In the world ofAnne Rice’s literature, the opportunities for adaptation are endless. The AMC series,Interview with the Vampire, based on Rice’s most iconic work, featuring the characters Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat (Sam Reid), pays homage to her novels while also changing the formula and re-inventing the narrative. With the upcoming third season, showrunnerRolin Jonesis embracing the audacity of theVampireworld more than ever, as music will play as prominent a role as the acting and writing.
Officially rebrandedThe Vampire Lestat, after Rice’s novel, Season 3 promises hedonistic, rock ‘n’ roll debauchery as Lestat’s aristocratic days give way to the devilish glitz and glamour of the 1980s. The show will also see the return of Reid’s Louis,Delainey Haylesas Claudia, andAssad Zamanas Armand. Season 3 also introduces fans to new faces, includingJennifer Ehle(Lioness),Ella Ballentine(Black Conflux), andChristopher Heyerdahl(Under the Banner of Heaven).
AtSan Diego Comic-Con 2025, Collider’sPerri Nemiroffsat down with Jones, executive producerMark Johnson, stars Reid, Anderson, andEric Bogosian, who plays Daniel Molloy, and composerDaniel Hartto discuss Season 3, taking bold swings, writing the music before the script, and the most awkward and difficult everyday activities to perform on screen — notably,vampireactivities.
Fans Should Expect the “Strange and Wild” From ‘The Vampire Lestat’
Rolin Jones promises “a little bit of whiplash” for Season 3, all led by Anne Rice’s own words.
PERRI NEMIROFF:Mark and Rolin, you get my first question here because the source material that you’re adapting lets you take some really big swings. Can you tell me a little bit about taking those big swings, but also still making sure all three seasons of your show feel cohesive enough?
ROLIN JONES: Who wants cohesion? Why would you go for that? If you read that book after you’ve gone, and you purchasedInterview with the Vampire.Oh, you loved it. “I’m going back to that bookstore again to get the next book.” You’ll read that, and you’ll go, “What just happened?”We are following Anne [Rice]’s lead, and we’re going full throttle that way. A little bit of whiplash, a little bit of people catching up to the tone of it, but it’ll be confident, and it’ll be wild. It’ll feel like what the title is,The Vampire Lestat. It will not feel like the two old guys sitting in a room trying to figure stuff out. No, no, no, it’s going to be on the back of Lestat living like Lestat, embracing like Lestat. It’ll be contradictory and hallucinogenic and strange and wild. That’s what you should be expecting.
I appreciate those keywords. “Wild” and “whiplash” really speaks to me.
MARK JOHNSON: The fact that he carries this book around, which you saw last year and two years before that, shows you his reverence for Anne Rice. No matter how wild, how surprisingly different this season is from the last, it is still very much in the hands of Anne Rice, and it has all the spirit of her writing.
I love to hear that.
JACOB ANDERSON: It also shows you Rolin’s disregard for a book jacket.
JONES: It’s well-loved. I’ve taken it in strange places and rooms that it shouldn’t be in.
You can read that one way or the other!
The Biggest Differences Between the ‘Interview with the Vampire’ Book and Show
So far, so good.
In Seasons 1 and 2, it is largely portrayed through Louis’s perspective of Lestat. Sam, I was reading a quote that you gave where you said they’re both unreliable narrators in their own way. Now that we’re getting his perspective more, can you tell me how the two of them are unreliable narrators, but in their own unique ways?
SAM REID: Often, we talk about unreliable narrators and reliable narrators, and what it means sometimes is people can be like, “Well, Louis just lied. You spent two years watching this show, and it’s all a lie." I just think that’s not really what was ever the intention.
I think the idea of an unreliable narrator speaks even more to a character’s truth than anything.
REID: Yes. Absolutely. I think both Louis and Lestat, when they are narrating and when they are telling their story, are unreliable or notnecessarilyforthcoming about the truth, but they have different reasons to do so. Lestat is different to Louis, and when he does withhold or when you don’t necessarily believe what he’s saying, it’s for a different reason than what Louis might be doing. So, whether or not it remains as a device or whether we let that device go, because now we’re going into different territories, I just think it’s basically based on the fact thatthese are different people, and they have different intentions—vampires, not people.
The idea of an unreliable narrator, or seeing something through someone else’s eyes is making me think of this. Sometimes I’ll ask actors what seemingly small, everyday thing that human beings do is the most difficult to replicate on set. I always say things like fake sneezing and fake driving, but someone recently told me that one of the most challenging things is not necessarily lying, but having a lie speak to your own personal truth.
ANDERSON: That is really complicated to do, because, is the character is agoodliar? Then, also, you could just flat-out lie, because acting is basically just lying anyway. So, you could just do that, but then you don’t get to show that there’s something behind [it]. But I actually think the hardest thing to do on camera is basic things like opening doors and walking through doors.
