The TV series Interview with the Vampire has been renamed ahead of its third season.
The series, which is an adaptation of Anne Rice’s 1976 novel, has received acclaim since its debut in 2022.
Jacob Anderson stars in the show as vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who shares his story with journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian).
In flashbacks, we see his escapades with Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and teenage vampire Claudia, who was originally played by Bailey Bass before being replaced by Delainey Hayles in season two.
Season three, which will adapt Rice’s second novel in the series, will no longer be called Interview with the Vampire, with AMC announcing at San Diego Comic-Con that the show will be repackaged asThe Vampire Lestat.
New cast additions includeJennifer Ehle, Christopher Heyerdahl, Damien Atkins, Ella Ballentine and Jeanine Serralles, while Assad Zaman returns as the vampire Armand.
A film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, directed by Neil Jordan, was released in 1994.
Tom Cruise played Lestat – a casting decision that was criticised by fans of Rice’s book, who questioned if he could do the character justice.
In 2024, Jordan reflected on the difficulty of casting the role, revealing that he had initially offered the part to Daniel Day-Lewis.
“The problem was the casting of Lestat. Brad Pitt had agreed to play Louis and somehow assumed Daniel Day-Lewis would be playing Lestat, an assumption shared by Anne,” he told The Telegraph.
“I offered it to Daniel, who read it, and, as I expected, didn’t want to play the character.
“A few years before, he had confined himself to a wheelchair to play Christy Brown in My Left Foot. He would have had to sleep in a coffin for the entirety of this production if he followed the same practice. So we moved on.”
Jordan explained that it was after he met Cruise twice at his Brentwood house that he realized the actor had a lot in common with Lestat, affirming his decision.
“I finally got it,” Jordan continued. “He had to live a life removed from the gaze of others. He had made a contract with the hidden forces, whatever they turned out to be. He had to hide in the shadows, even in the Hollywood sunlight. He would be eternally young. He was a star. He could well be Lestat.”
Noting that Cruise is “also a superb actor,” he added that “that small fact got lost in the outrage that followed”.
“Half of America, it seemed, had read Anne Rice’s books and wanted a say in the casting of Lestat,” he said. “Anne herself took to the airwaves, saying that it was as if I had cast Edward G Robinson as Rhett Butler. But she was wrong and was later big enough to admit it.”
Critics eventually came to appreciate Cruise’s performance, and it is now considered one of his defining roles.
“He’s a great actor,” Jordan said. “If he says he can do something, he will do it in a way that people will be shocked by. Tom has become the last remaining film star. It’s kind of strange.”
