Speaker 1: Warning warning.
Speaker 2: Today's episode contained spoilers for the Vampire Chronicle series. Yes,
Speaker 2: Anne Rice's Vampire Chrolanicle series. That's all the books, movies,
Speaker 2: television series.
Speaker 1: You have been warned. Dawn. Hello, my name is Rosie Night.
Speaker 2: Welcome to a special Friday episode of Xtra Vision where
Speaker 2: our super producer joelmen Nique is gonna come on and
Speaker 2: sell us on why you should be watching an Interview
Speaker 2: with the Vampire. I'm already watching it, but she's gonna
Speaker 2: make you realize that this is a show you have
Speaker 2: to watch. And yes, we are here to deep dive
Speaker 2: into your favorite shows, movies, and pop culture. We're here
Speaker 2: every Tuesday, and every Thursday and sometimes Friday when we
Speaker 2: might are in a correspondent to tell you why you
Speaker 2: should be watching something you haven't yet dived into.
Speaker 3: It is a Friday, and today Rosie and I are
Speaker 3: taking a very queer, Gothic romantic dive into an RISI's
Speaker 3: Vampire Chronicles, sometimes reforward to as the Immortal Universe, I
Speaker 3: guess for television things for television.
Speaker 2: For television, that's the shared universe of the Interview with
Speaker 2: the Vampire and the Mayfair Witches that exist on AMC Plus.
Speaker 3: And a third series, which we're going to talk about next.
Speaker 3: But first, in our previous only on, we're gonna talk
Speaker 3: about the expansion of An Rice's Immortal Universe. Then we're
Speaker 3: head over to our airlock. We have a conversation on
Speaker 3: season two of An Rice's Interview with a Vampire over
Speaker 3: on the AMC Plus. Absolutely worth the price of a
Speaker 3: subscription for a month. You can binge it now. And
Speaker 3: then we'll head over to back Matter to talk modern
Speaker 3: adaptations in toxic romances in fantasy fandoms.
Speaker 1: Oh they're so toxic, but they're so enticing.
Speaker 2: And stay tuned after our airlock discussion for a really
Speaker 2: lovely interview with Sam Reid from Interview of the Vampire
Speaker 2: who plays Lastatt de Lion Court. But first it's previously on,
Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about the Talmasca spinoff series.
Speaker 2: So this is a very interesting situation. I only know
Speaker 2: about the Talamasca because I love Queen of the Damned,
Speaker 2: which we both love, Joelle.
Speaker 3: And I great film.
Speaker 2: But in the Ann Raich series Mayfair Witches, which is
Speaker 2: as all of her books are in a shared universe,
Speaker 2: they introduced to Talamasca. And now in season two of
Speaker 2: Interview the Vampire. Mild spoiler alert, we are given documents
Speaker 2: that are related to our beloved Louis by a Tallamasca
Speaker 2: agent called Raglan James. A incredible naming there, and incredible
Speaker 2: naming for sure. So Joel, what is the Talamasca?
Speaker 3: So this is an organization that monitors the supernatural with
Speaker 3: many of its agents like supernatural abilities, which we haven't
Speaker 3: seen in the show yet, but kind of gets me excited. Okay,
Speaker 3: you guys, this is how out of the loop I am.
Speaker 3: I just started reading the Vampire Chronicles in order to
Speaker 3: do like the recap for this show today. Then I
Speaker 3: was like, man, Interview the Vampire was so good. So
Speaker 3: then I got halfway into the stats book, which is
Speaker 3: gonna be so great for season three of Interview with
Speaker 3: the Vampire. Yeah. Then as I was doing research on like, oh,
Speaker 3: let me go deeper into the show that oh, hey,
Speaker 3: there's an entire spin off called Mayfair, which is the
Speaker 3: second season. It just wrapped filming and it's coming to
Speaker 3: you soon and they're connected by the cool agents. I
Speaker 3: was like, I have so much reading and watching to do,
Speaker 3: which is I think great news if you're like man,
Speaker 3: I really like this series. Is there anything else I
Speaker 3: can read?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: I have to say I was a big fan of
Speaker 2: The Mayfair Witches. It's Alexandra Didario, who I love. She's
Speaker 2: like a genre icon now an Emmy no thanks to
Speaker 2: White Lotus, but it's basically like she's and she finds
Speaker 2: out that there's this kind of magical legacy in her
Speaker 2: family of witches, and she moves back to New Orleans
Speaker 2: and she has to live in a beautiful witch house
Speaker 2: and there's kind of a strange mystery and the Talamasca
Speaker 2: comes into it. And I knew the Talamasca, like I said,
Speaker 2: because of the fantastic movie Queen of the Damned, which
Speaker 2: was meant to be a you know, straight to video
Speaker 2: sequel to interview the vampire, but ended up going to
Speaker 2: the movie theaters after the far too sudden death of
Speaker 2: the one for Aliyah who stars in it as Akasha.
Speaker 1: So when the Talamasca was brought up, I was like, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: I know what this is. This is like reading a
Speaker 1: comic book, like I get this.
Speaker 2: So apparently with the success of Maifo Witches, which is
Speaker 2: just finished its second season, and obviously the fantastic interview
Speaker 2: of The Vampire, which we know is getting its third season,
Speaker 2: which will be its Queen of the Damned season. They
Speaker 2: have decided to make a Talamasca TV show, and Damn McDermot,
Speaker 2: who's the President of Entertainment for AMC Studios and AMC Networks,
Speaker 2: he said, this is a story we've been developing and
Speaker 2: wanting to tell from the earliest moments of the franch
Speaker 2: focused on a fascinating and compelling secret society that has
Speaker 2: already appeared in both of our existing and Rice series.
Speaker 2: John Lee Hancock will be the person taking on the show,
Speaker 2: and he says this all started for me with a
Speaker 2: call from Mark Johnson, who asked if I'd ever heard
Speaker 2: of the Talamasca. I was intrigued by the idea of
Speaker 2: an organization that to me had more than a passing
Speaker 2: resemblance to the CIA or MI six, which are necessary
Speaker 2: but not always necessarily transparent. I don't know if I
Speaker 2: agree that they're necessary, but sure, sure, John, Okay, John,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm gonna be. I appreciate your generous reading.
Speaker 2: They're an organization with their own secrets. Thankfully, dam mcdummott
Speaker 2: liked to take and so did Mark Lafferty. Who's so
Speaker 2: talented and accomplished in the world of television, So that
Speaker 2: sounds very exciting. I like the idea of a critical
Speaker 2: take on a you know, why is this supernatural task
Speaker 2: force being so kind of shady In the Queen of
Speaker 2: the Damn movie, it's much more of a Giles from
Speaker 2: Buffy style, like librarian organizations, So it'll definitely be interesting
Speaker 2: to see their new take. I hope it's not too
Speaker 2: gritty and grounded because I like my magic to be magical.
Speaker 1: But so far a.
Speaker 3: Really good job. Yeah. Between bull series. Again, I haven't
Speaker 3: fully invested into the Mafair which is yet. I watch
Speaker 3: a couple of trailers in a few scenes and I
Speaker 3: was like, this is the same vibes a little bit different,
Speaker 3: but kind of say it's more it takes place in
Speaker 3: New Orleans, but it gives me sort of more East
Speaker 3: Coast vibes as opposed to Southern, where as Interview Vampire is.
Speaker 1: Like, you know, it's very like.
Speaker 2: It really reminded me of the much maligned Swamp Thing show,
Speaker 2: which I absolutely love.
Speaker 3: We really enjoy it, and it's still.
Speaker 1: You can watch it.
Speaker 2: You can still watch it, I believe on Max and
Speaker 2: also for free on the cwced app, I believe, and
Speaker 2: that's still available to me.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm like, just make the most of it. Make
Speaker 1: the most of it. It gave me those kind of vibes.
Speaker 2: It's like a modern Gothic, a little bit less Southern,
Speaker 2: but I feel like, you know, Interview with the Vampire
Speaker 2: does all the Southern Gothic we could dream of.
Speaker 1: So it's okay, true with it, which is we should be.
Speaker 3: Different, I think, especially as we're looking to expand into
Speaker 3: a larger universe, like you want to have spaces that
Speaker 3: are distinct and like specifically of themselves and to move into,
Speaker 3: you know, away from queer vampires and white women trying
Speaker 3: to connect to her lineage and find romance. I imagine is
Speaker 3: what we're doing in Mayfair Witches, two suited guys being
Speaker 3: hard asses and kind of like hot procedural. I imagine
Speaker 3: we're gonna get a little of that vibe.
Speaker 2: I want to see the whole which procedural that would
Speaker 2: be so funny. Okay, Well, Talamasca allegedly gonna be hitting
Speaker 2: our screens next year twenty twenty five, baby, and coming up,
Speaker 2: we're stepping into the airlock or out of the airlock
Speaker 2: either way, and talking season two of Interview of the Vampire. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're here, we're stepping out of the airlock and into
Speaker 2: the beautiful streets of gay partis because that's my favorite
Speaker 2: part of this series.
Speaker 3: Wait, before we get into season two, can you talk
Speaker 3: about your reaction to see season one. I feel like
Speaker 3: with such a I was gonna say sleeper thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: So I was lucky enough I actually found out about
Speaker 2: Interview that I knew it was happening.
Speaker 1: A big fan of these books.
Speaker 2: As imperfect as they are, They're not something I go
Speaker 2: back and read a lot because they're pretty racist, honestly.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the world, the world that Anne Rice created,
Speaker 2: I think is very magical. She's a legendary goth Icon
Speaker 2: and her and her son Christopher have have grown a
Speaker 2: lot throughout telling these stories. And she was very involved
Speaker 2: in this adaptation and very open to broadening the world
Speaker 2: and making it more inclusive and kind of dealing with
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that she didn't know how to
Speaker 2: deal with when she was writing this book, as you know,
Speaker 2: a thirty year old back in the eighties.
Speaker 1: So I was very excited.
Speaker 3: Sure, and we should mention here that Yeah. This book
Speaker 3: is inspired by the passing of her daughter, who was
Speaker 3: five and had leukemia, and so as you're reading it,
Speaker 3: like it's a it's a strange experience if you come
Speaker 3: and having zero history or knowledge with like what was
Speaker 3: this woman? What was happening in her world? At first
Speaker 3: she spends so she also wrote this book without an editor,
Speaker 3: which I find hilarious. If you've ever done any editing,
Speaker 3: you're like, okay, and you're a fabulous writer. And editor
Speaker 3: might have helped in spots, just ask a few questions,
Speaker 3: tone a few things down here and there, you know.
Speaker 3: But she spends a lot of time talking about how
Speaker 3: beautiful Claudia, who becomes like the two main vampires familiar
Speaker 3: later she's beenen at a very young age, I think
Speaker 3: five in the book, like her daughter in the television
Speaker 3: series she's fourteen. And on top of that, then she
Speaker 3: spends a lot of time talking about like it's not coded,
Speaker 3: it's almost blatant, and yet it's done so subtly. The queerness,
Speaker 3: the queer element of it. Louie's clearly like falling in
Speaker 3: love with guy. He's falls in love with Armandi, falls
Speaker 3: in love with the Stott but it's it's done in
Speaker 3: a way that it's like, oh, but they're vampires, so
Speaker 3: it's not quite the same Isaac. Yeah, there's I don't
Speaker 3: think there's any there's no sex, right, No, I'm pretty sure. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's no penetration in the novel.
