interview with the vampire book review

ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

From the the vampire chronicles series.

by Anne Rice ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 1976

The word is that readers will be "enrapt."

Pub Date: May 5, 1976

ISBN: 0345409647

Page Count: 392

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: April 9, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1976

GENERAL FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

A LITTLE LIFE

by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

More by Hanya Yanagihara

by Hanya Yanagihara

PERSPECTIVES

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2015

Once again, Hilderbrand displays her gift for making us care most about her least likable characters.

Hilderbrand’s latest cautionary tale exposes the toxic—and hilarious—impact of gossip on even the most sophisticated of islands.

Eddie and Grace Pancik are known for their beautiful Nantucket home and grounds, financed with the profits from Eddie’s thriving real estate company (thriving before the crash of 2008, that is). Grace raises pedigreed hens and, with the help of hunky landscape architect Benton Coe, has achieved a lush paradise of fowl-friendly foliage. The Panciks’ teenage girls, Allegra and Hope, suffer invidious comparisons of their looks and sex appeal, although they're identical twins. The Panciks’ friends the Llewellyns (Madeline, a blocked novelist, and her airline-pilot husband, Trevor) invested $50,000, the lion’s share of Madeline’s last advance, in Eddie’s latest development. But Madeline, hard-pressed to come up with catalog copy, much less a new novel, is living in increasingly straightened circumstances, at least by Nantucket standards: she can only afford $2,000 per month on the apartment she rents in desperate hope that “a room of her own” will prime the creative pump. Construction on Eddie’s spec houses has stalled, thanks to the aforementioned crash. Grace, who has been nursing a crush on Benton for some time, gives in and a torrid affair ensues, which she ill-advisedly confides to Madeline after too many glasses of Screaming Eagle. With her agent and publisher dropping dire hints about clawing back her advance and Eddie “temporarily” unable to return the 50K, what’s a writer to do but to appropriate Grace’s adultery as fictional fodder? When Eddie is seen entering her apartment (to ask why she rented from a rival realtor), rumors spread about him and Madeline, and after the rival realtor sneaks a look at Madeline’s rough draft (which New York is hotly anticipating as “the Playboy Channel meets HGTV”), the island threatens to implode with prurient snark. No one is spared, not even Hilderbrand herself, “that other Nantucket novelist,” nor this magazine, “the notoriously cranky Kirkus.”

Pub Date: June 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-316-33452-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

More by Elin Hilderbrand

by Elin Hilderbrand

Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

Book Review: Anne Rice’s ‘Interview With The Vampire’

In Interview With The Vampire, a long relationship begins

As a kid (no kidding, I was only about eleven when I read Interview With The Vampire for the first time) these books made a big impression on me. I reread them over and over. The story of Louis, a southern land owner who lived outside of New Orleans back when New Orleans still belonged to France was captivating to me. The story begins in 1791 when Louis’ brother passes away and Louis has a very hard time dealing with it. He wishes to die but is too cowardly to do it himself. Enter Lestat, a beautiful man who makes extraordinary claims to Louis.

Lestat claims he is a vampire and that he can make Louis a vampire too. He then goes to work selling him hard on the vampire life. Lestat is physically dazzling with his vampire beauty and grace. Furthermore, he promises Louis that the world will be theirs and all his problems will disappear. All he asks in return is for Louis to simply provides a place for Lestat’s aging mortal father to live on his plantation. In Louis’s fragile mental state he is easy to manipulate so Lestat moves his father into the Pointe du Lac plantation and turned Louis into a vampire.

To say that Lestat failed as a mentor is an understatement and Louis quickly realizes that not only did he not like Lestat but he actively disliked, even despised him. He stays with Lestat for years because he believes that Lestat holds the knowledge about vampirism that he needs. Eventually, Louis concludes that Lestat knows nothing of value and decides to leave. In a desperate bid to keep Louis, Lestat turns a little girl, Claudia, and declares them a family. Louis feels compelled to stay and they pass nearly 70 years in the glory of New Orleans’ nightlife.

Eventually the relationship sours

But all good things come to an end, and devilish things too. You see Claudia’s body died the night she was turned into a vampire but her mind stayed alive and active. Eventually, she was a full-grown woman who had passed an entire lifetime as a five-year-old. This was obviously hard on her and she grew to hate the confines of her world. She also was able to clearly see the horrible way Lestat treated her and Louis and she wanted to leave. Convinced that he would never allow them to go willingly, she concluded that he had to die and devised a plan to accomplish just that.

Claudia put her plan in motion and after he seems dead she convinces Louis, whom she loves and doesn’t blame for anything, to help her dispose of Lestat’s body in the swamp. Claudia and Louis make plans to leave America (as New Orleans has become part of America by now) to search for vampires in Europe. But vampires are called immortal for a reason and Lestat comes back before they can depart. There is a second fight that culminates in their townhouse catching fire and they are pretty positive Lestat is dead this time. However, they leave America that night just to be sure.

Claudia and Louis travel Eastern Europe for years searching for vampires. Claudia is sure that they will find them there because most Vampire folklore is centered there. But all they find can best be described as zombie vampires. Nowhere do they find vampires like themselves and they begin to despair.

Just when you stop looking

Finally, they decide to give up the search and head to Paris. And just when they stop looking the vampires find them. Louis is followed by some of the vampires one night and they invite him and Claudia to a performance at the Théâtre des Vampires and some socializing after the show. At first, he and Claudia are overjoyed to have finally found vampires like them and are eager for any answers they may have. It quickly becomes apparent though that they do not have answers. What’s more, they are shallow and narcissistic. Louis and Claudia searched the world for vampires and when they finally find some they are disappointed, to say the least.

What’s worse, it quickly becomes apparent that they are in danger from these new vampires. Some of them suspect Louis and Claudia of killing their maker, the only crime a vampire can commit. And one, Armand, wants Louis to himself at any cost.

Another death in Interview With The Vampire

Things come to a head when Lestat reappears and accuses Claudia of attempted vampiricide. The Théâtre vampires haul her and Louis in to be punished. Louis is locked in a lead coffin and bricked in a wall Edgar Allen Poe style. Armand comes to “save” Louis the next night but he claims it was too late for him to help Claudia. She was burned alive by the sunlight that morning.

Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire Claudia

After Claudia’s death, something in Louis snaps. He takes his revenge on the Théâtre vampires, burning down the whole theater with them trapped inside just before sunrise the next morning. Armand is the only one to escape, having been warned by Louis the previous night. Louis and Armand leave Paris together and travel the world together but Louis is never himself again and both are unhappy.

Finally, Louis and Armand return to New Orleans. Louis finds Lestat there and finds him a decrepit old man in vampire form. Lestat has been unable to adapt to the modern world and stays cloistered in a run-down old house being reluctantly tended to by a newborn vampire. Louis pities Lestat and if he doesn’t exactly forgive him for what happens in Paris, he at least lets go of it. After that, he leaves Armand and then decides to tell Daniel, the reporter he has been relating all this to, his story.

An odd trio in Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire

I can’t say I ever understood people’s obsession with Lestat, I always saw him as a selfish jerk and didn’t like him. Louis was a more interesting character. I initially felt so bad for him but over time and multiple rereads I began to find him whiny. He refuses to take responsibility for his own role in his unhappiness and that began to grate on me.

Hands down, my favorite character has always been Claudia. Of all the vampires she may have been the most vicious, but that’s because she was turned when she was only 4 or 5. She had no real memories of being a human and no real connections to humans to nurture her compassion. All she ever knew humans as food. Lestat provided a dismal example of how to behave and while Louis loved art and culture, there is no evidence that charity was ever thought of by him.

A sad story for the vampire named Claudia

Still, that was not why I love Claudia so much. I love her the most because she is the most deserving of sympathy. She never asked to become a vampire and she had absolutely no say in it.

To make matters worse, she was trapped for the rest of her life by this one decision that someone else made for her. Her mind grew and expanded but because her body was incapable of change the rest of the world forever saw her as a child and treated her as such. But she never gives up. She fights to try and escape her plight and take back control of her life and that is what I really love about her. Because she could have rolled over and been this sad tragic doll but instead she becomes a powerful woman whom even the great Armand saw as a threat.

Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire Claudia Sad

Claudia is really the female existence boiled down to one tiny little story. A man liked her looks and used her how he wanted based on that and without her permission. Another man decided that because of the first man’s choice to make a second, permanent, choice about her body. And she had to spend the rest of her life trapped by the ramifications of those actions, which neither man had bothered to think through. Never able to change, move on, or better herself because everyone always judged her for something that was done to her and wasn’t her choice or fault.

Still, she fights on and does the best she can with the hand she was dealt. Claudia’s story hits especially hard in this post-Roe v. Wade world. I think a lot of people, especially women, can relate to Claudia and everything she suffers through in Interview With The Vampire .

A troubled relationship

As I said earlier, I first read Interview With The Vampire when I was eleven. Needless to say, I didn’t really have the emotional intelligence to understand everything that was going on. As I got older I began to see how messed up the relationship between Louis and Lestat was but I still didn’t really have words for it.

On this read-through, I realized that they have a rather abusive relationship and that’s probably why I grew to dislike the story over time. Lestat is a classic abuser. He met Louis when he was at a very low emotional point in his life and told Louis that only he could solve all his problems. He then used information to control Louis. Lestat constantly hinted that he knew things Louis could never learn without him. Further, he insisted that without this knowledge Louis would die.

When he sensed that Louis was pulling away he introduced a child into the relationship, another classic abuser move. And it worked and pulled Louis back in. Lestat is constantly belittling Louis. He makes fun of him for not being a good enough vampire but never tries to help him become more. He calls him names and tells him he cannot survive without him. Occasionally he even gets violent. After his outbursts, he comes back and is sweet and loving and the cycle begins again.

It takes Louis a hundred years to escape this abusive relationship, and another hundred to completely release Lestat’s hold on him. I am very glad that he does finally escape this horrible relationship. This read-through was the first time I really recognized the dynamics of Louis and Lestat’s relationship. Interestingly, once I realized this I felt more kindly towards Louis and I didn’t find him so whiny. I think there’s a lesson there, at least for me, if you find out what’s really going on with people you can be more understanding.

An enjoyable read again

So as the story goes, you can never read the same story twice because you are never the same person twice. Originally I loved Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire . As I aged I began to dislike the book. Now I have more sympathy for the characters and I enjoyed it again.

I would definitely not recommend anyone read this when they’re eleven. You just need more emotional maturity to really understand and connect to the characters. Adults reading Interview With The Vampire should be able to see what’s happening with clearer eyes and enjoy a richer story for it. In short, this tale has stood the test of time.

