Interview With the Vampire (and Interview with Sam Reid)

Published Aug 16, 2024, 7:00 AM

Close the curtains and get out your fangs, we've got ourselves a special mega episode! Rosie is joined by producer Joelle Monique to GUSH over the 'Interview With the Vampire' series on AMC+ (coming to Netflix on August 19th!). Then, Rosie and Joelle have their own interview with a vampire, Mr. Lestat de Lioncourt himself, Sam Reid! Sam shares stories with the cast, what he's looking forward to in the new season, and when he got his first TASTE of Anne Rice's classic series. And if you're still CRAVING more, stick around after the credits to hear Rosie and Joelle’s reactions on all of the latest Interview With the Vampire news out of SDCC, including a lyrical breakdown of the newly released song, "Long Face!" VAMPIRES!!!!!

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Warning warning.

Today's episode contained spoilers for the Vampire Chronicle series. Yes, Anne Rice's Vampire Chrolanicle series. That's all the books, movies, television series.

You have been warned. Dawn. Hello, my name is Rosie Night.

Welcome to a special Friday episode of Xtra Vision where our super producer joelmen Nique is gonna come on and sell us on why you should be watching an Interview with the Vampire. I'm already watching it, but she's gonna make you realize that this is a show you have to watch. And yes, we are here to deep dive into your favorite shows, movies, and pop culture. We're here every Tuesday, and every Thursday and sometimes Friday when we might are in a correspondent to tell you why you should be watching something you haven't yet dived into.

It is a Friday, and today Rosie and I are taking a very queer, Gothic romantic dive into an RISI's Vampire Chronicles, sometimes reforward to as the Immortal Universe, I guess for television things for television.

For television, that's the shared universe of the Interview with the Vampire and the Mayfair Witches that exist on AMC Plus.

And a third series, which we're going to talk about next. But first, in our previous only on, we're gonna talk about the expansion of An Rice's Immortal Universe. Then we're head over to our airlock. We have a conversation on season two of An Rice's Interview with a Vampire over on the AMC Plus. Absolutely worth the price of a subscription for a month. You can binge it now. And then we'll head over to back Matter to talk modern adaptations in toxic romances in fantasy fandoms.

Oh they're so toxic, but they're so enticing.

And stay tuned after our airlock discussion for a really lovely interview with Sam Reid from Interview of the Vampire who plays Lastatt de Lion Court. But first it's previously on, and we're going to talk about the Talmasca spinoff series. So this is a very interesting situation. I only know about the Talamasca because I love Queen of the Damned, which we both love, Joelle.

And I great film.

But in the Ann Raich series Mayfair Witches, which is as all of her books are in a shared universe, they introduced to Talamasca. And now in season two of Interview the Vampire. Mild spoiler alert, we are given documents that are related to our beloved Louis by a Tallamasca agent called Raglan James. A incredible naming there, and incredible naming for sure. So Joel, what is the Talamasca?

So this is an organization that monitors the supernatural with many of its agents like supernatural abilities, which we haven't seen in the show yet, but kind of gets me excited. Okay, you guys, this is how out of the loop I am. I just started reading the Vampire Chronicles in order to do like the recap for this show today. Then I was like, man, Interview the Vampire was so good. So then I got halfway into the stats book, which is gonna be so great for season three of Interview with the Vampire. Yeah. Then as I was doing research on like, oh, let me go deeper into the show that oh, hey, there's an entire spin off called Mayfair, which is the second season. It just wrapped filming and it's coming to you soon and they're connected by the cool agents. I was like, I have so much reading and watching to do, which is I think great news if you're like man, I really like this series. Is there anything else I can read?

Well?

I have to say I was a big fan of The Mayfair Witches. It's Alexandra Didario, who I love. She's like a genre icon now an Emmy no thanks to White Lotus, but it's basically like she's and she finds out that there's this kind of magical legacy in her family of witches, and she moves back to New Orleans and she has to live in a beautiful witch house and there's kind of a strange mystery and the Talamasca comes into it. And I knew the Talamasca, like I said, because of the fantastic movie Queen of the Damned, which was meant to be a you know, straight to video sequel to interview the vampire, but ended up going to the movie theaters after the far too sudden death of the one for Aliyah who stars in it as Akasha.

So when the Talamasca was brought up, I was like, oh, oh, I know what this is. This is like reading a comic book, like I get this.

So apparently with the success of Maifo Witches, which is just finished its second season, and obviously the fantastic interview of The Vampire, which we know is getting its third season, which will be its Queen of the Damned season. They have decided to make a Talamasca TV show, and Damn McDermot, who's the President of Entertainment for AMC Studios and AMC Networks, he said, this is a story we've been developing and wanting to tell from the earliest moments of the franch focused on a fascinating and compelling secret society that has already appeared in both of our existing and Rice series. John Lee Hancock will be the person taking on the show, and he says this all started for me with a call from Mark Johnson, who asked if I'd ever heard of the Talamasca. I was intrigued by the idea of an organization that to me had more than a passing resemblance to the CIA or MI six, which are necessary but not always necessarily transparent. I don't know if I agree that they're necessary, but sure, sure, John, Okay, John, you know what I'm gonna be. I appreciate your generous reading. They're an organization with their own secrets. Thankfully, dam mcdummott liked to take and so did Mark Lafferty. Who's so talented and accomplished in the world of television, So that sounds very exciting. I like the idea of a critical take on a you know, why is this supernatural task force being so kind of shady In the Queen of the Damn movie, it's much more of a Giles from Buffy style, like librarian organizations, So it'll definitely be interesting to see their new take. I hope it's not too gritty and grounded because I like my magic to be magical.

But so far a.

Really good job. Yeah. Between bull series. Again, I haven't fully invested into the Mafair which is yet. I watch a couple of trailers in a few scenes and I was like, this is the same vibes a little bit different, but kind of say it's more it takes place in New Orleans, but it gives me sort of more East Coast vibes as opposed to Southern, where as Interview Vampire is.

Like, you know, it's very like.

It really reminded me of the much maligned Swamp Thing show, which I absolutely love.

We really enjoy it, and it's still.

You can watch it.

You can still watch it, I believe on Max and also for free on the cwced app, I believe, and that's still available to me.

Right, I'm like, just make the most of it. Make the most of it. It gave me those kind of vibes.

It's like a modern Gothic, a little bit less Southern, but I feel like, you know, Interview with the Vampire does all the Southern Gothic we could dream of.

So it's okay, true with it, which is we should be.

Different, I think, especially as we're looking to expand into a larger universe, like you want to have spaces that are distinct and like specifically of themselves and to move into, you know, away from queer vampires and white women trying to connect to her lineage and find romance. I imagine is what we're doing in Mayfair Witches, two suited guys being hard asses and kind of like hot procedural. I imagine we're gonna get a little of that vibe.

I want to see the whole which procedural that would be so funny. Okay, Well, Talamasca allegedly gonna be hitting our screens next year twenty twenty five, baby, and coming up, we're stepping into the airlock or out of the airlock either way, and talking season two of Interview of the Vampire. Okay, we're here, we're stepping out of the airlock and into the beautiful streets of gay partis because that's my favorite part of this series.

Wait, before we get into season two, can you talk about your reaction to see season one. I feel like with such a I was gonna say sleeper thing.

Yeah, mm hmmm.

So I was lucky enough I actually found out about Interview that I knew it was happening.

A big fan of these books.

As imperfect as they are, They're not something I go back and read a lot because they're pretty racist, honestly. But yeah, the world, the world that Anne Rice created, I think is very magical. She's a legendary goth Icon and her and her son Christopher have have grown a lot throughout telling these stories. And she was very involved in this adaptation and very open to broadening the world and making it more inclusive and kind of dealing with some of the stuff that she didn't know how to deal with when she was writing this book, as you know, a thirty year old back in the eighties.

So I was very excited.