Speaker 2: The truth is that Anne Rice has always embraced the
Speaker 2: queerness of vampirism, and also I think that she embraced
Speaker 2: her queer readership too, and I love that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love that you brought up her.
Speaker 2: Own personal connection to it and kind of how her
Speaker 2: goth culture was almost like her mourning for her daughter,
Speaker 2: and I it's such a personal story. I love the
Speaker 2: original movie. I think it's like legit.
Speaker 1: Just absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2: It's so gay, even if they didn't want to commit,
Speaker 2: it's very implied in that film. But yes, absolutely, Oh
Speaker 2: there's so much yearning.
Speaker 3: Through the roof. Okay, we are looking across rooms, We
Speaker 3: are jealous of other men being near our guy. It is,
Speaker 3: it is all. It feels like original fan fiction. Reading
Speaker 3: the novel, I was like, this is every hardcore fantasy
Speaker 3: romance trope you could possibly imagine. Definitely woven. You don't
Speaker 3: feel like overwhelmed, are like, oh, this is tacky or weird.
Speaker 3: It's an exceptional read, particularly you fall more in love
Speaker 3: with Louie. And season one I thought, my god, the
Speaker 3: changes like coming in and they were like Louis Black.
Speaker 3: I said, I'm here for it. It's New Orleans and
Speaker 3: I don't need the listen if you read the book
Speaker 3: just to like we mentioned, it's racist. It's extremely racist
Speaker 3: in that if you are a descendant of slaves, you
Speaker 3: might have to close the book many times, like I did,
Speaker 3: because slaves are just slaves like capital s, slaves like
Speaker 3: not people. Louie is terrified of them for reasons you
Speaker 3: can't quite understand, as quote their master, and also later
Speaker 3: as a vampire, he's like you couldn't control them their Africans.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot to deal with in the first
Speaker 3: I want to say the book.
Speaker 2: Yet generously, I'm like, he should be scared of them
Speaker 2: because he is a slave, Like you know what, Like
Speaker 2: he's right to be scared of them.
Speaker 1: But no, I love the choice that they made to
Speaker 1: make Louis black.
Speaker 2: They do a great job integrating his race into the
Speaker 2: story as like actually a major and I was really
Speaker 2: I didn't have AMC plus, which has many people I'm
Speaker 2: sure also didn't have it. But if you love a
Speaker 2: fast channel as they call it, you know, free ad
Speaker 2: supported TV. Me and Nick were watching TV one night
Speaker 2: and they had a channel. It was called like AMC.
Speaker 2: It was on CHEWB or Roku, and it was called
Speaker 2: like AMC Gems or something AMC Thrillers, and they just
Speaker 2: played the entire first season of the show a h
Speaker 2: and it was when it was just it had just
Speaker 2: come out, it wasn't even that long ago, and we
Speaker 2: were like, oh my god, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: This is so great.
Speaker 2: Also, I couldn't believe that they'd found like Sam Reid
Speaker 2: is so fantastic as Lestat, and I'd always had my
Speaker 2: own fang castings of who that should be, but I
Speaker 2: felt like he really brought something interesting.
Speaker 1: And scary to it. And also obviously you know, like
Speaker 1: this is just such a strong cast.
Speaker 3: It's an incredibly strong cast. Like so, yes, Sam Reed
Speaker 3: is favloss. If you're a fan of the novels as well,
Speaker 3: then you'll be super excited because so Sam Sam loves
Speaker 3: these books. So he can tell you his favorite line
Speaker 3: from both the novels and the television series. He's an
Speaker 3: active watcher of the TV series Season two, Lastat isn't
Speaker 3: it much less? It's fine. He's gonna be the star
Speaker 3: of season three. He's like, genuinely loves playing Lestatte, loves
Speaker 3: Lastatt as a character, and you get to see him
Speaker 3: in pu so much. He's terrifying. At points he's heartbroken
Speaker 3: and at others he's doing so much. And what I
Speaker 3: really like about season two is we slowly venture our
Speaker 3: way over. There is the way this show when you
Speaker 3: start seeing to you like, my god, it be such
Speaker 3: a victim, like he keeps falling for these toxic people
Speaker 3: who are taking over his life.
Speaker 1: We should also say Jacob Anderson. You might know miss Ray.
Speaker 2: He plays Louis. He's absolutely fantastic. He's the center of
Speaker 2: this show.
Speaker 3: He is the heart of it. You love him so much.
Speaker 3: His face does such magical things where you're just like I.
Speaker 3: I would follow Louis Overcliff. I understand why everybody immediately
Speaker 3: meets him and is like, do I am I in
Speaker 3: love with this man? Is this the man of my dreams?
Speaker 3: My soulmate? I too would feel that way. If I
Speaker 3: look Jacob Anderson and his stunning eyes. I mean he
Speaker 3: does so much, and he's like again to hear like
Speaker 3: his castmates talk about the choices he makes us a performer.
Speaker 3: They're so strong and always so shocking. I started season
Speaker 3: two being like, gosh, Louie can't like season one is fabulous.
Speaker 3: Louie is a guy who who's shunned by every aspect
Speaker 3: of can He loses his brother, who's like his best friend,
Speaker 3: to suicide. It's challenging for him to understand that choice
Speaker 3: and to understand his role in that choice. Then his
Speaker 3: sister is like the gay his mom. His mom is
Speaker 3: like the gay thing is too much, and his sister's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what this vampire weird thing you've got
Speaker 3: going on now, but there's too much distance between us
Speaker 3: and we need to not be near each other. There's
Speaker 3: sabotage and betrayal and it's so now no community. He's
Speaker 3: a pimp, but he doesn't really like doing that, and
Speaker 3: he's alien needs him further from humanity, which Louis loves
Speaker 3: so much. What makes him a terrible vampire? At first
Speaker 3: he's like, but I love humans that a this is strange.
Speaker 3: Then he starts flung lestar as in the space where
Speaker 3: he can just be himself. And so immediately you're like,
Speaker 3: I understand why you're falling for this narcissist. It's it's understandable.
Speaker 3: He loves you because you're a mirror and he sees
Speaker 3: himself and he loves that. And you love him because
Speaker 3: he's allowing you a space to be yourself and.
Speaker 1: He accepts who you are.
Speaker 2: This and this you know you can be this violent, angry,
Speaker 2: furious person you never got to be. And yeah, they're
Speaker 2: just so delightful together.
Speaker 1: He doesn't hold it against you. I mean, it's it's everything.
Speaker 1: It's such a toxic relationship, but you can absolutely see why.
Speaker 2: And kind of their first season, I would say basically
Speaker 2: because it's much more closely adapting the books. It sort
Speaker 2: of ends in some ways where the movie ends, but
Speaker 2: then we get apart in season two follows a section
Speaker 2: that we didn't get in the first season.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, since we leave the timeline. Yes, is
Speaker 3: distract If you feel the need to be fully grounded,
Speaker 3: it will take you some time to be like what
Speaker 3: is We evolved throughout season one with this relationship where
Speaker 3: they are so their love revolves around them being able
Speaker 3: to play with and destroy the people that have hurt
Speaker 3: them most, and then of course they become the people
Speaker 3: that hurt each other most, and so toxicity it devolves.
Speaker 3: They get a daughter to try to save the marriage.
Speaker 3: Louise like, I don't want to kill one more precious thing.
Speaker 3: She Please save her, and Prosot's like that's gonna end badly,
Speaker 3: Please don't do it. But they do it anyway, and
Speaker 3: they love her.
Speaker 1: Like a child vampire that they shouldn't do it.
Speaker 3: Don't want to be sixty and a fourteen year old body.
Speaker 3: That's confusing for everyone. And so they have this kid.
Speaker 3: But the kid is like, yo, this is kind of
Speaker 3: messed up here. Like dad I love who is supportive
Speaker 3: aka Louis, why do you let abusive daddy hurt you?
Speaker 3: It's strange abusive daddy I really like killing We have
Speaker 3: fun doing that. But also you're so mean to this
Speaker 3: parent who is so emotionally supportive of me. This is
Speaker 3: a challenge. We should get rid of you. You're dangerous.
Speaker 3: So they do again more a thousand different portrayal. A
Speaker 3: party to end all parties. That's pretty much everything happens
Speaker 3: season one. It's delightful, but you end with this feeling
Speaker 3: of like my God.
Speaker 2: And we basically leave Claudia and And and Louis have
Speaker 2: left the stat for dead. Is kind of yeah, we
Speaker 2: and there and they're hoping for.
Speaker 1: A new, new, great world together.
Speaker 3: They leave their at home. It's terrible, really, it's terrible.
Speaker 3: They start off in Eastern Europe in the middle of
Speaker 3: World War two, so not a good not a good
Speaker 3: place to start. They're picking through bodies and trying to
Speaker 3: figure out how to navigate this space. But really, Claudia
Speaker 3: has cemented in her brain that what she needs more
Speaker 3: than anything is to find vampires. She's like, she tried
Speaker 3: it once in season one. It was awful. You tried
Speaker 3: to warn her. They're like, listen, the vampires out. They're
Speaker 3: not great. And she's convinced herself that despite this horrible
Speaker 3: interaction she's had, that there must be a space for her.
Speaker 3: And something we get out early on is she freezes
Speaker 3: out Louis. She's like, I'm not speaking to you right
Speaker 3: now because you can distantly choose that man over me,
Speaker 3: even the killing. In order to kill a vampire, you
Speaker 3: gotta either burn the body or leave it out in
Speaker 3: the sun, or fully beheaded. Louis slitless, stats thrown through
Speaker 3: him a suitcase and was like, that's probably good enough.
Speaker 2: And also he left him where there's a lot of
Speaker 2: rats where I think he knew that he could see
Speaker 2: could survive, because really that's his boyfriend and he can't
Speaker 2: say goodbye.
Speaker 1: So I'm so sorry you should have killed him. But
Speaker 1: also I understand, and I love this for.
Speaker 3: You, guys. I'm glad lest that's still around, and I.
Speaker 2: Love it for us because I want to watch the
Speaker 2: show for the next like seven seasons or whatever.
Speaker 3: I need more of your toxic romance. So appreciate you
Speaker 3: making bad decisions. But also that leads your daughter in
Speaker 3: a space of being like where do I exist? Where
Speaker 3: do I stand? Who loves me the most? And currently
Speaker 3: no one. It's looking pretty hopeless. They're still dealing with
Speaker 3: racism even in eastern Germany. They're like black Ukrainians, not
Speaker 3: a thing, get out of here.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: But then then they find a space. There's a bunch
Speaker 3: of humans. Humans are afraid of what's out in the woods.
Speaker 3: Things are getting you. There's garlic. Claudia's like this is
Speaker 3: ringing bells. I've read all the books. I know where
Speaker 3: they're at.
Speaker 1: She's like, this seems like they're worried about vampire.
Speaker 3: Who it's like that stuff doesn't work. She's like, that's
Speaker 3: not the point, that's not what we're talking about. It working,
Speaker 3: Like they believe it must be a vampire. And of
Speaker 3: course they stumble across one d Dashna is that actually name?
Speaker 1: Oh she's so scary.