Brushing your teeth?
ANDERSON: No, brushing your teeth is actually kind of a complex thing, and easy to do because you can do a lot of it. It’s more about how you want the characters to look cool, and particularly vampires, they need toglidethrough space. They need to do everything,bam, bam, bam, bam, without any issue. Sometimes, you’re in four-inch Cuban heels and big flowy things, and you’re carrying somebody, or you’ve got stick-on nails, or you can’t see, or you’ve gotta catch something that’s being thrown at you by somebody. All that kind of stuff. Very, very basic things like opening doors and getting out of cars, they are hard. They are hard to do “cool.”
JONES: In the editing room,we sort of have, like, a math equation about letting the vampires be “vampire cool”for about eight out of 10 takes, and then two, get the mistakes. You walk into the Parisian apartment, and you throw keys, and they fell off, and somebody in VFX got rid of it! I said, “What are you doing?” No, vampires can fuck up and miss the table! We keep that in.
ANDERSON: Something I’ll say this about Rolin, which is amazing, is when that happened, you were like, “How do you feel about that? Are you okay with the keys dropping? Would you like Louis to have killed that?” Rolin always gives us real ownership and creative control of our characters.
JONES: They know it. They know the role better than we do.
ERIC BOGOSIAN:Biting a neck is hard. Getting ready to bite a neck and waiting for “action” as your mouth is on the person’s neck,and the “action” is taking forever because they’re adjusting one more light. It’s very intimate, neck biting. It’s more intimate than kissing.
There Are Bold Changes Made In Season 3, ‘The Vampire Lestat’
“It’s been a big change, but super fun.”
To dig into how your characters have evolved from Season 1 to Season 3, can you each tell me something about your approach to playing your character that has stayed consistent from season to season to season, but also something that you had to do for your Season 3 storyline that demanded a first?
REID: It’s very hard. The show is so different every single season, and we’re in a different place every single season, and the books change. What’s stayed consistent, I guess, is that we’re all still here. Seeing the same people and turning up to work, and it being the same people, going, “What are we doing this year? What’s happening now? Where are we?” I suppose that’s consistent, and it’s one thing I’m incredibly grateful for.
The thing that has changed this year, for Lestat, is the music.Getting music before getting a script is a real mind-bleep, because I’d never done that before. It was a really complicated way to start a character, because without context, music is incredibly subjective. But also, how do you connect? “What is the context of this?” I kept saying this, “Where did this come from? Why is he doing this?” Then slowly, as the context came in… But I’m having to learn these songs, we’re having to record them, and poor Daniel was being incredibly patient, like, “It’s this, and this, and this.” I was like, “I need to know!” [Laughs]
But then, as this context comes in, they open up, and you just see how incredibly brilliant this music actually is. It’s just that I was naive to being able to fully understand it, but I had to learn the mathematics of the songs, which are incredibly complex. Daniel Hart’s an incredibly talented songwriter and musician, and he writesgiganticsongs. They are mega, mega songs. Rolin also writes mega texts, but I’ve been used to that. It’s been a big change, but super fun.
JONES: I can just also say the consistent thing, and this is for all three actors that are sitting here, is the multitudes of takes that you get, and the wild attacks that they do not replicate. “I’ll give it to you this way. I’ll give it to you this way.” That has stayed consistent and has made our job in post very fun, thrilling, and easy.
Yet another consistency I like quite a bit. Jacob and Eric, can you tell me an acting first you had to do in Season 3 given where your characters are going story-wise?
ANDERSON: No, I can’t. But what I would say as well about Louis is this thing that’s always been consistent, for me at least, is that he’s a searcher. I think people look at that character sometimes as somebody that’s dissatisfied or is depressive, or whatever, but I thinkhe’s always trying to find the better version of himself,or trying to find the better version of existence as a vampire. That’s something I really admire about him.
Back to the unreliable narrator thing, we’re all unreliable narrators in our own lives. We’re all our own heroes. Something I love about my boy is that he is willing to shift his feelings about his truth. He’s actually not that stubborn. That’s what the journey of those first two seasons was for him. It was like, “Maybe I got this wrong. Maybe I wasn’t so kind to my daughter.” I think he’s as unreliable as any of us are. Do you hate that?
JONES: Love that. If we all just sit here and talk about how we experienced the last 10 minutes, it would all be variations. The couch is green, though.
Yes, that we can confirm.
BOGOSIAN: Daniel, being a vampire now,thinksthat it’s going to solve a lot of things, and it doesn’t solve anything. Things get even much more complicated for him. The consistent thing that goes through all the seasons is they’re always messing with Daniel, and Daniel likes to push back. Daniel doesn’t like getting bullied. That has been consistent and will continue to be consistent. They’re not going to get me, if I have my way.
