At the Interview with the Vampire season two New York premiere, Nerdist was excited to speak to the men of the hour, Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson. While Anderson only had a minute to spare, he was able to share a fascinating insight into Louis and his relationship with vampirism overall. Meanwhile, Reid went into a little bit more depth about the truth of Lestat’s backstory in Interview with the Vampire season two, carrying Louis around with him, and twisting the source material just a little bit.
Claudia introduces the notion of vampire pride to Louis in Interview with the Vampire season two. But does Jacob Anderson actually feel that Louis has vampire pride inside of him? Anderson shared, “I think that Louis is suppressing his vampire pride, and that’s a big part of this season. Part of his journey this season is discovering that and trying to, I don’t know, figure out who he is and what he is. But no, when she says it, I don’t think he has vampire pride.” Fascinating! But suppressing and not having are two entirely different things. It sounds like Louis may come out the other side of this season of Interview with the Vampire a bit more in tune with his vampirism.
Meanwhile, a character with no shortage of vampire pride is Reid’s Lestat. In fact, the way Armand tells it in Interview with the Vampire season two, episode three, Lestat is all too ready to put his vampirism on display. He’s breaking down outdated coven rules to embrace a life of lushness, opulence, and openness to a degree. However, Reid cautions not to take Armand’s version of events as the gospel truth. He notes of bringing scenes from The Vampire Lestat to life, “It was told by Armand, so it’s kind of adapted, a little bit. So, I may not necessarily believe it. But it was fun to do those scenes and go into that gear. There’s something interesting there.”
Reid does go on to say that in a potential season three of Interview with the Vampire, we’ll likely get to go deeper into Lestat’s vision of his story. He notes, “I would say that if we were to continue the story, we would continue the way we’re going, which is very faithful to the book. So the first two series have been Interview with the Vampire. And, well, it’s kind of stuck very closely to the plot in that book, and so if we were to continue, we would follow the books.”
But, of course, there is some space for deviation. In previous, Reid had noted there was a twist in the series that wasn’t from the original Interview with the Vampire source material. While he wouldn’t share more about that change and whether it impacted Lestat personally, he did note that the change is actually “for the people who really read the books, who really know.” “We have made a few little adjustments,” He adds with a charmingly devious giggle (in true Lestat fashion), “but it all worked out in the end. So I would just stick with it.”
Although we see Lestat in different iterations, flashbacks, visions, and the like, we have yet to really see Lestat himself this season. The Lestat in Louis’ mind is definitely not the real Lestat, Reid opines. He shares, “That’s note Lestat. It’s Louis. It’s a little bit like him, but, yeah. He serves a different purpose.”
But for all you lovers of Louis and Lestat’s relationship, fear not, wherever he is, Lestat has a version of Louis inside his mind too. When asked if Lestat is currently being haunted by a phantom Louis, Reid considers and shares, “I think so. Yeah. We have versions of the ones we love in our minds all the time.” Maybe one day soon we’ll see what ghost Louis is whispering in Lestat’s ear.
Interview with the Vampire season two is currently airing on AMC and AMC+.
