We’ve known for quite some time that Delainey Hayles would be back in The Vampire Lestat. But we didn’t know what character Hayles would play in her return. In Interview with the Vampire, we witnessed the death of Delainey Hayles’ original character, Claudia. Claudia was the vampire daughter of Lestat and Louis, and she was murdered by the Paris Coven for “breaking the Great Laws” of the vampire, while Louis was just barely spared. Uncovering the truth of her death was a core part of Louis’ journey in Interview with the Vampire, and no doubt, reckoning with the grief of losing her will continue to be a major part of his story in The Vampire Lestat. But does Delainey Hayles actually return as Claudia in The Vampire Lestat? In The Vampire Lestat episode three, she comes back to us in the form of someone else, a human. But who is Regina, Delainey Hayles’ new The Vampire Lestat character? Let’s take a closer look at what the series has revealed to us so far about this familiar face with a new name.
Who Does Delainey Hayles Play in The Vampire Lestat?
Delainey Hayles plays Regina in The Vampire Lestat. We meet Hayles’ Regina in The Vampire Lestat episode three, but we hear Louis talking about her as early as episode two.
Who Is Regina in The Vampire Lestat? Here’s What We Know About Regina
Regina is that she is a human who works as a waitress at a NYC diner called “Brick and Bacon.” Louis describes Hayles’ Regina to Daniel as follows: “I saw Claudia in New York, coming out of the subway… Someone who looked like her, but in her twenties, if she’d made it to her twenties. So I come up, I watched her turn the corner. I saw her walk into a diner. I couldn’t help myself. I go inside, I grab a booth. It’s not her, she’s not there. Chased a ghost, I guess. I ordered a donut and coffee, just to pass. And she comes out the back in uniform. It’s not her. This one’s got a different walk, accent. I’m not in her section. I walked out.”
But indeed, when we finally see Regina in The Vampire Lestat episode three, played by Delainey Hayles as she is, the character is an exact copy of Claudia. Her accent is British when she speaks to Louis, and she’s aged to Hayles’ age at the present. But we can understand how intense this might be for the character.
In episode four of The Vampire Lestat, we learn more about Regina’s background. Regina reveals that she’s quite poor, living in an apartment that’s falling apart, full of mice and dangling wires, and populated with too many roommates. And Louis discovers that she’s been struggling. Among other things, Regina has a debt looming over her and a criminal record that includes a history of credit card scams and stealing cars. Of course, all of this makes engaging in a relationship with Louis look quite tempting, but also makes the relationship between them, not exactly healthy to begin with, even more so born of desperation and unequal power dynamics.
Is Regina Related to Claudia at All?
For now, we don’t know if Regina and Claudia have any kind of cosmic connection on The Vampire Lestat. Anne Rice’s universe is full of all kinds of magic and powers, though, so we guess we can’t entirely rule it out either.
That said, in episode five of The Vampire Lestat, Louis asks Lestat to meet Regina and confirm for him whether she’s “Claudia come back to him” or not. Lestat becomes emotional about seeing Regina, who does look like Claudia, but confirms to Louis that she is nothing like their dead daughter. Chiefly, Lestat cites that “it’s not her,” because of “the eyes.” And Louis agrees, “No spark, right?”
After this meeting, Lestat is moved to write a song about Claudia called “Stained Glass Eyes,” so we’re feeling like the lack of Claudia in Regina’s eyes implies she isn’t connected to Claudia. Still, anything could happen.
Is Regina Secretly on Armand’s Team?
Recently, we received a new fascinating insight into Regina, this time from The Vampire Lestat‘s marketing team. Since the beginning of the series, The Vampire Lestat has been releasing character posters that are either pink or yellow-colored. Eagle-eyed fans realized that these colors implied the formation of two teams. Speculation abounds that the color marks a character’s allegiance, either to Lestat or to Armand, or perhaps their feelings about the Great Conversion. It’s too soon to tell exactly what the posters mean, but what we can tell is that Regina’s poster is yellow, like Daniel and Armand, not pink, like Lestat and Louis. Could that mean the Claudia look-alike turns against her doppleganger’s fathers? We certainly wouldn’t blame Regina for being mad at Louis and, by extension, Lestat. We truly expected Regina’s poster to come in pink, but we’ll have to wait and see what this unexpected colorway means for not-Claudia.
Nerdist Take: What Role Will Delainey Hayles’ Regina Play in Louis’ Story in The Vampire Lestat?
What we can say is that Regina’s resemblance to Claudia is likely not good for Louis if Regina is, indeed, not at all connected to Claudia in The Vampire Lestat. After his first encounter with Regina, Louis returns to the diner several times, as Regina notes, “three times in five nights,” to engage with the Claudia look-alike and try to get to know her.
Regina, for her part, is wary of Louis at first, imagining he might want something sexual from her. And while that’s not what Louis is after, he is after something… Louis tells Regina that she’s been helping him, just by being herself. Although clearly, Regina looking like Claudia is an important component of why that’s true in The Vampire Lestat. Ultimately, Louis reveals to Regina that Interview with the Vampire, by Daniel Molloy, is real, and that she reminds him of Claudia. He offers to help her with the struggles she faces in her life.
At first, Regina rejects the notion, refusing to play “be my dead daughter” in The Vampire Lestat. But in time, she comes to accept the thought, making a deal with Louis to pretend to be Claudia in exchange for $500,000. After they agree on this, Regina looks at Louis and says with Claudia’s New Orleans accent, “What now, Daddy Lou.” Eeps! It definitely doesn’t get better in episode five, when Louis and Regina get deep into the farce, even hiring someone to play Claudia’s dead lover, Madeleine. At the very least, when Louis brings Lestat into it, he seems to come to terms with the fact that seeing Regina again is a bad idea. But whether this knowledge will last for Louis in the face of his heartbreak over Claudia, remains to be seen.
The idea of seeing someone we love come back to life is, of course, a temptation that no human and vampire could withstand easily. But if Regina is truly just some human person, then she likely cannot actually help Louis with his grief over Claudia. In all likelihood, she would just make it worse if she is not actually Claudia in any way. And, especially for a vampire, intense grief can be a dangerous thing. We want healing for Louis, but we’re not sure this is the path that brings it. Hopefully, going so far down this dangerous road with his grief will help Louis to see that it is time to work through his feelings more productively.
Will We See More of Delainey Hayles’ Regina in The Vampire Lestat?
It’s unclear if Delainey Hayles will be back as Regina in the final two episodes of The Vampire Lestat. For now, Louis appears to have walked away from her. But it feels like the storyline has not yet fully wrapped up.
The Vampire Lestat (or season three of Interview with the Vampire) is currently streaming on AMC and AMC+. New episodes arrive Sundays at 9 pm PT/ET on AMC and at midnight PT on AMC+. You can also read Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat book today.
Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. She cannot take any more Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat devastation for Louis or anyone else.
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Originally published on June 21, 2026.