Those who have already read Interview With The Vampire will be pleased by a reread and those who haven’t read it in the past will find a nuanced story to digest. And please, if you have seen the Interview With The Vampire movie, please read the book for an infinitely deeper story. I promise it’s worth it.

My rating for this book: 7/10

Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice is currently available at most booksellers.

The newest adaption of Interview With The Vampire begins October 2 on AMC and AMC+ . Have you read Interview With The Vampire ? What did you think of the novel? Let us know in the comments or over on Twitter! If you haven’t already, check out my review of The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Novel edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells !

Book Review: The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Novel edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Novel Banner

Luna Gauthier

I've always been a bookworm and fantasy is my favortie genre. I never imagined (okay, I imagined but I didn't think) that I could get those books sent to me for just my opinion. Now I am a very happy bookworm! @Lunagauthier19 on Twitter

Luna Gauthier has 215 posts and counting. See all posts by Luna Gauthier

Literature & Fiction
Genre Fiction

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $9.99 $9.99 FREE delivery Saturday, May 4 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

Go to your orders and start the return
Select the return method

Buy used: $8.07

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Interview with the Vampire Mass Market Paperback – September 13, 1991

Purchase options and add-ons.

Book 1 of 13 Vampire Chronicles
Print length 368 pages
Language English
Publisher Ballantine Books
Publication date September 13, 1991
Dimensions 4.14 x 0.9 x 6.9 inches
ISBN-10 0345337662
ISBN-13 978-0345337665
Lexile measure 900L
See all details

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

From the Publisher

A spellbinding classics, the inspiration for the hit television series.

Editorial Reviews

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (September 13, 1991)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0345337662
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0345337665
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 900L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.14 x 0.9 x 6.9 inches
#8 in Vampire Horror
#41 in Ghost Fiction
#1,018 in Psychological Thrillers (Books)

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Interview With the Vampire Paperback Anne Rice Classic

Dark Side of the Library

A story from the viewpoint of the vampire.

Book Chat Live

About the author

Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, which provided the backdrop for many of her famous novels. She was the author of more than 30 books, including her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, which was published in 1976. It has since gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time, and was adapted into a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, and Antonio Banderas. In addition to The Vampire Chronicles, Anne was the author of several other best-selling supernatural series including Mayfair Witches, Queen of the Damned, the Wolf Gift, and Ramses the Damned. Under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, Anne was the author of the erotic (BDSM) fantasy series, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. Under the pen name Anne Rampling she was the author of two erotic novels, Exit to Eden and Belinda. A groundbreaking artist whose work was widely beloved in popular culture, Anne had this to say of her work: "I have always written about outsiders, about outcasts, about those whom others tend to shun or persecute. And it does seem that I write a lot about their interaction with others like them and their struggle to find some community of their own. The supernatural novel is my favorite way of talking about my reality. I see vampires and witches and ghosts as metaphors for the outsider in each of us, the predator in each of us...the lonely one who must grapple day in and day out with cosmic uncertainty."

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Newsletter
About Amazon
Accessibility
Sustainability
Press Center
Investor Relations
Amazon Devices
Amazon Science
Sell on Amazon
Sell apps on Amazon
Supply to Amazon
Protect & Build Your Brand
Become an Affiliate
Become a Delivery Driver
Start a Package Delivery Business
Advertise Your Products
Self-Publish with Us
Become an Amazon Hub Partner
› See More Ways to Make Money
Amazon Visa
Amazon Store Card
Amazon Secured Card
Amazon Business Card
Shop with Points
Credit Card Marketplace
Reload Your Balance
Amazon Currency Converter
Your Account
Your Orders
Shipping Rates & Policies
Amazon Prime
Returns & Replacements
Manage Your Content and Devices
Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
Your Ads Privacy Choices

Currently Reading
Book-To-Movie
Party Ideas
Book Club Gossip
Stuff We Love
Contributors
CURRENTLY READING
BOOK-TO-MOVIE
PARTY IDEAS
BOOK CLUB GOSSIP
STUFF WE LOVE
CONTRIBUTORS

Thursday, November 11, 2010

"interview with the vampire" {by anne rice} book review.

2 comments :

I really enjoyed reading through your wonderful review Bethany, you did an amazing job! I loved seeing the evolution of vampire fiction through your comparisons and learning more abou those zomibie vampires, interesting. Thank you for doing this review, it's perfect!

Wow...that's an amazing review. You did some indepth research. I liked your insight and conclusions. Thanks for the post!

Recommended For:

Anyone who likes beautiful yet deadly vampires, descriptive writing, and amazingly complex characters.

You Can Also Find My Review Here:

Goodreads | Amazon

More Books in the Series:

Graphic Novel Review: Interview with the Vampire: Claudia’s Story by Anne Rice & Ashley Marie Witter

Book Review: The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles Book 2) by Anne Rice

Book Review: The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles Book 3) by Anne Rice

Book Review: The Tale of the Body Thief (The Vampire Chronicles Book 4) by Anne Rice

Book Review: Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles Book 5) by Anne Rice

Book Author: Anne Rice Publisher: Ballantine Books Series: The Vampire Chronicles Genre: Fantasy , Historical Fantasy , LGBTQIA , Low/Paranormal/Urban Fantasy My Rating: 4 Series/Standalone: Part of a Series

More Info (Possible Spoilers)

LGBT+ Rep: Bisexual (Main Character) Non-Human Type: Vampires Relationships/Sex: M-F , M-M

Talk to me!

Have you read interview with the vampire by anne rice what's one book that made you fall in love with a certain genre or that shaped your reading, related posts.

Bookish Musings: What Exactly is Mood Reading?

Your Thoughts

45 thoughts on “ book review: interview with the vampire (the vampire chronicles book 1) by anne rice ”.

I'd love if you'd share your thoughts, too!

Reading your comments makes me a very happy blogger! Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I have read the privacy policy and consent to the storage and handling of my data by this website. *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

I never read the book, but I remember watching the movie at the theater when I was in high school (the 90s). Don’t remember many details, though. Claudia was only 5 when turned in the book? Wasn’t she older in the movie? And that’s just weird, about her and Louis. Glad you were able to enjoy it on your reread.

Yeah, they made her older in the movie. It’s definitely a weird kind of relationship, but somehow it doesn’t feel out of place in the dark atmosphere of the story. Thanks!

It wasn’t that long! 🙂

I do think this book would frustrate me. There’s no goal? At all? It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the movie, so I can’t remember how it ends. Does the book or movie just end on a thought? I feel like I would need someone to achieve something eventually.

I suppose the goal was eventually to find other vampires in the world. But I mean, it kind of does end on a thought since it’s just Louis telling his life story up to that point. Normally that would bother me, but I think the fact that I knew generally what the plot was helped since I kind of had things to look forward to and knew that some things would happen eventually, if that makes sense.

It does! I might see if my library has a copy.

I hope you’re able to find a copy 🙂

Oh wow, this sounds like a very special series for you. I can relate. I have some titles that remind me of my childhood/teenage life. Ahh you make me want to reread them. I miss them. Anyway, awesome review. I’ll check out this series. Thanks for sharing. ?❤️

Yeah, those reads that remind us of our childhood/teen years always have a special place in our hearts <3 You should totally reread some of your old favorites!

I’m pretty sure I read this around the same age you did. I have hopes of reading it again one day and then continuing on. However, I do love her other series. I devours The Mayfair Witches books and loved the first werewolf book she wrote, although I need to finish that series. I hate to say it but Tom Cruise sort of ruined this series for me. I thought he made an awful vampire.

I’ve never read her other series, just the vampires. I didn’t even know she had werewolf books, interesting! Idk, I saw the movie before reading the book and it was what made me want to read the book in the first place, so Tom Cruise was the version of Lestat I first saw. (The weirdest casting in that movie was definitely Antonio Banderas for Armand!)

I read this book years and years ago now, and barely remember it, but I *do* remember an overall feeling of liking it. When I tried to read The Vampire Lestat straight after though…let’s just say, there was a bookmark half way through that novel for 10 years before I gave up and got rid of the books I’d bought (I’m an all or nothing kind of girl, I didn’t buy the whole series but it was more than 2 lol)

Anne Rice’s writing is sort of…flowery to me? There’s just…something about it I cannot get into completely. Weirdly, I’ve actually been thinking about re-reading this lately. But I’m not sure…I love the movie though.

Yep, that was how I felt before rereading. I remembered liking it but barely remembered the actual book. But I guess I must’ve enjoyed all the rest in the series as well. I’m curious to see how many more I’ll end up reading this time.

Oh, there’s definitely a lot of description and floweriness. That was my biggest issue, I think. But I think you give the reread a go anyway 😉

I’ll give her a try at one point or another. I had this vampire phase at one point so I am surprised that I never read her. Glad you enjoyed it so much, despite the fact that the same thing that drew you to the book at certain points also did not work at others

Well if you ever find yourself in another vampire phase, maybe you’ll give this book a try 🙂 Thanks!

I’ve actually never read the book but the movie was so epic and as a kid it made me love vampires so freaking much. I guess its one of those books I’m terrified to read because I loved the movie which is crazy because how can the book be worst, great review!

It was actually the movie that made me want to read the book in the first place! I have had occasions when the movie ended up being better, but I think they’re both good in this case. Thanks!

Thank you for a wonderfully detailed and readable review, Kristen. I’ve never read this book and you gave me plenty of information as to whether this one is for me or not:)

Thanks, glad it was helpful!

I’ve literally had this book sitting on my shelves for YEARS (I got it as a hand me down from a relative) but I haven’t worked up the nerve to read it because I’m scared it will be too scary for me (I get nightmares easily). I hear the movie is really excellent too!

I can’t promise it won’t give you nightmares (I mean, I’ve had random nightmares from non-horror books lol), but I can promise it’s not at all a scary or creepy book. It’s just vampires 🙂 And yes the movie is also great!

It’s great (and sometimes not great) when you revisit an old favourite. I read this years ago, and i’d forgotten so much of what you described, but also you’ve given me a new way of looking at Louis and Claudia especially — thank you!

It’s risky rereading old favorites, so I was glad that this one went well! Thanks, glad you liked my review 🙂

I ADORED this movie! On emy all-time favorite! and not only in the horror/vampire gene but ALL TIME. The actors??? omg [clears her throat] LOL so I always wanted to read the book. Glad to hear is good!

It’s a great movie as well! Lol yeah it doesn’t hurt that it has both Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise 😉 Although now they’re the ones I picture when I read lol.