Speaker 3: I love this one. It's giving very sleepy hollow backwards,
Speaker 3: which if you're into the nineteen ninety nine classic sleepy Hollow. Sorry,
Speaker 3: we've talked about a lot of toxic men today. I digress.
Speaker 2: I love that, which I like this because this is
Speaker 2: it's very you know, when you go to Eastern Europe
Speaker 2: and you're thinking about vampires, you're expecting Dracula and old Blood,
Speaker 2: and you know they're hunting for, you know, the truth
Speaker 2: about what inspired the Dracula myths, and this is very.
Speaker 1: Much that old school scary.
Speaker 2: Dracula s Yeah, like nosfera too monstrous kind of of vampires.
Speaker 2: And this obviously doesn't go very well for.
Speaker 1: For Claudia and Louis because Colia has just accidentally killed
Speaker 1: Dashania's prodigy.
Speaker 3: Her last, her last one. She's she's like one are
Speaker 3: the others? She's like, you killed the last one like
Speaker 3: she she takes out his eyes in a very dope scene.
Speaker 3: We can be real about it, and then she's like, listen,
Speaker 3: you kind of sorry I killed your progeny, but you
Speaker 3: should come with us and hang out like you're all
Speaker 3: here alone. You would drink the blood is bad. Okay,
Speaker 3: war has made the blood toxic. You shouldn't be drinking it.
Speaker 3: They're like, please come leave with us, and she starts
Speaker 3: to say yes. She talks about the days that Claudia
Speaker 3: has ahead of her. She says this very important line,
Speaker 3: we own the night. Yes, she asked it us a question,
Speaker 3: and then halfway into being like, yeah, you'll take me
Speaker 3: across the ocean and I'll have this better life, she
Speaker 3: stops and says we own nothing and self emilates cool.
Speaker 3: War is bad. It has a lot of Wait, this
Speaker 3: is a extremely traumatic moment for Claudia of all she's had.
Speaker 3: Her whole life is one extended traumatic moment. Poor Claudia.
Speaker 3: But it causes Louie to sort of make this declaration.
Speaker 3: They leave. They're like, they decide they may like some
Speaker 3: human paths along the way. They get screwed over because
Speaker 3: they get bit and they're like, listen, that's human business.
Speaker 3: We can't be involved in that anymore, which is the
Speaker 3: first time you get that from Louis. Louis like, you
Speaker 3: know what, No, I'm not human, I'm a vampire, and
Speaker 3: more importantly, I'm a father brother to Claudia. They use
Speaker 3: it meant. The other confusing thing about this is like
Speaker 3: the sometimes weird incest tones, So like, what is the
Speaker 3: actual relationship between progeny turned vampire, master vampire and siblings.
Speaker 3: It's a lot. And so they hop in a truck.
Speaker 3: They're traveling with the statue of Venus, right, I think
Speaker 3: it's the one, the one without the arms. You guys
Speaker 3: know she's famous.
Speaker 1: And you just send the Simpsons episode.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, you know, just the thing. It's on its
Speaker 3: way to the Louver. They're on their way to Paris,
Speaker 3: and Louis makes this declaration, this clear promise. That is
Speaker 3: the most if you've ever been with a parent where
Speaker 3: it's the two of you and conditions are not great
Speaker 3: around you, you know, for whatever reason, and they turn
Speaker 3: to you a say listen, I've got Oh it's the most
Speaker 3: comforting thing in the world. It's the I've got you speech,
Speaker 3: It's the you don't have you can be a child,
Speaker 3: you can be a young person, you can be figuring
Speaker 3: things out. I will make sure that it's the two
Speaker 3: of us holding us down and that we will be okay.
Speaker 3: And it is everything she wants and everything you want
Speaker 3: for the two of them to have, and they let
Speaker 3: you have it for two point five seconds because they care.
Speaker 3: Comes Armond and Louie's back in love and it is
Speaker 3: a little bit devastate. Talk to me about Armand, because
Speaker 3: I didn't realize we don't get Armand's full story until
Speaker 3: book freaking six. The way, I just be absorbed in
Speaker 3: these novels for the next several weeks.
Speaker 2: And if you remember, Almond is in the movie kind
Speaker 2: of briefly in a similar way, played by Antonio Banderas,
Speaker 2: and we kind of get a very compressed version of
Speaker 2: what we see here.
Speaker 1: But Armand here is we really.
Speaker 2: Get to actually explore who he is, who the theater
Speaker 2: this vampires are who have been kind of watching Louie
Speaker 2: and Claudia while they're in Paris and kind of working
Speaker 2: out whether or not they want to join they should
Speaker 2: get them to join the coven.
Speaker 1: Also, I will say the show is.
Speaker 2: Called Interview with the Vampire in the original the set
Speaker 2: up was, you know, Louie is giving a interview with
Speaker 2: an actor.
Speaker 1: It was originally meant to be I mean, with a journalist.
Speaker 2: It was originally supposed to be real a phoenix, but
Speaker 2: Phoenix passed away, Rip to our.
Speaker 1: Baby and his friends.
Speaker 2: We lost all the things we lost, but his loving
Speaker 2: friend Christian Slater, one of my favorite actors, came in.
Speaker 2: He took on the role of the journalist Daniel Molloy,
Speaker 2: and that was so fantastic. And when they were recasting
Speaker 2: the show, I was like, oh, how could they do
Speaker 2: it without Christian Slater? But little did I know that
Speaker 2: they were going to cast Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy.
Speaker 1: In one of the best castings of all time.
Speaker 2: So we've seen Daniel go from the beginning of season
Speaker 2: one where he does not believe anything Louis is saying
Speaker 2: and thinks it's absolute nonsense to by this point when
Speaker 2: he is meeting Armand and you know, he's talking with
Speaker 2: Louie again, and this time Armand is part of the interview.
Speaker 2: He's becoming enchanted by the vampires and their story, and
Speaker 2: the impact that Armand has on Daniel is really interesting
Speaker 2: because it is reflective of the impact that Armand has
Speaker 2: on Louis when they first meet, and of course poor
Speaker 2: Claudia gets shoved to the back.
Speaker 1: If you've ever had.
Speaker 2: A parent who is in a toxic relationship and you
Speaker 2: are not the primary focus of their interest or care anymore, well, baby,
Speaker 2: this is going to hit hard for you because Claudia
Speaker 2: basically is left behind as Louis finds himself in the
Speaker 2: Theater des Vampires who.
Speaker 1: By the way, this is definitely.
Speaker 2: One in the moment where I was like screaming when
Speaker 2: we find out in episode two that, like, guess who
Speaker 2: was the co founder of this theater. It was funny,
Speaker 2: like can you ever get away from this man?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: A word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.
Speaker 3: The pan to the portrait above is so impressied, so
Speaker 3: basically we have to rewind just a schmitch. So, first
Speaker 3: of all, theatric to Vampire is a huge setting for
Speaker 3: interview with Vampire. It's like very important. It's the first
Speaker 3: time they meet a coven and this covenant in France.
Speaker 3: The coven's really pissed because when you come to a
Speaker 3: coven city, you're supposed to come in like pay amag
Speaker 3: You're supposed to come through and be like, hey, I'm here.
Speaker 3: I'm not here to cause you trouble. Just let through whatever,
Speaker 3: ask permission to stay, that kind of stuff. But they
Speaker 3: spend months in Paris being quintessential American like tourists. They're like, oh,
Speaker 3: pictures and he's got like berets and like handkerchiefs around
Speaker 3: his neck. He's very an American in Paris style dress throughout.
Speaker 3: It's so cute and.
Speaker 2: If them slightly like they didn't know, they don't know
Speaker 2: the rules.
Speaker 1: Let's not didn't tell them the rules. You know, he
Speaker 1: didn't do a good thing.
Speaker 3: Begged all of season one to be like, please teach
Speaker 3: me what it means to be a vampire? Self like,
Speaker 3: is it not natural to you? And he's like, please,
Speaker 3: could you just tell me what it is for us?
Speaker 2: Me doing?
Speaker 3: Are there others out He's like, they're scary and weird
Speaker 3: out there. You're lucky to be here with me. I'm toxic. Stay.
Speaker 3: So they get to they get to France and they
Speaker 3: find them and they get to this theater and they're
Speaker 3: like listen and we got you guys, good seats. So
Speaker 3: it comes sit down middle center and see our show,
Speaker 3: and the show starts off goofy, very French, very like mime.
Speaker 3: Then you get Santiago. Another very important feature comes out
Speaker 3: and he gives a devastating speech that is so and
Speaker 3: immediately like, oh this theatroops kind of good and I
Speaker 3: get why you'd want to live that nightlife and it's
Speaker 3: very cool here, and I too want to be involved.
Speaker 3: And they're going through all of these sets and then
Speaker 3: suddenly it stops being a play you understand as a
Speaker 3: viewer because the tone has shifted, and now there is
Speaker 3: a terrified, half naked woman on stage pleading for her life.
Speaker 3: The woman the actress playing that woman is actually the
Speaker 3: assistant to the director, and the production found out she
Speaker 3: could act and they were like, do you want to
Speaker 3: do this role? And she kills it. Her terror is palpable.
Speaker 3: She's begging the audience. But the point of the theater
Speaker 3: is that you can transcend belief. And so the vampires
Speaker 3: get to be themselves, for however, temporarily in front of
Speaker 3: human beings, and they get to exalt in being vampires
Speaker 3: and show off being vampires, and Claudia is enraptured. Immediately,
Speaker 3: she is like, this is they are just killing and
Speaker 3: having fun and nobody cares and there's not going to
Speaker 3: be any trouble and and they.
Speaker 2: Get to be a star y, you know, Claudia gets
Speaker 2: her wish and we see her she gets the star
Speaker 2: in the play, but she ends up hating the play
Speaker 2: because she's playing a baby for.
Speaker 1: Her whole life.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I will say we're about halfway through season
Speaker 2: two now, I think we could let's talk a bit
Speaker 2: more about like how we feel about season two and
Speaker 2: where it left us, because we could.
Speaker 1: Talk about this all day. So we kind of get
Speaker 1: to explore this.
Speaker 2: We get some really great stuff with Louis and Armand
Speaker 2: and Daniel, and we kind of make our way to
Speaker 2: the end, which sets up our big season three, which
Speaker 2: will be the rock starless stat stuff that we saw
Speaker 2: in Queen of the Dams. Okay, Joelle, Yeah, So something
Speaker 2: we talked about before this that I really like, I
Speaker 2: would love to hear your things. How does it feel
Speaker 2: to kind of watch this and see those changes that
Speaker 2: have been made to kind of make this more modern,
Speaker 2: to make it more inclusive, to make it basically more
Speaker 2: interesting and more historically.
Speaker 1: Yes, like what does that feel like for you?
