Much has been said about the differences in Gabrielle's characterisation in the books, to Gabriella in the TV show. And I agree, it's quite different, if we're only looking at TVL. But, I recently re-read The Vampire Armand, and [minus the sexual abuse] his description of her is much, much closer to the one in the show.
Highlights of Armand's description of Gabrielle include:
Everyone hates her.
She abandons Lestat for centuries
Doesn't heed Lestat’s frantic cries for help
Looks just like Lestat, except she’s a woman,
small-waisted
big-breasted
Sweet-eyed in the most unnerving and dishonest fashion
Looks gorgeous in a black ball gown with her hair free
A vampire so cunning and cold that she has forgotten what it ever meant to be human or in pain... if she ever knew it.
In mortal life...she always wondered what the others were carrying on about.
Low-voiced
Unintentionally vicious
Glacial
Forbidding
Ungiving
a wanderer
Something more akin to a prehistoric reptile than a human.
A stalker
a quick killer
a pitiless and seemingly thoughtful but eternally secretive thing.
virtually useless to anyone but herself
See what I mean?!
It makes me suspect that Rolin and Hannah agree with Armand. In writing her character for Season 3, it seems likely they consciously decided to put aside much of Lestat's perspective on her personality, in favor of Armand's much more blunt and unforgiving assessment.
Fascinating choice!
(full TVA quotes under the cut)
"Gabrielle. She’s around now. She was around on The Night Island. Everyone hates her. She is Lestat’s Mother, and abandons him for centuries, and somehow doesn’t manage to heed Lestat’s periodic and inevitable frantic cries for help, which though she could not receive them, being his fledgling, could certainly learn of them from other vampiric minds which are on fire with the news round the world when Lestat is in trouble. Gabrielle, she looks just like him, except she’s a woman, totally a woman, that is, sharper of feature, small-waisted, big-breasted, sweet-eyed in the most unnerving and dishonest fashion, gorgeous in a black ball gown with her hair free, more often dusty, genderless, sheathed in supple leather or belted khaki, a steady walker, and a vampire so cunning and cold that she has forgotten what it ever meant to be human or in pain. Indeed, I think she forgot overnight, if she ever knew it. She was in mortal life one of those creatures who always wondered what the others were carrying on about. Gabrielle, low-voiced, unintentionally vicious, glacial, forbidding, ungiving, a wanderer through snowy forests of the far north, a slayer of giant white bears and white tigers, an indifferent legend to untamed tribes, something more akin to a prehistoric reptile than a human. Beautiful, naturally, blond hair in a braid down her back, almost regal in a chocolate-colored leather safari jacket and a small droopy brimmed rain hat, a stalker, a quick killer, a pitiless and seemingly thoughtful but eternally secretive thing. Gabrielle, virtually useless to anyone but herself. Some night she’ll say something to someone, I suppose. "
"...at least two more seasons of Interview" says AMC CEO in an article today:
“On our streaming platform, we had a 30-day estimate for the show in terms of how it would perform, and it exceeded the 30-day estimate in seven days, and it has now doubled the 30-day estimate in the first 20 days,” he said. “To say it’s significantly over-performing for us would be accurate.”
"McDermott said they’re already in talks for more seasons. He confirmed that the show could rebrand again with another new name and noted that they’re interested in at least two more seasons of Interview. Showrunner Rolin Jones has said in the past that he envisioned about five to seven seasons for the series."
That Lestat wrote "Your Biggest Fan" to appease the memory of Magnus. That he's STILL desperately trying to fawn because he never could, never did, escape his murderer and rapist. Fuck.
She tricks Lestat into drinking the poison under the guise of "making up" with him, and then she brutally stabs him over and over while he yells out for Louis over and over
This is heartbreaking,😭😭 didn't he also call out for Louis when he was taken by Akasha?
When Akasha comes for Lestat, this is what he says:
And then I felt a hand suddenly close on mine. Cold as marble it was, and just about that strong. My eyes snapped open in the darkness. The hand tightened its grip. A great mass of silken hair brushed my face. A cold arm moved across my chest. Oh, please, my darling, my beautiful one, please! I wanted to say. But my eyes were closing! My lips wouldn’t move. I was losing consciousness. The sun had risen above.
