SPOILER ALERT: This publish comprises spoilers from “And That’s the End of It. There’s Nothing Else,” the Part II finale of “Interview With the Vampire,” now streaming on AMC+.
“We held each other’s hands, and we just fucking jumped.”
That’s how Jacob Anderson says he and Sam Reid ready for the climactic reunion between Louis and Lestat in Season 2 finale of AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire.”
“I feel really proud of that scene, but that’s honestly what it was like to shoot,” Anderson tells Variety. “It was a nightmare, and then it felt like a bit of magic for one hour of that 14-hour day.”
The scene is, fairly actually, many years in the making for the estranged vampires, who haven’t spoken in the 77 years since Louis sentenced Lestat to his personal private hell –– to reside without end realizing Louis is loving another person. When they meet once more, it’s in the center of a hurricane in New Orleans, inside a dilapidated home that’s barely holding itself collectively towards the raging winds outdoors. A destitute Lestat isn’t doing a lot better inside, till Louis comes bearing the very last thing he anticipated –– gratitude. What modified Louis’ thoughts? We will get there.
(*3*)
Jacob Anderson
Courtesy of Larry Horricks/AMC
In lieu of an actual hurricane, the manufacturing approximated the chaotic situations on set, whereas Reid and Anderson delivered maybe the most consequential coronary heart to coronary heart of the sequence up to now, which relies on Anne Rice’s novels. It can be certain to have main implications for what’s forward after AMC greenlit Season 3 this week.
“It’s weird to shoot a scene like that with guys holding leaf blowers that are going off in the background, and people are shaking the set,” Reid says, laughing. Anderson notes there was additionally an actual blizzard occurring simply outdoors the set in Prague, the place Season 2 was largely shot.
“That day was mad,” he says. “We could kind of hear each other, but with the leaf blowers and things banging on the windows, the conditions were less than perfect. But I will give myself and Sam props to say that, for a multitude of reasons, it was a big day. And the actual body of the scene, we only got to do it twice each.”
In these two takes, they every specific greater than a century of grief, remorse, love, hate and another emotion a vampire would possibly discover in the expanse of eternity. “It seemed right that two vampires could carry on that moment of forgiveness and contrition in the midst of history and life, and nature plowing right through them,” says sequence creator Rolin Jones, who wrote the finale.
Sam Reid
Courtesy of AMC
The hurricane of this turbulent couple was appropriately foreshadowed final week by Claudia (Delainey Hayles), the vampire daughter they all the time put in the center. “One more round in the stormy romance of you two,” she laments, as she and Louis are put on trial by the vengeful Théâtre des Vampires coven in entrance of a reside viewers for making an attempt to kill their maker Lestat, who served as the star witness. But solely Claudia and her companion Madeleine (Roxane Duran) meet the solar for the crime, a horrific destiny that Lestat watches unfold.
While Hayles isn’t in the finale, she labored with Reid to be sure that final look of a kid pleading for his or her father burrowed deep into Lestat. “It was the sheer pain of it taking over and she was looking to the next person in the room that she trusts in a way, which is weird to say because she hates him so much,” Hayles says. “But out of everyone in the room, I think she trusts him the most.”
Being the recipient of Claudia’s ultimate gaze is seared into Lestat’s thoughts without end, and he tells Louis he has grow to be a prisoner to it.
“That is a huge impetus for this character, because he will forever be haunted by the guilt of Claudia’s death,” Reid says. “He will forever carry that shame. You don’t want him to come to terms with it either, or have closure on it like Louis does. It is one of those things that is going to continue to send him insane.”
As that is occurring, Louis has been entombed in a coffin of stones and left to starve after he says Armand mind-controlled the bloodthirsty viewers to condemn him to banishment somewhat than loss of life. EVentually, he’s freed by Armand and wastes no time burning down the theater with its nocturnal troupe inside, earlier than decapitating their boastful chief, Santiago (Ben Daniels). He then finds Lestat taking refuge in the Paris dwelling of his maker, Magnus. As punishment for collaborating in Claudia’s loss of life, Louis kisses Armand proper in entrance of Lestat, branding him with one more soul-crushing visible.
But the 70-year union between Louis and Armand that follows wasn’t marked by marital bliss both. Anderson says Louis by no means really forgives Armand for turning him and Claudia in to the coven to be put on trial, even when Armand saved him. “From that point on, Louis and Armand’s relationship is largely sustained as a spiteful act to punish Lestat,” he says. “There has to be a nugget of something, some affection or sense of safety or trust, to keep it alive. But there is always going to be that element of Louis saying, ‘I’m holding you here because I’m mad at you and I’m mad at him. You have to be there when I fall, or when I fuck up. You have to catch me.’”
Courtesy of AMC
With solely spite to carry them collectively, it’s no surprise they implode when the ultimate bombshell is dropped by Louis’ interviewer, Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), in present-day Dubai: Courtesy of the shadowy Talamasca group, Molloy presents proof that not solely did Lestat save Louis’ life in the trial, however Armand took credit score for the act of mercy after rehearsing and directing the play that supposed to kill Louis and Claudia for the pleasure of an viewers.
