Welcome back to coverage of Polaris 22 in Toronto, and the second installment of my feature on Jason Dohring, which will take us into the world of Moonlight, and his experience as the vampire Josef.

Right off the bat at the press conference, he was asked about the effect of the WGA strike on Moonlight, and if he thought the show suffered as a result. “I think we had similar ratings throughout,” he recounted. “It wasn’t like we were doing fantastic, and then we had the writers’ strike, and then we were doing worse. Perhaps we would have built more. Toward the end, we became more solid, every episode was even better and on the rise.”

Perhaps the most interesting information that Dohring related, in my opinion, was how he brought Josef to life. Apparently, it took him a while to get into the character. He shared, “I think we started to get into it more toward the end, where we sort of found our own, and I started to get what I think they wanted from my character. I always tried to make things brooding, and it totally wasn’t right for that show, because Mick was that character … I was in the way, trying to do my cool stuff. Once I got the idea of what the show needed I was able to do it, to be light, and the best friend.” Dohring also gave some insight into the backstory he’d created for Josef. “At one point, I imagined him being like Mick, that he was a good guy, and at some point it changed, and he lost his integrity. That’s why he can admire Mick and look up to him because it’s something he (Josef) had and lost. He wasn’t strong enough to hold on to it.”

Of course, he had some help in his transformation from human to vampire. According to Dohring, the process “was about 40 minutes. They’re pretty fast. They’d just put on white makeup, and for the eyes they’d do contacts. Then they’d take this little airbrush to your neck and paint these cool veins.”

When asked what the best thing is about being on a vampire series, he responded, “I guess all the special effects. It’s really cool when you’d see it afterward, because you didn’t do all the jumping off buildings and stuff like that, but you’d see it afterward and go ‘Wow’. Or watching them (stuntmen) do it. Because these guys are crazy.”

During the fan Q&A on Sunday afternoon, Dohring shared some fun little tidbits about his tenure on Moonlight. Here are a couple of those musings:
-If Josef had been given the chance, he would have taken a bite of Beth.
-Josef’s freezer was probably a velvet-lined, 4 person model, so he could share it with three women.

Dohring was definitely a hit in Toronto. What’s next from the Polaris 22 coverage? My report on the press conference with Torchwood’s Gareth David-Lloyd.