The Vampire Lestat, as portrayed by Sam Reid in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, has dramatic moments, scary moments, and a very serious personal history full of tragedy and betrayal inflicted on him as well as by him.
But he’s not a serious person. Trauma will do that to you! Let’s take a breather, because vampires can’t, and celebrate Halloween with some funny Lestat moments from Interview with the Vampire. You don’t get a nickname like the Brat Prince without a good sense of humor.
Lestat laughs at himself and others constantly. Claudia, at the time played by Bailey Bass, notes in Season 1 that he has a tendency to make jokes at their expense when he’s scared. That’s certainly one reason! His humor comes from insecurity as well as security, depending on the situation. What use does a vampire have for a filter?
“No. You don’t bite the blood. You suck it.”
Season 1, Episode 2
The show revealed early on how blunt it was willing to be about the reality of being vampires, to great dry comedic effect. To be fair, just about every single character on Interview with the Vampire has the capacity for hilarity–even Louis, played by Jacob Anderson, who’s famously broodier than his companion. It’s a fun show!
With Lestat, the bluntness can manifest through the way he teaches Louis and Claudia how to hunt. Or it can just be a passing remark. Another one of my favorites is when Louis wants to read and discuss his book, and Lestat dismisses him with “you sound like every pompous Sorbonne student I’ve ever eaten” in Season 1, Episode 5. So rude!
“You are a library of confusion.”
Season 1, Episode 2
Lestat is still getting to know the 20th century, racism in America, and Louis himself. In this moment, Louis has just killed a man whose microaggressions set him off. What’s nice about Lestat’s response is that it’s not as mocking as he is in other scenes. Lestat may be frustrated and confused, but still manages to turn this witty phrase and without passing judgment.
“I don’t bite.”
That’s just a classic joke. Dramatic irony at its finest. He absolutely does bite! Lestat loves to wink at his own vampirism in front of mortals so much that it often gets him in trouble. We can only assume that, when he’s a public facing rockstar in Season 3, this type of joke will intensify.
“Well, she’s not my type. I like a fuller figure.”
Season 1, Episode 5
Of course, Lestat’s dark humor does cross lines. He may have lived so long that he doesn’t care about taboos, the way we stop caring about what people think (within reason) as we age. But the rest of us can admit when he’s gone too far. We’re laughing at Lestat’s audacity rather than the words themselves.
When they turned Claudia into a vampire, Louis and Lestat did not, as so many men do, take into consideration that girls are people too. Doomed to be in the body of a minor for eternity, but maturing in every other way, she confronts them with a harsh reality: the only men who find her attractive are pedophiles and young boys. How is she supposed to contend with that for the rest of her life without losing her mind? Lestat, of course, responds with a joke. Again, it’s okay to laugh, even though it’s awful!
“Rumors. Envy.”
Season 1, Episode 7
Just before Claudia and Louis enact their plan to kill Lestat, they throw a party that puts him on a pedestal. (The better to knock him down, my dears.) Uncle Les rises to the occasion and goes full diva, harkening back to his commedia dell’arte days in Paris. He bites into a prop baby. He jokes about the boring husband of a woman he slept with to the woman’s face. When she and the other ladies fawning over him claim that they heard he was sick, he claims that everyone is just jealous. He’s in Regina George mode and basically invented the bisexual icon.
“What’s the secret? Oh, I’m the secret.”
Season 2, Episode 4
Technically, since this and the next quote at the beginning of Season 2 are spoken by a version of Lestat that Louis is hallucinating, these are funny Louis moments. (You could go further and argue that anything from Louis’ POV is actually credited to him, but I don’t want to give us all headaches.) Let’s chalk this funny moment up to Reid’s performance and trust Louis’ memory of Lestat at that time. The way he mocks Louis and Armand (Assad Zaman) flirting is hilarious. Imagining your ex saying “oooh, are you guys talking about me” while you’re talking about them is a good bit, and not not relatable.
“Romeo?! Barely Balthasar.”
Season 2, Episode 4
Please don’t bully me for being a theatre kid adult person, but the specificity of Season 2 with regards to the Théâtre des Vampires was deeply amusing. Even a troupe of vampires is committed to the craft and cringe to be around if you’re an outsider. Of course Armand chose the corniest Romeo and Juliet speech to adapt and recite to Louis–who does not even like theatre or opera–and of course Louis’ hallucination of Lestat comes back with a deep cut calling Armand nothing more than a cameo in their story.
What I find so interesting about this, as an unbiased observer, is that later in the season Armand makes a similar jab at Santiago using characters from a different Shakespeare play. “Too old to be Hamlet,” he sneers. “Too young to be Polonius. Know your place, thesp, or join your maker in oblivion.” Setting aside the fact that it’s devastating for anyone to live for centuries and still believe in typecasting, Armand and Lestat do have that in common. Snobs, the both of them! Maybe that’s why they didn’t work out.
“Thank you, ten minutes.”
Season 2, Episode 6
The first time we see Lestat in the flesh in Season 2, and he’s doing a drama club meme? He can’t be serious for a single iota of a second! Again, please remember that I, too, am a former theatre kid and therefore a member of a protected class. But there’s no reason for Interview With the Vampire to be this theatrically accurate other than to be hilarious.
Responding to a crew member’s warning that you have a certain number of minutes to the house opening, places, or your entrance with “thank you” and then repeating the number of minutes to confirm you heard them is still used today! “Thank you, five” and “thank you, places” are so commonplace that they’re like inside jokes within the enormous community that is the stage.
“I’m not in the mood.”
Season 2, Episode 6
Vampires are cats. You know what I mean? They wish to be seen as vicious, but they’re easily bored. Even when Lestat just wants to be left alone to sadly ponder over his life and everything that has just transpired with Louis and Claudia, at this point played by Delainey Hayles, at the hand of Armand (and with his own help), he’s dramatic about it. You can’t help but laugh at his emo turn.
“Siri, pause.”
Season 2, Episode 6
Easily, one of the funniest things Lestat has ever said. It’s also one of the most recent. This moment, in the Season 2 finale, is the first glimpse audiences got of modern day Lestat. What better way to usher us into the 21st century than with a reveal that he’s technologically literate for a 250+ year old vampire?
This funny moment is so well-deployed in the scene. It breaks the tension just before Louis and Lestat have one of their most heart-wrenching conversations about Claudia’s death and Louis’ attempted suicide. This moment also, albeit indirectly, calls attention how ridiculous Lestat looks, holding a plank of wood painted to look like a keyboard in a demolished house in the middle of a hurricane. His whole vibe may be macabre and a cry for help, but if Lestat can laugh at the macabre so can we.
Bonus: “I BET.”
Season 3, TBD
This crash-out from the teaser for Interview with the Vampire Season 3, officially titled The Vampire Lestat after the second novel in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, has been going around social media since it was first shown to audiences at San Diego Comic-Con and released online after New York Comic-Con. It’s so hysterically dramatic and cathartic and funny that, as you can see above, a legion of fans memorized and shouted it back at the screen when they showed the trailer at The Vampire Lestat‘s NYCC panel. Lestat, you hilarious sicko! You are so loved.
(featured image: AMC)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