It’s so awesome that you got a chance to reread the book which began your love for vampires! I love books which influence you as a reader (for me, there are a whole bunch of different reasons). I’m not a massive vampire reader so I kind of know I’ll never read this series (the number of books is also offputting) but I get that it is a classic in its own way. The style of writing would totally not work for me but the characters are interesting and this is kind of the standard idea of how vampires act.

Yeah, prob not the series for you. The number of books would normally be daunting for me, but I already own like ten of them and my library has ebooks of the newer ones I don’t own, so I don’t have to worry about the money. And though I plan to continue, I’m not gonna force myself to keep going if I reach a point where I get tired of it. But yeah, this was a big influence on the modern portrayal of vampires!

I’m kind of afraid to re-read this now. I read it almost 10 years ago maybe and I was sooooo in love with Louie and intrigued by Claudia & Armand and I don’t want it to be ruined if I feel differently.

I re-read it dozens of times back then but stopped once I started blogging and had too many other books to read.

For What It’s Worth

I get it, it’s nerve-wracking rereading old favorites since you might end up liking them less. That’s why I’m glad this one turned out well for me!

I definitely felt the same way as you did when I first read the book back in high school. 1994! Oh man, that was eons ago, and the movie came out in the fall of that same year. Over the years I followed it up with the other books in the Vampire Chronicles, able to see more and more of Lestat’s backstory and motivations, though Louis stays the same and honestly, that got boring. I think Queen of the Damned is the best book out of that series.

Oh that’s cool that you read it before the movie! I read it after seeing the movie, so I just have Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt stuck in my head as the characters lol. I don’t remember much about the later books, but I do remember that Lestat changes a lot. I think I remember Queen of the Damned the best, or at least bits and pieces of it. I remember the climax being really intense!

Wow – this WAS a long review! 🙂 But I liked it!

I read this book a very, very long time ago and I think there was a lot that I missed out on because of that. I think I might have to do a reread.

What did you think of the movie??

Lol it really was, but I couldn’t bring myself to remove anything! Thanks, glad you liked it 🙂

Sometimes I kind of regret that I didn’t keep any notes about my thoughts on books when I was in middle and high school. I just wonder how much I actually noticed or paid attention to, what I took from books, how I felt about them. I might’ve missed out on a lot too when I first read this, or maybe I felt the exact same way. I guess I’ll never know. But you should totally do a reread 😉

I think the movie is great too! It was actually the movie that made me interested in the book in the first place.

I read this book after I read The Vampire Lestat and other books in the series. I think I read this when I ran out of series to read and so…I am a bit biased toward Louis. I read it and thought the whole time how Louis was a liar and such a whiny Vampire that he took his gift for granted. I read Interview with a Vampire through Lestat’s eyes because for me he was everything. My favorite bits of this book were the bits involving Claudia as she became the one subject Lestat was always reluctant to talk about. I think you summed this up very well. It is such an engrossing tale and it has so many subjects that were hard to relate to that it could really only get 4 stars from me either. Fantastic review!

*I have to admit I read your review the day it hit my email and then forgot to stop by and comment. That was stupid as the email got buried until just now for me. I did start reading The Vampire Lestat as soon as I read your review. Maybe only because I couldn’t wait to read it since the minute we talked about it. I can’t believe how much I forgot, including the fact that Armand loved Lestat first. Hopefully I will be finishing Lestat sometime next week.

Ok now your comment has me itching to get to the next book because I don’t remember any of these things and I want to what Louis lied about?! I wonder how much an impact it makes reading the series in a different order. Like, I sympathized with Louis while reading this, yet you sympathized with Lestat. I’m really curious to see if my opinion will change as I read more. But gah, I still have other books to read before getting back to this series!

ARGH YOU DID THE THING!!!! XD

I personally did sympathise with Louis, but also found him quite whiny sometimes. Like dude, you’re a freaking vampire – maybe appreciate that once in a while!

Lestat… he’s not a good person. But I adore him. The force of his emotions (plus his drama – he’s the f**king queen honey!) always made me love him. Plus, he’s so sad! Someone can’t be that sad without me wanting to hug them, ok? 😉 <3

I just love the whole gothic-ness of these books. And Anne Rice's writing is officially the sh**! Lol.

I agree, I sympathize, but he also could do with a little less whining and a little more doing.

I am curious to see if my opinion of Lestat changes when I read more of the series. Whether I like him as a person will depend on whether he changes or not. But I can dislike a char as a person and still love them as a char if they’re interesting/complex/realistic enough.

I have a confession to make. I haven’t fully read Interview with the Vampire. I gave up on it halfway through when I was thirteen because I thought it was SO boring, but I want to pick it back up and give it another shot. Great review!

It does have a lot of flowery description. But maybe you’ll enjoy it more if you give it another go!

I think I saw the movie from this one, and I did like it. Once day I will read the book, I think. I remember being soooo sorry for Claudia though. Sucks for her. Forever a child.

The movie it great too! I think it’s impossible not to feel terrible for Claudia :-/

My cousin gave me this book and it was my first vampire book. I didn’t read Dracula until last year.. Ha ha. I was used to reading SciFi and High Fantasy, so reading this book was very different for me and I loved it. I am so glad your re-read attempt was a success this time because it is wonderful being able to revisit old favorites, especially ones that have an extra special place in your heart. ☺

This was also my first vampire book, and I didn’t read Dracula until last year either, haha, so we have that in common! Thanks 🙂 It’s nerve-wracking visiting old favorites though since sometimes it doesn’t go so well!

And there you were saying this would be the review that no one would read but I see a lot of lovely comments! I can’t say too much as I haven’t read this book before… I do love vampires though – admittedly because of Stephanie Meyer (I gather you’re not a fan… because that breaks all the vampire rules) but I should read this one because it sounds like it really deals with a classic vampire and kind of does it in a unique way? The writing style and format of the book sounds different. I realise I don’t mind flowery language as long as I am invested in a book enough before it shows up, so I don’t think I’ll mind that.

Believe it or not, I read all the Twilight books, so I must’ve liked something about them. But I read them after Anne Rice’s books, and so I felt like Meyer’s vampires were all wrong, and I think it might’ve been those books that made me stop reading about vampires for years lol. But now I like seeing how diff authors portray them, and I respect every author’s right to make vampires however they want as long as they still drink blood 🙂 (and every reader’s right to enjoy whatever books they want!)

I think it was these books that kind of set the standard for the modern vampire portrayal. If you like vampires and don’t mind flowery language, then I def suggest giving this a try!

Pingback: 9 books and reviews that will make you consider Paranormal Romance - BOOKIVERSE

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

Oh the pain of it all … Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst in Interview With the Vampire.

Interview With the Vampire review – Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt’s brilliant bloodsucking bromance

Neil Jordan’s horror-comedy features Cruise in scene-chewing form in a film that outrageously explores the vampire’s actually rather complex lived experience

‘Y ou have no idea how few vampires have the stamina for immortality!” Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt bring the staying power in Neil Jordan’s entirely outrageous horror-comedy bromance, produced by Stephen Woolley and adapted for the screen by Anne Rice from her own bestseller, now rereleased for its 30-year anniversary. The histrionic energy and ambition, operatic pathos and dapper, jaunty offensiveness are undimmed. Succeeding decades have only increased the film’s fanbase. I remember a dinner at the Edinburgh film festival with Catherine Breillat, director of Romance and Anatomy of Hell, as she discoursed with passion on how she adored it.

It is now almost mandatory with people of a certain age to claim that a certain masterpiece of their salad days “couldn’t be made now”. But … two hottie vampires who contrive to apply a sexualised bite-kiss to a 12-year-old girl (Kirsten Dunst – a performance for the ages) … and that girl becomes as worldly as any depraved grownup and travels with our two heroes through the night-time fleshpots as a daughter or stepdaughter or (sort of) platonic lover? Erm, which year was that ever OK for, again?

Christian Slater plays Malloy, a journalist roaming around modern-day San Francisco searching out likely looking bohemian types to interview for his life-in-the-city reportage. He chances across an elegant, watchful young fellow called Louis (Pitt) who takes him back to his tiny rented room and (once the tape recorder is switched on) tells him he is a vampire, over 200 years old, a former slave master and plantation owner in 18th-century Louisiana, longing for death after the loss of his wife and child. Perhaps something in the parasitism and spiritual death of slavery attracted the attention of Lestat (Tom Cruise), a sensualist vampire with a cruel twist to his sanguine lips. Naturally, Cruise can’t help making his Lestat hyperactive, super-focused and frustrated at others’ lack of discipline and commitment, and his performance is hilarious, a glorious comic turn of the sort he never tried again. Lestat befriends Louis, intuits his pain, offers him a chance to start again in eternal life, delivers his fangs to Louis’ neck and welcomes him to the vampire brotherhood.

Lestat-Louis is an occult teacher-pupil relationship that Brad Pitt was to duplicate five years later in Fight Club, only with himself in the alpha role. But Louis has squeamish qualms about living off human blood, timidly at first preferring only that of animals, to Lestat’s genial contempt. The two of them are to get in an adorable two-bloodsucking-fiends-and-baby (or rather girl) situation when they find Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), orphaned by the plague, and the poor child gets to be one of them. They find themselves in Paris where a nest of vampires led by Armand (Antonio Banderas) and Santiago (Stephen Rea) run a secret theatre of cruelty, patronised by the beau monde, in which they pretend to be humans playing vampires, killing real victims on stage: meta-vampire snuff horror.

So what is it like being a vampire, Malloy asks Louis? Is it all Dracula, crucifixes, garlic etc? Louis dismisses all this as “the vulgar fictions of a demented Irishman!” (Well really, Anne Rice! Is that any way to talk about Abraham “Bram” Stoker, the creator of Dracula and populariser of the entire vampire genre?) But what the film makes so brilliantly clear is that the vampire’s lived experience is in fact a complex business. It varies from vampire to vampire. Louis himself has a romantic, almost idealist concept of vampirism, entranced, in his pained way, by the eternity of longing; whereas cruel Lestat just lives in a permanent state of greed.

At first it seems as if Louis finds a kindred spirit and even love with Armand in Paris on this basis, but is finally repelled by the abysmal cynicism and disillusion that Armand’s Euro-vampirism represents. Louis is a modern vampire, full of democratic openness, a vampire of the American enlightenment. He even frees his slaves and burns down the big house – to Lestat’s petulant rage. Interview With the Vampire is still horribly exciting, shocking and funny.

after newsletter promotion

Kirsten Dunst
Drama films
Horror films
Antonio Banderas

Interview with the Vampire Review: The Best Anne Rice Adaptation Ever Made

AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire differs from the book, but makes for quality horror TV.

