One of our most anticipated series for 2026 is The Vampire Lestat, AMC’s rebranding of Interview with the Vampire. An adaptation of Rice’s second novel in her Vampire Chronicles, this story puts Sam Reid’s Lestat front and center to tell his own story at last. It also features Lestat in full rock star mode. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Rolin Jones revealed what to expect for the re-branded show next year, which looks to be just the first of two The Vampire Lestat seasons. Jones said, “There’s a satisfying [arc] for this season, but it definitely feels to me like part one of two parts, and people should be prepared for that.” Here’s what Jones had to say about both returning and new characters coming next year:
Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson)
In Anne Rice’s original The Vampire Lestat novel, the vampire Louis only shows up for the big finale. We don’t get into much detail on what he’d be doing since giving his legendary interview to Daniel Molloy, besides being mopey. Well, according to Rolin Jones, that wasn’t going to cut it for The Vampire Lestat. Jacob Anderson’s Louis will have a much larger role in the series, mainly because you don’t waste a talent like Anderson’s. But what will his storyline consist of? According to Jones, it will be “very, very heartbreaking.” He added the following:
We dipped into other things that Anne wrote about Louis that’s woven into the story we’ve told already, who we think he is, where he was at, and his relationship with the main character. Whatever he’s telling you, it’s important to Lestat.
Rumor has it that Louis evolves into some kind of undead real estate mogul in The Vampire Lestat, as Interview with the Vampire revealed that he’s owned many properties over the past century. Judging from the photo released, Louis doesn’t look like he’s holding back on the bloodlust at all.
Gabriella de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle)
Another beloved character from Rice’s saga makes her appearance finally in The Vampire Lestat, and that’s his mother, Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle). In the books, she goes by the name Gabrielle. But Rice’s novel also made it a point to explain that she was Italian, sent to live in France as a teenager, and forced to marry a French nobleman in a crumbling estate, and give him as many children as possible. Jones believed she’d fight to keep the Italian pronunciation of her name.
She’s a very, very smart woman taken out of a place at a very early age and stuck in a cold, weird place. She hadn’t adapted to French life, and we wanted to put as much tension as we could, and we thought it was very simple that she just held onto whatever a woman could hang onto back then. Even if she was 15, maybe she had her first couple of years as Gabrielle, but somewhere very quickly into the marriage, she’s like, “Call me Gabriella.”
Claudia (Delainey Hayles)
Speaking of outspoken female vampires, Delainey Hayles returns in The Vampire Lestat as Claudia. But, what, isn’t she quite dead? Yup, she sure is. And Jones refused to answer how she comes back, saying the following:
Delainey did extraordinary work and really changed a lot about our show for the better, and she’s just a wise, old soul, and she deserved more for people to see. So we’ve given her stuff, and she’s really good in it.
Our hunch is that Claudia appears as the manifestation of Lestat’s guilty conscience, much as she did throughout the novel The Tale of the Body Thief. Or, possibly as a straight-up ghost, as she does in one portion of Queen of the Damned.
Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid)
But what about our titular Brat Prince, played by Sam Reid? One big change from the novel is that Lestat only has one big (disastrous) concert in the novel’s climax. Up until that live show on Halloween night, his fans consumed all of his music via records, radio, and MTV videos. For the series, Lestat will be on a nationwide concert tour instead. One that reflects “the Devil’s Road” of his youth, his fancy name for his early vampiric journey. Jones said they recorded a metric ton of music for the season. Some of which we’ll only barely hear in full. “And we’re not going to have every song written for this season on this season. Remember: Part one and part two!”
The Vampire Lestat Season 2?
Perhaps Jones’ biggest hint about the upcoming season is that, like Interview with the Vampire, it will get split into two parts. And this makes a ton of sense, as the novel is almost twice as long as Rice’s first book. The Vampire Lestat contains flashbacks to 18th-century France, Renaissance-era Venice, classical Rome, Celtic Europe, and ancient Egypt. Getting all of that into one brief season, along with a modern-day storyline, seems impossible. So if this is confirmation that The Vampire Lestat will be split into two parts, we’re beyond excited. Just please, AMC, don’t take two years between seasons. The vamps may be immortal, but the actors (and viewers) are not.