There was a feeling of excitement in the air this season as The Vampire Lestat crept closer to reality. And that feeling revolved around the idea that Devil’s Minion, the romance between Daniel and Armand, was about to become truly canon. In some ways, Armand and Daniel’s love, which percolated in the background during Interview with the Vampire, took some important steps forward, emerging from seed to bud in the mix of Lestat’s story with Armand’s pronouncements of love and devotion, and Daniel, at the very least, joining his maker’s side of things. But in others, we’re still waiting for the full bloom of DM to emerge into the sun. (Literally, because both vampires can daywalk now.) And that wait, and the accompanying fear that it will never happen, that so often plagues queer love stories on our screens, can be an intensity. But at the very least, Beloveds, we’re not the only ones crossing our fingers to see the rest of Armand and Daniel’s story unfold in the future. In Nerdist‘s conversation with Eric Bogosian, who plays Daniel, and Assad Zaman, who plays Armand, we chatted about the idea of “physically intimate scenes” between Zaman’s Armand and Bogosian’s Daniel and the hope we all have that they’re forthcoming.
We’d been discussing the idea of whether Armand and Daniel had to have shared blood in The Vampire Lestat in order for Daniel to walk in the sunshine, when Bogosian offered the following thought, “I mean, we haven’t had the scenes where we’re actually physically intimate, and I don’t know when we’re physically intimate. I have a feeling that there’s so much to explore. And we actually, we’ve talked about it a little bit, but I think if we had the scene, then we would’ve had that experience [blood sharing]. And we wanted to have that scene, and we never got it.”
Zaman, who was nodding along with Bogosian’s sentiments, considers, though, that they (and we) haven’t gotten that scene yet in The Vampire Lestat. He concludes Bogosian’s thought by offering, “Which is why there’s always room in season four, I think. There’s a lot of room.”
I, too, think there is plenty of room in season four for the story of Armand and Daniel to unfold and for our much hoped-for “physically intimate scenes” to occur. And I do believe that the tale of Devil’s Minion’s love is going in the direction we want it to head. It’s quite possible that, given that this was Lestat’s season about Lestat, it just wasn’t the time to go deeply into the romance between the pair. And that the show hoped to help us understand that everything was still proceeding in the right way through the scenes we did receive between the two.
All that said, I’ll echo Lestat’s notion of “it’s different for vampires,” by saying “it’s different for queer romances,” especially ones that might appear somehow queerer than even a “standard” queer story. (In this case, the idea that Eric Bogosian is an older actor of the kind rarely depicted in queer romances on our screens.) Inherently, a fear haunts these kinds of love stories, that, for whatever reasons, they’ll never be able to become as fully realized as other romances. For example, we all adore the Wall Slam and are so glad Devil’s Minion has one of its own. But how many of the other queer ships in the Wall Slam Hall of Fame NEVER became fully canon? Too many.
In real life, I would be the first to say that one does not need physical intimacy to have romantic love. But on our screens, in our stories, that all changes. The representation of queer love in all its forms in a visual medium should be seen. In the end, Armand and Daniel are both men with a clear history of physical/sexual love and intimacy with other men, so why should that change here as their love develops? Reasonably, I think that it won’t. That the story has been set up in The Vampire Lestat, and it is being told. Emotionally, I am fragile.
Ultimately, “physically intimate scenes,” let’s say, a kiss, or whatever it may be, between Zaman’s Armand and Bogosian’s Daniel would be seminal for queer representation on television should they take place. Older queer people exist, too, and they are living their sexiest, best, most fully-realized lives. We should celebrate that and work to remove the societal idea that it’s somehow strange to see such a thing depicted where we can. “Out and proud,” as Daniel Molloy would say.
And so, as Bogosian shares, “We want to have that scene,” and as Zaman notes, “There’s plenty of room for it,” and as I conclude, I, with all of you, dream of seeing the full, beautiful unfurling of Devil’s Minion come to life… Here’s to scenes of “physical intimacy” and a kiss or two (at least!) between Armand and Daniel in season four of The Vampire Lestat.
The Vampire Lestat is now streaming on AMC and AMC+ in full. You can snag The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice to read, if you’d like to know a little bit more about what’s going on.
Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. She’s STILL ready for Armand and Daniel to become canon in The Vampire Lestat so one of her ships can finally sail, but hey, so are Eric Bogosian and Assad Zaman. So the company in the Devil’s Minion standby line is good.
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