List of Forever Knight Characters
The cast of Forever Knight altered in each of its three seasons, though there were three characters who appeared throughout the run of the series (Nick Knight, Natalie Lambert, and LaCroix). In addition to the parts played by featured actors, there are a number of recurring characters; and some guests have also proven popular with fans. Given the nature of the series, a significant distinction should also be made between those characters who are vampire and those who are mortal (i.e. human).
Main Characters
When considering just which characters in Forever Knight should be considered principals, fans generally adopt one of two tactics.
- They include only Nick, his immediate vampire family, Natalie, his two partners, and Vachon. All of these were featured roles; but this excludes the three police captains, which were also featured roles.
- They include in addition all three captains, as well as some of the recurring parts—Screed (always), often Urs and/or Divia, and sometimes Grace and Miklos.
Nick Knight
"Nick Knight" (played by Geraint Wyn Davies) is the protagonist of the series, appearing in all episodes. The character is always canonically seen as a vampire, except in the flashback to the episode "Queen of Harps" (which recounts how he became a Crusader), and in flashbacks that recount how he was brought across by LaCroix in 1228.
Through the Middle Ages, Nick used the name "Nicolas de Brabant". (This may be his human name, and may indicate that he originally came from Brabant.) However, down the centuries, he has assumed many identities. Currently, he is living in Toronto under the name "Nick Knight", and works as a Homicide detective for the Metropolitan Police. In Season One, he is assigned to the 27th Precinct; and, in Seasons Two and Three, he is assigned to the 96th Precinct.
Since the mid 19th century Nick has sought a way to return to mortality, whether through magic or medicine. He eschews killing, and nowadays tries to drink only cow's blood.
Natalie Lambert
"Dr. Natalie Lambert" (played by Catherine Disher) is a co-starring role, appearing in all episodes. The character is human. Dr. Lambert is a pathologist working for the Coroner's Office in Toronto. As such, she is one of Nick's colleagues, autopsying the victims whose murders he solves.
As recounted in the flashback to the episode "Only the Lonely", Natalie met Nick when his supposed corpse was brought into the morgue two years before the series opens; and she quickly offered to research a cure for his condition. As a result, the two have become close friends; and it is strongly implied in canon that their feelings have drifted towards the romantic. For the first two seasons, Natalie is the only human in the regular cast who knows of the existence of vampires.
LaCroix
"LaCroix" (played by Nigel Bennett) is a co-starring role, appearing in all three seasons, but not in every episode. He is always canonically seen as a vampire except in the flashback to the episode "A More Permanent Hell", which recounts how he was brought across by his young daughter, Divia. The same episode revealed that he was a general in Ancient Rome. His Latin name had the praenomen Lucius. This probably connects with his current first name, which was eventually revealed to be "Lucien".
LaCroix is Nick's master. He revels in his vampire state, and strives hard to persuade Nick to feel the same way.
Apparently killed in the series premiere, LaCroix returned to Toronto in Season Two, where he became a night-time radio host. In Season Three, he also took over running the Raven nightclub.
Janette DuCharme
"Janette" (played by Deborah Duchêne) is a co-starring role in Seasons One and Two, appearing in most episodes. The character also returned for a guest appearance in Season Three. Janette is always canonically seen as a vampire except in the flashback to the Season Two episode "A Fate Worse than Death", which recounts her origin as a prostitute in Paris about a thousand years ago. In some eras, she has used the surname "DuCharme".
Janette was brought across by LaCroix, which in some manner makes her Nick's sister. However, it was she who seduced Nick when he was a mortal and introduced him to LaCroix; and, some time after he was brought across, the two were lovers. In particular, they lived together as if married for almost a century during the Renaissance.
In the present, Janette owns and manages the Raven, a Goth nightclub in Toronto.
Don Schanke
"Det. Don Schanke" (played by John Kapelos) is a co-starring role in Seasons One and Two, appearing in all episodes. The character is human, and unaware of the existence of vampires. (However, in the episode "Close Call", he did briefly suspect that Nick was one.)
In the series premiere, Schanke is assigned to work as Nick's partner. He is an experienced detective, but tends to play second fiddle to Nick, who is a flamboyant high flyer. Overweight (and particularly fond of souvlaki), a married man with an unfulfilled eye for the ladies, Schanke often is treated as a comic foil.
Tracy Vetter
"Det. Tracy Vetter" (played by Lisa Ryder) is a co-starring role in Season Three, appearing in all episodes. The character is human.
In the Season Three premiere, after Schanke is killed in a plane crash, Tracy is assigned to work as Nick's new partner. Although just promoted to detective, she is the daughter of a police commissioner and clearly being fast-tracked—about which she is rather defensive.