Sure, and we should mention here that Yeah. This book is inspired by the passing of her daughter, who was five and had leukemia, and so as you're reading it, like it's a it's a strange experience if you come and having zero history or knowledge with like what was this woman? What was happening in her world? At first she spends so she also wrote this book without an editor, which I find hilarious. If you've ever done any editing, you're like, okay, and you're a fabulous writer. And editor might have helped in spots, just ask a few questions, tone a few things down here and there, you know. But she spends a lot of time talking about how beautiful Claudia, who becomes like the two main vampires familiar later she's beenen at a very young age, I think five in the book, like her daughter in the television series she's fourteen. And on top of that, then she spends a lot of time talking about like it's not coded, it's almost blatant, and yet it's done so subtly. The queerness, the queer element of it. Louie's clearly like falling in love with guy. He's falls in love with Armandi, falls in love with the Stott but it's it's done in a way that it's like, oh, but they're vampires, so it's not quite the same Isaac. Yeah, there's I don't think there's any there's no sex, right, No, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, there's no penetration in the novel.

The truth is that Anne Rice has always embraced the queerness of vampirism, and also I think that she embraced her queer readership too, and I love that.

But yeah, I love that you brought up her.

Own personal connection to it and kind of how her goth culture was almost like her mourning for her daughter, and I it's such a personal story. I love the original movie. I think it's like legit.

Just absolutely fantastic.

It's so gay, even if they didn't want to commit, it's very implied in that film. But yes, absolutely, Oh there's so much yearning.

Through the roof. Okay, we are looking across rooms, We are jealous of other men being near our guy. It is, it is all. It feels like original fan fiction. Reading the novel, I was like, this is every hardcore fantasy romance trope you could possibly imagine. Definitely woven. You don't feel like overwhelmed, are like, oh, this is tacky or weird. It's an exceptional read, particularly you fall more in love with Louie. And season one I thought, my god, the changes like coming in and they were like Louis Black. I said, I'm here for it. It's New Orleans and I don't need the listen if you read the book just to like we mentioned, it's racist. It's extremely racist in that if you are a descendant of slaves, you might have to close the book many times, like I did, because slaves are just slaves like capital s, slaves like not people. Louie is terrified of them for reasons you can't quite understand, as quote their master, and also later as a vampire, he's like you couldn't control them their Africans. So it's a lot to deal with in the first I want to say the book.

Yet generously, I'm like, he should be scared of them because he is a slave, Like you know what, Like he's right to be scared of them.

But no, I love the choice that they made to make Louis black.

They do a great job integrating his race into the story as like actually a major and I was really I didn't have AMC plus, which has many people I'm sure also didn't have it. But if you love a fast channel as they call it, you know, free ad supported TV. Me and Nick were watching TV one night and they had a channel. It was called like AMC. It was on CHEWB or Roku, and it was called like AMC Gems or something AMC Thrillers, and they just played the entire first season of the show a h and it was when it was just it had just come out, it wasn't even that long ago, and we were like, oh my god, this is unbelievable.

This is so great.

Also, I couldn't believe that they'd found like Sam Reid is so fantastic as Lestat, and I'd always had my own fang castings of who that should be, but I felt like he really brought something interesting.

And scary to it. And also obviously you know, like this is just such a strong cast.

It's an incredibly strong cast. Like so, yes, Sam Reed is favloss. If you're a fan of the novels as well, then you'll be super excited because so Sam Sam loves these books. So he can tell you his favorite line from both the novels and the television series. He's an active watcher of the TV series Season two, Lastat isn't it much less? It's fine. He's gonna be the star of season three. He's like, genuinely loves playing Lestatte, loves Lastatt as a character, and you get to see him in pu so much. He's terrifying. At points he's heartbroken and at others he's doing so much. And what I really like about season two is we slowly venture our way over. There is the way this show when you start seeing to you like, my god, it be such a victim, like he keeps falling for these toxic people who are taking over his life.

We should also say Jacob Anderson. You might know miss Ray.

He plays Louis. He's absolutely fantastic. He's the center of this show.

He is the heart of it. You love him so much. His face does such magical things where you're just like I. I would follow Louis Overcliff. I understand why everybody immediately meets him and is like, do I am I in love with this man? Is this the man of my dreams? My soulmate? I too would feel that way. If I look Jacob Anderson and his stunning eyes. I mean he does so much, and he's like again to hear like his castmates talk about the choices he makes us a performer. They're so strong and always so shocking. I started season two being like, gosh, Louie can't like season one is fabulous. Louie is a guy who who's shunned by every aspect of can He loses his brother, who's like his best friend, to suicide. It's challenging for him to understand that choice and to understand his role in that choice. Then his sister is like the gay his mom. His mom is like the gay thing is too much, and his sister's like, I don't know what this vampire weird thing you've got going on now, but there's too much distance between us and we need to not be near each other. There's sabotage and betrayal and it's so now no community. He's a pimp, but he doesn't really like doing that, and he's alien needs him further from humanity, which Louis loves so much. What makes him a terrible vampire? At first he's like, but I love humans that a this is strange. Then he starts flung lestar as in the space where he can just be himself. And so immediately you're like, I understand why you're falling for this narcissist. It's it's understandable. He loves you because you're a mirror and he sees himself and he loves that. And you love him because he's allowing you a space to be yourself and.

He accepts who you are.

This and this you know you can be this violent, angry, furious person you never got to be. And yeah, they're just so delightful together.

He doesn't hold it against you. I mean, it's it's everything. It's such a toxic relationship, but you can absolutely see why.

And kind of their first season, I would say basically because it's much more closely adapting the books. It sort of ends in some ways where the movie ends, but then we get apart in season two follows a section that we didn't get in the first season.

Yeah, you know, since we leave the timeline. Yes, is distract If you feel the need to be fully grounded, it will take you some time to be like what is We evolved throughout season one with this relationship where they are so their love revolves around them being able to play with and destroy the people that have hurt them most, and then of course they become the people that hurt each other most, and so toxicity it devolves. They get a daughter to try to save the marriage. Louise like, I don't want to kill one more precious thing. She Please save her, and Prosot's like that's gonna end badly, Please don't do it. But they do it anyway, and they love her.

Like a child vampire that they shouldn't do it.

Don't want to be sixty and a fourteen year old body. That's confusing for everyone. And so they have this kid. But the kid is like, yo, this is kind of messed up here. Like dad I love who is supportive aka Louis, why do you let abusive daddy hurt you? It's strange abusive daddy I really like killing We have fun doing that. But also you're so mean to this parent who is so emotionally supportive of me. This is a challenge. We should get rid of you. You're dangerous. So they do again more a thousand different portrayal. A party to end all parties. That's pretty much everything happens season one. It's delightful, but you end with this feeling of like my God.

And we basically leave Claudia and And and Louis have left the stat for dead. Is kind of yeah, we and there and they're hoping for.

A new, new, great world together.

They leave their at home. It's terrible, really, it's terrible. They start off in Eastern Europe in the middle of World War two, so not a good not a good place to start. They're picking through bodies and trying to figure out how to navigate this space. But really, Claudia has cemented in her brain that what she needs more than anything is to find vampires. She's like, she tried it once in season one. It was awful. You tried to warn her. They're like, listen, the vampires out. They're not great. And she's convinced herself that despite this horrible interaction she's had, that there must be a space for her. And something we get out early on is she freezes out Louis. She's like, I'm not speaking to you right now because you can distantly choose that man over me, even the killing. In order to kill a vampire, you gotta either burn the body or leave it out in the sun, or fully beheaded. Louis slitless, stats thrown through him a suitcase and was like, that's probably good enough.

And also he left him where there's a lot of rats where I think he knew that he could see could survive, because really that's his boyfriend and he can't say goodbye.

So I'm so sorry you should have killed him. But also I understand, and I love this for.

You, guys. I'm glad lest that's still around, and I.

Love it for us because I want to watch the show for the next like seven seasons or whatever.