“My beautiful one” is Lestat’s pet name for Louis. He never calls anyone else by that specific name.
Lestat to Louis earlier during their reunion before the concert when Louis asks Lestat not to go onstage and let them come together and have each other as they never did before:
“Very tempting, beautiful one,” I said. “There were times in the last century when I would have given almost anything to hear those words. And we will come together, and we will talk, all of us, and we will have each other. It will be splendid, better than it ever was before. But I am going on the stage. I am going to be Lelio again the way I never was in Paris. I will be the Vampire Lestat for all to see. A symbol, an outcast, a freak of nature — something loved, something despised, all of those things. I tell you I can’t give it up. I can’t miss it. And quite frankly I am not the least afraid.”
So I think it's safe to say that it is Louis, his darling beautiful one, whom he’s crying out for.
My favourite instance of Lestat calling Louis 'Beautiful One" is in Tale of the Body Thief.
It's also the scene Jacob stated (in multiple interviews) he wants to film with Sam the most. Easy to see why!
I took him in my arms, oh, so cold, so unyielding, this monster which I had made out of human flesh. I pressed my lips against his cheek, shuddering as I did so, my fingers sliding around his neck.
He didn’t move away from me. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. I felt the slow silent heave of his chest against mine.
“Do it to me, please, beautiful one,” I whispered in his ear. “Take this heat into your veins, and give me back all the power that I once gave to you.” I pressed my lips to his cold, colorless mouth. “Give me the future, Louis. Give me eternity. Take me off this cross.”
In the corner of my eye, I saw his hand rise. Then I felt the satin fingers against my cheek. I felt him stroke my neck. “I can’t do it, Lestat.”
“You can, you know you can,” I whispered, kissing his ear as I spoke to him, choking back the tears, my left arm slipping around his waist. “Oh, don’t leave me in this misery, don’t do it.”
.
Also, how can anyone read this scene and then claim that Louis and Lestat had no sexual intimacy in the books? Pulling him into my arms, kissing his lips, kissing his ear, shuddering, pressing my lips to his cheek, stroking his neck, whispering into his ear, arm slipping around his waist, chests heaving against each other, “Do it to me, please, beautiful one,”... Sure, nothing sexual going on there at all 🤔🤨🙄😒
Amazed by the personal sacrifice Jacob has made for their show by being away from his family, so glad rolin shared that.
Indeed. Jacob put his heart and soul into it, and it shows. His performance has been incredible. ❤️
And as an aside, remember Rolin saying it was hard on Jacob and Sam to be separated in S2? Remember all those times Sam came to set for the sole purpose of being Jacob's emotional support?
I. LOVE. THEM.
We are so lucky with both of them, and I'm so glad they have each other to lean on. 🥹🥰
Assuming this is legit (and who knows) it sounds like they might just mean June 16th for whatever they're filming in Toronto, and not necessarily season 3 as a whole...
I really want to know what's going on behind the scenes with this season!
If they're just working on season 3, this seems like an insanely long hiatus. I get the money issue, and wanting to space out production costs between shows, but to push the filming into June seems absurd.
I can only hope that maybe the delay is they're taking extra time for forward mapping future seasons and the wider universe, crossovers etc.
Season 1/2 was very much an encapsulated show, focussed on one book (and they couldn't assume there would be more seasons ahead), but with Mayfair Witches and Talamasca (and whispers of other limited series too), it's possible the Immortal Universe crew are having to spend some time collaborating and planning, with IWTV and Rolin's original scope as the core element of it all. If that's the case, that actually bodes well for both faster future turnaround of seasons and the longevity of this show.
Hello, sorry to bother you, may I share your wonderful Sam Reid post acting/character transformation in my place here: https://www.youtube.com/@HaronidMuse/community Giving you credit of course. 😊
We've all been bingeing the latest season of The Newsreader and once again marvelling at Sam Reid's astounding transformation into Dale.
But, I'd like to share what I believe is an even more confounding transformation. Can I present the ultimate 'just some guy' to ever exist >>> Maths teacher Sam Reid.
This is a whole different level of average guy energy.