Tracy learns of the existence of vampires in the season premiere, and is friends with the vampire Javier Vachon; but she is unaware of the fact that her partner is also a vampire.
Joe Stonetree
"Capt. Joe Stonetree" (played by Gary Farmer) is a featured supporting role in Season One, appearing in all episodes. The character is human, and a member of one of the First Nations. Stonetree is in charge of the 27th Precinct.
Amanda Cohen
"Capt. Amanda Cohen" (played by Natsuko Ohama) is a featured supporting role in Season Two, appearing in all episodes. The character is human, of Asian origin (despite her surname), and married with a daughter. Cohen is in charge of the 96th Precinct.
Joe Reese
"Capt. Joe Reese" (played by Blu Mankuma) is a featured supporting role in Season Three, appearing in all episodes. The character is human, black, married with children, and probably originally from the United States (since his brother was killed in the Vietnam War). Reese is promoted to take over the 96th Precinct after Cohen is killed in a plane crash.
Javier Vachon
"Javier Vachon" (played by Ben Bass) is a featured role in Season Three, appearing in ten episodes. The character is a vampire. His origin is recounted in the flashback to "Black Buddha, Part Two", the second half of the season premiere.
Vachon was a conquistador, brought across at the same time as an Incan warrior, who thereafter pursued him. For some centuries, Vachon travelled with a variable group of friends, including Screed, Urs, and Bourbon. The crew broke up sometime before "Black Buddha".
In "Black Buddha", Vachon is leaving Toronto on an airplane that is destroyed by a bomb. Tracy discovers him searching for one of his hands, which has been blown off. A long-haired "bad boy" in a black leather jacket with a motor bike, Vachon dislikes responsibility. However, he reluctantly accedes to Nick's insistence that he remain in Toronto to protect Tracy.
Screed
"Screed" (played by Greg Kramer) is a recurring role in Season Three, appearing in five episodes and mentioned in two others. The character is always seen as a vampire, but is canonically identified as being a "carouche", a different type of vampire from the usual. Specifically, in Screed's case, this refers to his preference for draining rats of their blood rather than just attacking humans.
For some centuries, Screed travelled with Vachon. In the present, he lives in a cellar in Toronto and hunts the sewers and alleys for his prey.
Urs
"Urs" (played by Kristin Lehman) is a recurring role in Season Three, appearing in four episodes. The character is seen in the present day as a vampire; but her origin was recounted in the flashback to the episode "Hearts of Darkness". She was brought across by Vachon after she asked him to kill her, and remains canonically ambivalent about her vampire condition.
In the 1890s, Urs was a nightclub singer; some scenes set in the Raven suggest that today she now works a dancer there.
Grace Balthazar
"Grace" (played by Sandi Ross) is a recurring character, appearing in four episodes in the latter half of Season One and three more in the first part of Season Two. A large, brisk black woman with a sense of humour, she works as Natalie's lab assistant at the morgue. The two are clearly on friendly terms. Her surname "Balthazar" appears in scripts but was never actually uttered on air; however fans consider it to be canon.
Miklos
"Miklos" (played by Earl Pastko) is a recurring character in three episodes in the first part of Season Two. As one of the bartenders at the Raven, he is in Janette's confidence. However, it is never actually stated that he is a vampire himself; and fans vary in their interpretation.
Other Human Characters in the Present Day
Included here are those characters who are either human throughout the episode(s) in which they appear, or—if turned into a vampire—are mostly seen as human, only being brought across towards the end of the story and then killed off, thus eliminating the possibility of their return at some time in the future.
Myra Schanke
- Main article: Myra Schanke
"Myra Schanke" is Don Schanke's wife. During the first two seasons, when Schanke was Nick's partner, Myra never actually appeared on screen. (She appeared briefly, and at a distance, in a scene in "Black Buddha" where Nick goes to tell her of Schanke's death.) She was nevertheless talked about in almost every episode, Schanke being a very much married man, despite claiming to have a roving eye. Their marriage is clearly a happy one, though not without stress: Myra has a penchant for strange hobbies and holidays, at least from her husband's perspective.
Jenny Schanke
- Main article: Jenny Schanke
"Jenny Schanke" is the daughter of Nick's partner in the first two seasons. Like her mother, Myra, Jenny basically never appeared on screen. (In the first season episode "Dead Issue", there is a brief scene at the end in which Schanke is seen talking to a child at a picnic; and this is often taken to be Jenny.)
Richard, Sara, and Amy Lambert
"Richard Lambert", his wife "Sara", and their daughter "Amy" (played respectively by Lindsay Merrithew, Shelley Young, and Ashley Brown) are guest characters that appeared in the Season One episode "I Will Repay". Richard is the younger brother of Nick's friend and colleague, Dr. Natalie Lambert. A lawyer working as a Crown prosecutor, he is mortally injured by an escaping prisoner. At Natalie's request, Nick brings him across; but Richard goes out of control and has to be killed. Sara briefly knows that her husband survived; but she never learns the details, and her memory is wiped at the end of the episode.