Share on Facebook (opens in a new tab)
Share on Twitter (opens in a new tab)
Share on Linkedin (opens in a new tab)
Share on email (opens in a new tab)

Jacob Anderson as Louis De Pointe Du Lac - Interview with the Vampire _ Season 1

This Interview with the Vampire review contains no spoilers.

Late Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice was never completely onboard with the 1994 film adaptation of her book: Interview with the Vampire , which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Taking issue with casting and other certain liberties, Rice ultimately endorsed it, but denounced its 2002 sequel, Queen of the Damned , with Aaliyah in the title role. Rice and her son Christopher have been involved with AMC’s Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire through its own tortured journey to series adaptation, so it seems any changes to the source material come with tacit pre-approval.

The stakes are high for AMC, about to come off its Walking Dead era (though in true zombie fashion, spinoffs will continue on), and concluding the sagas of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul . The network is entering its Anne Rice Era, turning her pages into its own next chapter, and already at work on adapting her The Lives of the Mayfair Witches book series. Most Vampire Chronicles fans want to see the novels presented accurately and epically, which is a mixed bag in Interview with the Vampire . Many others want it to fail outright. Not this reviewer, especially after seeing the first four episodes.

There are differences. Timelines shift, ages change, and ethnicities reflect a diverse world -and a new political undercurrent than the original 1976 novel. Starring Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac, Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt, and Bailey Bass as Claudia, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire is not the same story as Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire . Writer/creator Rolin Jones updated it to a modern vampire tale, and possibly should have rethought which of Rice’s characters to bring to the small screen. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an extremely well-crafted, nuanced, and rehearsed vampire story. It is one of the best vampire series TV has had to offer, even if it is not quite what it promised.

Ad – content continues below

This schism is itself addressed in the third episode. Contradictions abound, and when Eric Bogosian’s now-aged interviewer Daniel Molloy clobbers the vampiric interviewee about revisionist history, the fangs come out and the tapes get burned. In the first part of the novel, Louis hates Lestat. In the series, Daniel plays a portion of the original 1973 tapes where Louis calls himself Lestat’s “complete superior,” and concludes he had been “sadly cheated in having him for a teacher.”

By taking the issue on, the show redeems its mixed message. It also does it with a sense of humor sadly missing from the films, and underplayed in the books. Louis and Lestat may be deadly serious and seriously deadly, but their true talents lie in lethal assessments, snide asides, and wry takedowns.

Who would have thought Anderson, who frowned on trivial things like jokes when he played Grey Worm on Game of Thrones , could hurl straight lines with such comic accuracy? The repartee between Louis and all characters is a highlight, from the bitter banter with the jaded Daniel to the indulgent insolence reserved for the troubled teen Claudia. Lestat may get the better lines, and Reid excels in underplaying his caustic wit, but he thinks of himself as the more dangerous creature. He’s not, it’s Louis.

Anderson’s Louis is in a state of flux in many ways. Not only is there new blood pumping in his veins, but revolutionary thoughts in his psyche. In life, Louis has a good reputation as a man who runs a house of ill-repute. His undead street cred is a bit more complicated. Louis is a virtual vampire vegetarian, feeding on animals, as if stray cats don’t have families to grieve for them.

As a badass living brothel owner in New Orleans’ red-light district of Storyville, Louis maintained as brutal a hold as was necessary to ensure his business thrived. As a Black man in the south, regardless of his success, he’d been eating Jim Crow laws so long he barely noticed the bitter taste of the strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. But once he tastes blood, he bites the hand that feeds him. Anderson’s Grey Worm urged slaves to “kill the masters” on Game of Thrones . His newly turned vampire gets to savor that kill.

In the book, Louis is a white slave-owner with a sugar plantation, something his father ran to the ground before the events of the series. Slavery mildly flavors Rice’s Interview with the Vampire , where Lestat also feeds off slaves, but the aftertaste lingers. Race plays a far larger role in the series, at least in the beginning, while Louis still has ties to the human community he leaves behind in the book.

The series remains faithful to the atmosphere and the devil-may-care blasphemy of Rice’s books. Louis is making confession when taken by Lestat in the opening episode. Dead priests lay scattered in the pews. In the series, the de Point du Lacs are a holy family, very spiritual, loving of God, hateful of sin, bloody with Christ. Louis’ own mother, played by Rae Dawn Chong, calls her evolving son “the devil.” His sister Grace (Kalyne Coleman), runs out of patience, but is forced to leave her door open.

Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!

While the viewers know Louis will ultimately out-“live” his family, there are some surprisingly premature burials, or burnings. Louis and Lestat keep an incinerator for body disposal because wakes were designed by people who live in colder climates than New Orleans.

One of the fires can’t be contained, which leads to the introduction of Claudia. In his conversation with Den of Geek , Jones called this character Rice’s “greatest creation.” The author wrote the character after the death of her six-year-old daughter, who succumbed to acute granulocytic leukemia in 1970. In the book, Claudia has fair skin, long curly hair and blue eyes. She is mourning over her mother when Louis finds her in the year 1794. Rice’s literary version of Claudia is a child-vampire, eternally five years old in body, but with a quickly developing mind and desires.

Kirsten Dunst was eleven years old when she played Claudia in the film. Bailey Bass plays her as a 14-year-old. “It was very important for us to shoot in New Orleans, where child labor laws say your actor can only work so many hours,” Jones told Den of Geek . “We decided to make her trapped in all the chemical excitements of puberty.” Claudia is not quite of the Twilight teen scene, angsty for self-discovery, but she does keep a diary.

“Rolin Jones has made some changes that I think deepen and do some very intriguing things with the basic story,” Alan Taylor, who sets the tone directing the first episode, told Den of Geek . Other episodic directors include Levan Akin and Keith Powell.

Surrounding the proceedings, the settings are beautifully rendered, whether we see the opulence of the vampire lifestyle, the ecclesiastical hue of a church, or the grit and mud of the backstreets. All of which come to life when splattered with the red vino on tap. The framings are exquisite, and the tapestry of shooting styles merge into a unified landscape, from the bayous to Dubai. The score is so exciting, Louis is moved to do a soft-shoe. Another highlight is seeing the classically-trained musician Lestat boogie-woogie his way through a jazz set.

One of the ways the series best succeeds is in telling a love story. Lestat is not the same neglectful narcissist with the cruel streak presented in the 1976 book, and the series’ 1973 tape collection which tries to keep the series honest. Reid’s Lestat is a different cruel narcissist, but Louis gives back as good as he gets, growing defiant, angry, and romantically jealous. This is a trait shared by both lead characters, and as they sneak into one coffin while Claudia pretends to rest, it is not the dysfunctional couple of the first novel. For reanimated corpses, they get pretty hot.

Anne Rice purists will have their gripes, all of which are justified, but Interview with the Vampire does the spirit of the source material justice. This is the more nuanced or rehearsed version of the story, as Louis and Daniel debate. The series takes on social, economic, and political issues which may or may not have bearing on vampires, but add layers to the characters, who will grow into themselves. Or die, again, trying. The adaptation is changed, but still sucks you in.

Interview with the Vampire premieres Oct. 2 on AMC and AMC+.

Tony Sokol | @tsokol

Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment…

The Inventory

Interview With the Vampire Is a Bloody Good Nightmare

Amc's new anne rice series flays itself open, making raw nerves of the characters and creating an adaptation that is sexy, visceral, and self-aware..

The main Interview With the Vampire cast

Anne Rice, as an author, is obsessed with the ways that love is a singularly horrible experience. It tears you apart, it destroys you, it eats you alive. In the newest adaptation of her work, AMC’s Interview With the Vampire , love is placed at the center of a reconstructed version of her seminal twisted fantasy , resulting in a sweeping, Southern Gothic romance where two vampires make a fool of death with their inescapable, never-ending , horrific love.

'Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire' Review: A Sexy, Layered Adaptation Tailor-Made for TV

'Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire' will premiere Sunday, October 2 on AMC and AMC+.

There might be no name as ubiquitously linked to contemporary vampire fiction as the late Anne Rice — although you might be surprised to learn that the critical response to her 1976 debut novel, Interview with the Vampire , was initially mixed. Reactions varied between those who praised Rice's rich, sensual style and other equally vocal detractors of the vampire tale, but Interview was only the beginning of what would become 12 sequel novels, collectively referred to as The Vampire Chronicles , as well as a spinoff series. In 1994, Interview with the Vampire was turned into a film starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise and directed by Neil Jordan . Rice adapted the screenplay of her own work, but at the time, the author reportedly debated over several creative choices — she notoriously objected to Cruise's casting as Lestat, and Louis was almost rewritten to be a female character as a way to circumvent the book's homoerotic leanings.

Although the remainder of The Vampire Chronicles proved less successful in the adaptation process — 2002's Queen of the Damned was both a critical and box office flop — the franchise has proven to have staying power, with AMC acquiring the rights to adapt many of Rice's works in 2020. With their upcoming Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire , from creator/showrunner/executive producer Rolin Jones , the network has breathed new life into these characters without shying away from any of the original story's truest elements, while incorporating mindful changes to the source material that only make the end product on-screen thrilling, sexy, and more multifaceted.

The story of Interview with the Vampire , built around the conceit of the titular vampire relaying his lengthy and complex existence to a naive reporter, wouldn't be nearly as absorbing without an excellent performance to ground its telling — and it is through the eyes of Jacob Anderson 's Louis de Pointe du Lac that we are brought into a world of opportunity, violence, loss, and eternity. A return to this story includes the revelation that the series is also set nearly 50 years after the book's publication. Although Louis' first interview with the aging Daniel Molloy ( Eric Bogosian ) ended on a rather negative note for both of them, the vampire is reaching out again to let the reporter be the one to tell his story in the wake of many changes to their current circumstances — including a lot more in the vein of technology. There are advancements that have been made to enable Louis to remain awake during the daytime without hiding from the sun, but the vampire is still secluded in a fortress of his own making, one he invites both Molloy (and us by extension) into.

