Losing their heads must run in The Vampire Lestat family.
But unlike “Daddy Lou” (Jacob Anderson) and “Uncle Les” (Sam Reid), their adopted vamp kid Claudia (Delainey Hayles) only lost hers metaphorically during the very eventful sixth episode, “Montreal.” The other two? Well, read here. Warning: Spoilers for The Vampire Lestat Episode 6 ahead!
Not that we blame Claudia for going ballistic. After all, the poor kid was tortured and burned alive during Armand’s Theatre des Vampires trial last season, so being conjured up from what sounds like a hellscape — by Mayfair witch Merrick (Sarah Afful) in a smart nod to both AMC’s other Immortal Universe entry and the plot of her own eponymous novel — is sure to have an already angry teen seeing red. Add in the fact that Lestat opted not to save her back in Paris then and Louis had just violated her memory by reading her journal entries to the man who raped her before killing him., and yeah, go off, little waif!
Larry Horricks/AMC
“Oh, I loved it,” enthuses Hayles of the sixth episode’s devastating sequence. “I was so happy when I got that script. I kind of went through the seven stages of grief and happiness and everything because, yeah, it’s a heavy one. And it’s necessary.”
After years of being tormented over Claudia’s memory, going so far as to form an unsettling bond with a waitress named Regina (also played by Hayles) who bears a striking resemblance to his late charge, Louis joins Lestat at the home of Merrick for a séance in hopes of reconnecting with her spirit. What they get instead is a whole lot of fury as Claudia returns to physical form and unleashes on her seemingly reunited fathers a litany of insults, accusations, and spot-on grievances. Louis’s self-indulgent grief (“That’s what I want to be, car fuel for your self-pity, listen to your sad worries. I’m dead. Dead!”). His easy manipulation. Their complicity in the death of her love, Madeleine (“Did you hug it out for her, too? You bringing her back? I don’t see her here and I can’t find her there…I spend every f**king second looking for her.”). Even how she always liked Lestat more, despite his devotion to Louis (“I wouldn’t have saved his ass and waited for a hug in the hurricane”).
It’s a testament to Hayles’ feral, heartbreaking performance that, while Claudia has every reason to rage, we are left to wonder how much of it she actually means.
“It’s something that I’m still combating with myself,” Hayles reveals. “I do want to keep it open for people to take their own [idea] away from it. Me, myself, I don’t know how much of it she really means.”
She continues, “In the beginning I was like, ‘She means every single word,’ but at the same time, she’s hurt right now and you say things when you’re hurt. But the seance is Lestat’s version of it, which is why she might not lay into him as much. And then I was thinking about [his song about Claudia], ‘Stained-Glass Eyes’ and how romanticized that was. So, now I have a whole different perspective. I’ve learned a new thing today that I didn’t think of before. And so now I’m still questioning things!”
Sophie Giraud/AMC
For Anderson, the interaction is entirely earned and spot-on.
“I think she means it, to be honest,” he says. “I think she means it and I think it’s good that she means it. The thing that she says about what’s written on his ribs is to hurt him. But then I think there’s other things that she says that are completely true and valid and he needed to hear it from her. Yeah, I think she means what she’s saying bar one or two things.”
According to the actor, the séance could have gone down very differently. “There were different versions of it as we were going along,” Anderson explains. “So, there were times where it was harsher, there were times where it was a little, I wouldn’t say softer, but maybe a bit. Yeah, I think some of it, perhaps particularly some of what is leveled at Louis is fairly hurtful, but I think that she does have a point in lots of regards.”
“As I’ve been talking about this, about that scene, I am remembering that there is a real inevitability about what she has to say to them. They do know this. I think they just needed to hear it from her. Claudia’s been protected by them,” he continues. “Even Louis putting that dress in the glass, she’s been preserved as this sort of…I guess when somebody dies, you want the memories of them to be pure and heroic. And not that there’s anything particularly unheroic about the way that Claudia expresses herself, but I don’t know. I think most of what she says, I’m glad that she’s finally getting to express this in a way that is new.”
Happily, the on-screen drama is countered by the clear off-screen love amongst his costars. Anderson says with a smile that the scene allowed him to “sit and watch one of my favorite actors give a powerhouse performance” and that that the entire episode was “a joy.”
He continues, “Doing this episode with Sam and us getting to work together every day again was like, ‘My job’s great!’ And Sarah Afful, who played Merrick, was amazing. What a joy. I didn’t want to speak. I wanted to listen. I wanted to watch to these brilliant actors being brilliant and then just respond. So yeah, I loved it.”
Hayles feels the same. “I would act with Jacob in anything in the rest of my life. I cannot sing that man’s praises enough. To sum it up, a true gentleman.”
Watch the video interview above from our Vampire Lestat aftershow, Backstage Pass for more about this episode.
As for what could be next for Claudia, Hayles has her ideas and they are so fitting for her beloved hellion. Especially when it comes to the man who orchestrated her untimely demise.
“Claudia’s very intelligent and she knows that down to the nitty-gritty of it all that it’s Armand. She does hate Lestat, but obviously they grew up together. They have a love for each other. They’re family, and family have complicated relationships,” she says.
“Armand just needs to stay out of her vision. I hope she actually haunts him… I think she’d want a chop his head off.” Hayles admits.
Now, after the ending for Louis and Lestat, wouldn’t that be karma?
The Vampire Lestat, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+