I need more of your toxic romance. So appreciate you making bad decisions. But also that leads your daughter in a space of being like where do I exist? Where do I stand? Who loves me the most? And currently no one. It's looking pretty hopeless. They're still dealing with racism even in eastern Germany. They're like black Ukrainians, not a thing, get out of here.

Uh.

But then then they find a space. There's a bunch of humans. Humans are afraid of what's out in the woods. Things are getting you. There's garlic. Claudia's like this is ringing bells. I've read all the books. I know where they're at.

She's like, this seems like they're worried about vampire.

Who it's like that stuff doesn't work. She's like, that's not the point, that's not what we're talking about. It working, Like they believe it must be a vampire. And of course they stumble across one d Dashna is that actually name?

Oh she's so scary.

I love this one. It's giving very sleepy hollow backwards, which if you're into the nineteen ninety nine classic sleepy Hollow. Sorry, we've talked about a lot of toxic men today. I digress.

I love that, which I like this because this is it's very you know, when you go to Eastern Europe and you're thinking about vampires, you're expecting Dracula and old Blood, and you know they're hunting for, you know, the truth about what inspired the Dracula myths, and this is very.

Much that old school scary.

Dracula s Yeah, like nosfera too monstrous kind of of vampires. And this obviously doesn't go very well for.

For Claudia and Louis because Colia has just accidentally killed Dashania's prodigy.

Her last, her last one. She's she's like one are the others? She's like, you killed the last one like she she takes out his eyes in a very dope scene. We can be real about it, and then she's like, listen, you kind of sorry I killed your progeny, but you should come with us and hang out like you're all here alone. You would drink the blood is bad. Okay, war has made the blood toxic. You shouldn't be drinking it. They're like, please come leave with us, and she starts to say yes. She talks about the days that Claudia has ahead of her. She says this very important line, we own the night. Yes, she asked it us a question, and then halfway into being like, yeah, you'll take me across the ocean and I'll have this better life, she stops and says we own nothing and self emilates cool. War is bad. It has a lot of Wait, this is a extremely traumatic moment for Claudia of all she's had. Her whole life is one extended traumatic moment. Poor Claudia. But it causes Louie to sort of make this declaration. They leave. They're like, they decide they may like some human paths along the way. They get screwed over because they get bit and they're like, listen, that's human business. We can't be involved in that anymore, which is the first time you get that from Louis. Louis like, you know what, No, I'm not human, I'm a vampire, and more importantly, I'm a father brother to Claudia. They use it meant. The other confusing thing about this is like the sometimes weird incest tones, So like, what is the actual relationship between progeny turned vampire, master vampire and siblings. It's a lot. And so they hop in a truck. They're traveling with the statue of Venus, right, I think it's the one, the one without the arms. You guys know she's famous.

And you just send the Simpsons episode.

Right, yeah, you know, just the thing. It's on its way to the Louver. They're on their way to Paris, and Louis makes this declaration, this clear promise. That is the most if you've ever been with a parent where it's the two of you and conditions are not great around you, you know, for whatever reason, and they turn to you a say listen, I've got Oh it's the most comforting thing in the world. It's the I've got you speech, It's the you don't have you can be a child, you can be a young person, you can be figuring things out. I will make sure that it's the two of us holding us down and that we will be okay. And it is everything she wants and everything you want for the two of them to have, and they let you have it for two point five seconds because they care. Comes Armond and Louie's back in love and it is a little bit devastate. Talk to me about Armand, because I didn't realize we don't get Armand's full story until book freaking six. The way, I just be absorbed in these novels for the next several weeks.

And if you remember, Almond is in the movie kind of briefly in a similar way, played by Antonio Banderas, and we kind of get a very compressed version of what we see here.

But Armand here is we really.

Get to actually explore who he is, who the theater this vampires are who have been kind of watching Louie and Claudia while they're in Paris and kind of working out whether or not they want to join they should get them to join the coven.

Also, I will say the show is.

Called Interview with the Vampire in the original the set up was, you know, Louie is giving a interview with an actor.

It was originally meant to be I mean, with a journalist.

It was originally supposed to be real a phoenix, but Phoenix passed away, Rip to our.

Baby and his friends.

We lost all the things we lost, but his loving friend Christian Slater, one of my favorite actors, came in. He took on the role of the journalist Daniel Molloy, and that was so fantastic. And when they were recasting the show, I was like, oh, how could they do it without Christian Slater? But little did I know that they were going to cast Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy.

In one of the best castings of all time.

So we've seen Daniel go from the beginning of season one where he does not believe anything Louis is saying and thinks it's absolute nonsense to by this point when he is meeting Armand and you know, he's talking with Louie again, and this time Armand is part of the interview. He's becoming enchanted by the vampires and their story, and the impact that Armand has on Daniel is really interesting because it is reflective of the impact that Armand has on Louis when they first meet, and of course poor Claudia gets shoved to the back.

If you've ever had.

A parent who is in a toxic relationship and you are not the primary focus of their interest or care anymore, well, baby, this is going to hit hard for you because Claudia basically is left behind as Louis finds himself in the Theater des Vampires who.

By the way, this is definitely.

One in the moment where I was like screaming when we find out in episode two that, like, guess who was the co founder of this theater. It was funny, like can you ever get away from this man?

Now?

A word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.

The pan to the portrait above is so impressied, so basically we have to rewind just a schmitch. So, first of all, theatric to Vampire is a huge setting for interview with Vampire. It's like very important. It's the first time they meet a coven and this covenant in France. The coven's really pissed because when you come to a coven city, you're supposed to come in like pay amag You're supposed to come through and be like, hey, I'm here. I'm not here to cause you trouble. Just let through whatever, ask permission to stay, that kind of stuff. But they spend months in Paris being quintessential American like tourists. They're like, oh, pictures and he's got like berets and like handkerchiefs around his neck. He's very an American in Paris style dress throughout. It's so cute and.

If them slightly like they didn't know, they don't know the rules.

Let's not didn't tell them the rules. You know, he didn't do a good thing.

Begged all of season one to be like, please teach me what it means to be a vampire? Self like, is it not natural to you? And he's like, please, could you just tell me what it is for us?

Me doing?

Are there others out He's like, they're scary and weird out there. You're lucky to be here with me. I'm toxic. Stay. So they get to they get to France and they find them and they get to this theater and they're like listen and we got you guys, good seats. So it comes sit down middle center and see our show, and the show starts off goofy, very French, very like mime. Then you get Santiago. Another very important feature comes out and he gives a devastating speech that is so and immediately like, oh this theatroops kind of good and I get why you'd want to live that nightlife and it's very cool here, and I too want to be involved. And they're going through all of these sets and then suddenly it stops being a play you understand as a viewer because the tone has shifted, and now there is a terrified, half naked woman on stage pleading for her life. The woman the actress playing that woman is actually the assistant to the director, and the production found out she could act and they were like, do you want to do this role? And she kills it. Her terror is palpable. She's begging the audience. But the point of the theater is that you can transcend belief. And so the vampires get to be themselves, for however, temporarily in front of human beings, and they get to exalt in being vampires and show off being vampires, and Claudia is enraptured. Immediately, she is like, this is they are just killing and having fun and nobody cares and there's not going to be any trouble and and they.

Get to be a star y, you know, Claudia gets her wish and we see her she gets the star in the play, but she ends up hating the play because she's playing a baby for.

Her whole life.

Okay, So I will say we're about halfway through season two now, I think we could let's talk a bit more about like how we feel about season two and where it left us, because we could.

Talk about this all day. So we kind of get to explore this.

We get some really great stuff with Louis and Armand and Daniel, and we kind of make our way to the end, which sets up our big season three, which will be the rock starless stat stuff that we saw in Queen of the Dams. Okay, Joelle, Yeah, So something we talked about before this that I really like, I would love to hear your things. How does it feel to kind of watch this and see those changes that have been made to kind of make this more modern, to make it more inclusive, to make it basically more interesting and more historically.

