AMC’s Interview with the Vampire serves up lots of Easter eggs for fans of The Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice. In episode five of season two, “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape,” we get one that’s fairly obscure to even some of the biggest fans of Rice’s novels. In the series, the interview in question is actually a “round two.” Eric Bogosian plays Daniel Molloy, the reporter interviewing the titular vampire, Louis (Jacob Anderson). “Round one” of the interview took place in 1973, just as in the original novel. In episode five, we get a proper flashback to that interview, and the house it takes place in looks exactly like the home that inspired Rice over 50 years ago.
In Anne Rice’s 1976 novel, the vampire Louis gives his interview to an unnamed boy reporter (played by Luke Brandon Field). The interview occurs in a house on Divisadero Street in San Francisco. This is near where New Orleans native Rice was living at the time with her husband, the poet Stan Rice. Louis is said to be looking wistfully out of the window at traffic going by the busy street. A street to this day filled with popular bars and shops of all kinds. Rice chose the 1888 Victorian house because she thought it reflected Louis himself. It was an old-fashioned creation standing among neon signs and modern life, an anachronism blending into the background.
Anne Rice never gave an actual address for the house in the novel, just the street it was on. However, in The Vampire Companion: A Guide to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles by Katherine Ramsland, she finally says where the house she imagined Louis gave the interview was. It was a Victorian home with a stained glass window, on Divisadero not far from Haight Street. The Vampire Companion shows an illustration of the house, but not a photo or an address. But it didn’t take ardent Rice fans long to discover which house it actually was. The Vampire Companion all but drew an “X” as to where it was in fact.
The 1994 film version of Interview with the Vampire still had Louis give the interview in San Francisco. However, it was from an apartment on Market Street instead (which you can see above). The producers of the TV series clearly knew about the house on Divisadero Street which served as inspiration. They either filmed there (unlikely) or created an exterior that matched it. Why is that address important? Given the significance of the Vampire Chronicles series to the LGBTQ community, it matters that Divisadero Street is where Castro Street ends. And Castro Street is one of the original gay neighborhoods in America. So tipping the hat to the house that inspired Anne Rice to imagine a vampire looking out its window? That was a very nice touch.
