@Courtesy of AMC+
No one quite captures the mysticism and heightened reality of supernatural beings who bask in the glory of fame in an effort to reclaim their story quite like Lestat. The infamous titular anti-hero of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat is a leading eccentric supernatural being, who has turned to a career of being a rock star in order to take back his narrative.
Over the course of its first two seasons, which where marketed under the name of Interview with the Vampire, the project attracted a loyal base of passionate fans. The show, which embraces the queer elements of Rice’s work, has also garnered widespread critical acclaim. The small screen adaptation has also received nominations at such awards ceremonies as the Emmys, GLAAD Media Awards, Gold Derby TV Awards and Critics Choice Super Awards.
Creator-writer-showrunner Rollin Jones, Mark Johnson and Hannah Moscovitch are executive producing The Vampire Lestat. The late Anne Rice, who wrote The Vampire Chronicles novel series, and her son, Christopher Rice, also served as producers on the project.
AMC announced at San Diego Comic-Con this past July that it renamed the show to The Vampire Lestat, in order to emphasize the adaptation’s shift to the eponymous character’s point of view. Rice’s first novel, Interview with the Vampire, inspired the perspective of the show’s first two seasons.
The adaptation focuses on the relationship between Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and the vampire who turned him, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). Throughout the seasons, Louis recounted his story to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). In Season 3, the titular anti-hero becomes a rock star and tries to reclaim his story from the way Louis told it.
Along with Reid, Anderson and Bogosian, Delainey Hayles (Cluadia) and Assad Zaman (Armand) will reprise their roles in The Vampire Lestat. The drama has also cast Jennifer Ehle (Lioness, Zero Dark Thirty) as Gabriella, Ella Ballentine as Baby Jenks, Jeanine Serralles (Apples Never Fall) as Chrstine Claire, Christopher Heyerdahl (Under the Banner of Heaven) as Marius and Damien Atkins as Magnus.
Reid, Anderson, Bogosian and Moscovitch discussed the first show in Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe during a press conference at last month’s New York Comic Con. The anticipated third season of the gothic horror television series will premiere next year on AMC and AMC+.
@Courtesy of AMC+
Q: Jacob, when playing Louis in this era, are there any figures that inspired your performance?
Jacob Anderson: No, there weren’t any specific ones…But I have Eartha Kitt in my mind. I think about the way she moves and looked at other people. So I watched a lot of Eartha Kitt’s interviews before Season 1, and I always go back to that.
Q: Sam, Lestat wants to be loved for who and what he is. But does he know what that is anymore?
Sam Reid: I think if we had an answer to that, we wouldn’t have a show! I think that’s the journey, and we’re trying to work that out.
Hannah Moscovitch: That’s the whole season! But I’m ready for it.
Q: Daniel’s turning in the book series was very romantic. Will the television series retain any of that energy on screen?
Eric Bogosian: I’m not sure if Armand’s love for Daniel is real. It’s as romantic as when a child carries around a stuffed animal until it only has one eye left.
Q: Sam, will Lestat’s love for Louis change the narrative for the third season of The Vampire Lestat?
Sam Reid: I think audiences should take his love for Louis as a given. That’s always going to inform what he does. He’s also always grappling with his ego.
There’s a great chapter in the books when Marius rescues him after he’s taken. The first thing he says when he wakes up is, “Vanity.” So he’s always grappling with ego.
Rolin (Jones) and Hannah have crafted him as a vampire who takes himself very seriously in a position that’s not taken seriously in 2025, when we’re dealing with everything else going wrong. We’re watching the most devastating things on the news on a daily basis. So what’s the value of a supernatural being who dances aground in leather pants? So I think is ego is super present.
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Q: Eric, what do you think being turned so close to the end of his human life does to Daniel? Does it make him more cautious or carefree? How does his knowledge from his 75 years of being a human influence his new life as a vampire?
Eric Bogosian: To be turned later in life means you’re going to carry more of what you were into this other being, which is not human. You’re a vampire, so it’s another dimension. But he’s laden with all of this. A big part of this season’s story is the fact that Daniel wrestling with the endless contradictions of being suddenly immortal.
I put in one little extra thing from me just to play the character. For a man who spent his life being an investigative journalist and thinks very logically, the world of vampires is not logical. These guys don’t do logical things. So it really bends his mind and creates a lot of stress in this third season. It’s hard for him, but also fun.
Q: Hannah, the first two seasons deal with memories and the act of remembering. How will the third season explore how memory not only affects Lestat, but also the other characters?
Hannah Moscovitch: Well, we had a vampire who wanted to be interviewed in Seasons 1 and 2. He also wanted to understand which parts of the past he had forgotten. We had an unreliable narrator who didn’t remember some things.
But this season, we have none of that! Louis has changed the show. Lestat remembers everything, and if anyone was going to interview him, it would be himself.
But this season is about Lestat’s wrestling with how his experiences have psychologically scarred him. So we don’t have an interviewer, unless it’s Lestat himself.
Lestat remembers everything, so there’s a question of, what do those memories do to him? When you’ve lived for 265 years and you’ve gone relentlessly forward, but there’s all of this horror in your life and you’ve never examined it at all, you start to examine things. You start to sing songs about yourself, so all kinds of things start to happen.
Also, his daughter is dead, and his relationship of 77 years has ended. He has to figure out a lot of stuff now. His entire life has been broken open. That’s what this season will be about.
Q: How will music play a role in recounting Lestat’s memories and history?
Hannah Moscovitch: We are going to show the history of Lestat through music. There are different registers of music throughout his exploration of himself.
Q: Sam, speaking of music, while you were listening to all this different music to get into Lestat’s headspace, was there a particular song that helped you bring the character out?
Sam: I never really fathomed that I would be barraged with music this way after I was cast four years ago. Ever since then, I’ve been processing the character through music. I became really present in the role as a result.
But don’t take this the wrong way; the show’s not a musical. But Lestat’s an artist who wants to express himself through his music.
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