Speaker 3: Phenomenal as a writer to be like, what if I
Speaker 3: was able to plus everything I wrote twenty years ago
Speaker 3: still connect with like an original audience that loved it,
Speaker 3: find a new audios, and imbue so much of what
Speaker 3: was happening to me back then that I couldn't process
Speaker 3: into this space. They really really honor the life of
Speaker 3: anta Resis child throughout this. If this is a book
Speaker 3: about grieving her, what does that mean? So by if
Speaker 3: you age her up from five to fourteen? Right, a
Speaker 3: five year old is great in a book, and as
Speaker 3: a ten year old in the movie they found an actress, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like horrifying, Like she's she's insat she'll be hungry. As
Speaker 3: a five year old, she's nuts. In the movie she's ten, right,
Speaker 3: And so now as a ten year old, you can
Speaker 3: be kind of like a little mini terror. You don't
Speaker 3: maybe don't have enough like physical power, but you understand
Speaker 3: enough of what's going on, and you know it's it's
Speaker 3: still kind of offsetting. At fourteen, you are on the
Speaker 3: cusp of what you are so close to being a woman,
Speaker 3: but you're still definitively a child. And to on top
Speaker 3: of that, you're in a hormonal rage all the time.
Speaker 3: There's there's it's it's literally in your body. I hated
Speaker 3: being fourteen. It was awful. I can't imagine being arrested
Speaker 3: in that state for all of existence. And so I
Speaker 3: found by aging her up and allowing an older actress
Speaker 3: to play her, they were able to strike such a
Speaker 3: balance of what it means to love and lose a
Speaker 3: child because you get like man Louis in the finale,
Speaker 3: and again, if you haven't watched and you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm invested now, but that was time to pause our show.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, take it if you If this sounds
Speaker 2: like you're something you would just absolutely love to watch,
Speaker 2: just just just pop it on right now, just start
Speaker 2: right now, come back, because Joe I was gonna start.
Speaker 1: Spoiling in a more serious way.
Speaker 3: Here we go. I don't want to do two out
Speaker 3: of order, but Louie and let's stop get together at
Speaker 3: the end after again a see a petrol which you'll
Speaker 3: go back when talk about Arman because I'm obsessed with
Speaker 3: this character. But they get this moment where we're start
Speaker 3: after betraying Louis and literally being a key figure in
Speaker 3: the reason Claudia die, he is like when she goes
Speaker 3: she looked at me like a child looks at a parent.
Speaker 3: But I was never her father because he knew she
Speaker 3: wasn't gonna last, and because of that, he separated himself.
Speaker 3: And it that moment for me, turns everything around it.
Speaker 3: I started the podcast, I was saying, you think Louis
Speaker 3: is a victim the whole time. Louis is so cognizant
Speaker 3: of who he is. He knows who he is, but
Speaker 3: he doesn't know what he wants, and so he makes
Speaker 3: a bunch of really terrible decisions. He chooses to hurt
Speaker 3: Armand's a controlling, total douche, but he hurts Armand in
Speaker 3: a way that is completely unforgivable. I would never forgive
Speaker 3: anyone if they spoke to me the way Louis speaks
Speaker 3: to Armand in that hotel room, I would never the
Speaker 3: way he manipulates Lestat into creating something for him. El
Speaker 3: Soo's like, you will regret this, Like we should not
Speaker 3: turn this person. This is a bad idea, and he's like, please,
Speaker 3: I can't. I can't kill anymore. I need her to live.
Speaker 3: They're both her parents. Louis held on too tight and
Speaker 3: didn't let her become her own person. Lestat turned his
Speaker 3: so you wouldn't have to watch her fade. They both
Speaker 3: wanted it being destroyed by this decision, But I love
Speaker 3: it so much more than like the book. Ending is
Speaker 3: so interesting in Interview with the Vampire when it ends,
Speaker 3: And again, the timeline's tricky because both the movie and
Speaker 3: the television series do this interesting thing where they acknowledge
Speaker 3: the book as being the original interview and then use
Speaker 3: the timeframe they're placed in as a reflection of that interview.
Speaker 3: And so you understand that you're never quite sure if
Speaker 3: you're getting the whole truth. You're not sure after you
Speaker 3: read the novel. Is that the truth? You're not sure
Speaker 3: if after you watch the movie, and you're not sure
Speaker 3: after you watch the TV series? At which point am
Speaker 3: I learning the absolute truth of who these characters are?
Speaker 3: And it makes it so interesting because Louis has woven
Speaker 3: such a web of all of these people hurt me
Speaker 3: when really you are in a relationship making equally bad
Speaker 3: decisions and buying trying to hurt these people too, actively
Speaker 3: trying to hurt folks, to the point that the very
Speaker 3: last decision Louis makes is Louis has to kick Ourmond
Speaker 3: out again. We'll go back to our mind because I'm
Speaker 3: really in your thoughts on him. He cans harmaud out
Speaker 3: of his place. He's like, listen, if you hurt my
Speaker 3: journalist's buddy, who I mean? Truly, the fact that we
Speaker 3: get like in Anthony Bourdaine esque character interviewing Vampirestion is
Speaker 3: amazing peak deliciousness. I wish Anthony were alive to comment,
Speaker 3: because I really think he was like, oh yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: be the Anthony Bardane of the series. I have no
Speaker 3: problem doing it. Louis last act is to challenge literally
Speaker 3: every vampire that can within hearing distance, which from what
Speaker 3: we know of his powers, could be globally, to say, listen,
Speaker 3: my apartment is open. If you're mad about how I
Speaker 3: treated my manipulative ex boyfriend, you can come see me
Speaker 3: about it. I don't sleep, I have nothing to do.
Speaker 3: My windows. You get zapped by the sun, that's fine.
Speaker 3: Windows can handle that. You don't get DApp by the sun. Great,
Speaker 3: Come in the daytime. I'll be awake. Come fight me.
Speaker 3: This is a man who needs the friction. He needs that.
Speaker 3: He does not know how to exist if he's not
Speaker 3: against someone. And I think that's a very fascinating because
Speaker 3: in the end of the book he leaves. He's so healed.
Speaker 3: Stefs like, are you coming back? He's like, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I why would I ever come back to you. I'm healed,
Speaker 3: I've done my cry. He's like, this stupid idiot asked
Speaker 3: me if I can make him a vampire. He's not listening.
Speaker 3: He doesn't understand why I told the story here. Everything
Speaker 3: is different. It's it's so, can I tell you one
Speaker 3: more moment? One more Louis move. They're in the museum,
Speaker 3: him and Armand they're in the museum. This is Armand
Speaker 3: has just asked him basically said I love you. Are
Speaker 3: we in a relationship? And what He's like, I mean
Speaker 3: it's a situationship and that's good. Why do you want
Speaker 3: to try Why do you try to push this? Because again,
Speaker 3: Louie understands, I've met somebody that could potentially be a
Speaker 3: soul me is it could put you the love of
Speaker 3: my life. But we are not on the same page.
Speaker 3: I like you, your fun, we have a good time together.
Speaker 3: It's not the same as what I had before. I
Speaker 3: can't commit to you. In the second, armand Who, it's
Speaker 3: also again very queer show also with stats.
Speaker 1: Ex, everybody's staying everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he hasn't left anyone since say, he hasn't
Speaker 3: even said the word. So louis the first person he's
Speaker 3: allowing himself to be romantically interested in. And our mom's
Speaker 3: not happy with this answer. So he says, let me,
Speaker 3: I'll take you on a date. Take youant date, let
Speaker 3: me show you around and we'll see what's going on.
Speaker 3: So he takes him to this museum where he sees
Speaker 3: an old painting of the guy that turned him, and
Speaker 3: he starts telling him this story, and somewhere in there
Speaker 3: he's like, Louis, you have to trust me. I'm not Lestatte.
Speaker 3: Throughout the series, lestatt has been popping up in Louise's
Speaker 3: head as I mean.
Speaker 1: Is it almost like a kind of ghoul? Like a yeah?
Speaker 3: Is it a ghost? Is it a delusion? Is it
Speaker 3: a psychic connection? Because they got like slight, Yes, we
Speaker 3: don't know what. We really don't know what the lie
Speaker 3: and the show even questions him and Louis like, oh
Speaker 3: he was there, and at the same time together in
Speaker 3: response to I'm not withstat they turned to armand and
Speaker 3: simultaneously okay, oh, like this bitch. The way he's like
Speaker 3: that okay is so it hit me, probably because it's
Speaker 3: something I would say, which is literally, I'm aware entirely
Speaker 3: that you're not with Stop. The fact that you think
Speaker 3: I would be confused about that is insane? Uh, who
Speaker 3: are you? And I just I loved watching this relationship,
Speaker 3: but we all like I just, I'm obsessedately in with Stop,
Speaker 3: like I need sixteen more seasons. I cannot wait to
Speaker 3: see season three. But I'm also obsessed with armand and
Speaker 3: I need to know your thoughts right O. See, I'm
Speaker 3: on such an interesting character. He's ancient. He himself was
Speaker 3: a slave too, which is something we don't the show
Speaker 3: doesn't really investigate, but I think the actors do in
Speaker 3: their performance this idea of we were both once owned
Speaker 3: by other people, we were both loved and thrown out.
Speaker 2: And also like the way that then, like when somebody
Speaker 2: makes you as a vampire, like are they your owner?
Speaker 1: Like do they have this hold over you?
Speaker 5: That?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's definitely very deep. I thought they did
Speaker 1: a great job with Armand.
Speaker 2: I thought it's it was way more ex banded than
Speaker 2: I expected it to be based on what I kind
Speaker 2: of know of that, which is really based on like
Speaker 2: the movie and like certain books I've read. But I
Speaker 2: just thought they did a really great job creating this
Speaker 2: kind of trio. I also love that kind.
Speaker 1: Of in the end, Armand and Daniel.
Speaker 2: Kind of like have this there, like well fine, then
Speaker 2: like you don't love us, like that will be us,
Speaker 2: We'll be will be us? And and Daniel gets to
Speaker 2: put out his book and you kind of then you
Speaker 2: don't really know what version we've been watching, because we know.
Speaker 1: Armand messes with people's minds, so what does the book
Speaker 1: really say, you know?
Speaker 2: And also I do love the kind of Louis challenging
Speaker 2: everyone to come and get him, because it really reminded
Speaker 2: me of in Queen of the Damn Do you know,
Speaker 2: Lestat essentially creates these songs that reveal vampire secrets to
Speaker 2: draw vampires to him because he's so lonely. So I
Speaker 2: thought it was very interesting to see those two things
Speaker 2: kind of coming together. Okay, Joelle, Yeah, before we go,
Speaker 2: what are you most excited to see in season three?
Speaker 3: What kind of rock star is the stock couldn't be
Speaker 3: because in the book, it's the nineties, it's MTV. It's
Speaker 3: like leather and lace, very sort of unny Kravits, like
Speaker 3: a seventies inspired esque vibe. It's not super present right
Speaker 3: now in our current society, and there's a social media
Speaker 3: angle that I think if you don't tackle, you're missing
Speaker 3: out on. And we're also it's a little nerve racking
Speaker 3: for me because we're becoming more modern in a way
Speaker 3: that I think a lot of the a lot of
Speaker 3: the people involved in the creation of the show are
Speaker 3: older white men. I don't think that's a disc They've
Speaker 3: handled a lot of the racism queer like they've handled
Speaker 3: everything very well so far, but it's also been extremely
Speaker 3: We're going back in time. It's dated. You haven't had
Speaker 3: to be connected to the youth of today, which is
Speaker 3: a totally different thing, and so I'm interested to see
Speaker 3: how to navigate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dream is that they just use the music
Speaker 2: from Queena the Dad, where he's like a new metal guy,
Speaker 2: and it has like it honestly has like one of
Speaker 2: the most beloved incredible soundtracks of all time now because
Speaker 2: of TikTok, because of the cyclical nature of music and fashion,
Speaker 2: that ends up being quite current now.