RELATED: 'Interview With The Vampire' and the Untapped Potential of 'The Vampire Chronicles'

This ancient version of Louis, more calculated and restrained with only the occasional outburst of heightened emotion, is juxtaposed against the younger, human Louis, hot-headed and impassioned, as well as the newly-turned Louis, who spurns all natural vampiric instincts. Through a narrative spanning two different timelines, Anderson pulls off the impressive work of playing the same character at all the varying stages of both his life and un life. By comparison, Bogosian's Molloy is no longer the credulous, probing journalist he once was; facing down the prospect of his own mortality due to a recent Parkinson's diagnosis has made him a more cynical presence, one more inclined to challenge Louis' recollections rather than accept any answer given at face value — which leads to a delightful tête-à-tête between the two actors that plays throughout the entire season.

When we initially meet the mortal Louis via his future self's anecdote, the show brings the past forward to 1900s New Orleans, where he is no longer a plantation owner as in the book but a man of alternative means through his holdings in a saloon in the city's red-light district of Storyville. Even the financial success he's accumulated, though, can only be accompanied by so much respect from the white men he sits around the poker table with. Louis' most frequent struggles lie both in desiring esteem as a Black man in his line of business and wrestling with the deeper, innermost secret of his queerness — an aspect that is explicitly and repeatedly referenced rather than merely alluded to with purple prose. There are parts to himself that Louis is either constantly masking or hiding altogether, at least until the mysterious, rakish Lestat de Lioncourt ( Sam Reid ) arrives in town.

From the moment that their characters collide on-screen, Anderson and Reid's chemistry is electric in every exchange; Lestat senses exactly what Louis is inwardly longing for, while Louis initially fights to resist the other man's magnetic pull at every turn. Their connection sparks a cat-and-mouse game with a discernible inevitability, and while it's evident where this will end up — and what Louis will ultimately consent to in terms of Lestat's "dark gift" — there's no ambiguity when it comes to the depiction of their relationship as an erotic and romantic one, albeit filled with its own complexities and complications.

As Lestat, Reid is every bit the mercurial presence you want him to be — and his performance transcends even the eccentricity first established by Cruise in the '90s adaptation. It's half of what makes the series so compelling but also contributes to some of its tautest scenes. Reid's Lestat is just as likely to extend a devastatingly poetic word to his beloved as he is to suddenly fly into a terrifying rage, and it's never apparent which mood he'll be found in each time the story picks up with him in a new episode. One scene in particular, which devolves into the two vampires' most violent clash yet, is filmed in such a manner to lend it the disturbing energy of a domestic dispute between partners; furniture is destroyed, walls are reduced to rubble, and at the end of it all, you have the unsettling feeling that Lestat's words will be enough to smooth over any harm that's been done, no matter how vicious. But Reid's presence is so enthralling that it becomes entirely believable, maybe understandable, why Louis can't bring himself to definitively cut ties with his sire, even while Lestat's manipulative behavior travels to new depths.

In many ways, the addition of Claudia is obviously intended to be a Band-Aid on the fang wounds of Louis and Lestat's destructive nucleus, and Bailey Bass ' child vampire emerges at just the right time in the series' first season to shake up the established relationship between the two. Here, her background has also been lightly adjusted for the show, but in an approach that links her even more closely to Louis than in the book — and does a further job of illustrating that Louis' plea for Lestat to turn her is primarily an effort to atone for his own transgressions. It's also a plot divergence that, while minor overall, significantly explains why Louis is so protective of her, but those even slightly familiar with the story will recognize that this form of helicopter vampire parenting only backfires as Claudia chafes under the restraints of eternal pre-pubescence. Bass has a significant amount of heavy lifting to do in the portrayal of a character who initially considers the world with wide-eyed naivety before her perception evolves, leading to dark explorations of sex and violence that are just as heartbreaking as they are stomach-turning.

In the span of the first five episodes screened for critics (out of the season's seven in total), there is the increasing sense that this show is only just getting started in unveiling some of its most captivating plots, but those initial arcs play an important part in laying the groundwork for what's to come, establishing character relationships and a strong sense of place before building out the vampires' world and expanding their horizons to other territories. In fact, the story of Interview with the Vampire is very well-suited to the television format; while the film version was forced to condense several plotlines, here they're given substantial breathing room, with characters not only introduced but explored much more intimately.

When it was first announced that Rice had plans to develop her story anew into a TV series back in 2016, the right landscape for them was a sentiment she undoubtedly shared, stating that "[it] is, more than ever, abundantly clear that television is where the vampires belong." The small screen has brought with it an onslaught of vampire media — from What We Do in the Shadows to Vampire Academy , all we have to do is look to past and emerging titles to find all the proof needed that these immortal beings are back in style. Then again, as Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire serves to remind us, maybe they never really left; instead, they've been waiting for the right time to reemerge and refresh our memories of why we fell under their spell in the first place. The road to a new adaptation has been a winding one, but AMC's lush and enthralling series proves that Rice's vampires are in the right hands.

Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire premieres October 2 on AMC and AMC+.

Search Please fill out this field.
Newsletters
Sweepstakes

Interview With the Vampire finale review: A great twist saves a lame twist

AMC's undead romance throws a party and sets an intriguing course for its future.

Interview With the Vampire closes its first season with a masquerade, a massacre, a couple twists, and the promise of a complete setting shift. And the finale still feels unfinished. "You've only heard half the story," someone tells Daniel Molloy ( Eric Bogosian ), and I think that's an overcount. In the glorious past and the chilly present, Interview lands on a pair of cliffhangers — one meh, one ooooo — that reveal everything so far has been setting up the real story. This is the depressing new norm in genre television. "At long last, the beginning has ended!" is not something I've heard on a TV show this year, but it sums up every recent big-budget prequel. (I guarantee it will be actual dialogue on Andor .)

Interview achieves something grander than 2022's other canon dives, because creator Rolin Jones' adaptation of Anne Rice 's novel redefines the relationship between Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat ( Sam Reid ). On page and screen, the gloomy aristocrat and his fun-loving murder daddy previously modeled teasing erotic possibility, their bitchy-sincere "friendship" suggesting much more. The series rips open the artery of metaphor, and what splatters out is a raucous, paranoid, sensitive queer romance. Louis and Lestat share a coffin and they share hobbies. They have an open relationship, which Lestat likes. They have a kid, which Louis likes. They're living two secrets, this interracial gay couple who kill people for food. (Permissive New Orleans society frowns on their smooching but doesn't mind if they walk with Satan.)

Lestat is initially a savior, rescuing Louis from the cruel expectations of the straight world and empowering him against his era's pervasive racism. But, well, he also makes Louis a nightly serial killer. And what an age gap! Allegory keeps clashing with plot: Vampirism as romantic self-realization that destroys boring old binaries, and vampirism as a serious problem that skyrockets the murder rate. Interview works because the Louis-Lestat relationship is so protean. Reid's a gorgeous Australian with a 7-foot chin, so his Lestat is doubly dominant: a French-poetic sensualist built like a Christian-rock Hemsworth. Meanwhile, Anderson cycles through torment and fascination. Louis feels free in his new life — and then imprisoned by a lover-tormentor. Claudia (Bailey Bass) becomes the resident wild card, an unhinged teen who's also the savvy female voice in a frat house of self-delusive ego.

In the finale, which I will now start to spoil , Claudia and Louis plan an elaborate assassination against Lestat. The party is delightful, and all the killing is gory fun. (The glass is empty? "Not for long, Tom!") But it's clear the Interview writers have a problem. This whole saga has built to the Louis-Lestat showdown, and Claudia's arc depends on her throwing off the shackles of her maker. Months of plotting lead to a brutal battle that even involves the last-second arrival of newly-vamped Antoinette (Mara Grace Athari). And after all that, Louis and Claudia only almost kill Lestat, leaving his gash-necked corpse out for the morning garbage pick-up.

"Where does the trash go, Louis?" Molloy asks in the present. He's not buying this dewy gothic climax, and I think you can sense some adaptioneer frustration in Bogosian's cut-the-bull tartness. How could you NOT kill that guy? is the logical question. ( Because we got spin-offs, baby! ) Since this first season only adapts half of Rice's book, it has to turn Lestat into, like, a level boss, a minor evil before the greater danger ahead. But it also has to tease his return. So barely any time passes between his overextended "death" and a brief sight of him at the dump, resurrecting himself with help from vermin blood.

I think that's why the finale shifts to a much more interesting twist. Doe-eyed assistant Rashid (Assad Zaman) is a vampire, as Molloy suspected, but he possesses powers unlike any we've seen. The sun doesn't bother him: "What's a mediocre star to a 514-year-old vampire?" Louis smiles as he introduces his mystery man. "I'd like you to meet the Vampire Armand," he declares, "The love of my life." Armand is a major Anne Rice player. Die-hards will appreciate his playbills for the Théâtre de Vampires. (Newcomers will probably look as bug-eyed confused as Bogosian: Excuse me, surprise vampire, why did you hand me these ancient French advertisements? )

I only know a bit of Rice's mythology, so what I appreciate is how this twist zigzags our understanding of the main character's journey. In present day, Louis has seemed rigidly restrained, with Anderson playing him somewhere between ethereal serenity and constant self-checking: a god who needs nightly AA meetings. That marked a contrast with Louis' past self, a "rougher thing" and the submissive half of a troubled relationship. Because Anderson modulated his performance so effectively, code-switching between dreamy-tough Creole locality and Davos Man billionaire placelessness, it seemed like this Interview was the story about one man's complicated transformation. The modern Louis is a man living his truth in a skyscraper that is his coffin. He used to have family, and now he has employees.

Except one of those "employees" is an ultra vampire, the shark to Lestat's minnow. "The love of my life," Louis calls Armand, but Zaman's performance suggests unusual power dynamics ahead. "Louis can sometimes act out," he tells Molloy. "I protect him from himself. Always have." I'm not sure that line reduces Louis — some relationships depend on emotional caretaking — but it does undercut the tycoon-cult authority he's been perpetuating. Is Armand a devoted lover keeping his addict boyfriend on a healthy path? Or is this another more experienced vampire shrouding young Louis in a morally spiraling lifestyle? Does Armand drink human blood? And what an age gap!

On the other hand, Armand certainly seems more emotionally supportive than Lestat. And this revelation thrillingly sets both timelines on a clear course for season 2. Louis and Claudia are heading off on new global adventures — straight, apparently, toward Armand. And the twist could defibrillate the present-day scenes, which turned repetitive despite Bogosian's salty charm. Beyond the central Louis-Lestat relationship, Interview sometimes felt undercooked. (See: Antoinette, a theoretically important person with nothing to do). This finale suggests a complex new romance lies ahead, with tensions both epic and awkward. Will season 2 tell a new immortal love story for the ages? Or will Claudia just have to meet dad's new boyfriend?

