French star Isabelle Huppert revels in vampire role with 'The Blood Countess'

BERLIN - French film mainstay Isabelle Huppert relished slipping into the role of a vampire for German director Ulrike Ottinger's darkly comic "The Blood Countess", she told journalists on Monday.

"To play a vampire, it's fun," she said ahead of its Berlin Film Festival premiere, where it is playing in the Special section. Ottinger's playful approach to the genre "gives another dimension to the pleasure of being a vampire," she added.

Huppert stars as Erzsebet Bathory, the Hungarian noblewoman, who according to legend, bathed in the blood of virgins in the belief it would grant her eternal youth.

Decked all in red, Huppert's countess flounces through Vienna's landmarks in search of a book with the power to kill vampires, accompanied by her pet bat and a coffin-shaped purse.

"It's not the kind of occasion where you approach a character from a psychological point of view. It's almost broader than this," said Huppert, a festival regular who was nominated for an Oscar for director Paul Verhoeven's 2016 "Elle."

Huppert also described meeting Ottinger more than two decades ago as a gift, calling the avant-garde director with exhibitions around the world "a visionary."

German actor Lars Eidinger, who plays the psychotherapist to the film's vegetarian vampire, recalled how he had wanted to work with Ottinger even if he didn't get the role he sought.

"It doesn't happen often that you meet somebody who embodies this kind of punk attitude in their work," he said.

-Reporting by Swantje Stein and Miranda Murray; Editing by Lisa Shumaker/Reuters