Fandoms Change

[savagewilderness]

I put a bit of Marius’ speech at the start of Akasha’s for this one, and I wanted the music to build… because on first watch of the episode, Marius was so different to my imagination I was a little bit discombobulated.

But I rewatched the episode and I loved it because I felt as though Marius’ manner of speaking has a similarity to Akasha’s - like Marius needs to get away here as he feels in himself how he is becoming close to just stopping and becoming stone himself… that’s how I feel it, anyway…?

This music is rubbish, not least as I had 15 minutes to do the 3 improvisations I did today, and this one - WOW there are so many words in it - AHHH - no space for me! Haha.  Anyway, here it is!

She, she, she, it is she It is often she And in the old songs and in the long nights She holds him in the softness of her arms In her arms that are open in her arms that are wide That are open, that are always, That must always be open. And in the old ways And in the old laws, This was arranged All this was arranged And who arranged it? Did Amel? {And in the long nights, and in the soft dark, she is (?????) and that is the answer.} And that is what it means to be loved. {That’s why she lies limp in the straw?} It is Amel. It is always Amel. It is often she (?) {???} Into the land where the dead are kept, Where the dead are worshipped. {And why in the dark? And why (?) And why still here? And why still here as the millennia unfold…} And why the days without number And what am I for? What is this for? And what should Amel do with it if not to answer? And why are they throwing stones?  And why is she curled on the ground? And why is it wound {around her throat}? {And why must she drink? And why … make her? And why with his eyes? And why with his fists?} And in my eyes is desire. why is it desire?  {How do you know it’s desire?} And why does he tell her what God has said? And why Amel in their mouths? And why must my voice be smooth? And why must I sing so low? And why is she kept? Why must she be kept?  And why in this place must she be kept? And what does it mean if you are not asked? And what does it mean if you are not answered? And what is it to see and to know, but to be told… You have not seen, you have not known And why is her tongue cut out? And why is her death prolonged? And when will it stop? And who will stop it? And why must they, must we, must I, must he, must they, as the millennia unfold? Why the girl curled? Why her eyes lowered?  Why on the side of the road?  Why limp in the straw? I am the girl! I am the god! I am the voice!  I am the song!  I am the night!  And I can answer!  I can arrange it!  I can say rise, and I can say speak!  And I am her!  And I am she!  And I-I-I-I-I am the answer!

[retiredkat]

THAT’S HOW YOU MAKE AN ENTRANCE!!!

[wintergirlantics]

Louis immediately writing out FUCK YOU and Lestat just laughing in everyone at the table's faces oh they are so made for each other❤️

[retiredkat]

Fangirlish - The Vampire Lestat Season 7 Review: ‘The Failures’ (SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 7)

by Shana - Fangirlish

The Vampire Lestat Episode 7 “The Failures” is one of the boldest, most well-executed, most ambitious episodes of television in recent memory. It’s the near-perfect end to a season that’s delivered hit after stylish hit, with Sam Reid leading the way as Anne Rice’s titular Brat Prince in a fashion that, lest I go without saying this as many times as possible before the bitter end, makes it impossible not to wonder if Reid is, in fact, Lestat de Lioncourt. He’s been blowing us away since day one, first on Interview with the Vampire and now in these seven straight episodes of Lestat telling his story in the most creative, sometimes purposely dishonest, fashion imaginable.

This finale elevates everything there is to say about Reid—if that’s actually his real name—to a whole new level, as Lestat’s very soul faces a tribunal of figures from his past and must answer for his perceived failures. Lestat isn’t alone in his near-death, true death, experience. While his head’s in Daniel’s bowling bag and his body’s laid out on a slab at a closed butcher shop, that same butcher shop houses Louis de Pointe du Lac…in pieces. If Lestat’s emotional journey is a terrifying, heartbreaking, otherworldly sort of affair (and it is), what Louis faces is all of those things but in a much more…immediate sort of way.

He may not have to face everyone from mother to Maker—and everything in between—as Lestat does, but he is at the mercy of Armand at his most evil. And unlike Lestat, who’s in that odd in-between realm, Louis is close enough to his actual body to feel every physical bit of torment on top of the mental torture Armand puts him through. That, somehow, fits. In a sick, twisted way, it makes all the sense in the world that the most human of vampires would be trapped in a situation that only a vampire with very powerful blood could withstand…with an all-too-human sense of mortality looming over his grotesquely severed head.

I wish I had the late Rice’s way with words because I feel like only someone with her talent could describe the performances from Assad Zaman, Jacob Anderson, and Lestat Reid in this season finale in any way, whatsoever, that does what they do here some shred of justice. Put their work together with a score that totally dazzles, particularly during the sequence where Lestat confronts his mother about her forcing him to watch the witches burn, even when it meant watching someone who played at his home die that horrible death. Mix in some absolutely stunning closeup shots, the blurry filter for a fading Louis’ visions of Armand here before he’s looming over him with a terrible clarity there, the effects of Louis’ severed head just being…there the whole time, flashbacks of Lestat’s greatest hits (failures), and so much more.

And what do you have? A masterpiece worthy of the Prince Lestat himself.

Armand is the villain in Louis and Lestat’s story, always has been in many ways. In fact, as far as AMC’s adaptation of The Vampire Chronicles goes—at least in both seasons of Interview with the Vampire and, now, in The Vampire Lestat Season 1—the tradition is that he reveals himself in all his diabolical glory at the end of the season. “The Failures” continues that tradition and takes it to a whole new level.

Armand delivers his “true and heartfelt Armends” in a way that, well…it’s a good thing he goes with the clever play on words because these are not amends. Not in any way, shape, or form. Especially not when he brings up the Fred Steins as an extra “F you” to Louis, punctuating his totally-remorseless accounting of events by pouring salt in the wound for the mere pleasure of it. Then, there’s how he gloats about all the work he did to put Regina in Louis’ path, to torture him with the very notion of her—Claudia, the one Armand’s coven killed while he “took an aesthetic pleasure” in it all. Yes, he took credit for saving Louis when it was really Lestat. No, he’s not sorry. Because it bound Louis to him, a companion, someone he claimed to love…but did he?

Typically, this is the place where I’d highlight some aspects of a performance, a line reading here, a change in expression or movement quality there. The problem with Assad Zaman’s performance in The Vampire Lestat Episode 7 is it’s actually impossible to do that. Trying to keep track of a single perfectly-delivered line—all casual cruelty one minute, something particularly threatening or menacing the next, poetic and melodic in a way all along—means jotting down every single word he says in the entire season finale. I have the same difficulty when it comes to the movement. Each time he tilts his head a certain way, or places his fist under his chin just-so, leans in or dances away to rest in Armand’s evil one moment while playing up that cruelty the next there is endless in how much it conveys.

He wastes nothing, maximizes everything, flawlessly performs in a way that appears effortless yet can’t possibly be. I’ve found Zaman to be an actor who understands this character—from Arun, to Amadeo, to Armand, and then some—since before it was even confirmed that he was Armand and not “Rashid.” And yet. I’m still so incredibly blown away by what he does in this season finale. I’ve watched scenes over and over, sat with it for a while before trying to write a review, and still…what can I even say other than wow? It’s the detachment as Armand tells Nelson or Regina to “rest,” knowing that means they’ll cut themselves; it’s the intensity throughout, the brilliance of knowing when to play up the evil and when to let it just…be.

But even though Armand is the villain in this story, The Vampire Lestat Episode 7 reminds us that he bears an enduring, unbearable amount of trauma as well. Before he became Armand, before he became this, he was just a boy. When a fading Louis, who’s been put through the infinite level of grief surrounding Claudia’s death all over again by watching Armand use his considerable power to control Regina, reminds Armand he’s “got some reason to be dark-sided,” Zaman’s already-stunning performance gets even better. Nothing excuses what he does to Louis and Lestat (especially Louis) in this hour. But to watch his breathing change, to watch him melt, to reveal all that pain of his own…it’s hard not to feel for him, just the same.

