Meet the Vampire Lestat
Saturday, July 27, 2024 at 10:30PM 
The best show currently on TV is coming for a third season. Though its renewal was only announced at the end of last month, shooting for the next chapter in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire seems well underway. At least, that's what one can surmise from the just-released teaser, where Sam Reid dons the Vampire Lestat's rock persona and sits down for a filmed interview. Moving from the literary-minded recordings of the first two seasons, the show is moving into the realm of concert tour mockumentary. One hopes that the updated format maintains the queer Gothic romance sensibilities that have earned it a small army of devoted fans. But of course, judging from the online reaction, the showrunners have nothing to worry about. The fandom is over the moon...
For those not in the know, AMC's take on The Vampire Chronicles is essential TV. Abandoning the homoerotic subterfuge of the 1994 Neil Jordan movie, the series takes the queerness of Anne Rice's original work and does it justice. One might even say it goes further than the author ever did. Then again, its willingness to deviate from its source material while honoring its legacy is part of why this is such a worthwhile adaptation. Timelines and ethnicities, ages and historical contexts have been changed and rearranged, psychologies deepened and the whole narrative device problematized, put it into question.
So far, this is a story about the storytelling of the self, memories retold and revisited, one's remembrance turned into an archeological site with many secrets to reveal. That said, it's also fun as hell and tragic to boot, dripping with unabashed sensuality and a blazing affection for its menagerie of amoral vamps. Moreover, the show is a feast for the senses, beautifully designed and shot, made lovelier through its score, painted with glistening gore. The performances are just as exquisite and they only seem to be getting better. As the second season surpassed the high standard set by the program's first year, expectations are sky-high going forward.
But back to the teaser. Rolin Jones appears to be going for an adaptation of The Vampire Lestat, Rice's immediate follow-up to Interview with the Vampire, modernizing its setting and style to better fit the story he's been telling so far. This would put Sam Reid's Lestat center stage after two seasons dominated by Jacob Anderson's Louis. It would be a tragedy to lose the actor and his formidable characterization, so one presumes the show will fold its former protagonist back into the tale, regardless of the books. Then again, despite how much the teaser foregrounds The Vampire Lestat – going so far as to dramatize its opening lines to the letter – much could be done with the text.
One wonders if they'll pull from the subsequent novels and what they reveal about the other characters. According to interviews, Assad Zaman and Eric Bogosian sure seem excited to explore "The Devil's Minion" chapter from Queen of the Damned. And if they'll pull from that work already, could we expect Akasha to make her small screen debut soon? Aaliyah famously played the character in that misbegotten early-aughts shlock fest, managing to be the only element worthwhile about the whole project. Who will Jones choose to play the mother of all vampires? They'll have big shoes to fill, whoever they are—best of luck to that future fanged thespian.
What about you, dear reader? Are you as excited as I am for season 3 of Interview with the Vampire? Or did these paragraphs read like the ravings of a lunatic fan whose object of obsession is of little interest? Sound off in the comments.
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Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire is streaming on AMC+, Amazon Prime, Hoopla, the Roku Channel, and Spectrum On Demand. Next month, it'll also premiere on Netflix.
Reader Comments (2)
Interview remains my favorite book of the Vampire Chronicles (I know I'm in the minority among the fandom) and I hated almost everything about Jordan's adaptation, give or take a Dunst. If they had reversed the casting of the two leads, it might have made a difference. But I doubt it. And the less said about Queen, the better.
So I went into AMC's Interview with a healthy amount of skepticism. But it is a truly intelligent, bold, over-the-top and romantic adaptation, which I surprisingly had no purist objections to. (Especially after they fucked up the Mayfair Witches. The Witching Hour is to my mind Rice's masterpiece, and the first season was a major disappointment.)
Can't wait for the next installment of the Chronicles!
This is one of the best things on TV right now!!! Can't wait for season 3. Have to comment as it makes me sad to see no one is watching :(