Speaker 1: Like kids in the street in La are dressed in
Speaker 1: jinco jeans with tiny.
Speaker 3: Lace shows on TikTok is that.
Speaker 2: The good thing is we can hopefully pray that, you know,
Speaker 2: that could still be something that takes place at l
Speaker 2: like it could still be in the eighties.
Speaker 1: It could be. I mean, who knows, maybe it's going
Speaker 1: to be in the future. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to see it, but I hope that every
Speaker 2: episode has at least one song, because I feel like
Speaker 2: you have to commit to the musical of it all,
Speaker 2: and this has been such a great queer show that
Speaker 2: I pray that they commit and do musical stuff.
Speaker 3: Yes, more or lesbians. We snuck two in here. You
Speaker 3: get a lot of time together. I know we're wrapping up,
Speaker 3: but yeah, Eric goes degree asad Zaman who played armand
Speaker 3: did a sad job, and then we had a replacement
Speaker 3: Bailey Bass was the original.
Speaker 1: And she couldn't do it, I think because of scheduling.
Speaker 3: Scheduling which is always just such drama. So Deliney hails,
Speaker 3: which I love how they opened the series with the
Speaker 3: role of Claudia would not be played by Delina Hills
Speaker 3: as like, oh, you were getting into our theater bag.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I thought that Yeah, it was really and it was
Speaker 2: nice to kind of let the audience know and not
Speaker 2: try and sneak it in with.
Speaker 1: That idea of like you was, yeah, we know that
Speaker 1: that that's not the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, totally. It honors both what the first actress
Speaker 3: did and what and second actress. She killed it. The
Speaker 3: I don't like windows when they're closed. Performance where she's
Speaker 3: just distraught to be playing a little girl is so good.
Speaker 3: But I also think we have to finally shout out
Speaker 3: Ben Daniels. He played Santiago is such an evil little
Speaker 3: prick like such I wrote in the notes we got
Speaker 3: to talk about his tiny penis. I really like this reveal.
Speaker 3: Santiago plays up being like a great star. He keeps
Speaker 3: an old newspaper around of the greatest to ever perform Hamlet.
Speaker 3: And you know, but he's was turned late in later
Speaker 3: in life, so he's maybe what like late forties, early
Speaker 3: fifties somewhere in there. So that means all of the
Speaker 3: young heart throb rolls no longer available to him, all
Speaker 3: the old wis end rolls a little bit out of
Speaker 3: his reach. It's a weird place to be paused as
Speaker 3: now nowadays you could just like, just go to film,
Speaker 3: you'll be fine. But at this time it really stunts
Speaker 3: his ability to do what he loves in a meaningful way.
Speaker 3: And then on top of that, he needs to be
Speaker 3: the center of attention. He's got all these groupies. But
Speaker 3: we get to learn through Louis's very cool trick of
Speaker 3: probing your mind for the worst memories of your life.
Speaker 3: He was like, hey, remember the time that girl made
Speaker 3: front of your small penis and told everybody about it?
Speaker 3: Is that why you're like this? And then you behead Santiago.
Speaker 3: It is a great fight.
Speaker 1: The Santiago also has one of the most evil speeches
Speaker 1: where he talks about like the things he did to
Speaker 1: Claudia that she was dead and Claudia's ash that's really
Speaker 1: what inspires it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that was very I mean, as you can tell,
Speaker 2: this is a deep show that we could probably have
Speaker 2: a whole season just talking about.
Speaker 1: But Joelle, I'm so sure joined us like me wonderful show.
Speaker 3: Just rail about my obsession with this series. I know
Speaker 3: it was a little chaotic, guys, the show's a little chaotic,
Speaker 3: but in like the most delightful ways. And if you
Speaker 3: loved it, I hope you reach out to us and
Speaker 3: tell us about why you loved it and what books
Speaker 3: we should be reading next and all that, and that
Speaker 3: concludes our recap. Guys, stick around well status here. I
Speaker 3: don't want to put too much pressure on us or you,
Speaker 3: but he's here and we're going to talk to Sam Reed,
Speaker 3: so stick.
Speaker 1: Around, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 3: Our guest today is Sam Reid. I first encountered Sam
Speaker 3: in the mini series The Hatfields and the McCoy's and
Speaker 3: Want You, co starred with Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton.
Speaker 3: You may have sat on the edge of your seat
Speaker 3: when he was the Earl of s six doing his
Speaker 3: bid for the Throne and anonymous listen. I was there
Speaker 3: in twenty eleven. I was there, Okay, so later maybe
Speaker 3: maybe Sam cili your heart and bell when he's playing
Speaker 3: John Davin. Here, he's all mine.
Speaker 1: Madic here to x.
Speaker 3: Ray to discuss his latest turn as a vampire less
Speaker 3: Statalem Corton and Rice in AMC's Interview with a Vampire Sam.
Speaker 5: Welcome, Hello, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah you are. We're so happy that you're here.
Speaker 2: We're both huge fans of the show, so we're just
Speaker 2: really excited to chat to you.
Speaker 1: So thanks for taking the time.
Speaker 2: We are like a TV show with a comic book edge,
Speaker 2: so we ask people a lot like what's your origin story?
Speaker 2: So sometimes we ask about comics, sometimes we ask about acting,
Speaker 2: but in this case, we want to know what's your
Speaker 2: vampire chronicle's origin the story? When did you fall in
Speaker 2: love with the books?
Speaker 5: Uh? Well, they shot Queen of the Damn in Inn
Speaker 5: in Melbourne, and as a kid, I was always kind
Speaker 5: of hyper aware of all the big movies that were
Speaker 5: coming over and shooting in Australia because I wanted to
Speaker 5: be an actor and kind of was just you know,
Speaker 5: I was a big Empire magazine reader and all that
Speaker 5: kind of stuff. And yeah, so I loved vampires. It
Speaker 5: was really into Dracula Bromstocker's Dracula the movie, particularly as
Speaker 5: a kid, so I was into I was into vampires.
Speaker 5: It was my kind of Halloween costume. I go to costume.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I read the books in anticipation of the
Speaker 5: film coming to Australia, which sounds incredibly geeky, but you
Speaker 5: know that's what.
Speaker 3: I love it here people.
Speaker 5: But yeah, no, you know, it's just a hyper focused
Speaker 5: kid who's just really into into into filmmaking and theater,
Speaker 5: and yeah, and you know, loved it. I don't think
Speaker 5: I got past the first three and I think it
Speaker 5: was kind of a big ask, the first of the books.
Speaker 5: But I watched the movie and yeah, and I think
Speaker 5: you know, at that point, you know, I loved the books,
Speaker 5: but I left it there, you know, like you know,
Speaker 5: I must have been like fourteen, maybe I think fourteen
Speaker 5: or something like that. Yeah, so you know, I wasn't
Speaker 5: going to get a role in Queen of the Damned,
Speaker 5: even though even though I was really excited to watch
Speaker 5: it when I when it did come out. Maybe maybe
Speaker 5: I was younger because they usually see those things like
Speaker 5: a year before they come out. Yes, but then you know,
Speaker 5: like it's they stayed with me. They were very kind
Speaker 5: of like present those books. But it was really I
Speaker 5: think when I was sort of when I heard they
Speaker 5: were going to make it into a TV series, I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 5: I love to do that. That would be amazing, you know.
Speaker 5: And then when the script came through from Rolling well,
Speaker 5: when the audition came through and I read the script
Speaker 5: Rollin's interpretation of it, I went back and read that
Speaker 5: first book again during that audition period, and then the
Speaker 5: closer I got, the further I got, and I just,
Speaker 5: you know, like dove so heavily into those books before
Speaker 5: I had been cast, you know, throughout that process, because
Speaker 5: it's quite a long audition process. Even though I only
Speaker 5: did probably like to two tapes and then chemistry reads,
Speaker 5: it was stretched out over a long period of time
Speaker 5: and a series of zone meetings and stuff like that,
Speaker 5: so I had time, and I mean I read like
Speaker 5: like that was all I was doing. Because also, you know,
Speaker 5: as you're kind of like getting getting closer to kind
Speaker 5: of accepting and getting a role like this, you kind
Speaker 5: of have to really know what you're in for. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So you know, now I've read them all a couple
Speaker 5: of times and continue to read. I would love to
Speaker 5: read something else right now. I'm I'm back at the
Speaker 5: end of Queen of the Damn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's amazing. Though I just started rereading the
Speaker 3: reading the books. I didn't really have a I like
Speaker 3: the movie a lot as a kid. We're both obsessed
Speaker 3: with Queen of the Damn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very influential.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely hugely a stand and just really obsessed with
Speaker 3: that movie. And it's been an interesting to go back
Speaker 3: and sort of read and see like what's evolved. I'm
Speaker 3: just did a secondary read of The Vampire lest At
Speaker 3: and I was really intrigued. That's sort of the book
Speaker 3: where we're at in this series now moving into the
Speaker 3: new season. There's so many great characters in that book,
Speaker 3: and I'm wondering, is there someone in there, whether it's
Speaker 3: Magnus or that's Mom, or is there someone you're excited
Speaker 3: just as a fan of the books and the overall series.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely Gabrielle. I'm really excited to see Gabrielle, and
Speaker 5: all the conversations I've had about how that character is
Speaker 5: going to be explored is pretty exactly, so obviously don't
Speaker 5: want to say too much, but yeah, like Gabrielle, I
Speaker 5: think is an awesome character, and I think it gives
Speaker 5: a lot of context to the start as well, so
Speaker 5: you know, and I think that, you know, I remember
Speaker 5: years ago when I read that book for the first time,
Speaker 5: being really struck by the first scene that he kind
Speaker 5: of has with his mom quite early on in the books,
Speaker 5: and it's after he's killed the wolves and they're kind
Speaker 5: of there's this like silent and you know, you know
Speaker 5: that kind of evocketed feeling when you get when you're
Speaker 5: reading that you can't quite sure, you can't quite explain
Speaker 5: what it is, but it's immediately transporting, and I never
Speaker 5: forget that. Like, he has this scene with his mother
Speaker 5: where they're kind of silently sitting he's like, you know,
Speaker 5: catatonic after killing eight wolves with a flail and they'll
Speaker 5: take out of you. Yeah, and then he's and then
Speaker 5: they're just sort of sitting silently by the fire, and
Speaker 5: there's this like intensely uncomfortable sexual energy that is emanating
Speaker 5: from the pages that I did not fully grasp, but
Speaker 5: I remember as a kid like like look like thigki,
Speaker 5: and that feeling happened again. I think I remember reading it,
Speaker 5: you know, more more recently for the first time again,
Speaker 5: and I was like, it was there, that thing was there,
Speaker 5: and I guess that's that that thing that people talk
Speaker 5: about lot with subtexts with these books, is there is like,
Speaker 5: you know, incredible subtext. There's also text, but there's also
Speaker 5: like there's also intense intense intensity of feeling. And then
Speaker 5: she'll kind of like just drop a bomb and just
Speaker 5: say like flat out what actually happened, you know, So
Speaker 5: she's She's very extreme in that way, which I really
Speaker 5: appreciate it. So yeah, yeah, that was my longitted way.