I feel like I could have actually met this guy at a teacher conference and just completely forgot 😂
I mean, look at his scruffy, average guy face!
How the fuck did this guy ^^^ turn into THIS GUY ?!?!
Let alone become this fabulously unhinged?
Gosh, he's good at vanishing into the character.
It's damned near miraculous!!
And fucking hot!!
Also, this is him literally today, like what the actual fuck?!?
I suspect that for many, it's because Armand is such an unusual and highly complex character. He's challenging.
A rare integration of sympathetic yet horrifying, violent yet passive, powerful yet pitiful, intoxicating yet repulsive. Resulting in one hell of a unique character!
Even more fascinating is that his motivations and choices, seem entirely hypocritical and self-defeating His behaviour reflecting his unstable sense of self, an identity both tumultuous and brittle. He admits to being entirely unable to perceive and define himself, outside the roles he was forced to perform. That he is painfully aware of his own instability and insufficiency of self, is absolutely fucking heartbreaking!
Armand's entire existence has been lived on unstable ground. He's only ever known abuse of power differentials and highly conditional forms of love. Everyone that commodified or objectified him, carved away pieces of his sense of self until there was nothing left. They abused, shattered and re-molded him. Again and again. And those who didn't commodify his body, used him in other ways (eg. to enforce their extremist dogma).
“Who am I, Louis? Am I my history I have endured? Am I the job I do not want? I do not know anymore. No one has painted me in over 400 years.”
Armand was never given the chance to develop a true sense of self, and the resulting desperation he feels is bitterly plaintive, sorrowful and yet incredibly damaging to others. His perceived reality is one of impending cruelty, loss of autonomy, and inevitable abuse or abandonment. Where his identity is defined as either the dogmatic leader encumbered by rules he must enforce, or to be ruled over by another.
"If I’m not with him, I’m nothing.”
He's terrified of being alone, unmoored from another, because he doesn't know who he is without them. So Armand claws for affection and direction from those he perceives as a possible Master. Seemingly willingly relinquishing his leadership role... While still defensively scheming to retain power, and desperately clinging to the security of his own manipulations. While trying to shape an identity around the roles others (willingly and unwilling) create for him, but...
Who is Armand really?
Who is he apart from the roles others have assigned to him? It's a fascinating question.
From parents who sold him, to cruel sailors using his body for their pleasure, brothel owners further abusing him, to being purchased by a predator. A Master who gave him to others to abuse yet again, who cultivated undeserved adoration and dependency. A child's innocence, so destroyed, his entire identity shattered. Again and again. The slave child, the prostitute, the adoring apprentice, the cult leader, the Maîtré, the companion of Louis? Who is he as an individual?
He doesn't know. And that terrifies him.
I can't help but feel that if only someone, anyone had actually loved him (had taught him how love should be) he might have had a chance, might have become a better person.
Instead, he became a man scared and brutalized, now brutalizing others. Forced into enacting laws and beliefs which were not his own, forced into filth and worship of satan, in the service of an uncaring god. And when that was taken away, his cult shattered, his identity shattered. He fell back to the role of dogmatic leader.
Arun > Amadeo > Armand > Maître > ?
I've read the books, so I know that version of him very well. But the show version is even more complex in many ways, he has different layers to his story, and psychological nuances to unpack. And so many questions and possible directions for his character...
Who will he become now he has turned Daniel? What are his true reasons for first sacrificing, then saving Louis? What role did he play in the destruction of the Coven? How is Daniel so special to him that he would break his 500 year old vow? What does he want from Daniel now? Do they have a history together beyond San Francisco? How far will he go? Can he ever love anyone without maiming them? Physically and/or psychologically? What does love mean for him now that he has turned Daniel? Etc etc...
The Australian public news broadcaster (ABC News) recently released a list of their top free (for Australians) TV shows/movies. Interview with the Vampire was listed and also chosen as the title photo.
The ABC News' take on the show absolutely cracked me up! They described IWTV as saying "the quiet parts of Rice's novels out loud" and "remaining true to Rice's vision of hot people having gay drama"
Do you think the show will let us know Lestat becomes a rockstar to try and shield Louis? Or do you think they will try and make it like Lestat wants Louis to know he is fine without him? (He’s not)
I think the ending of S2 was a deliberate setup to coincide with how TVL begins — Louis is in danger, and Lestat concocts the rockstar career in an effort to shield him.