ANDERSON: Daniel’s arguably one of the bigger bullies in the show, though.
BOGOSIAN: Yes. I’m also that. Well, what did you say? “Everyone is their own hero?” Yeah, well, Daniel’s his own hero. I have a perfect right to punch you in the head.
Music Plays an Integral Part of the Storytelling Process in ‘Interview with the Vampire’ Season 3
I want to pose this question to both of you, Sam and Daniel. I love this question because I always ask it to acting scene partners, and it’s so exciting to me that I can reword it in a way that suits an actor and a composer here. Can you each tell me something about the other, as a scene partner, in a sense, that helped you unlock something in your own work that you wouldn’t have been able to find without him?
DANIEL HART: I wrote these songs starting at the beginning of the writers’ room process, and I was doing it mostly locked away in my own space. I was still in the writers' room complex, but I had my own little room, and I would go in there and I would tinker and I would toy, and then I would go home and I would tinker more in my own little space at home. I did that for quite a long time before Sam and I started talking about how we would approach the songs together, which meant that for all of the songs, I sang Lestat’s part on the demos as an example of what it could be, and then I started sending those to Sam. Then, Sam started putting it into his own mind and, as he said, trying to find context for what these lyrics were, why Lestat would say the things being said in these songs, what they meant to him, what they meant in the larger storytelling.
Having his voice come in and replace my voice — I’ve never been so grateful to have my own voice replaced — having Sam come in and start singing everything himself, and hearing his approach to the songs and just hearing his voice, because he has a great voice, changed the way that I started writing songsfrom that point.I started writing songs knowing his voice better than I had beforehand, and so I could do things that would play to his strengths, or at least try to. But Sam is right; I am a fairly unforgiving songwriter, and I did push him at the top of his range quite a lot, just over and over and over again. Like Rolin, I am a bit of a maximalist when it comes to songwriting.
REID:Daniel has managed to pull more depth out of the characterthat I didn’t know was there. Particularly towards the end of the season, I was sort of gobsmacked, and I’ve continued to be gobsmacked every time I approach some of these songs. You play a character for a while, you seem to know it. You’ve read the books, you knew the character from the books, and then you know Rolin’s adaptation, and there’s that. Then you have another writer coming in and adding another layer to the character, and you’ve learned more about it. I feel like I learned a lot about the character through Daniel’s music.
A straight forward question now, but one inspired by the conversations we’ve hadthroughout the years- at this point in their journeys, what does it mean to each of them to be a vampire?
ANDERSON: I think for Louis, it means, like, a coming together of all of the parts of him. At least now, he is the most complete version of himself that he’s ever been. He’s found a level of inner peace, at least for now, and a sense of belonging, in the sense of, “I am what I am, and I’m okay with that.” But like I say, that most likely won’t last forever.
BOGOSIAN: I think Danny has been around these guys, and he wants to be one of them, which is a total illusion. You can’t be one of them. But by being a vampire, he’s now in the club. His life was going nowhere prior to getting invited to Dubai. There’s been this gravitational pull of these characters, so now he gets to party with them the way that they party, except that’s not going to work either.
REID: I’d say for Lestat, what it means to be a vampire is everything right now. I don’t think he’s allowed himself any space or time to think what he would be if he wasn’t this thing that he is now. It’s almost like anything that he was previously andanything that he will be in the future is veiled under the glass box of vampirism, which is actually quite a fragile box, but he doesn’t know that yet.
‘Interview with the Vampire’ Season 3 Takes a “Wild Leap”
“Everybody’s taking a real risk this year.”
I have to wrap with you all so, Rolin, I’ll pose this last question to you. In film and television we give each other awards, and that’s super cool. I think that should keep happening. But, I find that nobody stops to tell themselves “good job” as much as they should. Can you tell me something you and your team accomplished making Season 3 of this show that you know you’re always going to look back on and say, “I am real damn proud of what we did there?"
JONES: This is a wild leap from book one to book two. There was, within my mind, but from outside sources, too, a lot of nervousness about following her lead in that way. Most shows want you to re-pilot, give them the thing that they gave them last year because it worked so great. There’s a set of artists on our show that would have been very disappointed if we had tried to do that.Everybody’s taking a real risk this year, and it’s always a risk. You’re on that train, you’re going to leap off, and there are a bunch of places down there on the ground that could just end in failure. It’s really, really inspiring and really cool. Not only that, they’re also really, really excellent people, too. There are no assholes and no divas on our show. So, doing this very, very aggressive, wild thing that we’re attempting this year, and that everybody is on board andenthusiasticabout it, makes me feel really cool as a middle-aged artist at this point. You feel young again, and that’s what I feel proud about right now.
Interview with the VampireSeason 3,The Vampire Lestat, premieres on AMC in 2026.