Finale grade: B+

‘Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire’: Old Monsters, New Blood

AMC has a lot riding on the series, which makes major changes to the original story. Will the millions of Rice fans sink their teeth into it?

Jacob Anderson, left, and Sam Reid play Louis and Lestat in “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” in which their characters share a more overtly sexual bond than in the book. Credit... Clement Pascal for The New York Times

Supported by

Share full article

By Erik Piepenburg

Sept. 30, 2022

CHALMETTE, La. — The actors Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid had just finished filming a scene last March inside a cavernous studio here in the seat of St. Bernard Parish, about a 20-minute drive from the French Quarter of New Orleans. The evening air was steamy, and they looked exhausted from a shooting schedule that required them to keep vampire hours under hot lights.

As they spoke, they gave off a sparkle, and it wasn’t just because of the hand-painted contact lenses that made them look like tigers — or ravers.

It was also because they were in their sweet spot, having grown up as self-described outsiders with an affinity for the darker side of art — Poe’s literary demons for Reid, Portishead’s spectral soundtracks for Anderson. And here they were, years later, costumed in ragtime-era suiting to play two of popular culture’s most beloved misfits: Lestat and Louis from the Anne Rice novel “Interview With the Vampire,” a new series-length adaptation of which debuts Sunday on AMC.

“I’m a very proud nerd,” said Anderson, 32, who plays the reluctant bloodsucker Louis. “I love fantasy. I’m an emo. I’m a bit of a goth, I guess. This is a dream.” ( “Game of Thrones” fans know the actor, who is British, as Grey Worm , leader of the Unsullied.)

Reid, 35, had grown up with a similar sensibility. As a boy in Australia, he liked dressing up as a vampire for Halloween, and later devoured Rice’s sweeping blood-magic sagas. He said he felt a responsibility in playing the debonair Lestat to do right by the author, who died almost a year ago at 80.

“When you love the source material and you’re a fan yourself, you put the same pressure on yourself that other lovers of the book would do,” he said. “My own pressure is to do justice to something that I love very much.”

And there is pressure. In an era dominated by endlessly expandable telecinematic universes like Marvel and “Star Wars,” AMC has a lot riding on the show’s success; the network, which acquired the rights to “Interview” and 17 other Rice novels from two of her literary series, plans to spin that catalog into at least five new series over the next decade.

Maybe more important, the series has to try not to alienate a huge existing fan base. “Interview” is the first time Rice’s book has been made into a television series, and it’s the first major Rice adaptation since she died, leaving behind more than 40 genre-defining books and a very devoted — and very protective — readership. Based on episodes provided in advance, the series doesn’t just adapt the novel; it fundamentally alters it, shifting the central timeline forward by over a century, exchanging the book’s suggestive homoeroticism for outright gay sex and changing the racial identity of main characters, among other changes.

Given the pedantic and often racist pushback recently to Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” prequel, “The Rings of Power,” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” this new version of “Interview” is bound to bring out the trolls, as indeed it already has. The series also has to compete with Neil Jordan’s big-screen adaptation from 1994, which, whatever its faults, was wildly successful and helped cement the popular image of Lestat and Louis as Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

Rolin Jones ( “Perry Mason,” “Weeds”), the show’s creator and showrunner, said in a video interview last month that he knew there would be haters. But he also insisted that the series remains “wildly reverential” to the spirit and prose of the book, which he called an “essential piece of American literature.”

What made the novel great “is the interior life,” he argued, but “that makes for poor drama almost all the time.” The trick, then, was to try to find new ways to externalize that drama for a modern TV audience, as he imagined Rice might have wanted. As he and the other writers worked, Jones kept this question in mind: “What would this savage writer in 1976 do if she were in this room right now?”

“There’s something inherent in this story that wants to be revisited every generation,” he added. Doing so, he said, was “a celebration of Anne, not a desecration.”

PUBLISHED IN 1976 , “Interview With the Vampire” is one of the world’s most widely-read vampire stories, and arguably the most influential since Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” from 1897. The story of the French nobleman Lestat de Lioncourt, a debonair seducer-tormenter, and Louis de Pointe du Lac, the younger man he transforms into his undead companion, has sold millions and spurred some dozen sequels, known collectively as The Vampire Chronicles, which have combined to sell tens of millions more.

Rice’s book broke ground by making vampires feel more human, said Stanley Stepanic, an assistant professor of Slavic languages and literature who teaches a class called “Dracula” at the University of Virginia. That’s especially true of Louis, its narrator.

“She told the story from a first-person perspective, through his voice, for the majority of the book,” Stepanic said. “He seems regretful.”

When AMC announced in 2020 that it had acquired the rights to “Interview,” Rice called it “one of the most significant and thrilling deals of my long career.” She wasn’t creatively involved with the series, but what has emerged two years later — its full title is “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” — is loyal to her source material in many ways. (Season 1 is based on a portion of the first novel.) There’s still an interview with a vampire, a treacherous eternal romance, an uncontrollable daughter and monstrous bloodsucking. New Orleans, Rice’s hometown, is a pivotal location.

But it’s also more romantic: Where the original book traded more in homoerotic undertones, Louis and Lestat are, unmistakably, a gay couple. The series is darkly comic, bloody, at times brutal and, depending on your tolerance for horror, terrifying. There’s gay and bisexual sex, grisly threesomes, lots of flesh. It’s very sweaty.

Jones described it as “Cassavetes with a lot of feelings and not a lot of edit buttons,” like “some nasty Fiona Apple album of a vampire story” but with gay vampire dads in “ the toxic relationship of 2022.” AMC, he said, “spent a whole boatload of money on a real strange beauty.”

During a leisurely evening walk-through of the set in March, Jones showed off some of the changes. The crew had built a street to look like Storyville, an upscale red-light district in New Orleans — in 1910, not the 18th century, as in the novel. Tall ceilings of a chic penthouse soared in what is was created to look like present-day Dubai, where Louis meets again with the reporter (played by Eric Bogosian) who in the book interviewed him decades earlier, in 1970s San Francisco.

Jones watched from a director’s chair as the actress Bailey Bass, then 18, played Claudia. In the novel, Claudia is a headstrong 5-year-old, whom Lestat turns into his and Louis’s vampire daughter of sorts. In the series, she is 14, left to mature emotionally while stuck in a body at the onset of puberty.

Then there is the characters’ racial makeup. Louis is no longer white, as he is very strongly implied to be in the novel. (He is a Louisiana plantation and slave owner when he meets Lestat in 1791.) In the show, Louis is a Creole brothel owner who travels in white circles, lamenting in the pilot that he can’t be an “openly gay Negro man.”

Lestat remains white, which makes their coupledom interracial. Jones said his changes overall were about what “works for a season and a series,” especially for Louis.

“You think not about the first episode but Season 5,” he said. “I wanted a very complicated and ultimately selfish person, not this nice and sweet innocent.”

Pitt played Louis as a reluctant vampire, as he is in the novel, but that wasn’t the main reason some fans, especially queer ones, disliked the film. Curtis Herr, an English professor at Kutztown University and the co-editor of The Journal of Dracula Studies , which publishes articles on vampire literature and history, said the movie had chickened out on telling the gay story “that’s very evident in the book.”

(In a brief phone interview, Jordan said that he had done nothing to intentionally downplay the gayness or anything else in the book. As for the gay content, he said: “If you read the book, it is as gay as the film.”

From what he‌ had surmised of the new series so far, Herr said, “We are going to get the ‘Interview With the Vampire’ that we deserve.”

RICE FANS HAVE BEEN EAGER for two years to discern what AMC’s series has in store, and as multiple trailers and various drips and drops about the production have trickled out, reactions on fan sites have ranged from fervor to fury. Some in one private Facebook group devoted to the Vampire Chronicles became so riled up that the administrator had to warn members that comments had “become too toxic when discussing the upcoming show.” (Neither the administrator nor several of the people who posted negative comments returned requests for comment.)

Others, like Mary Hütter, a video editor from Grand Rapids, Mich., and a Rice reader for most of her 46 years, said she was looking forward to the series. When it comes to the show, fans in the online Anne Rice communities she reads “are for the most part all about it being super gay,” she said. The hope, she added, is that the series is more “ethereal, gothy, with a very seductive, almost love story between Lestat and Louis.”

Jones said he would be apprehensive, too, if someone took a favorite book and made it into a new thing. And if Rice fans watch it and still don’t like “the grand design of what we did?”

“They can beat the crap out of me at the next ComicCon,” he said with a droll smile.

Whatever its tenor, fan chatter is almost certainly an advantage as “Interview” wades into an uncommonly deep pool of new vampire shows this season that, like “Interview,” update and diversify the ancient myth, including Showtime’s “ Let the Right One In ,” Peacock’s “ Vampire Academy ” and the Syfy comedy “ Reginald the Vampire .” The FX comedy “ What We Do in the Shadows ” remains popular, having already been renewed for a fifth and sixth season.

With its timeless themes, the vampire myth has obviously proved to be an exceptionally flexible and durable framework, ripe for endless shape-shifting — there can be a vampire story for everyone who feels like an outsider, as Anderson grew up feeling.

“I hope that people see in these characters, who feel so deeply about shame and grief and guilt, that they are not monsters, even though they feel like monsters,” he said in a follow-up video call in August. “I hope people see this is a celebration of searching for acceptance of yourself, and that searching for meaning is not an indulgence.”

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell speak about how “Anyone but You” beat the rom-com odds. Here are their takeaways after the film , debuting on Netflix, went from box office miss to runaway hit.

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage . She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

In a joint interview, the actors Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough discuss “Under the Bridge,” their new true-crime series based on a teenager’s brutal killing in British Columbia.

The movie “Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst . In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire review: a feast for the senses

Interview with the vampire kicks off the anne rice immortal universe at amc..

Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson in Interview with the Vampire

What to Watch Verdict

There's no doubt these vampires will be around for a very long time.

The cast is chef's kiss perfection

It's a loving and faithful adaptation

As a series, the characters have space to develop and we get to watch

We need more than seven episodes in the first season.

Anne Rice's world of vampires comes to life with an inspired new vision — a vision that sinks its teeth in and never let's go. An absolute feast for the senses, Interview with the Vampire pulls you into a visually stunning and evocative world that you won’t want to leave. Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Bailey Bass and Eric Bogosian deliver rousing performances that usher in what is sure to be the hottest new franchise for the network.

Interview with the Vampire is the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson), a vampire who recounted his tale to reporter Daniel Molloy (Bogosian) in 1973. Now, 50 years later, Louis wants to meet with the now seasoned journalist Daniel once again to set the record straight.