Yes, like what does that feel like for you?

Phenomenal as a writer to be like, what if I was able to plus everything I wrote twenty years ago still connect with like an original audience that loved it, find a new audios, and imbue so much of what was happening to me back then that I couldn't process into this space. They really really honor the life of anta Resis child throughout this. If this is a book about grieving her, what does that mean? So by if you age her up from five to fourteen? Right, a five year old is great in a book, and as a ten year old in the movie they found an actress, Yeah, like horrifying, Like she's she's insat she'll be hungry. As a five year old, she's nuts. In the movie she's ten, right, And so now as a ten year old, you can be kind of like a little mini terror. You don't maybe don't have enough like physical power, but you understand enough of what's going on, and you know it's it's still kind of offsetting. At fourteen, you are on the cusp of what you are so close to being a woman, but you're still definitively a child. And to on top of that, you're in a hormonal rage all the time. There's there's it's it's literally in your body. I hated being fourteen. It was awful. I can't imagine being arrested in that state for all of existence. And so I found by aging her up and allowing an older actress to play her, they were able to strike such a balance of what it means to love and lose a child because you get like man Louis in the finale, and again, if you haven't watched and you're like, okay, I'm invested now, but that was time to pause our show.

Okay, yeah, yeah, take it if you If this sounds like you're something you would just absolutely love to watch, just just just pop it on right now, just start right now, come back, because Joe I was gonna start.

Spoiling in a more serious way.

Here we go. I don't want to do two out of order, but Louie and let's stop get together at the end after again a see a petrol which you'll go back when talk about Arman because I'm obsessed with this character. But they get this moment where we're start after betraying Louis and literally being a key figure in the reason Claudia die, he is like when she goes she looked at me like a child looks at a parent. But I was never her father because he knew she wasn't gonna last, and because of that, he separated himself. And it that moment for me, turns everything around it. I started the podcast, I was saying, you think Louis is a victim the whole time. Louis is so cognizant of who he is. He knows who he is, but he doesn't know what he wants, and so he makes a bunch of really terrible decisions. He chooses to hurt Armand's a controlling, total douche, but he hurts Armand in a way that is completely unforgivable. I would never forgive anyone if they spoke to me the way Louis speaks to Armand in that hotel room, I would never the way he manipulates Lestat into creating something for him. El Soo's like, you will regret this, Like we should not turn this person. This is a bad idea, and he's like, please, I can't. I can't kill anymore. I need her to live. They're both her parents. Louis held on too tight and didn't let her become her own person. Lestat turned his so you wouldn't have to watch her fade. They both wanted it being destroyed by this decision, But I love it so much more than like the book. Ending is so interesting in Interview with the Vampire when it ends, And again, the timeline's tricky because both the movie and the television series do this interesting thing where they acknowledge the book as being the original interview and then use the timeframe they're placed in as a reflection of that interview. And so you understand that you're never quite sure if you're getting the whole truth. You're not sure after you read the novel. Is that the truth? You're not sure if after you watch the movie, and you're not sure after you watch the TV series? At which point am I learning the absolute truth of who these characters are? And it makes it so interesting because Louis has woven such a web of all of these people hurt me when really you are in a relationship making equally bad decisions and buying trying to hurt these people too, actively trying to hurt folks, to the point that the very last decision Louis makes is Louis has to kick Ourmond out again. We'll go back to our mind because I'm really in your thoughts on him. He cans harmaud out of his place. He's like, listen, if you hurt my journalist's buddy, who I mean? Truly, the fact that we get like in Anthony Bourdaine esque character interviewing Vampirestion is amazing peak deliciousness. I wish Anthony were alive to comment, because I really think he was like, oh yeah, I'll be the Anthony Bardane of the series. I have no problem doing it. Louis last act is to challenge literally every vampire that can within hearing distance, which from what we know of his powers, could be globally, to say, listen, my apartment is open. If you're mad about how I treated my manipulative ex boyfriend, you can come see me about it. I don't sleep, I have nothing to do. My windows. You get zapped by the sun, that's fine. Windows can handle that. You don't get DApp by the sun. Great, Come in the daytime. I'll be awake. Come fight me. This is a man who needs the friction. He needs that. He does not know how to exist if he's not against someone. And I think that's a very fascinating because in the end of the book he leaves. He's so healed. Stefs like, are you coming back? He's like, yeah, no, I why would I ever come back to you. I'm healed, I've done my cry. He's like, this stupid idiot asked me if I can make him a vampire. He's not listening. He doesn't understand why I told the story here. Everything is different. It's it's so, can I tell you one more moment? One more Louis move. They're in the museum, him and Armand they're in the museum. This is Armand has just asked him basically said I love you. Are we in a relationship? And what He's like, I mean it's a situationship and that's good. Why do you want to try Why do you try to push this? Because again, Louie understands, I've met somebody that could potentially be a soul me is it could put you the love of my life. But we are not on the same page. I like you, your fun, we have a good time together. It's not the same as what I had before. I can't commit to you. In the second, armand Who, it's also again very queer show also with stats.

Ex, everybody's staying everybody.

Yeah, so he hasn't left anyone since say, he hasn't even said the word. So louis the first person he's allowing himself to be romantically interested in. And our mom's not happy with this answer. So he says, let me, I'll take you on a date. Take youant date, let me show you around and we'll see what's going on. So he takes him to this museum where he sees an old painting of the guy that turned him, and he starts telling him this story, and somewhere in there he's like, Louis, you have to trust me. I'm not Lestatte. Throughout the series, lestatt has been popping up in Louise's head as I mean.

Is it almost like a kind of ghoul? Like a yeah?

Is it a ghost? Is it a delusion? Is it a psychic connection? Because they got like slight, Yes, we don't know what. We really don't know what the lie and the show even questions him and Louis like, oh he was there, and at the same time together in response to I'm not withstat they turned to armand and simultaneously okay, oh, like this bitch. The way he's like that okay is so it hit me, probably because it's something I would say, which is literally, I'm aware entirely that you're not with Stop. The fact that you think I would be confused about that is insane? Uh, who are you? And I just I loved watching this relationship, but we all like I just, I'm obsessedately in with Stop, like I need sixteen more seasons. I cannot wait to see season three. But I'm also obsessed with armand and I need to know your thoughts right O. See, I'm on such an interesting character. He's ancient. He himself was a slave too, which is something we don't the show doesn't really investigate, but I think the actors do in their performance this idea of we were both once owned by other people, we were both loved and thrown out.

And also like the way that then, like when somebody makes you as a vampire, like are they your owner?

Like do they have this hold over you?

That?

Yeah, it's it's definitely very deep. I thought they did a great job with Armand.

I thought it's it was way more ex banded than I expected it to be based on what I kind of know of that, which is really based on like the movie and like certain books I've read. But I just thought they did a really great job creating this kind of trio. I also love that kind.

Of in the end, Armand and Daniel.

Kind of like have this there, like well fine, then like you don't love us, like that will be us, We'll be will be us? And and Daniel gets to put out his book and you kind of then you don't really know what version we've been watching, because we know.

Armand messes with people's minds, so what does the book really say, you know?

And also I do love the kind of Louis challenging everyone to come and get him, because it really reminded me of in Queen of the Damn Do you know, Lestat essentially creates these songs that reveal vampire secrets to draw vampires to him because he's so lonely. So I thought it was very interesting to see those two things kind of coming together. Okay, Joelle, Yeah, before we go, what are you most excited to see in season three?

What kind of rock star is the stock couldn't be because in the book, it's the nineties, it's MTV. It's like leather and lace, very sort of unny Kravits, like a seventies inspired esque vibe. It's not super present right now in our current society, and there's a social media angle that I think if you don't tackle, you're missing out on. And we're also it's a little nerve racking for me because we're becoming more modern in a way that I think a lot of the a lot of the people involved in the creation of the show are older white men. I don't think that's a disc They've handled a lot of the racism queer like they've handled everything very well so far, but it's also been extremely We're going back in time. It's dated. You haven't had to be connected to the youth of today, which is a totally different thing, and so I'm interested to see how to navigate that.