Zaman does such a fantastic job of showing Armand’s struggle to contain himself, to not reveal or show too much to Louis, there at the end of their time together. But if you watch how he worries his mouth behind his hand—like he wants to scream, or cry, or bite his nails but won’t give anyone the satisfaction—and you watch the way he does, eventually, break while almost smiling because he finally has talked about this, finally has received an apology from Louis for never discussing any of it (or his own profession, no less)…just…it’s insane, how good Zaman is here. These are the two sides to most of Rice’s characters, the horrible angst and—yes—that endless capacity for evil. Even when he’s over his psychotic break of sorts (for now?), even when he not-quite-gently heals Regina with his blood, that threat remains.

Absolute masterclass from Zaman. I don’t know how else to put it.

In The Vampire Lestat Episode 7, Jacob Anderson has the very interesting job of playing multiple versions of Louis. There’s the one who joins in judging Lestat at the long table, adoring at times and almost smug when he mentions Lestat’s failures at others, sometimes even bordering on loathing. Then, there’s the Louis toward the end of the hour, reunited with Lestat in the softest, most loving of moments as Louis strokes the Lestat’s neck and Lestat levels that intense gaze on him while stroking his back. And, of course, there’s what we see for the majority of this season finale—the severed head.

Now, there’s obviously all sorts of TV magic that absolutely must have gone into…the head. Still, all those horrible, choking, gasping sounds and that effort it takes to get out any words at all, with that raspy voice—that’s all Anderson. The same goes for every expression of dread, and terror, and grief, angst, and—yes—determination the character cycles through during his ordeal with Armand. One moment that really stands out is Louis’ reaction to seeing his own arms, desperately reaching for him, his neck just a bloody mess where his head should be. Something in the tiny movements of his mouth, the flare of his nostrils, and those eyes lays bare Louis’ realization of how completely powerless he is in this moment, how over it may all really be for him.

Still, Louis fights back in the only way he can. For the longest time, he doesn’t give anything away to Armand. He doesn’t cover up his suffering—no strength to do that—but he looks at his captor with such hatred in places, refuses to say he forgives Armand for Paris. He’s unwavering in his love for Lestat, above all. And though it flays him from the inside out to do it, a level of suffering Anderson portrays in increasing, deepening clarity throughout, he doesn’t immediately give in to save Regina. Instead, he takes the punishment rather than do what his captor demands. He sits and watches her, hears her, as she suffers right along with him.

When Armand first welcomes their additional guest, that moaned “no” from Anderson is absolutely everything. And no, I can’t comprehend Delainey Hayles sustaining that level of sobbing, screaming, fear from the first moment we see her until Regina runs away either. There’s something to be said for Louis finding some sort of strength to get his words out more clearly, more boldly, when he grits out that Regina “didn’t know.” And, despite everything, the amount of empathy he shows for the 12-year-old boy Armand used to be, the one Louis says was “sold into…what you were sold into” is almost more painful to watch than all of his suffering on his own behalf up until that point.

Louis is not a perfect angel. He has run those types of businesses, and he has hurt those whom he loves. And yet, his capacity for evil is only bested by his capacity to feel far, far too much. At Lestat’s long table, we see both. The violent slam of his fist on the table, coupled with a look at screams “grudge” is the one side. Somewhere in between, there’s the simplicity of him calling Lestat’s destruction of the Children of Darkness “impulsive, reckless.” He doesn’t rub it in, just states facts in an open and honest sort of way that doesn’t hold back either.

But at times, at times…Louis is just in love. And proud of it. Louis holds a certain power over Lestat, and I think something in Anderson’s posture and presence during all of those long table scenes drives it home in a way that even Lestat’s reaction to him can’t quite. He’s as vital to this season finale’s wild success—ironic, considering the episode’s title?—as Zaman and even Reid.

I may, like anyone else who sees a beloved series of books adapted for the screen, have creative choices I disagree with. But zero nitpicks I’ve had have totally ruined my experience. And I can’t say enough about the wise choice to keep Louis as involved as he has been in The Vampire Lestat Season 1. I’m just…so beyond grateful for the choice to give Louis an expanded role here. To do otherwise would’ve been such a waste of Anderson’s talents, which I’m always happy to see showcased, even in the crazy off-kilter way we get them in “The Failures.”

And, honestly, if we look at all the subtle hints Lestat gives in Rice’s books, the dedication and love that we see on TV is always there, floating in the background. Much more subtle, yes. But it’s there. So, for Louis to call Lestat “love of my life” here is spot on, as is the obvious way Lestat makes him the center of his universe, the welcome distraction from the torture his two Makers put him through, both at the long table and almost immediately upon his reawakening.

Sam Reid is Lestat, is Sam Reid, is Lestat. Over and over again. Repeat it. Watch The Vampire Lestat Episode 7. Sit in awe of what he does, yet again, for the seventh straight episode, to deliver on every single layer, every aspect, every internal struggle and outward showing-off this character has to offer. And then, watch it all over again. You’ll find more to impress you each and every time. Only the actual vampire Lestat could bring such an inhuman level of talent to the table…right? Right.

While he’s stuck in that strange place between afterlife and true death, Lestat’s insecurities dominate him. There’s a certain fear, a wariness to how he holds himself a she walks through those woods. He’s troubled, freaked out, uncertain of where he is or why he is or what he is. And that, right there—right at the very start!—is the true heart of all of these vampires’ stories. They are outside of reality, outside of their own understanding, and constantly grappling with what any of it all means. What is their existence, and what is their nature? They don’t know, and it’s an immortal source of angst.

When Lestat sits at the table where he spends most of this season finale, that nervous, wild way his eyes track back and forth says it all. Every single figure at this table terrifies him. He has failed them, just as they have failed him. And the overwhelming amount of trauma and pain he experiences as he looks at Magnus reminds us that, yes, Lestat’s story—rockstar era and all—is a horror.

The Vampire Lestat Episode 7 makes our hero much…smaller, more childlike, than he’d usually like us to see. As he sits at the head of that table, he’s mostly taking the condemnation of those central figures in his life, shrinking with each blow, hurt here, devastated there, and all the while realizing the end is coming for him. When he asks, in that oh-so-shaky voice, how he died, it’s immediately after his usual melodrama and mockery have failed him. There’s something in Reid’s delivery on “so…I’m dead. This is death. My father’s f**king table in your sh**y tower?” that just doesn’t have the same punch. Somewhere between life and death, stripped of all his characteristic arrogance, this is Lestat, the core of him, the center of it all.

He can’t maintain the pride and swagger, even when at the head of a once-grand table, in a chair that could easily become a throne if he let it. He cackles, unhinged, as he tries to deny being in that place at all, then becomes even more unhinged when he finds out where his head is. But that deranged grin absolutely melts away when we cut away to that butcher’s shop with his body in it.

Later, as his fledglings and Makers bring up his abandonment of the Paris coven, he slips back in the persona of the Brat Prince, defending his act of abandonment by bringing up what Magnus did to him. Still, there’s something…not quite as grand as what we’re used to. The wide eyes to play up the clownery, that little shrug, even the way he almost bounces once at the very end to punctuate his scoffing comment on how “Magnus speaks in the third person when he’s on the back foot” are all Lestat the show-off, like always. And yet, imagine him saying this in any other situation, at any other point in the season. Reid smartly holds back.

That allows the performance to grow, for his righteous anger to flare when he reminds Magnus he “refused” when that hideous thing told the Wolfkiller to “ask for it.” And there’s a certain brightness, a renewed fire in his eyes, and bitterness when he reminds Magnus of how little he showed or instructed him before (here Reid purely explodes) lighting himself on fire “DANCING AS HE BURNED!!” Every time we’ve seen Lestat act out or throw a tantrum, I’ve talked about Reid making the layers of pain underneath clear. In The Vampire Lestat Episode 7, he reverses—angst first, artifice wrapped like the thinnest of blankets around it.

The angst is there again when, once Gabriella takes the place of Magnus as the master of ceremonies, her initial gentler approach immediately turns to drawing out her son’s suffering. It’s just like Magnus from there on out. This is Lestat, looking to his mommy for help, thinking he’ll get it, and having her fail him. As always.

