Interview with the Vampire Stars Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and Bailey Bass on Honoring the Works of Anne Rice [Interview]

For actors Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and Bailey Bass, honoring Anne Rice’s original works is especially important when it comes to how they portray their characters on Interview with the Vampire. 

The three actors recently spoke with reporters about their roles on the AMC series, what drives their characters, and what the fake blood they drink so much of actually tastes like. 

Sam Reid, who plays Lestat, said the way he portrays his character is really just based on his own interpretation of the books and of creator Rolin Jones’s work. 

“So I wasn’t really trying to put any of my own spin on it,” Reid said. “It’s just how I imagined it to be, really.”

“I’d second that,” Anderson, who plays the role of Louis, said. “You will always view a character through your own lens to an extent, [but] you don’t wanna mess with this. The combination of Anne Rice’s writing and Rolin’s writing — you don’t really want to touch it.”

“They’re so dense already, the characters, that it sort of would be a shame to try and deviate too much,” Reid added.

Anderson said one of the things that excited him about how Louis was written both by Anne Rice and by Rolin Jones, was that he feels “very connected to Louis.”

“I’m drawn to characters who are searching and asking questions, not just about the world but about their place in it, and what they contribute or don’t contribute to it,” Anderson said.

From the first episode, one key element this adaptation doesn’t shy away from is the romantic relationship between Louis and Lestat.

“AMC has the rights to the entire Vampire Chronicles, and so it’s very important to make sure that that relationship is established, early on, particularly as the books progress it becomes much more clear that they are in a very intense romantic relationship,” Reid said. “So I think it’s great, it makes sure that we’re serving the story correctly.”

Of course, one difference with this adaptation is that Louis and Claudia are no longer white characters. Bailey Bass, who plays the role of Claudia, and Anderson both spoke about how race impacts their characters and the story overall.

“I was really excited to play Claudia. It’s really a dream to play such a complex character that’s very loud and unapologetic. And I honestly didn’t think twice about anything else,” Bass said.

“I just knew that Rolin was very intentional about the actors that he wanted to cast in the show and I’m very fortunate that I was one of them, and I just dove into all the research,” Bass continued.

“I read the book, I would cross reference the book and the script and see the quotes that Rolin took from the book, and was very intentional about adding them into the script,” she said. “And after doing all the research it just… I became Claudia, and it was fun to play her.”

“Yeah, I think something that Rolin’s done which is — I’m almost loathe to call it important, but it creates a richness — is that this isn’t a colorblind casting situation,” Anderson said.

“Louis’s central question is about his humanity and his place in humanity, and I think that if you were to cast Black actors, for Louis and Claudia, and to not address that, you’d take a lot away from that question of their humanity,” Anderson continued. “So yeah, I’m glad that we don’t shy away from it.”

The actors also gave some insight into what playing vampires on TV is like — including drinking all that fake blood.

“It’s very fun,” Reid said. “Because you’ve got a lot of elements that come into every scene, so they’re very beautiful, sort of rich, dialogue-heavy scenes. But we also have this whole element of, the vampire kills.”

So, you know, we’ll be pausing for the blood to be put in and we have all these different types of blood that we’ll be drinking and tasting,” Reid continued. “They made us hibiscus-flavored blood when we had to drink large amounts of it.”

“It did not taste like hibiscus,” Anderson laughed. “It was like Sour Patch Kids, in liquid form.”  

“Yeah,” Reid agreed. “But there’s a lot of thought and consideration gone into the blood creation.”

“Vampires are, I think, the best type of monster because they have so much humanity. They’re so articulate,” Reid continued. “And Anne Rice is responsible for our shift in vampires because she puts the perspective into the eyes of the monster, and you have empathy for them. So it’s very fun to do these really extreme, horrific things, but also with a level of understanding and empathy, and bringing that into the character. It’s a fun thing to do.”

“This is what I love to do,” Bass said. She added that playing “such an extreme character” is fun, especially because she’s able to be in an environment that she wouldn’t normally be in if she wasn’t playing Claudia. “Even though it’s dark and everything, I definitely enjoyed it.”

Speaking of which, Claudia’s role in the story will create an interesting dynamic between herself, Louis, and Lestat — as Anne Rice fans already know. The actors described what that dynamic will be like in the series. 

“I think from Louis’ point of view, he’s trying to recreate a kind of family dynamic that he is grieving for, in his human life. I think it’s probably the thing that he misses most in some ways,” Anderson said. “So I find the way that it kind of goes for them and for him is kind of unexpected. I think he was hoping that in bringing somebody else into their family, I think he thought that Claudia might be like him.”

“Claudia really ends up being forgotten about a little bit in that dynamic, which is sad,” Anderson added.

“I think what’s wonderful though, is that there’s really no protagonist or antagonist. It changes through every scene and every episode because these characters are so specific and complex, and Rolin Jones, the writer of this show did an incredible job of explaining, in-depth, why we do what we do,” Bass said.

“There’s a reason why we kill the people that we do, why we hurt each other,” Bass continued. “And because of that, the viewer kind of feels bad for the person hurting the other, but then also feels bad for the person being hurt.”

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Interview with the Vampire airs Sundays at 10/9c on AMC and streams Sundays on AMC+.

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