By Paige Murphy, Entertainment Editor

Amidst all the recent vampire craze comes a film that is different from the rest. Not only is the plot of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant a break from the norm, this movie was also made with the help of an Arkansan.

One of the exectutive producers, Courtney Pledger, was born in Little Rock and moved back after living in Jackson, Miss., and London. On Oct. 23, Pledger and the film’s lead actor Chris Massoglia attended a special screening of the movie for locals at Rave Theater and an after-party at Copeland’s Restaurant.

Pledger was an actor before she became a producer. She said that it was when she was on the 1981 TV series Walking Tall that she realized that acting wasn’t for her.

“[I realized] ‘I’m not gonna be Meryl Streep,’” Pledger said.

She said that it was her “great story skills and organizational skills” that led her to become a producer.

“It just seemed like the thing I was meant to do,” Pledger said.

The Vampire’s Assistant film is based on the first three books of the 12-book Cirque du Freak series by European author Darren O’Shaughnessy, whose pen name is the same as his main character, Darren Shan. The movie introduces the series by telling how Darren is forced to become a half-vampire in order to save his best friend’s life.

Pledger said that she found the books eight years ago and since then had wanted to make them into movies.

For 17-year-old Massoglia, who plays Darren Shan, The Vampire’s Assistant is his first big movie.

Massoglia said that before this film he had only been in a few TV movies and an independent film with Henry Winkler called A Plumm Summer.

Although Massoglia hadn’t heard of the Cirque du Freak series, he said that some of his friends who had read the books were very excited that he got to audition for the lead role.

The Vampire’s Assistant is directed by Paul Weitz (About a Boy) and also stars John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe — and the list goes on.

Massoglia said that getting to act with these Oscar-nominated actors was exciting.

“It didn’t really hit me until the second week of filming,” he said.

Massoglia said that when Reilly came on set the second week he was nervous at first, but that Reilly was great to work with and that Weitz helped him get his mind off of his nervousness.

“[A great experience was] being able to watch these guys do what they do,” Massoglia said.

Pledger also said that getting to work with this cast was fun.

“There were no divas,” Pledger said.

She said that Weitz succeeded in keeping everyone calm and relaxed on the set.

“The set was sort of the director’s temperament,” Pledger said.

Pledger said that the cast is signed for a sequel and there may be as many as three other movies depending on how well the first movie does.

“It was an awesome experience to be in the movie regardless of how it does in the box office,” Massoglia said.

Among their other coming works, Pledger is producing Ricky Gervais’ Flanimals and an animated movie titled Boo U., and Massoglia stars in the thriller The Hole, which is set to release in 2010.