And, as everyone goes through negative reviews of his performances—with a blast from the past to help—it’s clear he has no allies here. And his memories, of all the shameful times they slept together or all the horrors she forced him to witness as the witches burned, completely take over. When we explore the witches’ place more fully, the sense of how truly horrified Lestat is by the thought, even in the way Reid breathes as Lestat pauses on the journey there, is stunning.

As he demands to know why his mom took him there, and all she offers is judgment for him disappointing her and failing to leave home before 30, Lestat finally cracks. Wide open. Raw. Howling, wailing in that long, awful, drawn out way. He cracks. Up until that point, Reid’s performance has been intense, the emotion overwhelming, throughout The Vampire Lestat Episode 7. This, here, now, is so much more.

Eventually, he stops the breakdown long enough to put on one. Last. Show. And even that, all the strutting across the table, standing on stage in the spotlight, working the crowd, stops and starts, with Lestat fighting against not only death itself but also all the self-loathing that’s been uncovered at that table. Without seeing everything that comes before it, maybe this would just be another instance of the prancing, peacocking Lestat to some. But now, the truth is painfully obvious in a way Reid’s performance made it all along…but that’s perceived by others now, as well.

His quiet moment with Louis’ brother is one of the most touching, brilliant little moments in the hour. Even with everything else that happens, that one stands out. Possibly because of what it says about Louis and Lestat, but mostly, I think, because it’s Lestat finding some kind of peace before he dies. Louis loved him. He realizes it, deep, deep down, here at the end of everything. And that’s enough.

Luckily, it’s not the end, though.

When Lestat awakens back on his tour bus, Reid plays that confusion, and awe, and wariness from the beginning all over again. Except, this time, Lestat is stunned to be alive. Grateful. And when he rushes off to find Louis, then freezes after seeing the love of his many lives sitting there…that’s yet another great moment of physical performance from Reid. I also love the moment when he refuses to go on stage. The rage he levels on Gabriella is probably a favorite for purely “she hurt my baby too many times” reasons. But it also says something that the showman has no more need to be in the spotlight in him right now.

And, there at the very end, we see a contemplative, reflective Lestat. He’s finishing his recording of “The Failures,” which we’ve listened to all season. Just in time to, yes, circle back to the beginning. Because he’s yet to explain the events leading up to…all of that, outside. So, when do we get that part???

“‘Could be nice,’ says Louis. ‘Could be,’ I say. And our hands touch. I am staring at Alex in his plastic Dracula mask, and then I think, ‘why is he here?’” Reid’s gasp of a breath before, “and then the world pivots.” Oh, and the camera itself actually pivots and takes us on the ride with Lestat’s head! Amazing.

This whole opening voiceover is just in this…very uncomfortable voice instead of the usual melodic whisper. Then, Reid switches to almost awe, and confusion, on “and I see stars in the sky. Though, it’s…upside down? And my blood, a half-painted moon. And then, I’m dreaming…” Gorgeous.

The Brat Prince, so pretty in purple out in the sunlight.

“…limits our view and cuts out the world so we gaze ahead towards God…” In which Lestat fills in for his baby self again.

I kinda chuckled at the “Lestat” getting an answer of “Lestat” from, well, each version of Lestat.

“…the light’s going out of your blue eyes, as if all the summer days are gone.” THANK YOU. FINALLY.

Armand’s two quick snaps before he tells Louis about the second lie. Amazing.

His hair is curling. Thank you for that.

“Many times, I told myself the lie did not matter because what we had built, a love that served as a bunker against time, was weightier and more consequential than the lie, but it wasn’t true. The lie did matter. Because the corpse was there, calling forth the flies.” Ok but like. When Zaman rushes through the beginning of this, it’s like Armand’s still arguing and bargaining with himself. At one point, even, it’s like the acidity around the lie is aimed inward. But it’s so brief. I love it; I love everything about this. (Except, you know, Loustat being in such dire situations. But otherwise!)

Like, the closeup in Louis’ face, where he’s almost, sorta, kinda smirking…but also very much not???

“I told you I loved you, but DID I? Hm? Did I?” The nastiness on that first “DID I?!”

Every. Single. Word. I’m not kidding. All of it is beautifully written, and the performance is beyond.

Anderson’s expression after Armand tells Louis about the Fred Steins…like his whole life (77 years, at least) has been a lie. As if he’s always known Armand was this, yet he’s only now really knowing it.

“And where’s Claudia?” “She said all she needs to say to you is what she said.” OH GOD. That sad, little look at her empty chair???

“Dying, not yet dead.”

Every time they holler about “THE SOUL” is just so delightfully weird.

“Judgment comes from God, Satan, the simulation—we don’t know. No one ever tells us. And yet, here we are on course number two hundred and five.”

The supporting characters are great in this. I laughed so hard when they all pretended to be asleep.

Something about that big AF blade and Armand together just makes sense.

It’s those hands writing out “F— YOU” for me.

Zaman’s hands spreading out when Armand talks about “the air between.”

Armand is absolutely relishing getting to show Louis the thing that used to be Lestat.

“…enjoyed ruining for the sake of ruining.” And then, he like, passes his hand over the body. Almost loving. Yet definitely not that. Art.

Not him making fun of Louis’ struggle to ask about the head. Ouch.

Watch every time we get the perspective of Armand looking down on Louis. What an image—a statement. “You are nothing to me. And so is he.”

At no point in my life will I ever take Daniel and this goofy AF red face seriously.

“I think you know you’ve wronged me. And I think you know the specific ways in which you’ve done it.” Brilliant on the determination, and hate, and thirst for the win.

“F**k you.” Armand wrinkling his forehead and moving his eyebrows some kind of way, as if to say, “b**ch, please” with a side helping of “the audacity.”

“Yes, you seem to be caught in that sentiment. Regrettably, your Maker’s body has not induced you to own it. So. One. Additional motivation.”

Delainey Hayles, folks. That sustained level of emotion. Every single time. WOW.

Absolutely died over the stunned, quiet gratitude on the rare occasion Gabriella stepped in and defended Lestat.

“I did what my maker showed me, throw money at the problem and run away.”

“Showed me a co-ffinnnnnnnn, some mo-neyyyyy, told me to scatter his ashes, AND THEN HE LIT HIMSELF ON FIRE!! DANCING AS HE BURNED!!!” The Vampire Lestat Episode 7 finally reveals the horror in a way that Lestat’s little musical version of events didn’t earlier in the season. And yet, there’s still something almost musical about how Reid reads these lines.

“You want Mommy in the chair?” Reid is every bit the broken little boy, begging for his mommy, when Lestat asks for Gabriella. And Magnus just…mocks him. Evil f—er.

I hate that they put her back in period dress with that long braid. (And I wish she’d had her pants all season, honestly.)

The particular way Hayles holds those hands out in front of her is so good. Regina knows nothing’s going to protect her, yet she can’t help it as she cowers and sobs there.

“The merciful universe acknowledging your need to grieve and her need for saving…or. Or was she conceived the instant you hurled me into the supporting wall of our Dubai penthouse.” Zaman’s timing and the specific way he tilts his head back in the other direction, changing his expression to something darker as he goes, on the “or.” Just…once again, all I can say is WOW.

My dude’s entertained AF by his own evil, huh.

Every thoughtful pause, every change in pace, every glance…genius.

I am, once again, like F Daniel and his goofy AF tan.

“Gotta say that sh** a mile up in the air for it to stick.” DIABOLICAL.

Anyone else sit through this season finale like “ok but WHERE IS AKASHA” or.

The twist of Lestat’s mouth after Molloy’s “blow me.”

Lestat, too taken aback and freaked TF out to form words after that big AF head came through the ceiling.

Real talk: I could do without the “she give you the Autism Gift” and “he’s on the vampire spectrum.”

‘I listened in on your seance last night. I think Claudia would approve of this…scientific risk.” Ok, the fiend has a point here.

“He was my Claudia. But I wasted a near century…and that is not nothing. That deserves amends.” Just the way he tosses that blade to punctuate his wasted century…wow.

Louis’ in a special kind of torn agony that, somehow, is even worse than having his head and his body quite literally torn apart.

“Thank you, Mother.” “Lover.” That self-conscious glance down and back up, gratitude now replaced with something much more uncomfortable.