Yeah, my dream is that they just use the music from Queena the Dad, where he's like a new metal guy, and it has like it honestly has like one of the most beloved incredible soundtracks of all time now because of TikTok, because of the cyclical nature of music and fashion, that ends up being quite current now.

Like kids in the street in La are dressed in jinco jeans with tiny.

Lace shows on TikTok is that.

The good thing is we can hopefully pray that, you know, that could still be something that takes place at l like it could still be in the eighties.

It could be. I mean, who knows, maybe it's going to be in the future. I don't know.

I'm interested to see it, but I hope that every episode has at least one song, because I feel like you have to commit to the musical of it all, and this has been such a great queer show that I pray that they commit and do musical stuff.

Yes, more or lesbians. We snuck two in here. You get a lot of time together. I know we're wrapping up, but yeah, Eric goes degree asad Zaman who played armand did a sad job, and then we had a replacement Bailey Bass was the original.

And she couldn't do it, I think because of scheduling.

Scheduling which is always just such drama. So Deliney hails, which I love how they opened the series with the role of Claudia would not be played by Delina Hills as like, oh, you were getting into our theater bag. I really appreciate it.

I thought that Yeah, it was really and it was nice to kind of let the audience know and not try and sneak it in with.

That idea of like you was, yeah, we know that that that's not the case.

Yeah, totally, totally. It honors both what the first actress did and what and second actress. She killed it. The I don't like windows when they're closed. Performance where she's just distraught to be playing a little girl is so good. But I also think we have to finally shout out Ben Daniels. He played Santiago is such an evil little prick like such I wrote in the notes we got to talk about his tiny penis. I really like this reveal. Santiago plays up being like a great star. He keeps an old newspaper around of the greatest to ever perform Hamlet. And you know, but he's was turned late in later in life, so he's maybe what like late forties, early fifties somewhere in there. So that means all of the young heart throb rolls no longer available to him, all the old wis end rolls a little bit out of his reach. It's a weird place to be paused as now nowadays you could just like, just go to film, you'll be fine. But at this time it really stunts his ability to do what he loves in a meaningful way. And then on top of that, he needs to be the center of attention. He's got all these groupies. But we get to learn through Louis's very cool trick of probing your mind for the worst memories of your life. He was like, hey, remember the time that girl made front of your small penis and told everybody about it? Is that why you're like this? And then you behead Santiago. It is a great fight.

The Santiago also has one of the most evil speeches where he talks about like the things he did to Claudia that she was dead and Claudia's ash that's really what inspires it.

But yeah, that was very I mean, as you can tell, this is a deep show that we could probably have a whole season just talking about.

But Joelle, I'm so sure joined us like me wonderful show.

Just rail about my obsession with this series. I know it was a little chaotic, guys, the show's a little chaotic, but in like the most delightful ways. And if you loved it, I hope you reach out to us and tell us about why you loved it and what books we should be reading next and all that, and that concludes our recap. Guys, stick around well status here. I don't want to put too much pressure on us or you, but he's here and we're going to talk to Sam Reed, so stick.

Around, Okay, here we go.

Our guest today is Sam Reid. I first encountered Sam in the mini series The Hatfields and the McCoy's and Want You, co starred with Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton. You may have sat on the edge of your seat when he was the Earl of s six doing his bid for the Throne and anonymous listen. I was there in twenty eleven. I was there, Okay, so later maybe maybe Sam cili your heart and bell when he's playing John Davin. Here, he's all mine.

Madic here to x.

Ray to discuss his latest turn as a vampire less Statalem Corton and Rice in AMC's Interview with a Vampire Sam.

Welcome, Hello, Thanks for having me.

Yeah you are. We're so happy that you're here.

We're both huge fans of the show, so we're just really excited to chat to you.

So thanks for taking the time.

We are like a TV show with a comic book edge, so we ask people a lot like what's your origin story? So sometimes we ask about comics, sometimes we ask about acting, but in this case, we want to know what's your vampire chronicle's origin the story? When did you fall in love with the books?

Uh? Well, they shot Queen of the Damn in Inn in Melbourne, and as a kid, I was always kind of hyper aware of all the big movies that were coming over and shooting in Australia because I wanted to be an actor and kind of was just you know, I was a big Empire magazine reader and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, so I loved vampires. It was really into Dracula Bromstocker's Dracula the movie, particularly as a kid, so I was into I was into vampires. It was my kind of Halloween costume. I go to costume. So yeah, I read the books in anticipation of the film coming to Australia, which sounds incredibly geeky, but you know that's what.

I love it here people.

But yeah, no, you know, it's just a hyper focused kid who's just really into into into filmmaking and theater, and yeah, and you know, loved it. I don't think I got past the first three and I think it was kind of a big ask, the first of the books. But I watched the movie and yeah, and I think you know, at that point, you know, I loved the books, but I left it there, you know, like you know, I must have been like fourteen, maybe I think fourteen or something like that. Yeah, so you know, I wasn't going to get a role in Queen of the Damned, even though even though I was really excited to watch it when I when it did come out. Maybe maybe I was younger because they usually see those things like a year before they come out. Yes, but then you know, like it's they stayed with me. They were very kind of like present those books. But it was really I think when I was sort of when I heard they were going to make it into a TV series, I thought, oh, well, I love to do that. That would be amazing, you know. And then when the script came through from Rolling well, when the audition came through and I read the script Rollin's interpretation of it, I went back and read that first book again during that audition period, and then the closer I got, the further I got, and I just, you know, like dove so heavily into those books before I had been cast, you know, throughout that process, because it's quite a long audition process. Even though I only did probably like to two tapes and then chemistry reads, it was stretched out over a long period of time and a series of zone meetings and stuff like that, so I had time, and I mean I read like like that was all I was doing. Because also, you know, as you're kind of like getting getting closer to kind of accepting and getting a role like this, you kind of have to really know what you're in for. Yeah, So you know, now I've read them all a couple of times and continue to read. I would love to read something else right now. I'm I'm back at the end of Queen of the Damn.

Yeah, Yeah, that's amazing. Though I just started rereading the reading the books. I didn't really have a I like the movie a lot as a kid. We're both obsessed with Queen of the Damn.

Yeah, it was very influential.

Yeah, definitely hugely a stand and just really obsessed with that movie. And it's been an interesting to go back and sort of read and see like what's evolved. I'm just did a secondary read of The Vampire lest At and I was really intrigued. That's sort of the book where we're at in this series now moving into the new season. There's so many great characters in that book, and I'm wondering, is there someone in there, whether it's Magnus or that's Mom, or is there someone you're excited just as a fan of the books and the overall series.

Yeah, definitely Gabrielle. I'm really excited to see Gabrielle, and all the conversations I've had about how that character is going to be explored is pretty exactly, so obviously don't want to say too much, but yeah, like Gabrielle, I think is an awesome character, and I think it gives a lot of context to the start as well, so you know, and I think that, you know, I remember years ago when I read that book for the first time, being really struck by the first scene that he kind of has with his mom quite early on in the books, and it's after he's killed the wolves and they're kind of there's this like silent and you know, you know that kind of evocketed feeling when you get when you're reading that you can't quite sure, you can't quite explain what it is, but it's immediately transporting, and I never forget that. Like, he has this scene with his mother where they're kind of silently sitting he's like, you know, catatonic after killing eight wolves with a flail and they'll take out of you. Yeah, and then he's and then they're just sort of sitting silently by the fire, and there's this like intensely uncomfortable sexual energy that is emanating from the pages that I did not fully grasp, but I remember as a kid like like look like thigki, and that feeling happened again. I think I remember reading it, you know, more more recently for the first time again, and I was like, it was there, that thing was there, and I guess that's that that thing that people talk about lot with subtexts with these books, is there is like, you know, incredible subtext. There's also text, but there's also like there's also intense intense intensity of feeling. And then she'll kind of like just drop a bomb and just say like flat out what actually happened, you know, So she's She's very extreme in that way, which I really appreciate it. So yeah, yeah, that was my longitted way.

