitelighter endeared him to millions worldwide, his latest performance in Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer is going to come as quite a shock. Krause has definitely shed his “good guy” personality in order to portray the demented “County Line Cannibal” who terrorizes a small town for decades.
Krause was definitely aware of the fact that “Charmed” fans might be somewhat shocked by his performance in Cyrus, especially since the titular character is a far cry from the nice guy most of them are used to seeing the actor portray. He discussed how Cyrus being unlike anyone he’s ever played was a huge draw for him to the project.
“Being someone I haven’t been before was the biggest appeal to doing this movie because I usually don’t get offered these kinds of darker roles,” said Krause. “I met Mark (Vadik, director) a year prior to working on Cyrus and he told me a little bit about it and I thought it sounded interesting. Then once I got the script, I really liked what he wanted to do with Cyrus’ story so that’s when I came on board.”
“Because Cyrus is such a cruel and dark character, I really had to do a lot of research myself on different serial killers just to get a sense of who a guy like Cyrus really was. Mark also gave me some music to use to get me into Cyrus mode, and I used that a lot when we were on set when I had to get into my serial killer mindset,” added Krause.
Despite enjoying the challenge of portraying a guy like Cyrus, Krause discussed how the disturbing role took a bit of a toll on him mentally throughout the shoot. “Even though I liked challenging myself with this role, it was also really hard to be a guy like that too because I’m not like him at all. Some days it felt like I carried the weight of Cyrus around with me even when I’d head home from set. There are a lot of scenes that were hard to get through because they were so disturbing and I think working in that realm can twist your own reality a bit at times.”
With the release of Cyrus coming on June 28th, we asked Krause what’s been keeping him busy lately. Turns out he’s taken the leap to writer/director and is currently working on some of his own material. He teased a bit about both projects and talked about what prompted him to take his career to a new level.
“Lately I’ve been keeping myself busy while working on a few of my own projects. The first is a short (funny enough) about a serial killer. It’s like Jaws meets Seven, and we’re working on getting that finished up right now. The other script I’m working on finishing up is for a feature that’s in the same vein of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle so that’s the next thing I’d like to direct.”
“I think wanting to produce and direct was a natural progression for me- after spending so much time on the set of Charmed and so many movies throughout the years, I really got a sense for all the aspects of filmmaking. So before I took this step, I did some second unit work just to get my feet wet, and then I realized I was ready to take the next step. I guess I just wanted to have the ability to be able to tell my own stories too,” added Krause.
Even though the actor-turned-director is taking his career in a new direction, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be game for a Cyrus sequel if the opportunity presented itself. “I would definitely love to come back for more Cyrus and I would especially love to get to do more with Lance too in the sequel. I don’t think his story’s done being told yet because this film truly feels like an introduction to the life of this very disturbed killer. I think there’s definitely more to him than we’ve seen so far, and I’d be very interested to see where Mark would take his story in the future.”