Reid was aware about the present’s twist on Louis’ true savior, however he additionally wasn’t stunned. “I don’t think there is any world where Lestat would let Louis die,” he says.
Thus, we arrive at the massive reunion, when a extra confident Louis seeks out a totally emaciated Lestat, who’s feeding on rats and barely clinging to sanity as he performs a piano fabricated from driftwood. He thanks Lestat for saving him, and for the “dark gift” of immortality that Louis has lengthy handled as a curse. Through bloody tears, they admit fault in hurting one another, and mourn the loss of life of Claudia. The scene ends with the two embracing as the partitions of Lestat’s fragile existence actually collapse on them. But Jones cautions their tumultuous love story gained’t be fully resolved by just a little factor like honesty.
“You can’t really wrap up Claudia’s death and everything that has happened in a bow,” he says. “It is just the beginning of figuring out a way forward for both of them.”
After Molloy’s ebook is printed –– and he’s made a vampire by a vengeful Armand –– Louis turns into the goal of vampires in every single place for exposing their existence. In the ultimate scene, as an alternative of hiding from these threats, he calls out to them along with his tackle and a declaration: “I own the night.”
Anderson says the true which means of that ultimate line, in his eyes, is one thing he’ll preserve to himself. But he was clear about what he didn’t need it to be, and says he and Jones even reworked it throughout filming.
“I was concerned this final moment for Louis was going to be about violence, like an invitation,” he says. “I wanted it to be about peace and a collection of himself. He has found some kind of quiet in himself. That’s why he could tune into those voices. I wanted it to feel like an inhale and an exhale for Louis.”
Hayles has a extra enthusiastic learn of it: “It was so gangsta!”
Across two seasons, the sequence has exhausted the pages of Rice’s first “Vampire Chronicles” novel to reply one query: Why did Louis need to do an interview in the first place? In the present’s sequence premiere, he tells Molloy it’s about “truth and reconciliation.” Ultimately, although, Jones says Louis was searching for one thing they known as “vampire grace.”
Anderson says Louis’ embrace of that grace might be seen in the two artifacts prominently displayed in his Zen backyard in the ultimate shot –– Claudia’s ultimate gown and a portrait of his brother Paul, whose suicide opened the sequence.
“I feel content with where he is,” Anderson says. “It felt like a closing of a chapter. This is the end of what began in 1910 and a really satisfying place to leave him now. If you were to never see Louis again, I feel really proud of him.”
But in fact, it gained’t be the final time Louis is seen: AMC confirms he, Molloy, Armand and others will be a part of Lestat for Season 3.
Rice’s sprawling “Vampire Chronicles” sequence spans 13 books full of dense origin tales and wild new character developments, which Jones says he hopes to mine over as many as six or seven seasons. (The sequence additionally serves as the mothership for AMC’s Immortal Universe, which incorporates extra Rice diversifications with “Mayfair Witches” and a recently ordered Talamasca series.)
But in Season 3, Lestat’s dissatisfaction with Molloy’s portrayal of him in his ebook will lead him on a path of rediscovery and a brand new life as a rock star, a narrative impressed by Rice’s second novel, “The Vampire Lestat.”
“The big difference moving forward is Lestat will be front and center telling the story, so it should feel like this show has been taken hostage by Lestat,” Jones says. “Aesthetically, it is going to feel different. It is not going to feel like two old guys in a room trying to figure out what brought them together. It is going to be over the shoulder of Lestat de Lioncourt, of whom you have probably seen about an 80%-accurate version of who he is — on fire and reckless. So it should be fun and dangerous.”
Eagle-eyed followers would possibly spot their glimpse at Lestat’s evolving musical tastes in his tragic New Orleans abode, the place Jones says to look carefully for a demolished grand piano that reveals “the music coming out of him made him so violent that he smashed it.” Imagine what he’ll do with a guitar!
For everybody else, what does a Lestat-dominated story imply? For Louis, Jones says the two-week interview with Molloy has irrevocably modified him. “If you put a shot of the opening shot in Episode 1 of the first season, which we match at the end of Season 2, and you put them next to each other, he will look like Abe Lincoln. That is a wise vampire who has lived pretty hard in 14 days.”
For the previously hard-partying Molloy, who Jones says treats being a vampire like being on rumspringa, would possibly discover frequent floor with this new Lestat. “The sex, drugs and rock n’ roll part of Eric is a fun place to play,” he says.
Armand, on the different hand, can solely go up from right here. “We wanted to let his betrayal of Louis be huge because hopefully we are writing six and seven seasons of this, and it gives us time to let Armand have more dimensions.”
But for followers hungry to see what’s in retailer for Season 3, look no additional than Season 2’s third episode and the flashbacks of Lestat completely basking in the highlight on the stage.
“For me going forward, I saw everything I needed to as I watched him move on stage as The Harlequin,” Jones says. “We have really only scratched the surface of the gifts Sam has as a performer.”
