During a panel at the Summer TCA press tour on Wednesday, the cast of AMC’s adaptation of “Interview With the Vampire” discussed how (and why) they’re not trying to “compete” with the 1994 film adaptation starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. In fact, series leads Jacob Anderson (who plays Louis) and Sam Reid (who plays Lestat) were enthusiastic that the two versions can coexist as the new interpretation has the privilege of drawing from the complete series of books.
“I love that movie. And I’ve always loved the work of Anne Rice, so I was very excited to be a part of reigniting it,” Reid said during the panel. “As a fan of the books, I was excited about the fact that it was going to be made at all, and what we do in this adaptation, in this version of the ‘Interview with the Vampire’ is look at an entire series of books because when that film came out, she was still writing them so they didn’t have perspective of the entire work.”
He continued, “And so when we’re looking at character arcs, we’re looking at a much broader scale. So yeah, it’s valid and I love what Tom Cruise did as Lestat, and I think he should be loved and remembered for that role. And so I’m never trying to touch that. It’s a huge honor to take on this extraordinary part created by Anne, but we are doing a different show. We are actually looking at all of her books. So it is a different feeling than what that 1994 film did.”
Anderson, best known for his performance as Grey Worm in “Game of Thrones,” echoed his costar’s sentiments, saying, “It’s a great movie — Brad Pitt’s Brad Pitt. We’re not gonna try and compete with that. I think he’s a brilliant Louis. This is a third thing. There are things about Louis in this interpretation, like contextual things, that are reflective of the time and lots of things that bring like something else to Louis. Why compete? How amazing that all of these Anne Rice interpretations and the books can all exist at the same time?”
The show, based on Rice’s seminal gothic work, follows Louis de Pointe du Lac, Lestat de Lioncourt and Claudia’s (Bailey Bass) epic story of love, blood and the perils of immortality, as told to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Chafing at the limitations of life as a Black man in 1900s New Orleans, Louis finds it impossible to resist the rakish Lestat’s offer of the ultimate escape: joining him as his vampire companion. But Louis’s intoxicating new powers come with a violent price, and the introduction of Lestat’s newest fledgling, the child vampire Claudia, soon sets them on a decades-long path of revenge and atonement,” per the network.