Speaker 1: Of saying no, no, no, I love it. It was a
Speaker 1: perfect answer. Also, like I love that you brought.
Speaker 2: That up, because I actually feel like that's something that
Speaker 2: the finale of season two really translated, because we'd had
Speaker 2: this kind of alleged text of the armand relationship, but
Speaker 2: then you get this huge kind of barm of truth
Speaker 2: about who was really behind it and what we kind
Speaker 2: of really learned season two is a lot of the
Speaker 2: Star in the corner of Louis's minds and this kind
Speaker 2: of different version of Las Start.
Speaker 1: What was it like.
Speaker 2: To then shoot those scenes with Jacob where it is
Speaker 2: this reunion, this truth, this kind of apology, this beginning,
Speaker 2: this end. It's such a huge moment and the episode's
Speaker 2: so fantastic. What was it like for you as an
Speaker 2: actor to get to be real the Start again in
Speaker 2: those moments.
Speaker 5: It's funny how these bits of language kind of pop up,
Speaker 5: like with this Real Start language that it's kind of appeared.
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily think I thought of it like that.
Speaker 5: I mean I knew that I knew that there was
Speaker 5: a level that you know, I could just be less,
Speaker 5: you know, because because when you're playing kind of like
Speaker 5: the villain of your ex story, knowing that but also
Speaker 5: knowing that that they love them. You know, there's a
Speaker 5: deep love between Louis Endless Start. So it's very complex
Speaker 5: kind of but it allowed me to be very extreme.
Speaker 5: And also I knew I knew, and I know which
Speaker 5: scenes you know, and it's up to rollin in the
Speaker 5: end of the day, and I know which ones he
Speaker 5: was thinking. But you know in season one what scenes
Speaker 5: are real and what they're not, what not you know
Speaker 5: and what and so there are some things we could
Speaker 5: do really extreme stuff. So when you approach a scene
Speaker 5: like this, it's like, Okay, we we're now out of
Speaker 5: any kind of character's POV. We're just in the real
Speaker 5: world of the show. Now you know, what do you do?
Speaker 5: But I guess a scene like that is it's more
Speaker 5: about the connection between Louis and le Start. And and
Speaker 5: it was a really crazy day, like it was really rushed,
Speaker 5: which is kind of often the way it is with television,
Speaker 5: but that heaps going on. There's a lot of special effects,
Speaker 5: as per usual in our show, so we have like
Speaker 5: you know, a lot of effects which make things quite complicated.
Speaker 5: It was like guys with leaf blowers.
Speaker 1: In the just like setting people on fire.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that and that takes a really long time,
Speaker 5: like to get that right because they've got rigs that
Speaker 5: has to be renewed, because it's all done practically, which
Speaker 5: is one thing that I do love about this show,
Speaker 5: which kind of harkens back to Copola's Racula, which is
Speaker 5: like a lot of the effects. We don't do it
Speaker 5: so much with the sets, but the sets are really
Speaker 5: built a lot of the effects. The effects are real,
Speaker 5: so it takes a time. It takes a little time
Speaker 5: to reset. But yeah, it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 5: It was a wonderful thing to do. And you know,
Speaker 5: Jacob and I just kind of was like, fuck it,
Speaker 5: let's go. That's just you know energy.
Speaker 2: Definitely, We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be
Speaker 2: right back.
Speaker 1: We're back.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating to hear you guys talk about one another.
Speaker 3: There's clearly such like an artistic love between you guys
Speaker 3: just as creators that I find really sweet. And also,
Speaker 3: like you know, I'm outside of being a host, I'm
Speaker 3: also a producer. It's my job to put teams of
Speaker 3: people together and try to create you know, beautiful stuff.
Speaker 3: And I think when you find a connection between two
Speaker 3: people I work with Zach Braf and Donald Faison who
Speaker 3: met on Scrubs and then became like lifelong best friends,
Speaker 3: And like, I find it so interesting the way certain
Speaker 3: shows can be cast that create sort of these lifelong
Speaker 3: connections that are so much more than just the show.
Speaker 3: You know, for you, it's just a creator, and like,
Speaker 3: have you worked with a ton of like very brilliant actors.
Speaker 3: But I imagine just because of the way the show is
Speaker 3: set up, there's a special you know, it's different doing
Speaker 3: a show, co leading a show with somebody.
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, I think you also just like it's
Speaker 5: just a scenario that is incredibly fortunate. We're just very
Speaker 5: lucky that we get we get on so well. I
Speaker 5: don't think it was I don't know if Roland had
Speaker 5: masterminded it. I have to give him if he did.
Speaker 5: But we never met in person until we turned up,
Speaker 5: you know, to start shooting. We did everything I didn't,
Speaker 5: you know, I didn't meet anybody. Nobody saw me until
Speaker 5: I turned up to start shooting. So everything had been
Speaker 5: done on zoom and it was you know, during lockdowns
Speaker 5: in Australia, so like it was just this bizarre time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but you know, just Jacob and I we're very similar.
Speaker 5: We just get on really well. We have very I
Speaker 5: guess we're different actors, but we're also like I would
Speaker 5: say we're very similar actors in terms of we're not
Speaker 5: like talking about too much, overthinking about it too much.
Speaker 5: We're like to have it sort of flexible to kind
Speaker 5: of you mess around and then we just drop it
Speaker 5: like it just goes I think, you know, I think
Speaker 5: we just do. But also like then we just drop it,
Speaker 5: like then the scenes over and we drop it and
Speaker 5: we just chat chat about something else random or what's
Speaker 5: funny in the room or And you know, you need
Speaker 5: that on a show like this because it's it's a
Speaker 5: very big, silly show that takes itself very seriously and
Speaker 5: it can suck you right in into this bizarre kind
Speaker 5: of like vortex, and you you do need to be
Speaker 5: able to step out of it and laugh about it,
Speaker 5: and you know, and we do, and you know, it's
Speaker 5: really valued, you know, and we've got a lot of
Speaker 5: trust between the two of us. There's just so much
Speaker 5: us and you know, just like it's that is so
Speaker 5: so important, it.
Speaker 2: Really is, and something like as we leave this, you
Speaker 2: know you kind of talked about your connection to Queen
Speaker 2: of the Damned.
Speaker 1: We both love it.
Speaker 2: It was I saw it with my friends at like
Speaker 2: the cinema and I think it was in like Islington
Speaker 2: or somewhere, and we got on the bus and we
Speaker 2: all went and saw it and we end up seeing
Speaker 2: like five times, and I still love the soundtrack. How
Speaker 2: does it feel now to not just be playing Listar
Speaker 2: and have played him for two years, but as that
Speaker 2: kid who was waiting for that movie to be filmed
Speaker 2: in Australia and who wanted was reading every article about it,
Speaker 2: how does it feel to now be about to embark
Speaker 2: on doing your take on it and bringing that aspect
Speaker 2: of Lista to life.
Speaker 3: What's that like?
Speaker 5: God? Look, I want to preface by saying, I don't
Speaker 5: know if I was necessarily like, you know, it was
Speaker 5: Queen of the Damn that kind of got me into it.
Speaker 5: But I think I probably visually prefer the interview with
Speaker 5: the Vampire movie and.
Speaker 1: What's gonna judge you? It's it's you know, it's like
Speaker 1: it's a cult movie classic.
Speaker 2: But yeah, obviously interview with the Vampire is I must
Speaker 2: say the Queen of.
Speaker 5: The Damn has that the best line, I think, and
Speaker 5: I and I have kind of like, you know, into
Speaker 5: it role and could we please just do a reference
Speaker 5: to that when when I think it's between Jesse Reeves
Speaker 5: and the start and he's like, I think she goes
Speaker 5: boo and he goes boo back.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 5: No, just credit to the screenwritters with that film. But
Speaker 5: oh my god, what an extraordinary canelievable. Yeah, but to
Speaker 5: your question, it's terrifying really. I mean it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: and we have sort of started little pieces of it,
Speaker 5: and it's you know, with a wildly ambitious team and
Speaker 5: people who make this show and and and you know,
Speaker 5: Daniel Hart is a genius. He does the music, and
Speaker 5: you know, seeing some of the stuff that's coming out
Speaker 5: is sort of like amazing. And I'm really really excited
Speaker 5: and terrified to do it. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's wild.
Speaker 5: It's a totally wild thing to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Especially, I feel like after the first two seasons of
Speaker 2: this show, I feel like, well, like you said, it's
Speaker 2: a silly show that takes herself very seriously.
Speaker 1: I feel like season three, for people who don't know
Speaker 1: what it's going to be about. Could be a shoka.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think, but I think, yeah, it is
Speaker 5: a shakraa But it's the same kind of the experience
Speaker 5: if you get when you read the books, when you
Speaker 5: go from the first second book, you're like, well, and
Speaker 5: I think it should feel like that. It should sort
Speaker 5: of feel like that, because that's kind of like the
Speaker 5: true essence of that experience of what she intended. I
Speaker 5: know that she kind of wanted to do a different
Speaker 5: order of the books in her in her series, but
Speaker 5: I actually think that this is a is a really
Speaker 5: great way. And also we have a wonderful Louis now,
Speaker 5: you know, and and he's been really which kind of
Speaker 5: allows us to keep that character going forward in the series,
Speaker 5: which I think is which is fantastic. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 5: wild wild, it's a wild thing.
Speaker 3: We've heard from the music, like everything from like We're
Speaker 3: going to try to out do Rocky Horror Picture Show
Speaker 3: and Headwig and Angry and the music from the whole
Speaker 3: series has been lovely. How are you feeling is like,
Speaker 3: are you tackling vocals? Are you excited about stepping into
Speaker 3: that aspect of performance for this out.
Speaker 5: I feel like when Roland gave that reference, I think
Speaker 5: he was more talking about the genre of film than
Speaker 5: he was necessarily speaking about the actual sound of music,
Speaker 5: not the sound of the music, not the musical Yeah,
Speaker 5: I think there are elements. I think there are elements
Speaker 5: that probably will be musical to it. Yes, we're definitely
Speaker 5: getting into a lot of a lot of singing. And
Speaker 5: you know, it's really that's that is a really fun
Speaker 5: thing to do. It's a really fun you know, I've
Speaker 5: done musical before, and but in terms of like playing
Speaker 5: at an actor, like singing in a character is a
Speaker 5: really fun challenge. And to find the voice of the
Speaker 5: character when they sing, and what they choose to be
Speaker 5: their creative output, you know, and what is the start
Speaker 5: making in twenty twenty six. I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 5: I think that's a kind of like where does he
Speaker 5: sit there? And yeah, how does he deal with you know,
Speaker 5: Taylor Swift, I don't know, you know, I just think.
Speaker 1: It's really that's his version of the aerostore. We're going
Speaker 1: to find out, you know.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, it's hard to know. I mean, he might
Speaker 5: love it. I think it's you know, I just I
Speaker 5: think it's a kind of interesting space, you know, to
Speaker 5: to explore. And also I think it's interesting, like what
Speaker 5: happens if starts not as popular as Yeah, I don't
Speaker 5: know the answer to any of these questions, but I
Speaker 5: just think it's I think it's interesting. Yeah, particularly it's
Speaker 5: this whole, you know, because you know, this whole sort
Speaker 5: of like coming out story as a vampire. Here we
Speaker 5: are on the world stage as real beings, and in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty six there's so much misinformation. It's so much
Speaker 5: or twenty twenty six and know what I'm saying twenty
Speaker 5: twenty four today, But yeah, like what is you know,
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's like, you know, nobody we really like.