“…a cross between a self-absorbed Robert Plant impersonator and an 80s hot dog embalmed with hair gel. Only the drummer escapes alive. Stereogum.”

Again, the casual arrogance is off when that sh**y tenor shows up. He’s trying so hard to play unbothered. And can’t.

Jennifer Ehle is her best version of Gabrielle—er, Gabriella—at this long table, and I don’t know how I feel about that.

So much awful, awful, angst on “why did you take me there.”

“…she used to play in our home, Mother.”

That sound he makes. HOW. Seriously. HOW.

AND WITH ALL THE CHAOS AROUND HIM IT DOESN’T END???

The editing is insane.

Justin Kirk is having one heck of a TV year, between this and Criminal Minds: Evolution. Also, I know their reasons are self-serving and not exactly like “yay, Lestat” or anything, but um. THANK YOU, TALAMASCA.

…and F you, Daniel.

“He’s a watcher…” Ok but this ain’t Buffy.

Diabolical, demented, insistent gremlin.

“He pi**ed me off.” Loser.

I love the pacing, too. The closer we get to the end of The Vampire Lestat Episode 7, the more we’re just hectically going back and forth, back and forth between Louis, and Lestat, and Lestat’s memories, and…

“No biological rationale for head here and body there. That’s the soul fighting, Daniel.”

“…and you’ve got some reason to be dark-sided, Armand.” Obsessed with how Zaman stops himself short on “and you—…” before Armand goes through his own struggle, even has to change positions a little bit and take that steeling breath before repeating Louis’ “you have some reason to be dark-sided, Armand.”

He freezes when Louis talks about the houses.

“I didn’t want to think on my own sins. Orrrrrr picture you at 12. At 12.” The sobbing quality of Anderson’s voice!

“…you need a love that’ll cradle you. You should have that, and I was never that for you. And I’m sorry.”

Louis was never that for Armand because he couldn’t be, because Lestat was the love of his life.

“…my coldness, my denial, drove you to this…I saw good in…you…for a while.” And he’s doing that thing when you’re about to cry but don’t want to. So, you like…grimace, almost, and your eyes give you away.

That sigh from Zaman. Armand is relieved, relaxed, done. (For now?)

OH THAT “A” CARVED IN LOUIS’ CHEST. EVIL.

Lestat out here, giving a whole new meaning to “dying inside.”

Reid just swaying, totally out of control. Stunning.

Great moment from Ehle (and terrible from Mommy Dearest) as she mocks Lestat on “playing a plank for a piano…” Those eyes are about to bug out her head, just milking the moment. Like mother, like son, basically.

When Lestat goes from that sound to the demented chuckling? Another wow moment.

And one. Last. Chance for that swanning and peacocking, the sarcastic slow clap for his audience’s performance of his failures…

I’ve missed this Brat Prince for the whole hour!

“What a life it’s been.” So reflective and dreamy.

And what a season it has been!

The hair toss, the deep cut of that top, the swagger…

“I took your blood; I did my vampire duty! I brought death, spread fear, fostered superstition and paranoia!”

It’s the way he makes that sharp gesture and turns after Gabriella calls him “failure!” and goes “I don’t agree!” for me. I adore the sheer indignation.

“I think in the end—in the ennnd!—I think I was pretty f—kin’ great!” You were, Prince. So very much so. (The breaking down in tears and laughter on this…wow.)

His tears???

Lestat, raging against the dying of…himself, wanting to go out his way. In style.

The panting exhaustion, grasping for more of a mark to leave behind before it’s too late…

And then, the physicality takes over again. Watch him stagger and stumble, then look up in pure awe and longing at the heaven he doesn’t believe he deserves.

On his knees.

There’s a moment where all we see is the dark shadow of him with all the lights in the back, and it is gorgeous.

Him mouthing “where’s Louis” gutted me.

“You go on stage—you get torn apart! YOU do it because I am not going on stage, I am not f**king singing, YOU F—ING MONSTER!!!” Perfect counterpoint to Lestat having a meltdown trying to rationalize their relationship to Louis.

“What did I say at the start of this…as to…the queen? As to…destruction unleashed? Something about…regretful dead, and then….traumatized…alive…that I had made a contribution. Let me take that back. The fault was mine. All of it.”

What an image there at the end.

When do we get the renewal press release????

Agree? Disagree? What did you think of The Vampire Lestat Episode 7? Leave us a comment!

[retiredkat]

TV Insider: Inside ‘The Vampire Lestat’ Finale With the Queen and the Damned (SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 7)

The stars of the Anne Rice adaptation set the stage for the destruction to come in the next chapter.

Kelli Boyle – TV Insider

July 19, 2026, 10:17 pm

You can live forever, but can you live with yourself? That question becomes harder to answer with each passing episode for the characters of Interview With the Vampire, retitled The Vampire Lestat with Season 3. All three seasons depict an odyssey of recollection for narrators Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat (Sam Reid). Season 2 ends with Louis finally embracing the gift of vampirism and, by extension, himself. Season 3 ends with Lestat’s first true act of self-love and “forgiveness of the self” after he begrudgingly reflects on his origins, series creator Rolin Jones tells TV Insider. But Lestat still has a lot of evolving to do. There’s still the second half of The Failures album to play, and those tracks should contain how Akasha (Sheila Atim), the mother of all vampires, rose again and caused global destruction.

The Vampire Lestat title spotlights the vamp most responsible for triggering apocalyptic events that descended upon the world after Lestat’s tour and before he recorded The Failures, which provided this season’s narration. The July 19 finale ended with the reveal of where Lestat was recording these reflective tracks, his “failures” — from his living room and seemingly alone, but the city outside is completely destroyed. How this happened is still a mystery, but we’re led to believe it was the work of Akasha, who will wreak havoc of biblical proportions in Season 4 (should The Vampire Lestat be renewed), which Jones envisions as Part 2 of this story, just like Interview With the Vampire was split in two.

Lestat wanted to rewrite Daniel Molloy’s (Eric Bogosian) portrayal of him in his memoir with Louis by reclaiming the narrative on tour with his band, but the artistic process, paired with hallucinatory muses from his past, the return of his mother, Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle), and some questioning from documentarian Daniel, made Lestat worse before it made him better. His art and narration became more honest when he finally submitted to what the music needed, but his continued exposure of vampire kind resulted in several attempts on his life, and one almost succeeded in the finale. But that’s just the beginning of the story of how he reawakened Akasha.

“There’s a clue into the storytelling that we did this year, which was probably frustrating for some people,” Jones says. “There’s a really, really strict series of points of views in Queen of the Damned [the next book in the show’s source material, Anne Rice‘s The Vampire Chronicles] that I’m pretty sure will be embraced in Season 4. Everyone’s going to get to tell their version of their things. And so in The Vampire Lestat, when we were doing The Failures, there were obviously times when we could have gone deeper into, where was Gabriella? What’s going on with Daniel? There’s a lot of time coming forward to be able to do that.”

“This is a part one,” he continues. “And when a potential Season 4 comes out, everyone will see the puzzle and see the things that we’re missing this year and why. [With] this finale, we were really trying to get into the heart and soul of Lestat. And that was the subject: the vampire Lestat. Queen of the Damned’s coming in, taking all those characters with her. But people should look to the structure of that book. We try to honor every year what Anne was doing. Go back and look at Season 1 and then what we did in Season 2. They’re all complementing each other a little bit.”

After three seasons of drama contained to one microcosm of immortal life, the story has opened up to bring the characters face to face with their ultimate maker. Will they survive judgment day?

The Queen’s Debut Hangs Over Their Heads

Atim debuted as Akasha in The Vampire Lestat Episode 5‘s flashbacks. Her scenes with Reid and Christopher Heyerdahl (Marius de Romanus) showed how Lestat became one of the most powerful vampires alive by drinking Akasha’s blood. Her arrival in the present has been looming since Season 1, but the third season’s final shot revealed the results of her return.

Rice designed Akasha as the original vampire who must be kept alive but under complete control for her species to survive. She’s awoken from her forced slumber by Lestat’s music.

Akasha believes that male violence is the root of all suffering and wants to eradicate 90% of the male population to establish a matriarchal society, but it’s not an altruistic desire to improve the lives of women. Akasha is the show’s opportunity to bring forth more female rage after three seasons of men wreaking havoc on people’s lives while continuing to subvert gender archetypes.