Fans sometimes write backstory about Natalie and Richard's childhood. It is fanon that Sara takes Amy and moves to Vancouver after her husband's death; and they often appear in futurefic about Natalie's activities.
Richard Vetter
"Richard Vetter" is mentioned frequently in Season Three, but the character never actually appears on screen. He is the father of Tracy Vetter, Nick's new partner. A former police officer, he is now a member of the Police Commission, and not above using his influence to help both his daughter and his protegés in their careers. Tracy rather resents his interference.
Barbara Vetter
"Barbara Vetter" (played by Sharry Flett), having been mentioned in a number of previous episodes in Season Three, was a guest character in "Avenging Angel". She is Tracy's mother. In comparison with her fraught relationship with her father, Tracy says that, "Mum's all right."(Need to add episode.) Although there is no earlier hint of marital trouble, "Avenging Angel" reveals that Barbara and Richard are in the middle of divorce. Barbara clearly has had trouble coping with the effects of her husband's career, which has led to her having a drinking problem (also never mentioned in previous episodes). She objected to her daughter following in Richard's footsteps.
Pierre Rochefort
"Father Pierre Rochefort" (played by Michael McManus) is a guest character in the Season One episode "For I Have Sinned". He is a young priest attached to St. John's Church, a fictional Roman Catholic parish in Toronto. When he learns the identity of a serial killer, Rochefort is initially perplexed as to the correct course of action, but then decides he is obliged to preserve the secrets of the confessional. Even when taken in for questioning by the police, therefore, he maintains silence.
Since Nick Knight (originally a medieval Crusader) is Catholic, fans often examine his situation from a religious perspective. When a priest is required by the plot, Rochefort is often pressed into service as a familiar character.
Liam O'Neal
"Chief Inspector Liam O'Neal" (played by Cedric Smith) is a guest character in the Season Two episode "Bad Blood". He is an Irish police officer working with Interpol who has been tracking a serial killer that turns up in Toronto. O'Neal is aware of the existence of vampires, having nearly been drained by one as a boy. Somewhat altered physically by the attack, he is both sensitive to sunlight and aware of the proximity of vampires—meaning that he quickly realizes Nick's true nature.
O'Neal hunts vampires; and it is this that has intrigued fans, many of whom have worked similar "hunters" into fan fiction.
Human Characters from Flashbacks
Included here are those human characters who appear only in one or more of the flashback scenes, but not in the present day.
Fleur de Brabant
- Main article: Fleur de Brabant
"Fleur" (played by Claire Rankin) is a guest character who appeared in the flashback to the Season Two episode "Be My Valentine". Fleur is Nicolas de Brabant's younger sister. Shortly after being brought across, he returned home accompanied by LaCroix and Janette for a last visit with his mortal family. LaCroix fell in love with Fleur. However, Nick persuaded him that it was her mortal purity that attracted him, and LaCroix did not bring her across. In the flashback to the Season Three episode "Fallen Idol", the two of them visit Fleur's grave.
André
"André" (played by Hayden Christensen) is a guest character who appeared in the flashback to "Fallen Idol". He is Fleur's son, and hence Nick's nephew. Nick becomes the boy's guardian after Fleur's death. However, André eventually discovers that Nick is a vampire, and repudiates him.
Although André is sometimes mentioned in fan fiction, he does not have much of a following—unlike his mother, who is very popular. As a joke, April French invented an affiliation, the Andreivichs, nominally for fans of André; but, in fact, it never really existed.
Seline
"Seline" (played by Gina Wilkinson) is a guest character that appeared in the flashback to "A More Permanent Hell". She lived in Pompeii in the first century A.D., and is the mother of LaCroix's daughter Divia.
In the script, Seline is described as the madam of what, from its appearance, would be a high-class brothel (so "Seline" may well be a professional alias). Most fans take this as canon, although it is not explicit in the episode as aired.
The name "Seline" is frequently spelled "Selene" in fan fiction. However, it is the version with "i" that appears in the credits of the episode.
Other Vampire Characters
Included here are those characters who are either vampires throughout the episode(s) in which they appear, or—if first introduced as human—remain alive (or undead) at the end of the episode, allowing for the possibility of their return at some time in the future.
Divia
- Main article: Divia
"Divia" (played by Kathryn Long) is a recurring character that was first introduced in the flashback to the Season Two episode "A More Permanent Hell". The following season, she was the antagonist in the episode "Ashes to Ashes". Divia is the daughter of LaCroix and Seline, born in Pompeii in the first century A.D. When she was ill, she was brought across by Qa'ra, whom her mother believed to be an ancient healer. When Mount Vesuvius erupted, Divia brought LaCroix across. The flashback in "Ashes to Ashes" describes how, some twenty years later, she proposed they become lovers, and he beheaded her. Two millennia later, she returned for revenge.
