Although a blood oath prohibits me from revealing what I saw on the Toronto set of AMC’s renamed Interview With the Vampire last September, it’s safe to say that this is the same show fans die over (sexy, scary, sharply written), and a helluva lot has changed for our beloved bloodsuckers. First up is obviously the title: The critically acclaimed crown jewel of the Anne Rice Immortal Universe spent two seasons adapting her hit 1976 novel of the same name, so having wrapped up that narrative, it’s on to its 1985 sequel.
Second, there’s a new point of view. Interview was told from the perspective of New Orleans brothel owner-turned-vampire Louis de Point du Lac (the tremendous Jacob Anderson), as he recounted his twisted romances with narcissistic maker Lestat di Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and deceptive rebound Armand (Assad Zaman) to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Now it’s time for Lestat (and the wildly gifted Sam Reid) to take center stage, and what better way than to invite Molloy — now a vampire himself and whose Louis-centric book, “Interview With the Vampire,” has become a best-seller that Lestat contests — to film a documentary about his life while touring as the gothic-glam, self-confessed vampire frontman of a rock band?
“He’s got a microphone in his hand, and I think there’s just something chemically that goes off [in him] that says, ‘I’m going to approach it with no edit button like I have the rest of my 265 years’,” says showrunner Rolin Jones. That said, given how Lestat can be as loose with facts as he accuses Louis of being, he’s initially more likely to bare his body on stage than his soul on camera. “That is the fun part,” continues Jones of the showman’s penchant for occasionally “tripping himself up in the video [interviews] or what he’s telling or what he starts allowing to be told.”
And finally, there’s a seismic shift in tone. In addition to showcasing several original songs per episode by the show’s composer Daniel Hart, an edgier grit (“it should just smell like CBGB’s bathroom,” jokes Jones) has been deftly injected into the show. The gothic drama of IWTV still lingers, mostly in flashbacks to Lestat’s horrifying intro to immortality by the monstrous Magnus (Damien Atkins) and his TVMA relationship with recently resurfaced vampiric mother, Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle). There, too, was a scene we observed on set that is so classic Interview, it’s sure to inspire memes aplenty.
So strap in for a gutsy, gory, and at times surrealistic update to Rice’s tome that smartly takes bites from Lestat’s 18th-Century France backstory to expand his current reign in the rock world.
“[We] were like, ‘Why can’t we put the meat of that scene set in the past front and center, here and now?” explains Jones, admitting that he’s also dimmed some of Lestat’s star power from the book to make sense for 2026. “No one gives a sh*t about his [kind of] music anymore…[and] the idea of vampires being real is hot for like a day,” thanks to social media, he laughs.
Still, Lestat’s definitely going to make some noise, especially after he and Louis finally reconnect…and another woman from his long-ago past emerges to steal the show.
The VampireLestat, Premieres Sunday, June 7, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+
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