They let us hear all those threats against Louis for two reasons. One, it was meant to show that Louis is owning himself finally and is not the same as he was before. He is now The Vampire Louis. Two, like I said, it was setting up Lestat’s main reason for doing what he does with the rockstar shenanigans.
I also don’t think Lestat will be actively trying to convince Louis that he’s “fine” without him. It will be more like Lestat doesn’t want to burden Louis or be “too much” for Louis and will only want to give what he thinks Louis wants to receive.
In other words, he will be at Louis’ feet…..just like he’s really always been at Louis’ feet.
At the back of my copy of The Vampire Armand, there's an old interview with Anne Rice talking about creating that novel. I've never forgotten her answer to one of the questions... It haunted me for years.
It gives incredible insight into how and why she wrote such beautiful, brutal and broken characters, and what she endured in the creation process.
BUT before you read this, I'm going to STRONGLY warn you, it goes to very very DARK places
Q: What are your work habits for a novel?
A: Once I truly begin to write, I work obsessively, in twelve-hour days, punctuated by days of long sleep and vivid dreaming. Starting time and ending time are no longer important. I might begin at 9 A.M., or after noon or at eight in the evening. I go from there. I turn on the computer and write, write, write.
My room is a mess. Notes are scribbled on the walls so that I can look up at them at the appropriate moments and insert the date, the name, whatever, when I need it. Books are stacked so high that people have to search for me when they come into the room. Opened books with marked-up pages are stacked on top of one another.
I become suicidal. I go through a horrid despair some time or other before the final page, during which everything seems meaningless—from the dawn of history to the very hour in which I am writing.
I’m intolerable to live with. But I spread myself thin over a number of loved ones and staff members so that no one person has to put up with how intense, hysterical, and miserable I am.
When I get elated and talk fast and furiously about wonderful aspects of history or the characters, or good developments in the story, people run away from me. I don’t blame them.
While the novel is being written, I try to avoid dressing for outdoors. No one can make you go out if you don’t have shoes on. Not even in the south. I wear long velvet robes and soft velvet slippers. I refuse to go out. All food is brought in. I eat hamburgers because they are easy to hold with one hand while reading and holding the book with the other hand.
In the middle of the night I read, sometimes on the carpeted floor of the bathroom, just because it’s warm. I am wretched. I don’t care anymore about being abnormal. Writing is everything. Everything. It seems impossible to write the book. It seems impossible to lift a hairbrush to brush my hair. But I do it. I put on mascara every day that I write.
This period of intense work lasts about six weeks. It’s best that way. My imagination is overheated, and my memory clogged with data of varying importance. If I go over six weeks, I begin to forget things; I feel the loss of intensity and information and I become all the more self-destructive and obsessed.
The end of the book is a big event for me. A big event. I start screaming. I put the hour and the date at the end of the last page. I expect everybody to understand, at least a little. It’s a triumph! The darkness of destiny has been driven back for a brief while. I celebrate. I scream, eat chocolate, and sleep.
Right near the end of writing The Vampire Armand, I realized I had to return to Italy, especially to Florence, and at once I began to make preparations for the trip. As soon as the novel was finished and off to the publisher’s, as soon as it could be accomplished, I flew to Italy. That gave me hope, a way out of a life threatening darkness that often follows the climax of a book. But I still ate chocolate and screamed.
While writing, I don’t want to rest. I don’t want to sleep. Why sleep? It seems stupid, except when weariness overcomes me like a giant cloud of poisonous vapor. Then I sleep fifteen to twenty hours. I tell people to go in and out of the bedroom and ignore me lying there, as if I were dead. I won’t talk on the phone. I won’t open my eyes if I don’t have to. I dream terrible, upsetting dreams.
I want to kill myself. But I can’t. I can’t do it to other people, and I have work that must be done, novels that must be written. So I don’t kill myself. Besides, I don’t think it’s good to kill oneself. It’s a horrible idea. It has a horrible effect even on acquaintances.