Of saying no, no, no, I love it. It was a perfect answer. Also, like I love that you brought.

That up, because I actually feel like that's something that the finale of season two really translated, because we'd had this kind of alleged text of the armand relationship, but then you get this huge kind of barm of truth about who was really behind it and what we kind of really learned season two is a lot of the Star in the corner of Louis's minds and this kind of different version of Las Start.

What was it like.

To then shoot those scenes with Jacob where it is this reunion, this truth, this kind of apology, this beginning, this end. It's such a huge moment and the episode's so fantastic. What was it like for you as an actor to get to be real the Start again in those moments.

It's funny how these bits of language kind of pop up, like with this Real Start language that it's kind of appeared. I don't necessarily think I thought of it like that. I mean I knew that I knew that there was a level that you know, I could just be less, you know, because because when you're playing kind of like the villain of your ex story, knowing that but also knowing that that they love them. You know, there's a deep love between Louis Endless Start. So it's very complex kind of but it allowed me to be very extreme. And also I knew I knew, and I know which scenes you know, and it's up to rollin in the end of the day, and I know which ones he was thinking. But you know in season one what scenes are real and what they're not, what not you know and what and so there are some things we could do really extreme stuff. So when you approach a scene like this, it's like, Okay, we we're now out of any kind of character's POV. We're just in the real world of the show. Now you know, what do you do? But I guess a scene like that is it's more about the connection between Louis and le Start. And and it was a really crazy day, like it was really rushed, which is kind of often the way it is with television, but that heaps going on. There's a lot of special effects, as per usual in our show, so we have like you know, a lot of effects which make things quite complicated. It was like guys with leaf blowers.

In the just like setting people on fire.

Yeah, and that and that takes a really long time, like to get that right because they've got rigs that has to be renewed, because it's all done practically, which is one thing that I do love about this show, which kind of harkens back to Copola's Racula, which is like a lot of the effects. We don't do it so much with the sets, but the sets are really built a lot of the effects. The effects are real, so it takes a time. It takes a little time to reset. But yeah, it was, it was, it was. It was a wonderful thing to do. And you know, Jacob and I just kind of was like, fuck it, let's go. That's just you know energy.

Definitely, We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.

We're back.

It's fascinating to hear you guys talk about one another. There's clearly such like an artistic love between you guys just as creators that I find really sweet. And also, like you know, I'm outside of being a host, I'm also a producer. It's my job to put teams of people together and try to create you know, beautiful stuff. And I think when you find a connection between two people I work with Zach Braf and Donald Faison who met on Scrubs and then became like lifelong best friends, And like, I find it so interesting the way certain shows can be cast that create sort of these lifelong connections that are so much more than just the show. You know, for you, it's just a creator, and like, have you worked with a ton of like very brilliant actors. But I imagine just because of the way the show is set up, there's a special you know, it's different doing a show, co leading a show with somebody.

I think, yeah, I think you also just like it's just a scenario that is incredibly fortunate. We're just very lucky that we get we get on so well. I don't think it was I don't know if Roland had masterminded it. I have to give him if he did. But we never met in person until we turned up, you know, to start shooting. We did everything I didn't, you know, I didn't meet anybody. Nobody saw me until I turned up to start shooting. So everything had been done on zoom and it was you know, during lockdowns in Australia, so like it was just this bizarre time. Yeah, but you know, just Jacob and I we're very similar. We just get on really well. We have very I guess we're different actors, but we're also like I would say we're very similar actors in terms of we're not like talking about too much, overthinking about it too much. We're like to have it sort of flexible to kind of you mess around and then we just drop it like it just goes I think, you know, I think we just do. But also like then we just drop it, like then the scenes over and we drop it and we just chat chat about something else random or what's funny in the room or And you know, you need that on a show like this because it's it's a very big, silly show that takes itself very seriously and it can suck you right in into this bizarre kind of like vortex, and you you do need to be able to step out of it and laugh about it, and you know, and we do, and you know, it's really valued, you know, and we've got a lot of trust between the two of us. There's just so much us and you know, just like it's that is so so important, it.

Really is, and something like as we leave this, you know you kind of talked about your connection to Queen of the Damned.

We both love it.

It was I saw it with my friends at like the cinema and I think it was in like Islington or somewhere, and we got on the bus and we all went and saw it and we end up seeing like five times, and I still love the soundtrack. How does it feel now to not just be playing Listar and have played him for two years, but as that kid who was waiting for that movie to be filmed in Australia and who wanted was reading every article about it, how does it feel to now be about to embark on doing your take on it and bringing that aspect of Lista to life.

What's that like?

God? Look, I want to preface by saying, I don't know if I was necessarily like, you know, it was Queen of the Damn that kind of got me into it. But I think I probably visually prefer the interview with the Vampire movie and.

What's gonna judge you? It's it's you know, it's like it's a cult movie classic.

But yeah, obviously interview with the Vampire is I must say the Queen of.

The Damn has that the best line, I think, and I and I have kind of like, you know, into it role and could we please just do a reference to that when when I think it's between Jesse Reeves and the start and he's like, I think she goes boo and he goes boo back.

Ye.

No, just credit to the screenwritters with that film. But oh my god, what an extraordinary canelievable. Yeah, but to your question, it's terrifying really. I mean it's like, you know, and we have sort of started little pieces of it, and it's you know, with a wildly ambitious team and people who make this show and and and you know, Daniel Hart is a genius. He does the music, and you know, seeing some of the stuff that's coming out is sort of like amazing. And I'm really really excited and terrified to do it. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's wild. It's a totally wild thing to do.

Yeah.

Especially, I feel like after the first two seasons of this show, I feel like, well, like you said, it's a silly show that takes herself very seriously.

I feel like season three, for people who don't know what it's going to be about. Could be a shoka.

Yeah, and I think, but I think, yeah, it is a shakraa But it's the same kind of the experience if you get when you read the books, when you go from the first second book, you're like, well, and I think it should feel like that. It should sort of feel like that, because that's kind of like the true essence of that experience of what she intended. I know that she kind of wanted to do a different order of the books in her in her series, but I actually think that this is a is a really great way. And also we have a wonderful Louis now, you know, and and he's been really which kind of allows us to keep that character going forward in the series, which I think is which is fantastic. Yeah, it's it's wild wild, it's a wild thing.

We've heard from the music, like everything from like We're going to try to out do Rocky Horror Picture Show and Headwig and Angry and the music from the whole series has been lovely. How are you feeling is like, are you tackling vocals? Are you excited about stepping into that aspect of performance for this out.

I feel like when Roland gave that reference, I think he was more talking about the genre of film than he was necessarily speaking about the actual sound of music, not the sound of the music, not the musical Yeah, I think there are elements. I think there are elements that probably will be musical to it. Yes, we're definitely getting into a lot of a lot of singing. And you know, it's really that's that is a really fun thing to do. It's a really fun you know, I've done musical before, and but in terms of like playing at an actor, like singing in a character is a really fun challenge. And to find the voice of the character when they sing, and what they choose to be their creative output, you know, and what is the start making in twenty twenty six. I think that's really interesting. I think that's a kind of like where does he sit there? And yeah, how does he deal with you know, Taylor Swift, I don't know, you know, I just think.

It's really that's his version of the aerostore. We're going to find out, you know.