“[Akasha] puts the characters into perspective,” Reid tells TV Insider. “[The show] is this wonderful slow zoom out from this very, very small living room drama in Season 1 to slightly we start to expand into what the vampire world is and the antics and we’re going into Paris and some history. Then you’re going into the deep depths of the vampire ego and the id and the internal landscape, and then taking that ego space in Season 3. As we go out of that, you put all of it in perspective and you see the bloodline that these creatures are carrying through and what the universe is, what the world is, and what the ancient experience of Akasha is as she wakes up and sees what her children have been doing.”

“For Louis and Lestat to have got to where they’ve got to at the end of the season, and then to throw Akasha into the mix, it’s going to give them a lot of perspective,” Reid adds. “There’s a lot of growth coming.”

Akasha’s life has spanned millennia, and while her body’s been immobilized by her keepers, her mind has been telepathically observing the passage of time. She doesn’t like what she sees. Anderson says that “it’s about time” for feminine energy to come in and shake things up. “They’re just such destroyers,” he says. “It’s time for the real boss, the real destroyer.”

“This show and these books are so subversive when it comes to gender identities and sexualities and conversations about gender roles,” says Atim. “So, it’s, if anything, a continuation of what the first two seasons have brought but just ramping that up so we can see real examples of female rage, which I’m quite excited by.”

“We see glimpses of it in the other female characters that have already come,” The Woman King star adds, but with Akasha, “we get to just sit in the full force of it.”

“There is something really interesting across storytelling, across cultures of the female archetype or the mother archetype that is both creator and destroyer. Akasha is absolutely that,” Atim adds. “You know sometimes when parents are like, ‘I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it’? That’s very much her energy. That’s just fun.”

Jones puts Akasha’s past and future role in the series into perspective: “In theory, this whole season, and you could argue Seasons 1 and 2/Great Conversion, has always been dipped in this doom and great damage that’s coming. This has been a pretty male-dominated show for a while, and there’s a lot of pent-up female anger of why the world is the way it is. This show wants to do something new every season. There’s a nice exploration [to be had with Akasha]: What happens if we remove you guys and see what happens to the planet?”

“She’s a terrifying figure,” he continues. “There’s not anything level-headed that’s coming. There’s something quite Old Testament that’s coming, the feminine version of it.”

The AMC drama has been a profound examination of humanity and the violence within it through diverse perspectives. Because we expect vampires to be monstrous, the story can use them to go the distance with emotional extremes. Because these vampires are the most human monsters, we can see ourselves in their complexities. It feels good to see them go in and out of dark places because we need to see that no one is the sum of their worst moments.

Rice made the blueprint for fiction’s humanized monster in The Vampire Chronicles. Fifty years later, Jones’ creative team is using that roadmap to explore generational trauma and abuse in many forms, ask what we owe ourselves and each other in their wake, and to give an unflinching look at flawed characters as they claw through the peaks and valleys of trying to be better. Part of the intrigue is watching why they struggle to do it despite, in theory, having all the time and power in the world.

The Vampire Lestat finale almost ended Louis and Lestat’s endless time. How will they honor their immortality now that it’s been restored and, in Lestat’s case (based on his day walking), amplified?

Reid is still as impressed by the show’s scope now as he was when he was auditioning.

“It’s so amazing that you could just make a genre show and it could just go down one route, but Rolin and Hannah [Moscovitch, executive producer/writer] use it to explore everything and anything,” he says. “It’s really fun to find yourself in interviews discussing the merits of immortality but what that means on a larger social level and where we’ve come to as a species. We could just be talking about — which we have spent a lot of time [doing] — biting people’s necks and what’s that like? But it’s transcended into this other space now.”

The Rock Star in Limbo

The Vampire Lestat’s tour was supposed to end with the band’s biggest concert to date, with an audience full of bloodsuckers. But the concert is in limbo until further notice, despite mom-ager Gabriella’s efforts to make Lestat perform right after his and Louis’ heads were reattached.

Louis and Lestat were decapitated by Armand (Assad Zaman) and Daniel in Episode 6. What seemed like a scheme to stop the concert and the Great Conversion was a plan to get revenge on Lestat and force Louis to apologize to Armand. (The Talamasca had a vested interest in thwarting their efforts.) Lestat’s head was kept in Daniel’s bowling bag and his body left with Armand. Bogosian says they made a mechanism to make the fake head move in the bag, but it wasn’t seen.

“What really helped my performance was that Sam had so completely created this character who is so patronizing toward my character and always ridiculing me,” says Bogosian. “It gave me plenty of fuel to get into that stuff with him and then to suddenly be curtailed [by Raglan James].”

Daniel was willing to kill Lestat and had no apparent opposition to Louis’ fate, but Zaman says, “I don’t know if Armand would have gone through with it. Armand is the kind of guy that needs Louis and Lestat. I think eventually, [he] would have been like, ‘OK, you’ve had your fun, you’ve bowled. Let’s just put them back together and go.'”

Because of Akasha’s blood, Louis and Lestat didn’t die immediately upon beheading, but they only had hours before they would.

Lestat’s consciousness was in a fever dream starring nightmare versions Louis, Gabriella, Nicki (Joseph Potter), Antoinette (Maura Grace Athari), and Magnus (Damien Atkins), conjured by his psyche as a manifestation of self-hating thoughts. Claudia (Delainey Hayles) rightly couldn’t be bothered to attend. They sat at the “Long Table” and listed Lestat’s failures as his life ended. Reid says, “It was so joyful to see everybody else play the Lestat nightmare versions of themselves.”

Gabriella was the only one to defend Lestat as his failures were listed, and Lestat welcomed the support initially. But when Magnus, who sexually assaulted Lestat when turning him into a vampire, noted their incestuous relationship and Gabriella called these things irrelevant, something changed. The “it’s different for vampires” fog parted, and Lestat viewed his sexual relationship with his mother in the critical light it’s always needed.

A montage of his life flashed before him to show that he finally understood how he continued the cycle of generational trauma that Claudia fought to break. Lestat started challenging the perspective of the nightmare fledglings, like someone questioning their negative internal monologue for the first time.

The dream expanded and Lestat performed for a crowd of those he killed or traumatized. As his final minutes ticked away, Lestat processed his performative nature and felt compassion for his victims. Louis and Lestat’s final words pre-beheading played repeatedly before the spirit of Louis’ brother, Paul (Steven G. Norfleet), walked in, his first appearance since the pilot.

This is not confirmation that Lestat killed Paul, Jones says. “Words are slippery in fever dreams. There’s a long table with all these fledglings, and then suddenly Marius is there. It’s like every dream: Things break down.”

“We considered Paul’s entrance there the first act of self-love and forgiveness of the self for Lestat,” he continues. “Lestat could have put Louis there, but the fact that that fragmented brain pulls the thing that Louis loved the most in this world to send that message was very beautiful. Lestat’s on stage. Language gets a little fragmented. If you’re ever looking for direct truths and one-to-one correlations on our show, you’re going to have a really hard time.”

Norfleet was supposed to return in Season 2 as one of Louis’ hallucinations in Dubai, but it didn’t work out, so they moved the cameo to Season 3. The meaning behind the idea didn’t change: “There was nobody else out there to be able to cut through the self-loathing than that figure,” says Jones.

Lestat spent what could’ve been his final moments thinking that he never heard Louis say, “I love you.” Paul told Lestat that Louis has a hard time saying it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t. Why is Paul a fitting spokesperson for Louis’ feelings? Anderson says, “There’s a bond that Louis and Paul shared that could exist unspoken. Paul would have access to where Louis’ thoughts are going better than anyone — he and Grace [Kalyne Coleman].”

“Paul’s the last person Louis ever told that he loved them,” Anderson continues. “It’s such a big thing for Lestat, not being told that he’s loved and particularly not hearing the actual words from Louis. But Louis can’t say it because the last time he said it, Paul killed himself. [Louis thinks] that’s what happens when you tell people you love them: They leave you or they can’t handle the enormity of it. Louis needs to be able to be in situations where people can just understand it. But Lestat needs to hear it. Who better to hear it from than the last person Louis said ‘I love you’ to?”

