Now that the first episode of The Vampire Lestat has been unleashed on the mortal universe, fans and critics alike are singing the praises of the new, music-injected reinvention of AMC’s Anne Rice adaptation. On Reddit, it’s been called “a show that feels ALIVE,” with one Redditor admitting that they “had to rewind like over 30 times…just to digest everything that was happening on screen.” And don’t even get us started on the memes flying around IG and X. This is a family website and some of those posts are, well, let’s just say even Jarda is getting the love.
Obviously, it’s been a big change from the first two seasons when the show was Interview with the Vampire. And according to showrunner Rolin Jones, that was always the plan.
“I was excited when I first read these books, before they even gave me the job. I read the first three and I was like, ‘Wow, look at that. That’s fun!’” he told us ahead of the Lestat sneak-peek screening at Austin’s ATX TV Festival at the end of May. “That was one of the reasons why, oh, I could dedicate five years to this. That’ll be fun thing to do when we get there, if we get there.”
Sophie Giraud/AMC
Of course, Anne Rice’s 1985 Lestat was very much of his time — very splashy, very MTV star. That is not what we’re getting with Sam Reid‘s Lestat, who is now a C-list rocker with A-list delusions. But that wasn’t how Jones had first envisioned an updated take on the bloodsucking Brat Prince. “My version of what I wanted to do, I wanted to make him a symphony conductor,” he stated, noting his concerns about creating a cringey rocker. “I was terrified in all these things, you’re terrified that the music’s going to suck, and so I just wanted battle-tested music.”
Thankfully, constructive pushback from “a very wise and a smart executive president of the company” and Reid (whom our own Matt Roush called “mesmerizing”) himself helped Jones see the light. “Sam made a good point. He’s like, ‘I really want Lestat to sing.’ And so once I gave that up, we were in it,” he said. “And once I knew that I had [show composer] Daniel Hart, I was like, ‘OK, we can do this.’”
As for the show’s framework of “The Failures,” Lestat’s 111-volume collection of recordings chronicling the eventual mediocrity of his rock-star era, Jones clarifies that the joke isn’t about Lestat’s music being bad, but the casual disregard for art in the modern world. Or as he puts it, “stupid culture.”
“You know how many great rock bands there are out there right now? Do you know how much great rock music is being made right now? It has nothing to do with the quality of the songs,” he declared. “It has to do with the nonsense landscape that we’re in. And now probably we’re looking at like two generations that have sort of turned their back on rock and roll.”
“There were never any handcuffs on Daniel to write bad songs” he continued, laughing that “there’s something meta about that for our show. Our show is not this giant, ginormous hit. We just have these craven fans that are just expanding every year, a little bit more. There’s probably a little meta nod-and-a-wink to that a little bit.”
Watch the full video interview above.
The Vampire Lestat, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+