Baby, I'm a Star

Lachele Carl and Daniel Collard have joined the cast of DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST.

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Set the wayback machine to May 31 this year. My wife and I are attending ConCarolinas in Charlotte, N.C., and having dinner with Lara Parker and Kathryn Leigh Scott during one of their rare trips to the South. My wife, Sara, was still pregnant at the time. We knew we were having a boy, but hadn't settled on a name. As it turns out, we wouldn't make that decision until a few days after he was born, and even then it took constant prodding from the hospital staff to make us commit to a name.

Back in May, though, I had a name in mind: "Barnabas."

The topic of discussion was born in July.

It was a complicated idea, and one that gave me some amusement. I had no intention of making "Barnabas" the child's christian name, or even his middle name. Instead, I was going to bury the name a little deeper as a secondary middle name. I had this image of my son, two decades from now, filling out a passport application and having to find a spot on the form for that goddamn name. "Barnabas" would be an occasional reminder to him that his father was always a little nutty.

Sara found polite ways to avoid talking about the idea. Lara and Kathryn, having met a number of fans who have changed their names to those of DARK SHADOWS characters over the years, were openly appalled by it. Kathryn sounded a little like she was negotiating a hostage crisis when she asked me not inflict a child with the name "Barnabas." As a compromise, Lara suggested using the name "Quentin." It was a name that would come up again several months later in the hospital, following one of those "You really need to name your baby" visits from nurses. Sara, whacked out on pain killers following her surgery, suggested "Quentin." Our son was a little on the hairy side, you see.

I didn't think it was fair to hold Sara to a decision made under the influence of narcotics, and she took "Quentin" off the table the next day. To make a long story short, we ultimately named the boy Edgar.

What does all of this have to do with DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST? Well, a few weeks back, the folks at Big Finish invited me to make a cameo appearance in the upcoming serial. I've been sworn to secrecy, but my involvement was announced on the official website today (along with the casting of legitimate actors Lachele Carl and Daniel Collard). I've seen only a handful of script pages from the serial, but can promise you BLOODLUST is going to be epic.

And what's my role? I'm playing a radio newscaster originally named "Wallace McBride." As a gift to my son (and, admittedly, a way to maybe get him interested in DARK SHADOWS later) I asked them to change the character's name to "Edgar McBride." They happily agreed.

A few hours later it occurred to me that I failed in naming my son after a character from DARK SHADOWS ... but I succeeded in getting a DARK SHADOWS character named after him. I'm not sure if the name "Edgar McBride" is ever actually uttered in BLOODLUST, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. 


DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST is a 13-part miniseries released across January and February 2015. It's available to pre-order HERE. Go get it!