Trivia / Interview with the Vampire (2022)

• Actor-Inspired Element: According to Jacob Anderson, he was the one who came with the idea that vampires make a cat-like hissing sound whenever they expose their fangs (originally, this was meant to be a silent action).
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Jacob Anderson, Rae Dawn Chong and Bailey Bass play biracial characters (more specifically black/white), with all of them having this heritage (although Chong also has Chinese ancestry, hence her surname).
  • Like Louis, Jacob Anderson (who's half-English, half-Afro-Caribbean) is in an interracial relationship with a Caucasian — he's married to Aisling Loftus, who was born in England and is of Irish descent; their mutual ties to England mirror to some degree Louis and Lestat sharing a connection to France, with both countries being former colonial powers. Moreover, Anderson and Loftus have a mixed-race daughter, which makes her somewhat analogous to Claudia.
    • Furthermore, Anderson has stated in this interview that if he were a vampire, he wouldn't miss the sun, and Louis feels exactly the same way. The actor didn't have to do much preparation for the role because he identifies himself as a deeply sad person, and thus can easily relate to Louis' depression.
  • Eric Bogosian shares the same birth year as his character Daniel, as they were both born in 1953. ^note Daniel was 20 years old in 1973.
• Blooper:
  • In the second episode, Sam Reid is missing the pointed acrylic nail◊ on his middle finger when Lestat touches Louis' shoulder at the bar.
    • He's missing yet another◊ on his index finger in a coffin scene from the sixth episode, but as it was filmed on Sam's last day of shooting, it makes more sense that the make-up department wouldn't go through the trouble of replacing the missing nail.
  • In the fourth episode, Bailey Bass isn't wearing the reddish-orange contact lenses specifically for the moment when Claudia whines, "I think I'm gonna die. Is that how vampires die? From starvation?"
  • In the seventh episode, after Lestat kills the man with blood cancer, his teeth and lower lip are stained with blood, but as he walks up the stairs, the blood is suddenly gone.
• California Doubling: For Season 2, Prague stands in for Paris.
• Casting Gag: Maura Grace Athari plays the lounge singer Antoinette Brown, who gets killed off after four appearances. In Real Life, she's married to Saturday Night Live alum Aristotle Athari, whose most memorable character was the lounge singer Angelo, and who got fired after just one season.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • Jacob Anderson and Steven G. Norfleet, who portray Louis and Paul respectively, tap dance during the wedding scene.
  • Sam Reid, who plays Lestat, also sings "Come to Me" for the show's soundtrack.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Thomas Antony Olajide lost the role of Louis to Jacob Anderson, so he was given the part of Jonah in episode 3 as a consolation prize.
• Darkhorse Casting: Unlike the Interview with the Vampire movie, the TV adaptation doesn't feature any Hollywood superstars. Before the series premiere, the only Season 1 cast member who had their own Creator page on TV Tropes was Eric Bogosian (while a respected veteran actor, he's not a household name like Tom Cruise is).
• Dawson Casting: Eighteen-year-old ^note principal photography for Season 1 took place in 2021 Bailey Bass portrays turned-at-fourteen Claudia, while in the source material she was five. Unlike the 1994 film (where Claudia was aged up to ten/eleven to allow for a more experienced actor, while still having her be trapped in prepubescence), the show wasn't able to use an underage actor for the amount of work that the role required due to New Orleans child labor laws, and thus it was decided for Claudia to be a teenager and played by an older actor.
• Died During Production: Anne Rice, an executive producer of the series, passed away in Dec. 2021 during the filming of Season 1.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Rachel Alana Handler is an amputee who portrays Peg Leg Doris (yes, that's indeed the character's name as listed in the end credits).
• Dueling Works: The show debuted one week before Let the Right One In, another television adaptation of a seminal modern vampire novel.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Sam Reid, a redhead, grew out his hair and dyed it blond for the role of Lestat (although in certain light, you can still see a strawberry blond tint). He also waxed his chest (this is a rare pic◊ of the actor where some of his chest hair is visible) so that his character has a smooth torso.◊
• Fake American: Several non-Americans portray American characters.
  • Brit Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac.