Paul thanked Lestat for loving Louis the way he needs. They looked up at the threads of a heavenly afterlife, and Paul talked to God about sending Lestat back to life with Louis. “We confirmed that God is a woman,” Anderson wants viewers to remember. “I hope people are going to be talking about that.”

While Lestat was trapped in this limbo, Louis was in a living nightmare.

A Story of Love and Butchery

Armand put Louis’ decapitated head on a spike with his body restrained in a butcher’s shop. He used the threat of Lestat and Regina’s (Hayles) deaths to force Louis to make amends for their seven decades of coupled misery or suffer horrific consequences, such as having his head sewn onto Regina’s decapitated body (a sick riff on an Armand and Claudia scene in The Vampire Armand). Dr. Fareed (Gopal Divan) was there to study Louis’ vitals and save him if and when Armand was satisfied.

Armand owned his role in the trial and revealed he planted Regina in Louis’ life to twist the knife of his grief. It was thrilling to see Armand in full chaotic form instead of performing versions of himself he was convinced he had to be to be loved. “That was a lot of fun,” Zaman says. “It was a long time coming.” But it was still abject horror. Zaman knew that Armand’s amends to Louis had to be different from the others. “I just didn’t know how f**ked up it was going to actually get,” he admits. “That’s a testament to Hannah and Rolin’s sick imagination, but it’s brilliant. It’s exactly how I imagine Armand would have done it.”

“I wanted Louis to wind him up more,” Anderson reveals. “They didn’t go for it, but my idea for that scene was — and I tried to put it in a second time, in ADR — Louis would keep calling him boring while his head was cut off. Every time Armand was trying to goad him to speak, he’d be like, ‘Boring. So boring.’ I recorded it.”

“Release the boring cut,” he jokes.

Regina was rather defenseless against Armand’s influence. Still, Hayles says she willingly cooperated at first and regrets it.

“Regina sees the good in Louis and wants him to do good. Obviously, in the beginning, it was very transactional. Then she sees he has a pure heart and doesn’t mean to inflict [pain],” Hayles explains. “He’s grieving. That was something she exploited. Now he’s a head in front of her, and he’s still trying to save her. It’s like, ‘Oh, I really did mess up a good thing. He was really nice to me.'”

“I’d quite like someone to be nice to Louis,” Anderson says. “Lestat’s pretty nice to Louis [this season], to be fair.”

The extremity of the circumstances led Louis, on the brink of death, to ask if he should seek any absolution with the man torturing and trying to kill him and those he loves (again). It’s an intentionally horrific question that got a deeply human answer from Louis that Armand didn’t earn that day. It not only made Armand feel seen for the first time ever, but proved Louis has always understood Armand, to an extent. Louis acknowledged the parallel of his history as a pimp and Armand’s history of childhood sexual slavery, and the fact that they fell into a slippery dom-sub dynamic without talking about why each of them needed it to feel safe or in control. It was the last thing Armand expected to hear.

“I almost feel like it was the love or the grace somebody gives somebody that did something while they were in the grips of addiction,” Anderson says, but “[Louis] doesn’t forgive him.”

Armand is a fascinating character because of his contradictions. He’s like a god whose traumatized origins convinced him he’s not as powerful as he is, and yet he’s thrilled by flexing that power. In 500 years, he’s tragically never realized that survival mode is something that can end.

“There’s a lot of passionate people for and against Armand. The ones who are against Armand are really f**king against Armand,” Zaman says, smiling. “I find those people sometimes don’t recognize where some of his actions have come from. Not to excuse his actions, but there were two people in this relationship who were hurting each other. I think that shows with Louis’ final speech.”

Jones explains why they had Armand go to such brutal extremes: “What we tried to do is get into Armand’s gremlin head and go, ‘He found out what I did, and he had never apologized for the 50 years he put me through.’ [Armand] wasn’t always the easiest guy to live with either, so you let his brain begin to spin. The amount of thoughtfulness and planning he did to put him into this place was a quite elaborate, weird, and very Armand-like way in which to get his event. He thought, ‘I will never get him to apologize to me at all. It will have to take a certain situation.’ We leaned into it.”

“[Armand] was quite hurt” by Louis, Jones notes, “maybe 5 or 10% rightfully so. The beauty in the scene as performed by Jacob is eventually, whether or not he’s doing it to save Regina, he goes to this place where he goes, ‘OK, what if I am [partially responsible]?’ Some of it comes off of the seance, too. ‘Wow, man, I might have had my head up my ass. Do I owe anything to Armand?'”

After that speech, Armand carved an A in Louis’ chest. Anderson admits that he, Reid, and Zaman struggled to understand Armand’s “weird” move.

“The closest we came to was that it was like a scarlet letter,” Anderson says. “Armand was shaming Louis. He was marking him for Lestat because he knows he’s going to run to Lestat next. I’m not sure what Louis feels about that. I don’t know if he’s even processed it. After having your head cut off, his main focus is getting back to Lestat.”

The finale opens the door for Armand to start a real mission of contrition and forgiveness, should he choose to accept this gift. Lestat will embark on the continuation of his. And we know from the auction that some connective tissue still remains between these characters after the queen arrives.

What do these monsters owe one another? Akasha will force an answer to this existential question, but The Vampire Lestat finale argues that recognizing the humanity within each of them is a good place to start. If Claudia’s lonely hell awaits them all in oblivion, they’re damned anyway. They might as well try to help each other stay alive (forever).

[retiredkat]

Vanity Fair

For Sam Reid, Playing the Vampire Lestat Comes With Pleasure—and Perhaps a Nip of Pain

Hannah Giorgis YohannesJul 13, 2026

On a balmy June evening, a crowd of vampire obsessives descended upon the Upper West Side’s Beacon Theatre in a sea of black and red. More than 50 years after Anne Rice published her debut novel, fans of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles traded compliments on custom designs and Etsy finds befitting the florid gothic romance: ornate chokers and lengthy crimson talons; bedazzled crop tops and pin-covered tote bags bearing messages like “I ❤️ VAMPIRES”; black lace gloves paired with T-shirts depicting “Loustat,” the couple at the center of AMC’s steamy TV adaptation of Interview With the Vampire. The show follows the dark, century-spanning relationship between brooding 1800s New Orleanian Louis de Pointe du Lac (played by Jacob Anderson) and his maker, Lestat de Lioncourt (played by Sam Reid).

Interview ended with a tender reunion between Lestat and Louis, and audiences’ appetite for the sexy blood-suckers, arguably the hottest couple on TV, has only grown in anticipation of the latest installment of their story. The Vampire Lestat, the first-ever onscreen rendering of Rice’s beloved second book, premiered this summer, and finds the lovers on the outs once again, sending Lestat into a self-destructive spiral that spans the bulk of the new season. “He just hits every brick wall," Reid said of his character when we spoke in New York a few weeks ahead of the concert. “He runs full pelt and smashes into every single one of them.” The 39-year-old Australian actor likens playing this character to “when the intrusive thought takes over, and then the intrusive thought goes, ‘Welcome to my world.’ It’s like having a lucid dream.” Lestat kicks off his eponymous show by following in the footsteps of many a heartbroken, long-haired mortal: He turns to rock and roll to alternately tend and mask his wounds, which quickly establishes The Vampire Lestat as an electrifying showcase for Reid’s vocal talents and emotional dexterity.

When Reid stepped onstage at the Beacon Theatre to introduce himself as the immortal musician, he looked every bit the part—moody, opulent costuming and glitter-dusted cheekbones that screamed “cunty Kurt Cobain”—before he sang a single campy lyric. Concertgoers who’d packed into the nearly 3,000-person venue screamed with a zeal that felt entirely outside time, as though we’d gathered to witness an exclusive David Bowie séance rather than a promotional concert for a TV show headlined by a fictional vampire. For nearly 30 minutes, Reid held the theatre in rapturous awe as he wound his way through six original songs from the show. During a transition, the enigmatic, blond-haired Lestat pulled a fringed sash off his partially exposed torso and tossed it behind him without looking away from the audience; the sash landed perfectly on a mic stand, as though guided there by a phantasmal force. Reid’s portrayal of the mercurial vampire is so engrossing, so vivid, so wildly different from his own calm, quiet demeanor that at times it felt as though he had been possessed by the spirit of Rice’s fictional character.

