Blood Relatives' Noah Segan on His Unconventional Tale of Vampiric Fatherhood

As an actor, Noah Segan has a long resume of horror films to his credit, with the last decade especially seeing him become a mainstay in the world of independent genre films. In addition to starring in projects like Starry Eyes, The Mind's Eye, and Some Kind of Hate, he's also become a staple of filmmaker Rian Johnson's impressive ensemble of performers, from Brick to Looper to Knives Out. While Segan previously dipped his toes into the waters of short-form directing, his latest project, Blood Relatives, is easily his most ambitious and personal effort to date, as it blends together his love of genre films with the filmmaking skills he's absorbed from former collaborators, all while putting his personal stamp on a therapeutic and unexpected story about embracing fatherhood. Blood Relatives debuts exclusively on Shudder on November 22nd.

In Blood Relatives, Francis (Segan), a 115-year-old Yiddish vampire, still looks 35. He's been roaming American backroads in his beat-up muscle car for decades, keeping to himself, and liking it that way. One day, a teenage kid, Jane (Victoria Moroles), shows up. She says she's his daughter, and she's got the fangs to prove it. They go on the road, deciding whether to sink their teeth into family life.

ComicBook.com caught up with Segan to talk developing the film, fatherhood, and wisdom gleaned from former collaborators.

ComicBook.com: I know you think I'm going to be giving you softball questions, "Oh, I know this guy, so he's going to pull his punches," but I'm not going to do that. The first thing I want to get out of the way is, if Blood Relatives was a scented candle, what scents would it be?

Noah Segan: It would be like one of those real ... Leather and smoke, amber. It would be where you're like, "What the f-ck does amber smell like?" "I don't know, but they put it in a candle. They say it smells like amber." And smoke, why do you want smoke in the candle? You're supposed to light the candle because of the smoke? You don't want the smoke. It's got ... Tobacco and frankincense and myrrh and sh-t, it'd be like one of those.

Sure, yes. One of those frankincense, myrrh, and leather candles that are just flying off the shelves.

Listen, they're available. When you run to the store ... When people are hip to this interview and they run to the store, there's going to be a shortage.

You can't get it at Ralph's. You've got to go to Vons, but they have them on the shelves.

That nice candle shelf at Target. It's the one where they always have a name. It's always "Homebound" or something. Something like that.

Or it's like "Yankee Freshness." It's not Yankee Candle. It's the off-brand "Bath and Body Smells."

Or it could be one of those, when you get real fancy and you're like, people out there be spending like $45 on a candle. It's one of those. Those real high-end ones.

I feel like I've got the answer that I needed. I appreciate you being vulnerable and opening up about this, other interviewers probably would not get this information out of you, so I appreciate it. 

You got a real exclusive here, buddy.

I do want to talk about the movie. You're not unfamiliar to the world of directing, but obviously a feature-length film is a little bit different for you. What do you think the biggest challenge was, despite all of your experience making movies in various capacities over the years, what was the biggest challenge with actually directing this feature-length film?

Well, I'll tell you, I've spent a lot of time, most of my time has been on set, and that is a luxury, a privilege that most first-time filmmakers don't have. It's usually that you spend however many years writing a script and developing it and getting this vision, and then you get tossed onto a set and you've not spent a lot of time there, and you don't know how it works. It's real on-the-job training, and it can really affect, I think, the tone of the film in relation to the thing that you prepared, your script. I was very blessed that I didn't have that problem. But what I realized as soon as we finished the movie was that we had to edit it together, and I did not have a lot of experience with post-production.

And it was a real journey to sit there with Patrick [Lawrence], our incredible editor, and really not just feel like I was putting pieces together. Because that's step one, is just putting the puzzle together, but then going, "Okay, does this feel like the thing that I wrote? Does this feel like the day that we shot it?" And it's a completely different process than either of those other two. It was a great challenge, and I'm so, so, so lucky that I have this partner, Patrick Lawrence, who at a certain point really did say, "Hey listen, I know that we're over here, sitting in front of a computer screen trying to piece things together, but let's talk about the emotional aspect of it. Let's talk about the things you were doing on set and the things you were doing when you were writing it that got you here and what that's supposed to be."

So in that respect, sitting in that little room with one other guy for however many months, trying to figure out what we were trying to say, was more therapeutic than shooting the dang thing and just as therapeutic as writing it. 

You bring up a point about the therapeutic writing process of this. How do you feel, just as a father, how do you feel that impacted the movie? Is it a thing where it's so intrinsic to your everyday life and who you are as an individual, as a father of two children, that you can't even separate how it impacted it because it impacts everything? Or is this a story that you've had in mind for a few years, but now it's taken on a different meaning as a father?

No, no, no. I think much more the former. This is a movie about parenthood and about reckoning with parenthood and how becoming a dad, in my case, really changed who I am and my perspective on the world and how I treat other people. All of that, of course, is very useful when you're at work and you're dealing with people and you're dealing with issues, and you're able to couch that perspective in it. 

But no, the purpose of this film, from a personal perspective, was to talk about how people change and how the things that we carry with us are not just ours. They're gifts to the people that we love, to our family, to our kids, and our friends. That informed everything. It informed even the struggle of going off and making it and going, "Oh, my gosh. I'm leaving my family, and I'm going to miss them." And as supportive as they are, how can I use even that feeling to push this story forward?

Since you mentioned just how many movies you've been on, you've worked with and collaborated with other filmmakers on so many various projects over the years, did you find yourself, now that you are directing a feature, and collaborating in the editing process, were you reaching out to former collaborators to gain some insight? Was there a specific source of, "Hey, do you have any insight on this?" or do you think this film, this entire experience is a product of just subconsciously absorbing every lesson you've learned on every film set over the years?

Well, as my therapist says, both things can be true. Listen, I had Rian, and I had other filmmakers who I've worked with there every step of the way. Even if it was just over the phone or email or text, I had a great collection of people whose brains I could pick and whose support I could ask for through the entire process, especially Josh Ruben, who had made two amazing films. He was there on set, able to support me, not just as a producer and as an actor, but also as somebody who I appreciate as a filmmaker, so I had an incredible source of support.

But I also had, at a certain point, it was an interesting conversation that I had right after we wrapped the movie, with Frank Oz, who I became friendly with after Knives Out. Frank, during the post process, right when I finished the film, he said, "Listen, you have to understand that the people who you're working with, they need to want to be there, and they need to want to say 'yes' to you, and they need to want to say 'yes' to the film." And that's an incredible responsibility. 

So every step in post, but then previously on set, after reflecting on my experiences with Rian and other filmmakers, that became something that I realized was a throughline with all these great filmmakers that I was able to talk to, was this idea that you are really there, that the director is really there to protect the crew and the cast and make them feel comfortable and excited and happy to be there.

That was something that was told to me as words of wisdom, but then obviously very up to me to foster, you know what I mean? And to see through. I'll tell you, it's not easy, man. People who work on movies are ... They're great people because they really understand a unified family dynamic. 

Blood Relatives will be exclusively available on Shudder on November 22nd.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.