  • Canadian Rae Dawn Chong as Florence de Pointe du Lac.
  • Canadian Thomas Antony Olajide as Jonah Macon.
  • Brit Luke Brandon Field as the young Daniel Molloy.
  • Brit Delainey Hayles as Claudia.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Australian Sam Reid plays the Frenchman Lestat de Lioncourt.
  • Armand is hinted to be a Crimean Tatar, and he's portrayed by British Bangladeshi Assad Zaman.
  • Assuming the character's background is the same as in The Vampire Lestat novel, the Frenchman Nicolas de Lenfent is played by Brit Joseph Potter (confirmed by the actor's agency).
• Friendship on the Set: By all accounts, Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid became very close during the production of the first season, and during the press tour spent time together as friends doing things like going to sticker shops and getting ice cream.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Steven G. Norfleet is gay and is married to Anthony Hemingway, yet his character Paul is homophobic.
• Late Export for You:
  • Australian fans had to wait until May 5, 2023 — seven months after the show's North American premiere (Oct. 2, 2022) — to watch it on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation network.
  • The British television debut on The BBC was on Oct. 12, 2023, which is more than a year after the original North American telecast.
  • Portuguese viewers lagged almost 19 months behind — the first season began airing on the AMC Portugal channel on April 22, 2024.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • The Season 1 SDCC trailer has dialogue whispered by Lestat which wasn't included in the show: "You don't fear me, Louis. You fear yourself." It may have originally been part of his Love Confession in the pilot, so if that's the case, it was either left on the cutting room floor, or we can't hear it in the final version because Louis' narration drowns out Lestat's voice.
  • A brief clip that was part of a promo that was released in June 2022 of Lestat standing on his balcony and suddenly turning his head to face the camera with a concerned expression was never used in the first season.
• The Other Darrin: Delainey Hayles replaces Bailey Bass as Claudia in Season 2.
• Playing Against Type: John DiMaggio, best known for playing loveable Large Ham characters, appears as racist antagonist Alderman Fenwick, one of Louis' business partners in the 1910s.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Sam Reid has been a fan of the book series since he was 13 years old, and jumped at the chance to play Lestat when he heard the show was in development.
  • Ben Daniels, who was cast as Santiago, is also a fan of The Vampire Chronicles.
    Daniels: Be still my dark beating horror heart. I LOVE these books and I am over the full moon to be able to bring one of Anne Rice's creations to life in Rolin Jones' incredible retelling of these wonderful stories. Let the feasting commence.
• Referenced by...: Canadian pairs team Deanna Stellato-Dudek & Maxime Deschamps performed to Daniel Hart's Interview with the Vampire Season 1 score for their long program during the 2023-2024 competitive season, and they even won the World Championships with it (which is the biggest figure skating event outside of an Olympic year); the show's music is part of sports history! The tracks featured are "Laudanum and Arsenic", "The Drum Was My Heart", "Viens à moi", and a modified version of "Vicious".
• Renewed Before Premiere: Due to near-universal praise from TV critics (the series received an impressive 98% ^note the rating was 99% for more than a year after its debut, but a negative review published on Oct. 20, 2023 dropped the percentage to 98% on Rotten Tomatoes), AMC greenlit Season 2 on Sep. 28, 2022, four days before its Season 1 television premiere (and one day before its debut on the AMC+ streaming service).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Showrunner Rolin Jones liked Sam Reid's short hair, so he told him to keep it for the role of Lestat, but the actor insisted that the character must have long hair like in the source material because he's a Drama Queen, and therefore Hair Flips are essential.
  • According to producer Adam O'Byrne, Thomas Antony Olajide (who was cast as Jonah) had originally auditioned for the role of Louis, and his performance was strong enough that he was asked to do a virtual chemistry test with Sam Reid. Olajide and Jacob Anderson were the two finalists, and the producers ultimately chose Anderson.
  • Jacob Anderson revealed in this interview that the dialect coach wanted him to do a French Creole accent for Louis (which was common in the early 20th century New Orleans), but he wasn't comfortable with it, so he decided to use a New Orleans accent instead, which he learned on his own by listening carefully to the speech patterns of the locals.

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