Look up anything Armand and Daniel-related about AMC‘s The Vampire Lestat, and the “Devil’s Minion” label will eventually come up. Book fans know this as a chapter from Anne Rice‘s The Queen of the Damned that brings the vampire Armand and Daniel Molloy together as the least likely couple in The Vampire Chronicles. Fans of the AMC TV series are now getting sprinkles of this chapter in Season 3 — well, more sprinkles, that is. As Assad Zaman says in our video interview from Backstage Pass: The Vampire Lestat Aftershow (above), seeds of Armand and Daniel’s bond have been planted since Season 1 of Interview With the Vampire, and the show hasn’t put them in a romantic relationship yet. There’s one big moment between this maker and fledgling that has yet to be revealed: Daniel’s vampiric transformation. Warning: The Vampire Lestat Episodes 4 and 5 spoilers ahead.
Eric Bogosian tells TV Insider that a scene depicting Daniel’s turning was discussed for Season 3, but it appears to never have been written. What we do know from The Vampire Lestat Episode 4 is that, like in The Queen of the Damned novel, Daniel was turned into a vampire on a plane. Unlike the book, the show’s potential vision for this turning could be violent.
“There was going to be a scene that doesn’t exist, or it exists in our imagination, of what actually happened on that airplane and when he attacked me, but it’s pretty violent. I mean, he was violently made into a vampire,” Bogosian reveals. “And then why that happened… to hear any excuses of why this has happened and what he really feels is so repulsive to Daniel.”
The scene hasn’t been made, so there’s room for it to evolve in a potential Season 4 (as of the time of publication, The Vampire Lestat has not been renewed yet, but there were positive signs that it could be in a recent interview with an AMC executive).
That repulsion Bogosian refers to is in Season 3 Episode 4, when Armand tries to make amends to Daniel at a bowling alley. Bogosian explains Daniel’s enraged response above, saying, “It’s like, I don’t care what your reasons were. You did something… well, we won’t use the word. But you did something against my will.”
When discussing Episode 4 in a separate interview, Zaman told TV Insider that, in his mind, Daniel’s turning must have been violent to make Armand to think that out of everyone he’s hurt in his life, Daniel is the one he hurt the most. Armand says this in his amends in the fourth episode. Later on, Armand reveals that it was love that distracted him from Daniel’s investigation into the trial in Season 2. It wasn’t his love for Louis (Jacob Anderson), but rather love for Daniel that he only realized he felt in hindsight, as Zaman told us.
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“I think we know then that him turning Daniel was more than just a ‘f**k you,’” Zaman explained as he speculated on the nature of Daniel’s transformation. “It was something. [Armand] was turning him for something, not because of something. I think he’s struggling with that. He’s struggling with that realization and coming to terms with that because it was violent. Regardless of what his intentions might have been, the act itself, the moment itself, which I hope we get to see, has to be violent, has to be not good, not fun for Eric or Molloy.”
In The Vampire Lestat Episode 5, Armand reveals that he followed Daniel in secret for 52 years after their first meeting in San Francisco. According to the 500-year-old vampire, he did this to check up on Daniel and protect him. This is a piece of “The Devil’s Minion” chapter, albeit a tweaked adaptation and a rather quick telling of it at that.
Zaman says this is just the beginning of what they could explore with Daniel and Armand in the series, and he reminds viewers that pieces from Armand’s titular novel in The Vampire Chronicles have been worked into the series already as well.
“The Vampire Armand and, to a certain extent, also ‘The Devil’s Minion’ [chapter] is something that has been through-lined through Season 1, 2, and 3. It’s been sprinkled in, and we haven’t finished telling that story yet,” Zaman says above. “We’ve only just had this revelation that yeah, there was this 52 years. That just brings so many possibilities.”
While they didn’t know this was happening until Season 3, Zaman admits that he “had an inkling in Season 1 that might be how we might be going with it.” Bogosian, meanwhile, has been kept in the dark about the show’s big secrets.
“My job on this show has always been full of mystery. I don’t always know that these things are going to be happening, or that they’re even part of the story,” Bogosian says. “I didn’t know in the first season that Rashid was actually Armand. I didn’t know that until we got to the last episode.”
This knowledge that Armand was influencing Daniel’s life from behind the scenes for decades — and that Louis allegedly knew about it — is distressing for the vampire journalist/documentarian.
“For Daniel, in general, it’s endless revelations of learning more about his own life than he thought he knew, which he wasn’t real happy with his personal life to begin with. He could’ve screwed up in a lot of ways,” Bogosian explains. “And now it turns out… it’s kind of overwhelming. He keeps swimming upstream. What is your personality? It’s only what you think you had as an experience; it’s only what you think you did in your life. To find out that all of this is completely different than what you thought it was, then who are you? And there you are, a vampire who doesn’t know who he is. It’s pretty rough.”
In short, Daniel knew who he was without those pieces. What will he do with them now, if they’re to be believed? Armand does always have a trick up his sleeve.
Learn more about The Vampire Lestat Episodes 4 and 5 from Zaman, Bogosian, and their costars Anderson, Sam Reid, Delainey Hayles, Sheila Atim, and Jennifer Ehle in the full video interview above.
The Vampire Lestat, Sundays, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+