Louis is a Black Creole businessman in New Orleans’ Storyville in 1910. He catches the eye of the enigmatic Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid), who eventually reveals his vampire nature and makes Louis into his vampire companion. Eventually, they bring the vampire child Claudia (Bass) into the fold so that they become one happy vampire family. At least, for a little while.

Interview with the Vampire (1976) is one of the most beloved books in Rice’s pantheon, but it’s also the most narratively challenging story because it’s told from Louis’ perspective while the majority of the Vampire Chronicles are told from Lestat’s point of view.

Over the years fans have been presented with very different perspectives on the characters thanks to the books that came later in the Vampire Chronicles. It’s no wonder that showrunner and writer Rolin Jones advises fans to read Prince Lestat (2014), The Vampire Lestat (1985) and The Vampire Armand (1998) to help them along the way.

Sam Reid as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire

One thing is painstakingly clear about Interview with the Vampire : the cast and the crew are absolutely dedicated to Anne Rice and to being faithful stewards of her work. Reid spoke of this dedication in a Q&A on AMC’s press site. “I hope [fans] see that we are honoring what Anne Rice wrote. There's a huge amount of respect for what she created. We are always referring to her words and bringing in all of the elements as honestly and truthfully and as blatantly as she wanted. That world that she created is right at the front of our hearts.”

With Rice’s words guiding the story, there are two elements that make the series as evocative and alluring as it is: the cast and the production design. To prepare for their roles, Anderson, Reid and Bass had to learn French, use a new accent and take dance, singing and music lessons in order to bring an even deeper authenticity to their roles.

Anderson ( Game of Thrones ) embraces the full gamut of emotions to depict Louis’ human side while portraying a newly born vampire trying to understand his new nature, on top of dealing with the racism that pervades society at that moment in time. It takes a lot to stand up to a character as bold and brazen as Lestat, and Anderson’s Louis holds his own beautifully. What’s more is that this version of Louis has a lot more confidence than Brad Pitt’s version, largely because he comes from a very different background. The juxtaposition of 1910 Louis and modern-day Louis gives Anderson lots of space to really show the depth of his character.

Reid’s ( The Newsreader ) Lestat is a man of the ages, having been made a vampire in the 1700s and moving to the New World to start a new life. Unlike Louis, Lestat is gregarious and ebullient, possessing a joie de vivre that most people — vampires and humans alike — can only dream of. His charisma and charm shine through and make him so much fun to watch. This Lestat is different from Tom Cruise’s portrayal because we get to see the Brat Prince in action as he not only interacts with Claudia and Louis, but with the people around them as well. He’s charming and cruel in the same breath; Reid plays him so very well that it’s hard to hate him and easy to forgive him, even when he’s at his very worst.

Bailey Bass as Claudia in Interview with the Vampire

Bailey Bass ( Avatar: The Way of Water ) has the challenging task of portraying Louis and Lestat’s vampire daughter, Claudia. Trapped forever in the body of a 14 year old girl, Claudia has to figure out how she fits in a world where she’ll never grow up to experience life as an adult. Bass relies on her facial expressions and tone to capture Claudia’s angst in a powerfully poignant way. She literally transforms before our eyes without changing her physical appearance. It’s an inspired performance that will leave fans in awe of her immense talent.

We think Eric Bogosian channeled his character from Succession to bring Daniel Molloy to life. Daniel was an immature young man the first time he met Louis; now, the tables have turned somewhat and as a veteran journalist he knows that this story is far too important to not do it properly. He challenges Louis at every turn. Though Louis could easily kill him, older Daniel never backs down. Bogosian’s steely voice, calm but witty demeanor and dry humor give Daniel the depth he never had before.

Louis, Lestat and Claudia couldn’t come to life without Carol Cutshall’s costuming and production designer Mara LePere Schloop’s vision for 1910s New Orleans. It’s easy to get lost in the detail of the wallpaper, the texture of a coat or the decor that accentuates the Rue Royale flat fans know so well.

Showrunner and writer Rolin Jones and executive producer Mark Johnson understand how much these stories mean to legions of Anne Rice fans all over the globe. Bringing the story to life as faithfully as possible was incredibly important, and that includes ensuring that Louis and Lestat’s relationship is at the heart of the story in ways that weren’t possible in the 1994 film. They don’t have to hide their sexuality; Lestat joyfully embraces his bisexuality and Louis slowly comes to terms with being a gay man, even though being openly gay was frowned upon at the time.

Interview with the Vampire might look a little different, but trust us when we say that all of the major themes of Anne Rice’s work — loneliness, love, the nature of goodness and evil, sexuality, being an outsider, among others — they’re all there.

There is so much emotion and heart in this series that longtime fans will be overjoyed and newcomers to the series will be left in awe. It’s prestige television at its finest and sure to become the next big thing for AMC as part of the Anne Rice Immortal Universe .

Interview with the Vampire debuts October 2 on AMC. There's currently no UK release date.

Sarabeth joined the What to Watch team in May 2022. An avid TV and movie fan, her perennial favorites are The Walking Dead, American Horror Story , true crime documentaries on Netflix and anything from Passionflix. You’ve Got Mail , Ocean's Eleven and Signs are movies that she can watch all day long. She's also a huge baseball fan, and hockey is a new favorite.

When she's not working, Sarabeth hosts the My Nights Are Booked Podcast and a blog dedicated to books and interviews with authors and actors. She also published her first novel, Once Upon an Interview , in 2022.

Sugar episode 5 recap: David's secrets come tumbling out, and the body count rises

The Bold and the Beautiful recap for April 25, 2024: Ridge returns

Claudia Winkleman makes shock admission about The Traitors

Interview with the Vampire

Based on Anne Rice's iconic novel, follow Louis de Pointe's epic story of love, blood and the perils of immortality, as told to the journalist Daniel Molloy. Based on Anne Rice's iconic novel, follow Louis de Pointe's epic story of love, blood and the perils of immortality, as told to the journalist Daniel Molloy. Based on Anne Rice's iconic novel, follow Louis de Pointe's epic story of love, blood and the perils of immortality, as told to the journalist Daniel Molloy.

Rolin Jones
Assad Zaman
Jacob Anderson
441 User reviews
33 Critic reviews
1 win & 28 nominations

Episodes 15

Louis de Pointe du Lac

Lestat de Lioncourt

Daniel Molloy

Grace de Pointe du Lac

Thomas 'Tom' Anderson

Florence de Pointe du Lac

Alderman Fenwick

Finn O'Shea

Bricktop Williams

Peg Leg Doris

Chief Bardeen

Jelly Roll Morton

Paul de Pointe du Lac
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

Trivia The opening credit sequence is an emerging composite image consisting of the skyline of Dubai and New Orleans. Dubai is on the bottom of the frame, with New Orleans on the top, which brought together resembles a set of "Vampire fangs".
Crazy credits The opening credit sequence is an emerging composite image consisting of the skyline of Dubai and New Orleans. Dubai is on the bottom of the frame, with New Orleans on the top, which brought together resembles a set of "Vampire fangs".
Connections Featured in Talking Dead: The Walking Dead: The Final Episodes Preview (2022)
Soundtracks Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, BMV1007:I.Prélude Written by Johann Sebastian Bach

User reviews 441

Jan 17, 2024

Technical specs

More to explore

‘Interview With the Vampire’: Santiago Stages Trial From Book in New Teaser (VIDEO)

Let the News Seduce You

For exclusive news and updates, subscribe to our interview with the vampire newsletter :.

“Guilty, or not guilty?” That is the question on Santiago’s ( Ben Daniels ) lips in the newest Interview With the Vampire Season 2 teaser. The video references an infamous trial scene near the end Anne Rice ‘s novel of the same name, as hinted by Santiago’s judge’s wig.

In the new teaser, Santiago, the leading vampire thespian of the Théâtres des Vampires in Paris, recites the “Laws of the Vampire,” one of the most important being that no vampire can kill another. That doesn’t bode well for Louis ( Jacob Anderson ) and Claudia ( Delainey Hayles ), who attempted to kill Lestat ( Sam Reid ) in the Season 1 finale.

The vampires of the Parisian coven knew Lestat long before he arrived in New Orleans. As revealed in the first Interview With the Vampire Season 2 trailer, Lestat is a founding member of their theater. And he’s been presumed dead by Louis and Claudia since they left New Orleans, although Louis’ refusal to burn his lover’s body makes doubt ever-present.

Santiago recites three vampire laws in the video above: “Each coven must have its leader; the dark gifts must never be given to children; no vampire may ever destroy another vampire.” Louis broke two of those laws, and Claudia broke one, in Season 1. This will seemingly put them both in danger in the new episodes, as the coven will presumably find out what they did. (In moments like these, wouldn’t it be great if vampires couldn’t read each other’s thoughts?) Despite their frequent questions, Lestat never mentioned any vampire laws to Louis and Claudia in Season 1, nor did he reveal the consequences of breaking them.

Season 2 of the hit AMC series brings the second half of Rice’s beloved novel to life, and this teaser trailer marks the first time we’ve seen characters speak during this pivotal moment from the book. There appeared to be a brief clip from this scene in the trailer released on March 19 . In that extended trailer, Louis, Claudia, and a new character to the show named Madeleine ( Roxane Duran ) are sitting on stage looking distressed. In front of them is Santiago in the judge’s uniform seen in the teaser above, and walking through the theater is Lestat. The quick moment (see below) shows that the theater has a full audience. Armand ( Assad Zaman ) is nowhere to be seen.

Sam Reid, Ben Daniels, Jacob Anderson, Delainey Hayles, and Roxane Duran in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

This Parisian coven will provide a whole new world of thrills and conflict in Season 2. Here’s the logline for AMC’s Interview With the Vampire Season 2:

'IWTV': What Does 'Memory Is the Monster' Mean?

“The interview continues in Season 2. In the year 2022, the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson) recounts his life story to journalist Daniel Molloy (Bogosian). Picking up from the bloody events in New Orleans in 1940 when Louis and teen fledgling Claudia (Hayles) conspired to kill the Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid), Louis tells of his adventures in Europe, a quest to discover Old World Vampires and the Theatre Des Vampires in Paris, with Claudia. It is in Paris that Louis first meets the Vampire Armand (Zaman). Their courtship and love affair will prove to have devastating consequences both in the past and in the future, and Molloy will probe to get to the truths buried within the memories.”

In addition to Daniels and Duran, new additions to the cast include Succession ‘s Justin Kirk in a mystery role revealed in the March 19 trailer; Breaking Bad ‘s David Costabile as Leonard, a seasoned TV personality who has a run-in with Molloy; and Bally Gill as “Real Rashid.”