Despite the glittered cheekbones and leather pants, Reid's performance subverts the typical brash rock and roll persona to show glimpses of the yearning and hurt that shape Lestat's inner world.

Much of the meta-marketing for The Vampire Lestat, including the June concert, has mirrored the bombastic facade of its 265-year-old protagonist’s musical persona but thrown him onto a multi-city rock tour steeped in all the excess and delirium of Rice’s original setting, 1980s America,emphasizing the tonal departure from the foundational show with a panache that evokes the sharp whiplash of Rice’s sequel. “You’re kind of throwing every ball up in the air,” Reid said. If the first two seasons of Interview felt like drinking one too many old fashioneds in an amber-hued cigar bar, watching The Vampire Lestat is more akin to mixing vodka with some uppers handed to you by a stranger at a music festival on a weeknight. The pacing is more frenetic, the narration more biting, the flashbacks more jarring, and the comedowns much harsher. (When we spoke, Reid told me, “I do worry sometimes; I’m like, Oh my God, I’m stuck here, like, I need to kind of do a little bit of physical exorcism. He’s a very addictive character. It’s a very fun, languid thing to play.”)

The switch in perspective isn’t just about aesthetics. For Reid, and the other Chronicles leads, it also required accessing entirely new dimensions of the characters they’d previously inhabited. “This was The Odyssey if it was about going inside Lestat, in his brain, in his heart,” says showrunner Rolin Jones. Interview introduced viewers to Lestat through Louis’s eyes, casting him first as a suave, impenetrable lothario. One of the pleasures of watching The Vampire Lestat is that it does not present itself as an unbiased or factual corrective to Louis’s perspective, but shines a light on the vulnerabilities that Louis either couldn’t see or willingly ignored. “I think that Louis underplayed the fact that they could make each other laugh,” says co-star Anderson. “You have to remember they were friends—they’re lovers, and they’re friends, and they like each other.” If Louis’s recollections assembled Lestat in the shape of a melodramatic, occasionally villainous lover with delusions of grandeur, then Lestat’s narration of his own life is partly a pointed response to those perceived mischaracterizations. “You’re just going to go on a little fucking fever dream with [Lestat], and you’ll care about him, and you’ll be moved by him, and you’ll understand him better,” continues Jones.

But in its focused exploration of the titular vampire’s interiority, the new series grants Lestat the space to reckon with his own blind spots—giving Reid the room to shepherd his character through a staggering range of previously unseen mental breakdowns and emotional revelations, without losing the core of the man Louis fell in love with. Much of the season finds Lestat wrestling with profound guilt, including over the death of their daughter, Claudia (played with harrowing grace by Delainey Hayles). “There was a level at which I could be more chaotic, less controlled, and less of this sort of archetypal, seductive vampire figure, and more messy,” Reid said.

Onstage at the Beacon, for example, Reid’s demeanor started to show the cracks in Lestat’s brash, disaffected rock star persona as soon as it came time to address his onetime lover. Midway through a song called “Big Bad Wolf,” Reid paused to ask the audience a series of pointed questions: “Did you ever love someone that didn’t love you back? I know you know who I’m talking about. Did you ever try to let someone back in after they come to you with what feels like a softness in their eyes and a grief in their heart?” he asked, before naming the betrayal that kicks off this chapter of Lestat and Louis’s convoluted, multi-century love story. Reid’s mid-concert interrogation captured much of what The Vampire Lestat does best across its multi-episode arc: wrapping Lestat’s palpable feelings of rejection and abandonment in the translucent armor of a petty onstage meltdown, at once drawing attention to both the heartbreak itself and the character’s arduous labor to conceal it.

As with Interview’s two seasons, the new offering is explicitly premised on the narrator’s unreliability. If Louis’s attempt at emotional release was stringing suppressed memories together, Lestat’s is gilding his feelings with the protective shield of melody—and the rockstar character it lets him hide behind: “He’s always performing in some capacity, so it felt like the right extension of his personality,” Reid said, later paraphrasing some of Rice's reflections on her character's headspace: “It’s a wonderful place—I mean, it’s very hectic, I must say, being in his mind, but it’s a wonderful place to be because he’s so confident. He’s got a lot of flaws, but he’s also so confident to be able to just walk into any room and know that he has control over it. He’s really a very uninhibited character, so it’s a very alluring sort of attractive space to live in.”

Lestat has long been considered one of the most important figures in the queer-horror canon and the character, who was inspired by Rice’s husband, the poet and artist Stan Rice, always loomed large for the New Orleans-born author. He was “the person who could go through life joyfully in spite of the questions that torment me, the horror of death that torments me,” Rice said in 2010. “He never really absorbs a tragic definition of himself for very long. He always comes back laughing at everything and just rebounding,” she continued, adding that “he was the man I wanted to be; he was the person I wanted to be.”

Perhaps because of that personal connection, Rice was notoriously hostile to the idea of Tom Cruise playing Lestat in the 1994 film adaptation of Interview, although she eventually came around after seeing Cruise’s performance opposite Brad Pitt. But Reid’s first encounter with Lestat came through the Chronicles movie that Rice always saw as a “great disappointment.” In the early 2000s, an Australia-based production of Queen of the Damned starring Aaliyah introduced Reid, then a vampire-obsessed teen, to the Irish actor Stuart Townsend’s take on Lestat. Now, the show’s most haunting moments are animated by Reid’s unabashed embrace of his character’s identity as a predator—and the actor’s obvious empathy for the past traumas that set the stage for the complex, frequently destructive bonds Lestat shares with others, as well as the sheer intensity of Loustat’s yearning for one another.

The first episode, “Detroit,” caps off a rollicking, drug-fueled ride with a dramatic, sobering reveal: A broken Lestat, bloodied and nauseous after surviving a murder attempt, finally gets a response from someone he’d been desperately texting in hopes that they would come to him. His bruised, battered face lights up when the door opens, and suddenly the nonchalant rockstar is gone. The immortal being who’d called himself a god just moments prior regresses into his stuttering, childhood self. Reid’s commitment to this grotesque portrayal is all the more impressive for an actor who is unmistakably pretty. The gulf between Reid’s conventional good looks and the sheer ugliness he conjures—slack jaw, crazed eyes, painfully hoarse line delivery, alternating hunched and over-extended back—renders Lestat’s contradictions startlingly visible. It is at once difficult to watch and impossible to look away, made all the more riveting by Reid’s obvious empathy for the character, whose entire sense of self hinges on drawing in others through the same physical beauty Reid insists on undercutting with the performance: “He’s idolized and hyper-sexualized by these people who formed him,” Reid says of Lestat. “And then all of his worth in his mind is wrapped up in how he can seduce, how he can be this creature of erotic desire.”The show works in no small part because Reid’s incredibly moving performance in a story that requires deft, subtle maneuvering of tremendously complicated material. It is an inarguable reminder that this show about beautiful gay vampires who can’t leave each other alone is actually about so, so much more. And as Jones notes, much of that is due to the actors who’ve thrown themselves into the characters, thorns and all.

Jacob Anderson's Louis largely disappears from Rice’s Chronicles after Interview, but Jones and the show’s writing team were loath to lose Anderson, so The Vampire Lestat includes a more fleshed-out, original arc for him.

Five years into working together, Anderson, who reprises his role as Louis in this series, is still moved by Reid’s commitment to conveying the obscene, to inhabiting and excavating the most difficult dimensions of Lestat without slipping into caricature. “Sam is never afraid to be the clown, to push it as far as you can possibly push it,” Anderson said when we spoke. “And that’s a gift for any scene partner, because it gives you permission. It gives you license to push back or to push in your own way or extend the options and opportunities for any given scene. He really puts himself out there without fear.”