I think a lot about people I loved who are dead. I think of how dead they are, year after year, ever more dead.
Since it was such an extreme answer, and unsually intimate and personal too. It made me wonder about the context of the interview. But I've searched online and in books, articles and other interviews with Anne, and couldn't find anything to suggest this was promo material.
As far as I can tell, this interview only exists in the back of a few paperback copies of The Vampire Armand and nowhere else.
When I've seen interviews added as an appendix to novels, it's usually for book groups. Publishers provided them so the group can discuss the novel with better insight into the author's writing process after reading it. So anyone reading this would have already bought and read the novel before coming across this interview tucked in the back.
Which honestly makes it even more fascinating!!
And also kinda heartbreaking, to have such intimate and vulnerable, words about her experiences, almost forgotten, tucked in the back of a few 25 year old paperbacks. Makes you wonder how many other interviews are hidden away in dusty books and old magazines out there.
Am I the only one who is both amused and oddly invested in the unintentional, yet strangely intense popularity battle for top spot on the 'Relationships' tag for the IWTV (TV Show) on Archive of Our Own?
So far Louis/Lestat is holding the lead, but just barely, and I suspect not long... will Daniel/Armand soon take the lead???
Hello! To what extent do you think Lestat’s backstory will be graphic or intense (emotion wise) given all that’s happened to him? His brothers and the wolves and being turned into a vampire. I can see Lestat not wanting to dig into his childhood and human past much until he gives in. In the show before season three, Lestat doesn’t seem to know Daniel so that could add to a layer of discomfort and reluctance to dig into it all. Or do you envision Lestat not being reluctant at all and simply info dump his entire life and vampire life in detail ?
Hey!
I think there will be some aspects that Lestat will have to be pushed to divulge, but I think those will mostly have to do with Louis and Claudia, because those two are Lestat’s heart. I also think it will be really hard on Lestat to talk about Nicki and Magnus.
The show seems to be upholding the book canon reason for why Lestat is doing this — for Louis and to shield Louis.
I think his backstory will be brutal. I expect them to go all in and show the true graphic horror that Lestat endured. Especially the wolves and Magnus and Lestat’s father.
I don’t see Lestat having too much of an issue discussing matters such as his family and the wolves. He’s always diminished his own trauma and tried to laugh it off and basically have an “it is what it is” attitude.
However, like I said, when it comes to those he loves — Louis, Claudia, Nicki, Gabrielle — his heart bleeds right out onto his sleeve.
Rolin has said Lestat had the most traumatic entrance into vampirism than anyone, and Lestat told Louis and Claudia just enough in 1x06 to pacify them, but it didn’t even begin to capture the full magnitude of how horrendous it was for Lestat.
There’s also the fact what Magnus did to Lestat has been directly paralleled with what Bruce did to Claudia, and Lestat was the one who immediately knew that something had happened to her and made it his mission to find out what it was.
Lestat’s hand was trembling when being pressed about Magnus in 1x06:
There was also the panic and fear on Lestat’s face when Armand mentioned Magnus in 2x03:
I found this bit of acting by Sam to be particularly heartbreaking when you think about the fact this is exactly how Magnus stalked him and targeted him.
Both instances are classic signs of PTSD, which Lestat canonically suffered from over Magnus.
So yeah, we’re slowly being prepared for Magnus’ entrance. The hints are there, and we better prepare ourselves. It is going to be devastating and sickening and terrifying and gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.
I've been thinking about the body double guy from the Season 3 trailer... This guy:
While I do think it was partially, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Lestat of the QOTD film.
More so, I suspect that Rolin was calling out the mainstream audience's expectations for what sort of rockstar Lestat 'should' be, then strongly subverting it.
By first presenting the audience with a 'stand in' for Lestat (using a similar looking man with a very generic rock band/metal look), but then physically removing and replacing that man with the 'real' Lestat (in all his colourful, sensual, chaotic and slightly menacing glory). It's a purposeful juxtaposition.
Rolin is presenting two alternative versions of 'Lestat' and proving a point: Would you rather have Lestat presented as a typical 'rock' band singer, or this, a vibrant campy brilliantly unhinged Rockstar!