Interview With the Vampire , Season 2 Premiere, Sunday, May 12, 9/8c, AMC and AMC+

Interview with the Vampire (2022) where to stream

Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Ben daniels, delainey hayles, jacob anderson, roxane duran.

‘Where’s Cricket?’ South Dakota Gov. Noem defends killing her dog

Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota on Friday defended a story included in her forthcoming biography in which she describes killing a family dog on their farm, to her daughter’s distress – a grisly anecdote that instantly drew criticism from a number of political opponents.

Noem, a Republican widely seen as a contender to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate, shared details about shooting the 14-month-old dog, a female wirehaired pointer named Cricket, and an unnamed goat, according to excerpts first reported by the Guardian.

An avid hunter, Noem wrote that she had hoped to train Cricket to hunt pheasant, but that she proved “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless” as a hunting dog. “I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, according to the Guardian.

It was after Cricket ruined a hunting trip, killed another family’s chickens and bit the governor that Noem recalled deciding to kill the dog; she shot Cricket in a gravel pit.

That was not the only blood Noem drew that day: She also shot a male goat that she called “nasty and mean.” Shot him twice, in fact: The goat jumped as she shot him the first time, according to the Guardian’s recounting of the book, so she fetched another shell and shot him again.

The whole ordeal was reportedly witnessed by a construction crew nearby. Noem wrote that as the workers returned to their jobs, a school bus came by to drop off her children.

Her daughter, Kennedy, Noem wrote, “looked around confused” and asked, “Hey, where’s Cricket?”

“I guess if I were a better politician, I wouldn’t tell the story here,” Noem wrote in the book, set to be published by Center Street on May 7. But she framed the day’s events as reflecting her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly,” whether that be in farm ownership or in politics.

The story drew condemnation on Friday from a swath of the political world, mainly to Noem’s left, including some anti-Trump Republicans and a number of Democrats. President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign wrote on X that “Trump VP contender Kristi Noem brags about shooting her 14-month-old puppy to death.” And the Democratic National Committee issued a statement describing the passages as “disturbing and horrifying.”

Noem seized on the Guardian’s article to underscore her rural-America bona fides, promote her book and mock the news media. “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” she wrote Friday on the social platform X, adding that her family recently had to “put down” three horses.

She added that her book would contain “more real, honest, and politically INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping.”

Noem, who appeared with Trump at an event in Ohio last month, is one of several Republicans regularly mentioned as potential vice-presidential picks. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, she tied with Vivek Ramaswamy for first place in a poll of whom attendees wanted to see Trump select as a running mate.

She has routinely praised the former president and recently took part in an ad promoting her cosmetic dental work that some saw as a move to catch Trump’s attention, even as it drew legal scrutiny. In recent days, she has refused to say whether she would have certified the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021, and dodged questions on whether she supported exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape or incest.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

Robotic heart surgery gives Donny Jones a rapid recovery, more energy

Donny Jones was born with a heart that was a little bit different.

IMAGES

10 Major Changes Interview With The Vampire Made From The Book
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire (Paperback)
How INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE Misunderstands One Crucial Character
Interview with the Vampire (2022-): The book vs the TV series
Too Much Horror Fiction: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976

VIDEO

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice book review
Interview with the vampire part 6 #vampirebooks #readwithme #booktube #booktok
WITCHES vs VAMPIRE Book Review *NON-SPOILER*
Garlic & the Vampire Book Review
Fatshaming vs Vampires: Which is the greater enemy?
My roommate is a vampire 🦇 book review in tamil| spoiler free*

COMMENTS

Interview with the Vampire
Anne Rice (born Howard Allen Frances O'Brien) was a best-selling American author of gothic, supernatural, historical, erotica, and later religious themed books. Best known for The Vampire Chronicles, her prevailing thematic focus is on love, death, immortality, existentialism, and the human condition. She was married to poet Stan Rice for 41 ...
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a gothic horror and vampire novel by American author Anne Rice, published in 1976.It was her debut novel.Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the story of his life to a reporter.Rice composed the novel shortly after the death of her young daughter Michelle, who served as an inspiration for ...
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
31. Our Verdict. GET IT. Kirkus Reviews'. Best Books Of 2015. Kirkus Prize. winner. National Book Award Finalist. Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Book Review: 'Interview with the Vampire' by Anne Rice (Gothic vampire
It's that time of the season again: it's the dark academia adjacent episode! We headed to a cult classic from the 70s - a book that I've wanted to read for years, and one that Sarah has loved for forever - it was time to bring Louis and Lestat to The Dark Academicals with an episode dedicated to 'Interview with the Vampire'.. There were so many things that made us think it would be ...
'Interview with the Vampire' by Anna Rice
Interview with the Vampire is an important and significant book when it comes to vampire mythology. A far cry from the evil and viciously seductive Dracula, Anna Rice's novel instead introduces the idea of a "vampire with a soul", coming in the form of its titular character, Louis de Pointe du Lac. After the AMC series changed a lot of ...
Interview With The Vampire Review: A Masterful Outlook on ...
RELATED: 'Interview With the Vampire' Shows the Horror of Being a Child Vampire. The attention-grabbing script by Anne Rice, who is the author of the novel that inspired the film, keeps you ...
Book Review: Anne Rice's 'Interview With The Vampire'
This is the book that started it all. Nearly 50 years ago Anne Rice penned the tragic tale of Louis, Lestat, and Claudia and rekindled our love for vampires which is still going strong today. Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire was so loved by fans that it kicked off a 15-book series chronicling Louis, Lestat, and their fellow vampires.
[Review & Discussion] Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
A lot of people have said Anne Rice started the Vampire Romance trend but Anne Rice was actually doing something very different from anyone else. If this book came out today I'd think it was a vampire romance deconstruction. The "Standard Model Vampire Romance" in Urban Fantasy is between a badass broke human (ish) women with a Power She doesn ...
Interview with the Vampire: Rice, Anne: 9780345337665: Amazon.com: Books
Interview with the Vampire. Mass Market Paperback - September 13, 1991. by Anne Rice (Author) 8,136. Book 1 of 13: Vampire Chronicles. See all formats and editions. The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series. "A magnificent, compulsively ...
"Interview with the Vampire" {by Anne Rice} Book Review
Genre: Fantasy. Summary: In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor.
Book Review: Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles Book 1
Graphic Novel Review: Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story by Anne Rice & Ashley Marie Witter Book Review: The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles Book 2) by Anne Rice Book Review: The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles Book 3) by Anne Rice
Interview with the Vampire
About Interview with the Vampire. The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series "A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire."—
Interview With the Vampire review
Louis is a modern vampire, full of democratic openness, a vampire of the American enlightenment. He even frees his slaves and burns down the big house - to Lestat's petulant rage.
Interview with the Vampire
About the author (2010) Anne Rice is the author of thirty-seven books, including the Vampire Chronicles, the Lives of the Mayfair Witches, and the Wolf Gift book series. Rice was born in New Orleans in 1941 and grew up there and in Texas. She lived in San Francisco with her husband, the poet and painter, Stan Rice until 1988, when they returned ...
Interview with the Vampire Review: The Best Anne Rice Adaptation Ever
Late Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice was never completely onboard with the 1994 film adaptation of her book: Interview with the Vampire, which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Taking issue ...
AMC's Interview With the Vampire Review: Bloody Good Nightmare
AMC's Interview With the Vampire knows that it has to contend with the past iterations of its story, but instead of distancing itself from the books or the film, it is gleefully reveling in the ...
'Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire' Review: A Sexy, Layered
By Carly Lane. Published Sep 22, 2022. 'Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire' will premiere Sunday, October 2 on AMC and AMC+. Image via AMC+. There might be no name as ubiquitously linked to ...
Interview With the Vampire finale review: A good twist and a bad twist
Claudia (Bailey Bass) becomes the resident wild card, an unhinged teen who's also the savvy female voice in a frat house of self-delusive ego. In the finale, which I will now start to spoil ...
'Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire': Old Monsters, New Blood
There's still an interview with a vampire, a treacherous eternal romance, an uncontrollable daughter and monstrous bloodsucking. New Orleans, Rice's hometown, is a pivotal location. But it's ...
Interview with the Vampire review: a feast for the senses
Interview with the Vampire is the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson), a vampire who recounted his tale to reporter Daniel Molloy (Bogosian) in 1973. Now, 50 years later, Louis wants to meet with the now seasoned journalist Daniel once again to set the record straight. Louis is a Black Creole businessman in New Orleans' Storyville in 1910.
Remembering Anne Rice: Interview With The Vampire
Interview With The Vampire (1976) This book is an incredible work. It was written in the aftermath of the death of Rice's young daughter, and that sense of depression is there throughout the book. Later books have a different tone, and she ret-conned some of the events of the first book by basically claiming Louis was an unreliable narrator.
Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story
Ashley Marie Witter (Adaptor/Illustrator), Anne Rice. 4.41. 19,896 ratings664 reviews. A richly-illustrated adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, told through the eyes of the vampire Claudia, who was just a little girl when she was turned by the vampire Lestat. Though she spends many years of happiness with her two vampire ...
Interview with the Vampire (TV Series 2022- )
Interview with the Vampire: Created by Rolin Jones. With Assad Zaman, Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Eric Bogosian. Based on Anne Rice's iconic novel, follow Louis de Pointe's epic story of love, blood and the perils of immortality, as told to the journalist Daniel Molloy.
Interview With The Vampire
Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice. Vampire chronicles # 1 - Book Review My review on this great vampire novel !!Join me on Facebook :https://www.fac...
'Interview With the Vampire': Santiago Stages Trial From Book in New
Here's the logline for AMC's Interview With the Vampire Season 2: "The interview continues in Season 2. In the year 2022, the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson) recounts his life ...
New 'Interview with the Vampire' teaser reveals the laws of being a
AMC's astonishing Interview with the Vampire is almost back for its second season, and it looks like we've got some new vampire rules to learn before then.. Season 2 sees vampires Louis de Pointe ...
'Where's Cricket?' South Dakota Gov. Noem ...
April 26, 2024 Updated Fri., April 26, 2024 at 10 p.m. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, pictured in 2021, has written a book that reveals she shot and killed her dog after the dog had killed a ...
New Interview with the Vampire Teaser Shares the Laws of the Vampire
By Jamie Jirak - April 19, 2024 02:55 pm EDT. Interview with the Vampire is coming back to AMC next month for its highly-anticipated second season. A trailer for the new season was released last ...