I first fell in love/hate with the dangerously attractive narcissist Lestat de Lioncourt and the sadboy co-dependent victim of his affections, Louis de Pointe du Lac, reading the Anne Rice novel that started it all, "Interview with the Vampire", on holiday somewhere in Spain. I was probably around 13 or 14ish, confused, horny and not aware enough to identify as closeted yet.
But Rice knew exactly what she was doing, toying with my chaotic hormones. I was hopelessly beguiled by these damned creatures. I wanted to be that ‘boy’, the interviewer Louis narrates their twisted story to. The one who learned nothing from their far from fine mess and begged to be turned.
Most of all, the awkward little geek that I once was (and kinda still am) wanted the louche confidence of Lestat’s braggadocio. I marvelled, later, at how he explodes Louis’ narrative into a thousand tiny pieces in Rice’s barnstorming sequel, "The Vampire Lestat". Not only does he pen his own biography in furiously petty response, but he also becomes a rock star whose soulful entreaties can literally wake the undead, AKA third novel "The Queen of the Damned's" Akasha.
Real bad boyfriends
All this preamble is to say that I am ravenous for showrunner Rolin Jones’ The Vampire Lestat and its firm grasp on the madness of its titular antihero. Strap yourselves in and whack the amps up to 11, because things are about to get exceedingly messy as Australian star Sam Reid’s Lestat blows it all up.
Rebranding from Interview with the Vampire for the first two seasons to The Vampire Lestat is a canny move. It draws a line under that opening gambit, which non-book-readers were already familiar with, thanks to Neil Jordan’s 1994 movie Interview with the Vampire, with an adapted screenplay by Rice.
While that film played the queerness of Tom Cruise’s Lestat and Brad Pitt’s Louis coyly, it’s fair to say Rollins’ two-season run of the same name did not. Reid’s chemistry with Game of Thrones star Jacob Anderson, as Louis, is off the charts. The show also pulls off a masterstroke in casting a Black man, in Anderson, changing Louis from plantation owner to the son of slaves.
In inflaming the fire between them, Jones and the show’s writers and directors could fully explore the depths of betrayal that would leave their twisted found family daughter, the now teenaged Claudia (Bailey Bass in season one, the spectacular Delainey Hayles from thereon), sacrificed on the altar of their all-consuming love and the vindictive Armand (Assad Zaman) licking his wounds after being caught out game-playing.
Returning to Louis' side after mutually attempting to murder one another and then Lestat taking a long dirt nap, the scene was set for a perversely happy ending. But Lestat’s broken nature can’t let his lover have nice things.
Glam rock
Returning with all the cock-out glam rock of The Doors’ Jim Morrison via the queering of Bowie’s story in Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine, The Vampire Lestat is a delirious acid trip of awesomeness that may very well lead to the apocalypse.
Shifting focus to Reid’s Lestat, he changes into far too tight leather to essentially rap battle Louis. Rather than sit down to pen a book, this version of Lestat instead call and responds to that written by Eric Bogosian’s now-turned vampire journalist Daniel Molloy by writing a series of bangers ranging from T-Rex-adjacent rock to torch songs.
All of them are about his grievances with Louis, Armand and a catalogue of others waiting for a drive-by shooting in song form, including his miserable maker Magnus (Damien Atkins), who shows up in the show’s darkest material yet. A terrible violation that serves to deepen our understanding, if not acceptance, of Lestat’s everyone-sabotaging lash-outs.
Maybe there’s even the teensiest pinch of remorse over Claudia, with Hayles returning in an ‘it’s complicated’ dual role that brings a touch of Greek tragedy to this season’s glitzy and gaudy trappings as we pursue Lestat and his band on tour across Canada and the US.
They include Noah Reid as guitarist Larry, Seamus Patterson as younger brother Alex, Sarah Swire as drummer TC and Ryan Kattner as bass player Salamander. You can practically whiff the beer, sweat and blood tears on the bus.
Casting real-life musicians and tasking the spectacular Reid with legit singing brings an electric crackle to The Vampire Lestat, which now leans into a Spinal Tap-adjacent mockumentary, with Molloy foolishly thinking he’s still telling the story as he videos Lestat on tour. Reader, he is not.
Damned queens
As with the novel of the same name, Jones and his team grant us our first glimpse of the story’s new nightmare, Sheila Atim’s astonishingly statuesque Akasha, the mother of all vampires. That Lestat’s showboating begins to awaken her from centuries of silent slumber will not end well.
While the first two seasons were pretty faithful to the original book, barring a couple of significant shifts, The Vampire Lestat takes a more expansive view of the narrative, freely borrowing from later novels. Look out for the shifty Raglan James (Justin Kirk) queue jumping ahead from "The Tale of the Body Thief" and the witch Merrick Mayfair (Sarah Afful).
Jones also goes way further with Lestat’s mommy dearest issues. Jennifer Ehle brings the “bloody hell” to Gabriella in an Oedipal OMFG ante upping.
But what makes The Vampire Lestat truly sing is Reid’s remarkable central turn. We understand that Lestat is a little lost boy. One abused by his family, his maker, his lover and his daughter. One thoroughly complicit in his own undoing, spiralling while singing to fulfil his desperately longing need to be seen and heard.
Like the very best monster, he knows the harm he has caused and keenly grasps that redemption may just be possible, if only he can get over himself, find his way back to Louis and some small modicum of closure over his part in Claudia’s undoing.
But will there be enough time to sing all these lines before our chaos goblin self-destructs, possibly damning the entire world?
The Vampire Lestat is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Interview with the Vampire is also now streaming at SBS On Demand.
