Marjorie Rosen, a New York-based writer, met with Frank Langella on an appropriately bleak day. They talked while Langella drank his fill of Tab.

Q 1

PLAYBOY: In seduction, Dracula starts at the neck. Where do you start?

Frank Langella: (Laughing) That's none of your business.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: Why is Dracula so appealing these days?

Frank Langella: I think sexuality and immortality are probably two good reasons why he's having a revival right now. Sex and eternal life--they're an unbeatable combination. Also, Dracula deals with a character who's larger than life. After all, he is the quintessential needer and quintessential survivor. Each of us needs something--food, liquor, pot, whatever--to help us survive. Dracula needs blood. He must have it. But once he's gotten his fill off it, he has ten or twelve remaining hours of evening in which to live. He's perfectly able to socialize, to have a conversation as you and I are having now, to find humor in things.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Then he's the perfect party guest?

Frank Langella: Yes, the nice extra man. But what fascinated me when I began working on him was the thought, Why can't he get what he needs for a night and then have an interesting time in other ways? Why can't he be vulnerable? Why can't he fall in love?

Q 4

PLAYBOY: What is the nature of Dracula's sexuality?

Frank Langella: Vampires are sexy to a woman perhaps because the fantasy is similar to that of the man on the white horse sweeping her off to paradise. It's interesting to fantasize having a man sink his teeth into your neck for sustenance, knowing that it isn't going to be terribly painful but rather very exciting. The way to a woman's heart is through her veins, through her neck. Certainly, in mortal lovemaking, kissing the neck, being close to the neck, kissing the ear are very exciting. So why shouldn't the woman take the fantasy of that sensation one step further--to penetration?

Q 5

PLAYBOY: Is penetration of the neck the extent of Dracula's lovemaking?

Frank Langella: That's up to the woman's imagination. But in my mind, he's a man; he's a man first.