Interview with the Vampire Cast Members Discuss the Shocking Season 1 Finale [Interview]

The Interview with the Vampire Season 1 finale delivered several shocking twists and some deeply emotional moments, along with one particularly bloody scene. 

Interview with the Vampire cast members Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, Bailey Bass, Assad Zaman, and Eric Bogosian all spoke with reporters about that shocking season finale, including what it was like to film that bloody massacre scene and the reveal that Rashid is someone else entirely — and someone very important to the overall story. 

What Eric Bogosian has in common with Daniel Molloy:

“I definitely have learned, because of that scene in San Francisco and how this all got started, my life parallels exactly the life of the character that I’m playing. So in the mid-seventies, I got to New York, and I was like, I don’t care how crazy the place is, I’m gonna go and see what’s going on in that bar, or in that whatever it is,” Bogosian said.

“Why? Because I was curious. And I think the curiosity of a young man who doesn’t care what happens to him should he, you know, get into some serious trouble. I can see that blindness that I had when I was in my twenties that today of course I would not. I mean I think twice before I even go down the subway anymore now,” Bogosian continued. “I definitely have learned about that impulse that was so much a part of who I was when I was in my twenties, exactly parallel to the character.”

On the relationship between Louis and Lestat being “more extreme”:

“I really appreciated the way that Rolin [Jones] did it because, you know we talk about this in lots of other interviews, but we talk about looking at the entire arc of the show encapsulating the entire arc of the books as well,” Reid said. “Like for Lestat, how do you marry Lestat from Interview with the Vampire to the Lestat from The Vampire Lestat? And you know there needs to be a progression.”

“I think by making Louis the one who kills him, [that] was such a huge departure and change but so necessary,” Reid continued, adding that doing so offered the chance for more character development.

“Creating such a big shift there was really cool, but obviously to do that, you had to get Louis to the point where he was going to kill Lestat,” Reid said. “So we had to make everything more extreme in their relationship. We had to physicalize the abuse and we had to do a lot of other things which, again, were surprising. But I think in the end they do pay off because they create a more dynamic arc for the character.”

On accountability for Louis:

“I always knew the interview was going to devolve into this like, explosion of truth at the end. Or at least, the mask was gonna fall away, towards the end. But how it was gonna happen, I wasn’t prepared for,” Anderson said.

“I didn’t know about the betrayal of Claudia, I guess, from Louis. And that was a shock. But I think a really refreshing shock in some ways, because essentially, it’s like Daniel holding Louis accountable, and I think that Louis, because he’s telling his own story, is not really held accountable that much.”

On the reveal that Rashid is actually the vampire Armand:

Assad Zaman revealed that even he didn’t know that Rashid was actually Armand until he was halfway through the audition process.

“I thought I was Rashid for my first auditions, and I had a very clear idea — Rashid has very clear and specific goals, and I was very confident going into that,” Zaman said. “And then halfway through, I had a meeting with Rolin and I was thinking, ‘Why is he sitting down to have a meeting about Rashid when he should be thinking Louis and Lestat and Claudia and Daniel?’ And then in that meeting, he was like, ‘Okay so we want to do a few more rounds with you, and we wanted to test a few things out… because Rashid is Armand.”

On the Mardi Gras and bloody massacre scenes:

The actors said these scenes about two weeks to film, broken into lots of different parts.

“So two weeks, covered in blood — a very sticky costume,”  Reid laughed. “It’s quite fun doing that sort of stuff.”

“It was fun as well to play the drunkenness,” Anderson added. Like the hungry, drunkenness. They’re so hungry, and they’re all in a state that you haven’t really seen them in before. I thought that was really fun. You haven’t really seen the three of them in that headspace.”

“Yeah, and it’s also sort of making sense of what was going on with the dialogue and also the plot twists,” Reid said. “It was this bizarre sequence that we show for a really long time, and a whole bunch of little secret plot twists, that were unfolding as we were shooting, and shooting it out of sequence.”

“A lot of the cast in that sequence were all stunt performers as well, so it was also amazing to watch them do all of their stuff and see them go through all of these brutal deaths, and having a great time doing it,” Reid added.

“I think it’s not just hunger. Because they’re vampires, and blood, you get like a lust from it. And because of that, it’s even more intense,” Bass said.

“When I was reading the scripts, I was obsessed with the entire scene,” Bass continued. “I love action movies so it was just so exciting or me to read. But then what I didn’t expect was how emotional these scenes are. When you are physical — and I’m someone who is extremely empathetic. And I had to fight someone now, and be extremely violent as Claudia. It’s extremely emotional, and we’re doing that for two weeks.”

On the costumes:

“I got to wear this beautiful Marie Antoinette dress and getting to put that on every day was an extreme plus,” Bass said. “But then again, we’re on set for hours, and it was a very tight dress, so by the end of the day, I was like I’ve eaten so much, I don’t know how I’m gonna take this off.”

“But there’s so many technical things, that a part of this whole big scene that people won’t see because it look so effortless,” Bass continued. “So I’m glad we get to talk about it but it was definitely very fun.”

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Interview with the Vampire is streaming on AMC+.

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