Well, yeah, it's hard to know. I mean, he might love it. I think it's you know, I just I think it's a kind of interesting space, you know, to to explore. And also I think it's interesting, like what happens if starts not as popular as Yeah, I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but I just think it's I think it's interesting. Yeah, particularly it's this whole, you know, because you know, this whole sort of like coming out story as a vampire. Here we are on the world stage as real beings, and in twenty twenty six there's so much misinformation. It's so much or twenty twenty six and know what I'm saying twenty twenty four today, But yeah, like what is you know, I don't know. It's like, you know, nobody we really like. The alien stuff just reasonably happened, you know, where all these unclassified documentation came out sort of so am I confirming that there is extraterrestrial life? And I don't know, I feel like they kind of got washed under the carp and I'm not even sure if it's true. I just sort of what happened, and we were like front pages all day of the newspapers aliens are real, and then we've kind of forgotten about it and now we're kind of like looking at something else. So I think that's the life the world in which we're living in. I think it is a very interesting space for vampires to exist in that place, because there'll be some people who are really obsessed with them and believe that it's real, and there be other people who don't give to you know, flying out and want.

To debunk it. Yeah.

Well so, I mean so the kind of rock star nature of the star in that next series, Lista is already like a pop culture rock star, Like he has a very feral fandom.

I will say feral, as I was.

Part of it. It's fair. It's a fair, so I would say it's fer, it's fair. We're getting a.

Lot of great like villain moments at the moment, with many Jacinto playing climate in uh you know the Recircle series, the Acolyte with his beautiful arms and and his outrageous cloaks.

Uh, he got very into the world of kind of list that.

I mean, maybe he did Kimer fanfic and looking at you three and stuff like that. Have you ever ventured into that space of the into the fan fic kind of lestat like space.

So when we started, very like I was in and I was looking like I, you know, because I felt like it was really important for me to get an idea about what everyone else had in their mind, you know, like I have my own idea of the character, and then you know Roland's idea of the character. And then I was like, what, what does everybody see? Like? This character is? Some things I totally agreed with and totally found fascinating and wanted to I wanted to find space to incorporate that. Other times I was like not not, not totally sure where that came from the.

World of A three.

I was gonna say that very that's very relatable.

Sometimes you're like, Wow, why isn't this cannon?

And sometimes you're like, I'm so sad I read that, like why did I?

But I will say I didn't. I did not know. I have not. I didn't go into AO three like I know AO three exists because I do another show where the show runner for that show was finding all this erotic fan fiction that existed and he would be telling me about it, and I just was like, I don't. I don't think this is valuable for me to to see. What I will say is I did recently listen to a podcast I can't remember that the vampire inside it, and they talk about our show, and they're quite quite lovely. And one person who I had met, she had come to set. I don't know her real name, but she told me her name was Inky Inky Blots. It was her name, And she read on that podcast a really fascinating piece of fan fiction, which was this beautiful kind of story that went into the kind of psychology between the Start and Magnus during that transformation, which I was kind of blown away by. Yeah, but I don't think like all of the erotic stuff. I don't know if it's really necessary. Like I know, I'm making a sexy show and.

You guys have in the text it's there.

Watched the shot.

That layer of bubbling sunth it.

Yeah, a lot of fanfic comes from a place where that representation wasn't there. So I totally understand how in a show where it's absolutely text, it feels less of a necessity to explore it.

Yeah, but nowadays I really stay away from the internet. It's kind of you know, I made some like pretty big errors, like you know, last season with having a look at what was going on, and actually now have like blocks on the phone and have no, no, zero social media accounts whatsoever. And I also have a time on Google, so I can't even for an hour a day.

That's good. You've got to protect yourself, like, yeah, truly.

Yeah, I do have a lot have a time around my Instagram for the same reason.

You also have to be careful because I have to be able to do my job. I have to be able to turn up to work and do it and not have some kind of like, you know, complete crisis because you know, somebody hates me out there, which you know that's kind of that's sort of part of the deal.

But yeah, we've we've been there. Yeah, never read the comments. There is not a safe space. See's what I've interviewing with The Vampire is coming to Netflix toward the end of August. We've seen a lot of shows head that way and really find a much wider audience. I'm thinking of Penn Badly as Joe and you like that show really hit when it moved from Lifetime to Netflix. Are you feeling ready for this new surge of interest in audience coming to the series?

Not really, there was something there was something so wonderful about being a part of this like cult show which I think really really kind of gives us this wonderful feeling on set that we feel like, you know, we're somehow AMC blessed them have given us so much money to make this kind of like totally culture ye like n that feels very kind of like, you know, specific to people like, you know, you know, I would watch the show. I would love this show. And I think that's one thing. You know, it's really important as an actor when you're like, you know, going after material, like when you read the script the first time, you're like, would you watch this? Is there something you care about? Does this having a message that it's kind of like beyond what this could be? And I feel this really really does And I love that feeling. I love that quiet secret feeling. What happens when it's on Netflix, I'm not sure.

Fingers fingers crossed that it just finds all the other kind of weird o people I'm weirdose who haven't had the chance.

To discover it.

Oh, that would be wonderful.

Yeah, I think that's the that's the most likely version is all the kids who didn't have AMC Plus or they are amazing queer creatives who don't really stream a lot, but their parents have Netflix, They're going to be able to discover this show and go oh my god, like yes.

You know, as we as we talk about like, I think one of the things people kind of have really appreciated about the show is like the technical aspects, which is not something people always appreciate, but there have been a ton of Anne Riceman dressing up as vampires from different eras for a long time, and the costuming in the show is through the roof. It's so good. And is someone who used to dress up as a vampire as a kid. I was wondering is there an outfit looks for the stat that you were like, it is bomb, Like this is a fit.

I would tell you that every time I'm in a costume fitting, like we're like are we is this a Halloween costume? You know, like it's it is? It is? Yeah for us, I'm always like looking, is this a Halloween costume? Like would you get dressed up as this? Or you try and find the Halloween costume? Like you know, so yeah, I think from this season we definitely try to return to that motif of that of that dressing gown that he wore in season one, so when you kind of return to him in episode eight, like he is wearing the same dressing gown, but it's like totally distressed and destroyed. I think what I loved about that costume particularly, you know, I mean, I had a I always have lots of great costumes, but I love it what that costume particularly is that if you actually look underneath what I'm wearing underneath and wearing a very kind of sort of high fashiony tank top, and I don't know if you ever see the pants, but I'm wearing like I can't remember what designer brand pants they are, and like a pair of like sort of Chelsea boots, Swayed Chelsea boots. I also have. I also have like obscenely expensive speakers, which I can't remember the brand, but I know that they're some some some form of product placement, Like it's really really expensive speakers in there, and iPad and Siri, so I think there's a kind of but he's you know, he's in this like ratted.

And it was the iPad with the giant like fake keyboard was grand like really mirroring.

In that set. There's also a smashed Grand piano, so it's obviously like he's been playing it then got frustrated. You don't really see the piano, but he smashed it and then he carved carved the piano out of a plank of wood. But I think, you know, I think that kind of costume is a really fun one. Obviously, just everything with blood, and to put as much of blood on myself as possible, because that's a nice, cheap, easy Christmas Christmas. That's my Christmas Halloween costume. You know, just you know, get a white shirt, put a bit of blood on it. That's always a good one.

You know, that's really exting. Yeah, I mean, also, we're going to San Diego.

You're gonna likely get to see some really fantastic cosplay. It's one of the most magical parts of the show is getting to see how much it connects with fans.

And I'm excited.

Which costumes they choose to to recreate too.

Yeah, I'm excited. I actually got to meet someone recently who I'm who I had met, but she was dressed as the Start when I had first met her, so I didn't recognize we've met before. She was like, yeah, I was dressed Start last time, in this sort of big blonde wig, so it is always fun to see it all.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much Sam for joining us. Total joy, congrats on the show. We're so excited for season three. Thank give her, and yeah, hope to speak to.

You again soon and have a great day, okay.

X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sumsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a booze Afar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.

Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi our discoord moderator.

Rosie. After we recorded this episode, we had to come back after the credits because San Diego happened and Immortal Wit. He was like, here are two videos for you to just dissolve into. One is the lyric video long Face, which is the first single we get from a stat aka Sam Reid, which is crazy and cause a lot of controversy, which.