Speaker 5: The alien stuff just reasonably happened, you know, where all
Speaker 5: these unclassified documentation came out sort of so am I
Speaker 5: confirming that there is extraterrestrial life? And I don't know,
Speaker 5: I feel like they kind of got washed under the
Speaker 5: carp and I'm not even sure if it's true. I
Speaker 5: just sort of what happened, and we were like front
Speaker 5: pages all day of the newspapers aliens are real, and
Speaker 5: then we've kind of forgotten about it and now we're
Speaker 5: kind of like looking at something else. So I think
Speaker 5: that's the life the world in which we're living in.
Speaker 5: I think it is a very interesting space for vampires
Speaker 5: to exist in that place, because there'll be some people
Speaker 5: who are really obsessed with them and believe that it's real,
Speaker 5: and there be other people who don't give to you know,
Speaker 5: flying out and want.
Speaker 1: To debunk it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well so, I mean so the kind of rock star
Speaker 2: nature of the star in that next series, Lista is
Speaker 2: already like a pop culture rock star, Like he has
Speaker 2: a very feral fandom.
Speaker 1: I will say feral, as I was.
Speaker 3: Part of it. It's fair. It's a fair, so I
Speaker 3: would say it's fer, it's fair. We're getting a.
Speaker 2: Lot of great like villain moments at the moment, with
Speaker 2: many Jacinto playing climate in uh you know the Recircle series,
Speaker 2: the Acolyte with his beautiful arms and and his outrageous cloaks.
Speaker 1: Uh, he got very into the world of kind of
Speaker 1: list that.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe he did Kimer fanfic and looking at
Speaker 2: you three and stuff like that. Have you ever ventured
Speaker 2: into that space of the into the fan fic kind
Speaker 2: of lestat like space.
Speaker 5: So when we started, very like I was in and
Speaker 5: I was looking like I, you know, because I felt
Speaker 5: like it was really important for me to get an
Speaker 5: idea about what everyone else had in their mind, you know,
Speaker 5: like I have my own idea of the character, and
Speaker 5: then you know Roland's idea of the character. And then
Speaker 5: I was like, what, what does everybody see? Like? This
Speaker 5: character is? Some things I totally agreed with and totally
Speaker 5: found fascinating and wanted to I wanted to find space
Speaker 5: to incorporate that. Other times I was like not not,
Speaker 5: not totally sure where that came from the.
Speaker 3: World of A three.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say that very that's very relatable.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're like, Wow, why isn't this cannon?
Speaker 2: And sometimes you're like, I'm so sad I read that,
Speaker 2: like why did I?
Speaker 5: But I will say I didn't. I did not know.
Speaker 5: I have not. I didn't go into AO three like
Speaker 5: I know AO three exists because I do another show
Speaker 5: where the show runner for that show was finding all
Speaker 5: this erotic fan fiction that existed and he would be
Speaker 5: telling me about it, and I just was like, I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think this is valuable for me to to see.
Speaker 5: What I will say is I did recently listen to
Speaker 5: a podcast I can't remember that the vampire inside it,
Speaker 5: and they talk about our show, and they're quite quite lovely.
Speaker 5: And one person who I had met, she had come
Speaker 5: to set. I don't know her real name, but she
Speaker 5: told me her name was Inky Inky Blots. It was
Speaker 5: her name, And she read on that podcast a really
Speaker 5: fascinating piece of fan fiction, which was this beautiful kind
Speaker 5: of story that went into the kind of psychology between
Speaker 5: the Start and Magnus during that transformation, which I was
Speaker 5: kind of blown away by. Yeah, but I don't think
Speaker 5: like all of the erotic stuff. I don't know if
Speaker 5: it's really necessary. Like I know, I'm making a sexy
Speaker 5: show and.
Speaker 2: You guys have in the text it's there.
Speaker 1: Watched the shot.
Speaker 5: That layer of bubbling sunth it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of fanfic comes from a place where
Speaker 2: that representation wasn't there. So I totally understand how in
Speaker 2: a show where it's absolutely text, it feels less of
Speaker 2: a necessity to explore it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but nowadays I really stay away from the internet.
Speaker 5: It's kind of you know, I made some like pretty
Speaker 5: big errors, like you know, last season with having a
Speaker 5: look at what was going on, and actually now have
Speaker 5: like blocks on the phone and have no, no, zero
Speaker 5: social media accounts whatsoever. And I also have a time
Speaker 5: on Google, so I can't even for an hour a day.
Speaker 1: That's good. You've got to protect yourself, like, yeah, truly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do have a lot have a time around
Speaker 3: my Instagram for the same reason.
Speaker 5: You also have to be careful because I have to
Speaker 5: be able to do my job. I have to be
Speaker 5: able to turn up to work and do it and
Speaker 5: not have some kind of like, you know, complete crisis
Speaker 5: because you know, somebody hates me out there, which you
Speaker 5: know that's kind of that's sort of part of the deal.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we've we've been there. Yeah, never read the comments.
Speaker 3: There is not a safe space. See's what I've interviewing
Speaker 3: with The Vampire is coming to Netflix toward the end
Speaker 3: of August. We've seen a lot of shows head that
Speaker 3: way and really find a much wider audience. I'm thinking
Speaker 3: of Penn Badly as Joe and you like that show
Speaker 3: really hit when it moved from Lifetime to Netflix. Are
Speaker 3: you feeling ready for this new surge of interest in
Speaker 3: audience coming to the series?
Speaker 5: Not really, there was something there was something so wonderful
Speaker 5: about being a part of this like cult show which
Speaker 5: I think really really kind of gives us this wonderful
Speaker 5: feeling on set that we feel like, you know, we're
Speaker 5: somehow AMC blessed them have given us so much money
Speaker 5: to make this kind of like totally culture ye like
Speaker 5: n that feels very kind of like, you know, specific
Speaker 5: to people like, you know, you know, I would watch
Speaker 5: the show. I would love this show. And I think
Speaker 5: that's one thing. You know, it's really important as an
Speaker 5: actor when you're like, you know, going after material, like
Speaker 5: when you read the script the first time, you're like,
Speaker 5: would you watch this? Is there something you care about?
Speaker 5: Does this having a message that it's kind of like
Speaker 5: beyond what this could be? And I feel this really
Speaker 5: really does And I love that feeling. I love that
Speaker 5: quiet secret feeling. What happens when it's on Netflix, I'm
Speaker 5: not sure.
Speaker 2: Fingers fingers crossed that it just finds all the other
Speaker 2: kind of weird o people I'm weirdose who haven't had
Speaker 2: the chance.
Speaker 1: To discover it.
Speaker 5: Oh, that would be wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the that's the most likely version
Speaker 2: is all the kids who didn't have AMC Plus or
Speaker 2: they are amazing queer creatives who don't really stream a lot,
Speaker 2: but their parents have Netflix, They're going to be able
Speaker 2: to discover this show and go oh my god, like yes.
Speaker 3: You know, as we as we talk about like, I
Speaker 3: think one of the things people kind of have really
Speaker 3: appreciated about the show is like the technical aspects, which
Speaker 3: is not something people always appreciate, but there have been
Speaker 3: a ton of Anne Riceman dressing up as vampires from
Speaker 3: different eras for a long time, and the costuming in
Speaker 3: the show is through the roof. It's so good. And
Speaker 3: is someone who used to dress up as a vampire
Speaker 3: as a kid. I was wondering is there an outfit
Speaker 3: looks for the stat that you were like, it is bomb,
Speaker 3: Like this is a fit.
Speaker 5: I would tell you that every time I'm in a
Speaker 5: costume fitting, like we're like are we is this a
Speaker 5: Halloween costume? You know, like it's it is? It is?
Speaker 5: Yeah for us, I'm always like looking, is this a
Speaker 5: Halloween costume? Like would you get dressed up as this?
Speaker 5: Or you try and find the Halloween costume? Like you know,
Speaker 5: so yeah, I think from this season we definitely try
Speaker 5: to return to that motif of that of that dressing
Speaker 5: gown that he wore in season one, so when you
Speaker 5: kind of return to him in episode eight, like he
Speaker 5: is wearing the same dressing gown, but it's like totally
Speaker 5: distressed and destroyed. I think what I loved about that
Speaker 5: costume particularly, you know, I mean, I had a I
Speaker 5: always have lots of great costumes, but I love it
Speaker 5: what that costume particularly is that if you actually look
Speaker 5: underneath what I'm wearing underneath and wearing a very kind
Speaker 5: of sort of high fashiony tank top, and I don't
Speaker 5: know if you ever see the pants, but I'm wearing
Speaker 5: like I can't remember what designer brand pants they are,
Speaker 5: and like a pair of like sort of Chelsea boots,
Speaker 5: Swayed Chelsea boots. I also have. I also have like
Speaker 5: obscenely expensive speakers, which I can't remember the brand, but
Speaker 5: I know that they're some some some form of product placement,
Speaker 5: Like it's really really expensive speakers in there, and iPad
Speaker 5: and Siri, so I think there's a kind of but
Speaker 5: he's you know, he's in this like ratted.
Speaker 3: And it was the iPad with the giant like fake
Speaker 3: keyboard was grand like really mirroring.
Speaker 5: In that set. There's also a smashed Grand piano, so
Speaker 5: it's obviously like he's been playing it then got frustrated.
Speaker 5: You don't really see the piano, but he smashed it
Speaker 5: and then he carved carved the piano out of a
Speaker 5: plank of wood. But I think, you know, I think
Speaker 5: that kind of costume is a really fun one. Obviously,
Speaker 5: just everything with blood, and to put as much of
Speaker 5: blood on myself as possible, because that's a nice, cheap,
Speaker 5: easy Christmas Christmas. That's my Christmas Halloween costume. You know,
Speaker 5: just you know, get a white shirt, put a bit
Speaker 5: of blood on it. That's always a good one.
Speaker 1: You know, that's really exting. Yeah, I mean, also, we're
Speaker 1: going to San Diego.
Speaker 2: You're gonna likely get to see some really fantastic cosplay.
Speaker 2: It's one of the most magical parts of the show
Speaker 2: is getting to see how much it connects with fans.
Speaker 5: And I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Which costumes they choose to to recreate too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm excited. I actually got to meet someone recently
Speaker 5: who I'm who I had met, but she was dressed
Speaker 5: as the Start when I had first met her, so
Speaker 5: I didn't recognize we've met before. She was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I was dressed Start last time, in this sort of
Speaker 5: big blonde wig, so it is always fun to see
Speaker 5: it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much Sam for
Speaker 2: joining us. Total joy, congrats on the show. We're so
Speaker 2: excited for season three. Thank give her, and yeah, hope
Speaker 2: to speak to.
Speaker 1: You again soon and have a great day, okay.
Speaker 6: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sumsion and Rosie
Speaker 6: Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive
Speaker 6: producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer
Speaker 6: is a booze Afar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and
Speaker 6: Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 2: and Heidi our discoord moderator.
Speaker 3: Rosie. After we recorded this episode, we had to come
Speaker 3: back after the credits because San Diego happened and Immortal Wit.
