The Vampire Lestat’s Damien Atkins Discusses Magnus’ Disturbing Role in Episode 3

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Episode 3 of The Vampire Lestat, “Toronto.”]

This week, The Vampire Lestat introduces a pivotal character from Lestat’s (Sam Reid) early life: his maker Magnus (Damien Atkins), a grotesque figure who stalked, kidnapped, and sexually assaulted Lestat before turning him into a vampire. In a show known for making bold creative choices, Magnus’ role is as provocative as you might expect, beginning with a memorably unnerving musical number.

Revisiting the last years of Lestat’s mortal life in 18th century France, we meet Magnus in three different forms. First, Lestat romanticizes their relationship in a rock ballad and its accompanying music video, harking back to the creepy undercurrents of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” Narrated from Magnus’ perspective, this song portrays him as an obsessive fan, spying on Lestat through his apartment window. It’s a perversely comedic sequence, not least due to the way each character is styled: Lestat as a gorgeous romantic lead, opposite Magnus with rotten teeth and claw-like fingernails, requiring three hours in the makeup chair for Atkins.

Lestat uses this theatrical framing device to distance himself from a traumatic memory, but it’s soon undercut by a more realistic flashback, facing up to the brutality of Magnus’ actions. Meanwhile, in the present day, a hallucination of Magnus harasses Lestat to the point of breakdown, causing him to crash his car. 

In just a handful of scenes, Magnus makes an incredible impact, offering insight into another dark corner of Lestat’s fractured psyche. Speaking to TV Guide, Damien Atkins shared his thoughts on the complexity of Magnus’ role, name-checking some unexpected inspirations for the music video sequence, and discussing how much he drew from the original Vampire Lestat novel.

Magnus has this very dark and disturbing role in Lestat’s story, but he’s introduced in this almost comedic way, in a sort of parody of a music video. How do you balance those elements of your performance?
Damien Atkins: I mean, the whole thing is Lestat’s point of view, right? So I understand why he would introduce it that way. It’s a way of kind of gliding into a very painful event, by sort of mocking it. Then as his courage grows, or his candor grows, you start to see what really happened. On the inside of it, honestly, it’s all the same engine, it’s all the same impulse.

You know, his song about me is not incorrect. It’s actually a really astute evoking of Magnus’ state of mind, or at least I took it to be so. He was talking about love, and he’s talking about feeling inadequate and not much to look at. So there was no distance for me between the actual psychology of it and the lyrics. It was very sincerely meant. Like everything else, even the sort of nasty sarcastic violent bits are, inside Magnus, very sincere. 

Lestat name-checks a couple of artists in the show, The Police and Eminem. Were there any other musicians you were talking about, even about the aesthetic of the video?
Atkins: See, I grew up watching these videos, right? So, probably all of them. Probably Madonna. I look so hideous, but maybe that’s funny. Like, Magnus thinks that he’s Madonna. I did throw in a bit of Liza Minnelli. I don’t know if it actually made it into the cut, but you know there’s moments from Cabaret, right? The famous nails where she’s reaching out. That was probably a reference, even though the music is not that. 

A lot of people who play vampires in this show talk about how the nails and the eyes help them get in character. Were you enjoying the costuming? You definitely have more of an unflattering transformation than some of the others.
Atkins: Thank you for noticing. In a show full of sexy vampires… I tell people I’m on the show they’re like, “Ooh!” And I was like, “No, I am hideous.” There’s three hours in the makeup chair.

Yeah, it more than helped me get into character. Honestly, I realized I had to let some of it do the work because, you know, the nails were disgusting. Everybody had those pretty pointed nails, I had these disgusting acorn shells. The teeth were huge and really changed the way you talk. I had full scleral contacts, which are bigger than the ones that everybody else had, because they covered the whites as well.

So I had to trust that that was going to do a lot of the scaring, and that I didn’t have to act scary. I had to kind of go, “Who is this person and what does he want?” and trust that it was coming through. Even though my mouth is kind of on crutches, and my eyes are masked. Sort of trust that being precise with the language and my body was making it happen. The wig, too, I have to say. I was like, that’s perfect. It’s sort of period and it’s sort of gross, but it is still kind of sexy. 

On a more serious note, this show is obviously known for its depictions of abusive relationships, and your role comes in on this really traumatic event, Magnus kidnapping and assaulting Lestat. What were the conversations like between yourself and Sam Reid and the episode’s director, regarding what you wanted the audience to receive from that scene?
Atkins: There was a lot of trust in the room. I can’t really get into how much we discussed, other than to say that Sam is an extraordinary actor, and my job was to serve his journey. Whatever he needed from that scene to happen — and some of it was awful — was my job to deliver. Claudia [Llosa], who directed the episode, was very gentle, she made me feel very safe. Everybody approached it with sensitivity. There’s basic things you do, you ask before you touch anybody, you ask if you’re going to do something. 

There was a moment when we were shooting the violent part of that scene, where we were both sort of sitting on the ground panting. We didn’t talk much. I mean it’s awful, awful having to do that kind of thing, and he just sort of looked over at me, and he put a hand on my shoulder. That was very meaningful, because I’ve been on both sides of that kind of scene in my work, and it’s nasty on both sides. It was nice to just have a moment to, you know… “I’m OK if you’re OK, I’m OK, let’s keep going.”

Were you looking much to the book when you were figuring out how to play Magnus?
Atkins: Of course, absolutely. It’s not the longest chapter either,  but you can see how that event and that personage has affected [Lestat’s] whole life, and it ripples through his whole life. So, yeah, I studied it pretty intensely, and a lot of the actual dialogue, even though the contexts are totally different, is pulled right from the book, which is amazing.

What you’re looking for is, where is the love, right? What do I think I’m doing out of love? However anybody else sees it — and in this case it’s a huge disconnect, obviously — your job, when you play a character, is to kind of go, what’s the engine? And for me, you find the love, and there’s clearly a lot there. He’s a monster, but he doesn’t think he is.

Could you tell me a bit about the accent you’ve gone for for this role?
Atkins: We were looking for French. I speak French, I’m Canadian, and I’ve done a lot of different kinds of French accents over the years, but I wanted something that wasn’t cartoony. I wanted it to be silkier and a little bit more sinister, so we soften the Rs, and we thought about how he would have actually been hundreds of years old, traveled around, so it’s a bit more continental, it’s a little bit not just French, it’s a little bit Italian. I did have a very specific reference, which I cannot air, but it’s a very specific person. 

The Vampire Lestat airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC and streams Sundays on AMC+.