We're gonna get perfect.

And then the other one is a video of like Lestatt walking into an interview and Daniel's interviewing him. But it's a camera thing and you learn so much about the direction they're going in, and so we were like, we're gonna we have we have to talk about what's happened. So I think maybe we should start with the interview video, which I found really interesting. What did you think of it?

Me too, So basically it's feeling, let's just be wrong, it's giving mockumentary.

I do wonder if that's gonna be the framing this time, if.

We're gonna have Daniel Eric Bagosian legend, who is clearly like, do not write me off this show.

I'm being here for LISTA.

No One that I love that for him, I'm certainly not nobody wants to and uh so I think it is going to be at least interspersed with Daniel interviewing the start.

I love the attitude that Sam gives here. It's pure rock stuff. It's unbelievable. They've managed to make it contemporary, They've managed to make it vibrant, they've managed to make it campy. I'm very excited we see Lestar at his most lastat here.

This is not like.

Broken down Missing Louis in a trash house in New Orleans. This man is disrespecting everybody. He's as sassing the staff, he's treating people terribly, and he's just giving full rock star.

I loved it.

It's definitely Lista entering like his second hundred years, you know the if the books, like early when he comes to New Orleans, he's like just beyond baby vampire. He's like entering his teenage vampire years. And they're like, hey man, you got to go out there and like live a life. You gotta go find your own progeny, like go live and he's like, that's kind of scary, but I'm gonna do it because i'mostat in like big kind of power. Now he doesn't care, and it's really exciting. He's just sort of over it. He's not trying to hide his vampires at all, which is totally like a thing within the music. But there's also if you look really closely in the video, there's blood on his chest. The man is not together.

Oh yeah, yeah. So I loved the interview clip because they felt like I watched it a lot of times.

Actually, I just felt like it's so understood innately what we needed from this season, which is rock Starlistat Who. And this actually I think aligns really nicely with how Louis ended season two where he kind of said, you know, fuck you bitches, come find me, like do what you will. And we have the stat here essentially doing the same thing, saying, Hey, I am a vampire and if you've got a problem with me, come find me vampires and that is a key part of Queen of the Damned. Yes, and so I loved that the interview video gave that. But then I have to say I was not expecting them to release a full song, okay, and it was divine.

I love the song. One last thing before we got off the video, I I genuinely loved just the conclusion of it. What makes the list that book so interesting is he's not talking to you. It's like an interview, but it's really more of a monologue directly to people. There's not like a back and forth staying out of time. And so I was really intrigued by the way they were like, oh, lastat it's just gonna talk directly to you through this Lens. I hope we get a lot more of that in the show, and I also like to find a line, which is a line that Marius gives him before he goes on his venture to New Orleans. And I was like, this is it's just feeding me as somebody who's recently learned to love the books. The song Okay, here we Go, I was We talked in the interview a little about like we're not really sure we heard how do we get an angry edge? And we weren't really like, what are we going to get out of the musical stylings of Lestat in this more modern telling of interview with a Vampire. I love that it's so pure rock. They were like, we're bringing in all the guitars. It's yeah, like very sort of like.

It's very like Queens of the Stone Age. It's very kind of rock. Yes, from maybe I would.

Say it's got influenced from like twenty years ago, but that music is still kind of those bands are still around today, and it does have this glam edge to it.

Yeah.

I thought the song was so good. I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if they were gonna be able to pull it off. But whoever's writing those songs bang off.

It totally feels like we're definitely.

Gonna get a cast album too. Yes, it really does. I feel like we're gonna get one.

Also, I will say something that he does in the books that I expect that we'll see here is he's like put Anning Queen of the Damn the movie, my beloved movie.

But like he puts like secret vampire messages and vampire.

Law into the songs. And this definitely feels like that. And he does it specifically to piss off the Tower Mascar, to piss off vampires. So I want to see how this kind of impacts them. Also, we must say, and this was actually before the song was released, the power of just the interview video did spark a stan war between Taylor Swift's fansaka fans. So somebody made a They put together some images of Taylor Swift from the Blank Space video and the start and they wrote, got a long list of ex lovers.

They'll tell you I'm insane.

And perfectly appropriate.

Taylor Swift fans are not happy about.

You know, it worked well, it looked vibe, it was a meme, but the Tailor Swift fans were not happy and it became a quite impressive stand war. And you know what, all I'll say about it is if you want to read the tweets and see the memes, you can. But Pixie Layer at Twitter summed it up perfectly and said, lstat getting canceled and igniting Stan Wars less than twenty four hours after his debut is unironically exactly on brand for listat and I couldn't agree more.

Yes, And we're seeing it happen in so many ways, like, Okay, the Taylor swifting is hilarious, and I hope the show's social media team is just cranking it up, just getting really ready to lean full tilt into that. But what I've really enjoyed about this, like the song feels like, Okay, I was worried Thatta is going to try to reach the the youth, you know that he was gonna be like a TikTok musician or whatever. It was a full three minute and forty second song. This is old school. Yeah, they said full songs, no two minute things here and then if we could just briefly pick apart some of the lyrics, there are some really great moments where it plassly feels like a breakup song to Louie, which I very much appreciate, but not even a break up, more like I miss you, where are you? I'm angry with you sort of vibes like yeah, yeah, yeah, please, yes, yes, Actually, let me not pull up here because that's gonna be loud. I can pull the lyrics on here. There's just one verse aro.

People are like so excited around it, which I just absolutely love too. So they are saying as well, like the showrunner did tease and I think you can feel these inspirations coming in, but like David Bowie, b York, Yeah, Ba Cury, Beastie Boys, Franz, list, Red Cross, Lang, Lang, Iggy Pop, Saint Vincent, So you're getting a real mixed Nick Cave hilariously rally Ritchie, which I love because that's Jacob Anderson's.

Performance name who plays Louis. So I'm like, will we get a Colass.

I'm ready or whatever? They're like teleperfect schizophrenic link is that keeps them like tied together? Please do a song in that way. I would really like to see Listat's dream version of Louise's and we got louis dream version of Lstat. It just really reveals a lot about how they see each other. Okay, so some of them. I think that's great lyrics. I loved. Okay, so this is one versus toward the end, it's another taste, another year, another place, another tear, another chase, another sneer, without a trace, you disappear. That's Louis. Pick up the pace, pack up the gear, give me some faith, a souvenir. Here come the gays, here come the fear. Now we're having fun. Okay, give me some face for you. Remember from season one is the phrase Louise when he meets up with his old buddy and he gives him head in the woods. And I say that exact, clinging to this level of non betrayal at the moment they were openly polymarious, and he was like, you jaded, bitch. I'm still excited. I really love what Samana has done.

I also love.

I have to tell you, yes, there is already like a Genius annotated version of this song on Genius.

Seriously fantastic.

I would say you could actually add some insight there because they did not catch another face moment.

But yeah, I just think I think this is so cool. I think we're onto.

Something very special, and I think season three could be maybe the something with this show to the mainstream, with the.

Coming to Netflix, and with the Witches show really trying to improve its second season, I'm hoping season three is a real banger and that we find more widows. Like we talked to Sam, Come and join us. If you haven't already seen this show. It's really good. It's on Netflix, I believe, like tomorrow the eighteenth. Let me get that right.

Hold on, yeah, I think it is going on August eighteen.

Yeah, well, Joel looks that up. I looked and did as best as I could to try to find who is listed as coms for a long face, It's not anywhere I can find on the internet. However, Daniel Hart has done the music for the first time.

Yeah, and he is doing Sam Reed said he is doing the music for this.

And so has worked like he's worked with Broken Social Scene, Saint Vincent, Polyphonic Squee, like he knows kind of this era of indie rock music.

So that works that they Yeah, I love that.

So August nineteenth, the show will be on Netflix, So please go watch it. Delightful and we want to hear from you guys, so hit us up on the discord if you have thoughts about the show.

Yeah, thanks Joel, Thanks Rosie,

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