Qa'ra
- Main article: Qa'ra
The character "Qa'ra" never actually appears on screen. However, he is mentioned twice, in the flashbacks to "A More Permanent Hell" and "Ashes to Ashes", though he is only named in the latter. Q'ara is the ancient vampire who brought across LaCroix's mortal daughter Divia.
Bourbon
"Bourbon" (played by Normand Bissonnette) is a guest character who appears in the flashbacks to two episodes in Season Three, "My Boyfriend is a Vampire" and "Hearts of Darkness" (though, in the latter, the actor doesn't have any lines). Bourbon is one of the vagabond vampires who travelled with Vachon's crew for a couple of centuries. The book for Season Three describes him as having been a musketeer in life.
Unlike Screed and Urs (who each played a prominent role in at least one episode), Bourbon was never more than a bit part. For this reason, although the character appears occasionally in fan fiction about Vachon's past, he is rarely a prominent figure; and he never had his own faction.
the Inca
- Main article: the Inca
"The Inca" (played by Damon D'Oliveira) was a guest character in the two-part Season Three premiere "Black Buddha". The flashback to the second episode recounted his and Vachon's joint origin in the 16th century: after mortally wounding each other, they were brought across by a mysterious vampire in a feathered cloak, who gave them the eternal order to protect those who cherish life. Vachon refused to accept this responsibility; and the Inca pursued him for centuries. However, "Black Buddha" climaxed with his heroic death saving downtown Toronto from a bomb.
Alma
- Main article: Alma
"Alma" (played by Tracey Cook) is a guest character is only one episode, Season One's "For I Have Sinned", where she nearly kills Nick's partner, Schanke. She is clearly at home in the Raven, and appears on friendly terms with Janette, who mentions later in the season that Alma was the one who designed a new decor for the club.
Larry Merlin
- Main article: Larry Merlin
"Larry Merlin" (played by Bill Macdonald) is a guest character in only one episode, Season One's "Hunters". He constructs false identities for members of the vampire community, and fakes computer records of Nick's past. The name may well be an alias, but this is not stated in canon.
Aristotle
- Main article: Aristotle
"Aristotle" (played by R. D. Reid) is a guest character in only one episode, Season Two's "Forward into the Past", where he appears in both the flashback and the present-day story. Aristotle constructs false identities for vampires who wish to move on, to which end he keeps a massive data system using state-of-the-art technology. He and Nick Knight are on excellent terms. It is not stated in canon whether he is the historical Aristotle, simply has the same first name, or uses "Aristotle" as an alias.
Feliks Twist
- Main article: Feliks Twist
"Feliks Twist" (played by Andrew Gillies) is a guest character in only one episode, Season Two's "Blood Money". Nick turns to him for financial assistance after the murder of his investment analyst. Despite being a vampire, Feliks is a keen gardener with a large greenhouse where his plants are grown under artificial lighting.
Serena
"Serena" (played by Denise Virieux) is a guest star in Season Two's "Baby, Baby", which revolves largely around her relationship with Nick. An independent-minded cross-dresser in 1920s Paris, Serena wanted a child without the complications of marriage; but her allusive approach to Nick led him to believe she wanted to become a vampire. He only learned the truth after bringing her over, for which she has never forgiven him. Working as a welder in Toronto, she believes she has correctly interpreted a vampire myth about a way to regain her mortality; but, as this entails murder, Nick tries to stop her. The character resonates, though there is surprisingly little fan fiction about her. She has occasionally been written into war posts.
Animals
Included here are animal guest characters whose appearance in Forever Knight was sufficiently memorable to endear them to fans.
Sydney
- Main article: Sydney (Forever Knight)
"Sydney" (or Sydney Lambert) is Natalie Lambert's cat. Though presumably around off scene (and often appearing in fan fiction), he actually only appeared in one episode, "Only the Lonely".
Perry
"Perry" is a golden retriever that appeared in the episode "Blind Faith". He is the guide dog to Jody Fraser, a blind woman who works for the Toronto police force. However, he is bitten by a carouche and turned into a vampire. At the end of the episode, Perry bites his mistress and brings her over. They then leave Toronto.
It was proposed that a faction be created for Perry, to be called the Perry-hounds; or, alternatively, that a faction called the Woof Pack be created for fans affiliated with Perry and another dog, Raleigh, that appeared in the flashback to the episode. Neither faction ever amounted to much. However, the Unnamed Faction regularly writes Perry into their war posts, treating him as a pet of their own.