One of the most convincing ways Reid excavates Lestat’s inner world is through the music. It’s so central to the season, in fact, that Reid received composer Daniel Hart’s music before seeing any scripts. (In the time since the in-universe band made its real-life streaming debut back in February, The Vampire Lestat’s official artist profile has racked up more than 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.) So what does a monstrous love sound like? The Chronicles adaptations have been attempting to answer the question with music that gives voice to its characters’ yearning, eroticism, and bone-deep need to be seen beyond the terrors they induce. In a season jam-packed with vocal challenges for the musical theater–trained actor, leaning into the weariness of his voice for more modern scenes “created the sense that this voice is hundreds of years old,” Reid said. “He fucking sings, he screams, he cries, he talks—he’ll talk for, like, 25 minutes at somebody, so it took on this kind of gravelly kind of quality … like a dead voice.” And yet, Lestat is so palpably alive, which makes the vocal hardening all the more affecting.

Since the first Interview episodes, Jones and Hannah Moscovitch, both playwrights, have imbued the series with a kind of meta-argument for the power of art in times of tremendous turmoil. These are dense, literary shows packed with references to all manner of highbrow art and pop culture—compositions inspired by the poetry of Baudelaire, visual nods to films like Trainspotting, dialogue that gestures toward figures as disparate as pioneering Black American jazz pianists, medal-winning British ice dancers, and Post Malone. But in keeping with its protagonist’s difficulty staring at his feelings head-on, The Vampire Lestat—and the marketing that preceded its premiere—doesn’t start with ballads or sensual odes to far-reaching love. The new show leads with up-tempo earworms that magnify Lestat’s ego, his spiral into all the expected vices, or his petty musings about Louis. Before we hear the cracks in Lestat’s voice, we see him peacocking onstage; before Lélio, we see Harlequin. “Rolin was always like, ‘Serve more cunt, serve more cunt,’ and I was a bit like, I don’t think you know what is in your mouth,” Reid said with a laugh. “Let me do the serving of the cunt, and you can just deliver the writing.”

The music starts to shift beginning with the third episode, when Lestat becomes overwhelmed by the apparition of his abusive maker and other ghosts, including Claudia, whose killing he’d been forced to witness firsthand. “I think episode three is probably the greatest primer for, Did you wanna know what Sam Reid could do?” Jones said, pointing out that the five to eight years before Interview saw Sam getting “very close to a lot of big things a long time ago and someone went for the star, whatever—I would just love all those casting directors or all those directors or the suits from studios, I’d love to just send them episode three and go, You dummies, you dummies. My good fortune.”

And again, during a crushing confrontation in the most recent episode, which finds Louis and Lestat once again reuniting on shaky emotional terrain, we see the latter address the gulf between them with one of the season’s most poignant songs: Standing onstage before Louis and the character whose noxious influence caused that evening’s fight, Lestat pivots from a high-energy rendition of Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself” to belting the heartfelt lyrics of “Brutal Love,” a jagged, vulnerable ode: “Show me that bitter star / I want it / Gimme that brutal love / I want it all.” When Reid performed the song in New York last month, no one in the crowd looked more ecstatic than Anderson, who swayed and sang along joyfully to the Loustat ballad as his counterpart inhabited the tortured rockstar onstage. In the weeks ahead of the performance, Anderson, who also makes music under the alias Raleigh Ritchie, was confident in his costar’s ability to hold the entire theater in the throes of Lestat’s musical catharsis: “He’s born for this.”

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To keep me sane between The Vampire Lestat Sundays.

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The previous video left out the last few seconds. Here it is.

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Behind the scenes of Akasha’s awakening from @iwtvupdates on Twitter

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The Vampire Lestat episode 7 synopsis

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Sneak peek for episode 6, "Montreal"

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From The Nerdist

THE VAMPIRE LESTAT Moves to Hall H at SDCC (And It Is DESERVED!)

by Rotem RusakJul 9, 2026

It’s a jam-packed year at San Diego Comic-Con in 2026. Marvel is expected to return to SDCC with some major announcements. The Rings of Power is riding back into the swing of things. And… The Vampire Lestat has landed a panel in Hall H. Rock star vampire summer has arrived in all its glory. We at Nerdist were at The Vampire Lestat‘s Ballroom 20 panel last year, and it was AMAZING. Of all the panels we visited (and there were many), The Vampire Lestat‘s outing was easily the most exciting, most passion-filled, and most thrilling of them all. Fans were absolutely in a frenzy. The room was as full as I’ve seen it. There was electricity, chemistry, and a hunger for every little morsel of information about what was to come. It was a celebration that was not to be missed, which could only be fueled by a series that is truly beloved by its fans. And that’s why it makes all the sense in the world that, for SDCC 2026, The Vampire Lestat has graduated to Hall H. It could not be a more well-earned move.

The Vampire Lestat Is Heading to SDCC’s Hall H—And It Is WELL-DESERVED

The love for Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat has only grown over the last few years. And it shows no signs of stopping. Ballroom 20 just isn’t big enough to contain it anymore. And that’s why The Vampire Lestat has to find a new home at the very heart of San Diego Comic-Con, Hall H. But hey, The Vampire Lestat filled a whole concert venue in NYC and held an actual rock show. Hall H is a walk in the park (with Armand and Daniel) after that.

This The Vampire Lestat panel at SDCC will land immediately after the final episode of The Vampire Lestat season one. And that means that the love and excitement for The Vampire Lestat will be at an all-time high. And fans will be HUNGRY for some answers about whatever delicious devilry they will have just witnessed on their screens. So, even if you just want to experience true communion of enthusiasm and affection, we suggest you check out this panel. If you’re heading to SDCC, make sure to add The Vampire Lestat‘s Hall H panel to your list.

When and Where Is The Vampire Lestat’s San Diego Comic-Con 2026 Panel?

Here are the details:

The Vampire Lestat Panel on Friday, July 24, 12:30pm-1:15pm, Hall H 

The Vampire Lestat cast and producers, including Jacob Anderson (“Louis du Pointe du Lac”), Assad Zaman (“Armand”) and Eric Bogosian (“Daniel Molloy”), Rolin Jones (creator and showrunner), Mark Johnson (executive producer) and Hannah Moscovitch (executive producer) take the stage for a panel moderated by Rotten Tomatoes’ Jacqueline Coley discussing the jaw-dropping season finale, with highlights from the electrifying music performance The Vampire Lestat: One Night Only Live, featuring original songs from series composer Daniel Hart and performed by Sam Reid as Lestat.

This season, Lestat (Reid) goes on an electric multi-city tour while being haunted by “muses” from his wild and rebellious past. As his band’s popularity and star power rises, so does Lestat’s influence over vampires and humans alike, leaving others to contend with Lestat’s power in the face of the Great Conversion, an unnatural surge in the vampire population.

Yes, Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Eric Bogosian, Rolin Jones, Mark Johnson, and Hannah Moscovitch will be on hand. And we already can’t wait to hear from them. All of the above have delivered us one astounding season of television this year. The SDCC Hall H panel will also allow fans to get a new glimpse at The Vampire Lestat: One Night Only Live, which, as mentioned, took place in NYC. We’re sure that will be some stunning footage.

The Vampire Lestat Is Can’t Miss Television

In our The Vampire Lestat review, Nerdist wrote, “The Vampire Lestat is unlike anything else on TV right now. When I envision what it was like to watch the series, the image of a stained-glass window, smashed up and then turned into a mosaic that we try to parse, comes to mind. Maybe we don’t fully understand every facet of the design, but we are aware it’s beautiful. The Vampire Lestat is not a simple watch, if that’s what you’re looking for—instead, it’s a revelatory meditation on some of the most intense possible themes, dressed up in sultry crooning, sweat, and glitter with an edge sharp enough to slice right into you.

And so, if you haven’t watched The Vampire Lestat yet and you’re heading to SDCC. We suggest you do so IMMEDIATELY!!! Otherwise, we’ll see you in Hall H. (And if you haven’t watched The Vampire Lestat and you’re not heading to SDCC, watch it anyway!!!)

The Vampire Lestat airs Sundays at 9 pm ET/PT on AMC and midnight PT on AMC+. You can also read The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice today as you wait for the next episode of the series to air.

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My messy, lovely vampires at SDCC 2026!!! In Hall H no less.

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Godzilla Minus Zero new trailer

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What an entrance!!

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