AMC’s Interview with the Vampire series just changed and embellished a major part of the book it’s based on. In episode five of season two, “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape,” we get a proper flashback to Daniel’s 1973 interview with Louis in San Francisco. Luke Brandon Field plays Eric Bogosian’s character of reporter Daniel Molly in the flashbacks. Things suddenly go off the rails in this version of the interview, far more than they ever did in Rice’s original novel. Here’s how the Interview with the Vampire series changed and expanded on a major moment in the original novel’s ending.
Please note: The following article contains discussions of sensitive themes.
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976, but she actually wrote it in 1973. This is likely why the series placed Daniel’s original interview in that year. In the novel, we never really know where Louis encountered Daniel, simply called “the Boy” in the book, and agreed to an interview with him. (The name Daniel Molloy is not attributed to him until book three, The Queen of the Damned). The novel starts with the interview already in progress. However, Rice implies that they met at a bar in Interview with the Vampire. The series makes that official, with Daniel agreeing to interview with Louis in a San Francisco pub called Polynesian Mary’s.
This is but a small change, though; the Interview with the Vampire series goes on to alter events from the book much more deeply than this clarification. Before we get into that, though, let’s look at what originally happened.
In the Interview with the Vampire novel, Louis is alone when Daniel interviews him. At the end of the interview, Daniel begs Louis to give the vampire life one more shot, pleading with him to make him into a vampire, and his companion. Louis is disgusted at Daniel’s request, feeling the entire point of his story was lost on him. An enraged Louis then attacks and bites Daniel, yet stops short of killing him. In the novel, Daniel wakes up the next day, grateful for his life but drained of blood. He runs off, interview tapes in tow, looking for Lestat, based on the clues in Louis’ confessions.
Meanwhile, in the 1994 Interview with the Vampire film, Louis attacks Daniel, but doesn’t feed from him. Daniel escapes that very night, and it is Lestat who appears in his car and bites him. The Interview with the Vampire TV series changes the events of that original interview session even more than the movie did.
In the series, we learn that Daniel wasn’t alone with Louis while interviewing him for one night in the early ‘70s. When he asks Louis to make him into a vampire, the vampire flies into a rage just as in the novel. Louis bites him, but this is where things change in the Interview with the Vampire series change drastically from Rice’s prose. The vampire Armand (Assad Zaman) suddenly arrives on the scene, and saves Daniel from Louis’ bloodlust and wrath. Louis then explodes on Armand, partially due to the drugs in Daniel’s system, which he just took into his own body.
Louis proceeds to tell Armand that life with him is boring and dull and colorless, and has been for decades. Armand, meanwhile, is furious at how obvious it is that Louis never got over his maker, Lestat, given how often he mentioned him in the interview. A despondent Louis then leaves the house in the middle of the day, ready to meet the sun and die. He talks about his beloved Claudia calling to him from beyond. The morning sun begins to scald his skin, but Armand rescues him, although he is badly burnt and in agony.
As Louis lies in bed suffering and burnt, windows blocking out sunlight with newspapers, a very angry Armand takes mental control of Daniel’s body, forcing him to recall painful memories he’s pried from his mind, a major change in events from Interview with the Vampire. He keeps him hostage in their home in San Francisco for up to six days. Next to him is the corpse of an unfortunate neighbor Armand killed after he witnessed the events of the morning. Armand feels jealousy toward him, as Louis confessed things to Daniel he never told Armand. Eventually, at Louis’ request, he chooses not to kill Daniel, although that was his original plan. He erases his memory of everything but the interview with Louis, up until the point Louis attacked him.
In the modern day in Dubai, Louis realizes that Armand “edited” his memories of the events as well, making him forget his suicide by sun attempt and the violent argument that preceded it. It’s only in the modern day that both Louis and Daniel realize Armand has been removing their memories to his liking, something that doesn’t sit well with either the vampire or interviewer. What will happen now that both Louis and Daniel know what Armand has done to their minds? We’ll have to wait and see how the rest of Interview with the Vampire season two plays out and how it continues to change or stays to true its original source texts.