Speaker 3: He was like, here are two videos for you to
Speaker 3: just dissolve into. One is the lyric video long Face,
Speaker 3: which is the first single we get from a stat
Speaker 3: aka Sam Reid, which is crazy and cause a lot
Speaker 3: of controversy, which.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get perfect.
Speaker 3: And then the other one is a video of like
Speaker 3: Lestatt walking into an interview and Daniel's interviewing him. But
Speaker 3: it's a camera thing and you learn so much about
Speaker 3: the direction they're going in, and so we were like,
Speaker 3: we're gonna we have we have to talk about what's happened.
Speaker 3: So I think maybe we should start with the interview video,
Speaker 3: which I found really interesting. What did you think of it?
Speaker 2: Me too, So basically it's feeling, let's just be wrong,
Speaker 2: it's giving mockumentary.
Speaker 1: I do wonder if that's gonna be the framing this time, if.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have Daniel Eric Bagosian legend, who is clearly like,
Speaker 2: do not write me off this show.
Speaker 1: I'm being here for LISTA.
Speaker 4: No One that I love that for him, I'm certainly
Speaker 4: not nobody wants to and uh so I think it
Speaker 4: is going to be at least interspersed with Daniel interviewing
Speaker 4: the start.
Speaker 2: I love the attitude that Sam gives here. It's pure
Speaker 2: rock stuff. It's unbelievable. They've managed to make it contemporary,
Speaker 2: They've managed to make it vibrant, they've managed to make
Speaker 2: it campy. I'm very excited we see Lestar at his
Speaker 2: most lastat here.
Speaker 1: This is not like.
Speaker 2: Broken down Missing Louis in a trash house in New Orleans.
Speaker 2: This man is disrespecting everybody. He's as sassing the staff,
Speaker 2: he's treating people terribly, and he's just giving full rock star.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 3: It's definitely Lista entering like his second hundred years, you
Speaker 3: know the if the books, like early when he comes
Speaker 3: to New Orleans, he's like just beyond baby vampire. He's
Speaker 3: like entering his teenage vampire years. And they're like, hey man,
Speaker 3: you got to go out there and like live a life.
Speaker 3: You gotta go find your own progeny, like go live
Speaker 3: and he's like, that's kind of scary, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do it because i'mostat in like big kind of power.
Speaker 3: Now he doesn't care, and it's really exciting. He's just
Speaker 3: sort of over it. He's not trying to hide his
Speaker 3: vampires at all, which is totally like a thing within
Speaker 3: the music. But there's also if you look really closely
Speaker 3: in the video, there's blood on his chest. The man
Speaker 3: is not together.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. So I loved the interview clip because
Speaker 1: they felt like I watched it a lot of times.
Speaker 2: Actually, I just felt like it's so understood innately what
Speaker 2: we needed from this season, which is rock Starlistat Who.
Speaker 2: And this actually I think aligns really nicely with how
Speaker 2: Louis ended season two where he kind of said, you know,
Speaker 2: fuck you bitches, come find me, like do what you will.
Speaker 2: And we have the stat here essentially doing the same thing, saying, Hey,
Speaker 2: I am a vampire and if you've got a problem
Speaker 2: with me, come find me vampires and that is a
Speaker 2: key part of Queen of the Damned. Yes, and so
Speaker 2: I loved that the interview video gave that. But then
Speaker 2: I have to say I was not expecting them to
Speaker 2: release a full song, okay, and it was divine.
Speaker 3: I love the song. One last thing before we got
Speaker 3: off the video, I I genuinely loved just the conclusion
Speaker 3: of it. What makes the list that book so interesting
Speaker 3: is he's not talking to you. It's like an interview, but
Speaker 3: it's really more of a monologue directly to people. There's
Speaker 3: not like a back and forth staying out of time.
Speaker 3: And so I was really intrigued by the way they
Speaker 3: were like, oh, lastat it's just gonna talk directly to
Speaker 3: you through this Lens. I hope we get a lot
Speaker 3: more of that in the show, and I also like
Speaker 3: to find a line, which is a line that Marius
Speaker 3: gives him before he goes on his venture to New Orleans.
Speaker 3: And I was like, this is it's just feeding me
Speaker 3: as somebody who's recently learned to love the books. The
Speaker 3: song Okay, here we Go, I was We talked in
Speaker 3: the interview a little about like we're not really sure
Speaker 3: we heard how do we get an angry edge? And
Speaker 3: we weren't really like, what are we going to get
Speaker 3: out of the musical stylings of Lestat in this more
Speaker 3: modern telling of interview with a Vampire. I love that
Speaker 3: it's so pure rock. They were like, we're bringing in
Speaker 3: all the guitars. It's yeah, like very sort of like.
Speaker 1: It's very like Queens of the Stone Age. It's very
Speaker 1: kind of rock. Yes, from maybe I would.
Speaker 2: Say it's got influenced from like twenty years ago, but
Speaker 2: that music is still kind of those bands are still
Speaker 2: around today, and it does have this glam edge to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought the song was so good. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: I didn't know if they were gonna be able to
Speaker 2: pull it off. But whoever's writing those songs bang off.
Speaker 3: It totally feels like we're definitely.
Speaker 1: Gonna get a cast album too. Yes, it really does.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're gonna get one.
Speaker 2: Also, I will say something that he does in the
Speaker 2: books that I expect that we'll see here is he's
Speaker 2: like put Anning Queen of the Damn the movie, my
Speaker 2: beloved movie.
Speaker 1: But like he puts like secret vampire messages and vampire.
Speaker 2: Law into the songs. And this definitely feels like that.
Speaker 2: And he does it specifically to piss off the Tower Mascar,
Speaker 2: to piss off vampires. So I want to see how
Speaker 2: this kind of impacts them. Also, we must say, and
Speaker 2: this was actually before the song was released, the power
Speaker 2: of just the interview video did spark a stan war
Speaker 2: between Taylor Swift's fansaka fans. So somebody made a They
Speaker 2: put together some images of Taylor Swift from the Blank
Speaker 2: Space video and the start and they wrote, got a
Speaker 2: long list of ex lovers.
Speaker 1: They'll tell you I'm insane.
Speaker 3: And perfectly appropriate.
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift fans are not happy about.
Speaker 2: You know, it worked well, it looked vibe, it was
Speaker 2: a meme, but the Tailor Swift fans were not happy
Speaker 2: and it became a quite impressive stand war. And you
Speaker 2: know what, all I'll say about it is if you
Speaker 2: want to read the tweets and see the memes, you can.
Speaker 2: But Pixie Layer at Twitter summed it up perfectly and said,
Speaker 2: lstat getting canceled and igniting Stan Wars less than twenty
Speaker 2: four hours after his debut is unironically exactly on brand
Speaker 2: for listat and I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 3: Yes, And we're seeing it happen in so many ways, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: the Taylor swifting is hilarious, and I hope the show's
Speaker 3: social media team is just cranking it up, just getting
Speaker 3: really ready to lean full tilt into that. But what
Speaker 3: I've really enjoyed about this, like the song feels like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I was worried Thatta is going to try to reach
Speaker 3: the the youth, you know that he was gonna be
Speaker 3: like a TikTok musician or whatever. It was a full
Speaker 3: three minute and forty second song. This is old school. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they said full songs, no two minute things here and
Speaker 3: then if we could just briefly pick apart some of
Speaker 3: the lyrics, there are some really great moments where it
Speaker 3: plassly feels like a breakup song to Louie, which I
Speaker 3: very much appreciate, but not even a break up, more
Speaker 3: like I miss you, where are you? I'm angry with
Speaker 3: you sort of vibes like yeah, yeah, yeah, please, yes, yes, Actually,
Speaker 3: let me not pull up here because that's gonna be loud.
Speaker 3: I can pull the lyrics on here. There's just one
Speaker 3: verse aro.
Speaker 2: People are like so excited around it, which I just
Speaker 2: absolutely love too. So they are saying as well, like
Speaker 2: the showrunner did tease and I think you can feel
Speaker 2: these inspirations coming in, but like David Bowie, b York, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Ba Cury, Beastie Boys, Franz, list, Red Cross, Lang, Lang,
Speaker 2: Iggy Pop, Saint Vincent, So you're getting a real mixed
Speaker 2: Nick Cave hilariously rally Ritchie, which I love because that's
Speaker 2: Jacob Anderson's.
Speaker 1: Performance name who plays Louis. So I'm like, will we
Speaker 1: get a Colass.
Speaker 3: I'm ready or whatever? They're like teleperfect schizophrenic link is
Speaker 3: that keeps them like tied together? Please do a song
Speaker 3: in that way. I would really like to see Listat's
Speaker 3: dream version of Louise's and we got louis dream version
Speaker 3: of Lstat. It just really reveals a lot about how
Speaker 3: they see each other. Okay, so some of them. I
Speaker 3: think that's great lyrics. I loved. Okay, so this is
Speaker 3: one versus toward the end, it's another taste, another year,
Speaker 3: another place, another tear, another chase, another sneer, without a trace,
Speaker 3: you disappear. That's Louis. Pick up the pace, pack up
Speaker 3: the gear, give me some faith, a souvenir. Here come
Speaker 3: the gays, here come the fear. Now we're having fun. Okay,
Speaker 3: give me some face for you. Remember from season one
Speaker 3: is the phrase Louise when he meets up with his
Speaker 3: old buddy and he gives him head in the woods.
Speaker 3: And I say that exact, clinging to this level of
Speaker 3: non betrayal at the moment they were openly polymarious, and
Speaker 3: he was like, you jaded, bitch. I'm still excited. I
Speaker 3: really love what Samana has done.
Speaker 1: I also love.
Speaker 2: I have to tell you, yes, there is already like
Speaker 2: a Genius annotated version of this song on Genius.
Speaker 1: Seriously fantastic.
Speaker 2: I would say you could actually add some insight there
Speaker 2: because they did not catch another face moment.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just think I think this is so cool.
Speaker 1: I think we're onto.
Speaker 2: Something very special, and I think season three could be
Speaker 2: maybe the something with this show to the mainstream, with the.
Speaker 3: Coming to Netflix, and with the Witches show really trying
Speaker 3: to improve its second season, I'm hoping season three is
Speaker 3: a real banger and that we find more widows. Like
Speaker 3: we talked to Sam, Come and join us. If you
Speaker 3: haven't already seen this show. It's really good. It's on Netflix,
Speaker 3: I believe, like tomorrow the eighteenth. Let me get that right.
Speaker 1: Hold on, yeah, I think it is going on August eighteen.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, Joel looks that up. I looked and did
Speaker 7: as best as I could to try to find who
Speaker 7: is listed as coms for a long face, It's not
Speaker 7: anywhere I can find on the internet. However, Daniel Hart
Speaker 7: has done the music for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he is doing Sam Reed said he is
Speaker 2: doing the music for this.
Speaker 7: And so has worked like he's worked with Broken Social Scene,
Speaker 7: Saint Vincent, Polyphonic Squee, like he knows kind of this
Speaker 7: era of indie rock music.
Speaker 1: So that works that they Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: So August nineteenth, the show will be on Netflix, So
Speaker 3: please go watch it. Delightful and we want to hear
Speaker 3: from you guys, so hit us up on the discord
Speaker 3: if you have thoughts about the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Joel, Thanks Rosie,