‘Interview With the Vampire’ Season 1 Covers a Specific Portion of Anne Rice Book
AMC is adapting Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire as the beginning of their Rice universe. Interview with the Vampire Season 1 won’t even cover the entire first novel. Producers have revealed how far season 1 will go.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the book and 1994 movie adaptation of Interview with the Vampire.]
Producer Rolin Jones was on a Television Critics Association Zoom panel on Aug. 10. Here’s what he said about the Interview with the Vampire Season 1, and what that means for the story and season 2. Interview with the Vampire airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on AMC and streams on AMC+.
‘Interview with the Vampire’ Season 1 adapts half the Anne Rice book
Jones knew the end point for Interview with the Vampire Season 1 and it is not the last page of Rice’s book.
“We are going through the first half of the book of Interview with the Vampire and AMC has bought all of the books,” Jones said. “AMC wants to make all of the books.”
A full season of television actually gives Jones room to expand on Interview with the Vampire. Director Alan Taylor described some of the ways Jones explored what living forever really means.
“I think coming straight from Anne Rice, she found a monster that is more human than human,” Taylor said. “I mean with this monster, you take any human relationship and add time and it deepens the questions and the agonies and the absurdities that we explore about humanity. So, it’s a rare monster that lets you spiral deeper into humanity rather than becoming just like a. I think vampires are fascinating because they let us talk about what challenges us as humans.”
What happens halfway through ‘Interview with the Vampire’?
In the book and the movie, Lestat dies. Louis and Claudia trick him into drinking blood that’s already dead. So it’s a good idea to at least give Sam Reid a whole season on TV.
But don’t worry, that’s not the end of Lestat either. He comes back at the end to drink interviewer Terry Malloy. Although that didn’t happen in the show… yet. Malloy survived the first interview and he’s back to interview Louis again.
Plus, Lestat returns again in his own books like The Vampire Lestat. That was partly adapted in the film Queen of the Damned. So there’s much more Lestat for future seasons of the show and Reid has already read ahead.
“I definitely read The Vampire Lestat and many other books that she wrote with Lestat in them in preparation for the role, absolutely,” Reid said. “It’s a really fun thing to be able to have this second premise of the second interview to be able to bring more of the Lestat that existed from The Vampire Lestat onwards into the world of Interview With A Vampire. So, you get a more nuanced version of him which Anne certainly developed over 18 books, than he first book. So, yeah, absolutely went back to that as source material.”
What would ‘Interview with the Vampire’ Season 2 be about?
If season 1 adapts half the book, that suggests Interview with the Vampire Season 2 would cover the second half. That means some new characters Louis and Claudia will meet. AMC already announced season 2 will happen.
After Lestat’s death, Louis and Claudia meet Armand and his vampire actor troupe. They haven’t even cast those characters yet as they are presumably not in season 1.
That section of the book also contains the death of Claudia. If there’s one big change the show makes, hopefully they keep Claudia around a little longer. They’re already changed her to a 14-year-old. That’s three years older than 11 in the movie which was much older than 5 in the book.
