Interview with the Vampire is getting an angsty rock ‘n’ roll makeover in its third season. It’s no longer (fully) the tale of Louis du Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), the centuries-old vampire who narrated his life’s story across Interview’s first two seasons. The narrative has since been hijacked by his flamboyant, venomous French ex, Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid). After season after season of slander from Louis, Lestat will finally tell his side of the story — AMC is even rebranding the show’s title to reflect that.
The Vampire Lestat, as the acclaimed vampire series is now called, steps into a “sexy pilgrimage across space, time, and trauma” in Season 3, according to its synopsis. With Lestat claiming the spotlight from Louis and the Vampire Armand (Assad Zaman), it makes sense that the series would veer into new themes. But The Vampire Lestat will be a different beast entirely: the players are the same in front of and behind the camera, but showrunner Rolin Jones claims that tone-wise, The Vampire Lestat
“You should imagine that aesthetically, and just the way the show feels and moves will feel like Lestat just hijacked the show,” Jones told The Wrap. “You will not feel like a 148-year-old guy talking to a 78-year-old guy anymore. That’s not happening.”
The “extended first look” released by AMC after New York Comic Con definitely supports that tonal change. While it opens with a familiar setting, reuniting Louis with the journalist-turned-vampire Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), the focus quickly shifts to Lestat. After Season 2, Louis’ life story — and his business with Daniel, who was recording it all — has more or less concluded: everyone can now read all about it in Daniel’s tell-all, Interview with the Vampire. Lestat, for his part, absolutely hates the way he was depicted in the book. As Daniel shows Louis in the trailer, Lestat has scrawled rebuttals like “NEVER F*CKING HAPPENED” all through his copy of Interview. But it’s not enough to lash out in prose. Lestat has always been a performer, so it only makes sense that he start a rock band and go on tour to tell his side of the story.
AMC’s teaser features plenty of on-stage debauchery, but it also flashes back to trace Lestat’s origins. His mother, Gabrielle de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle), will play a role in these flashbacks as well as his arc in present day, cranking up the tension on a story that feels combustible enough. For Jones, The Vampire Lestat follows “a near-Messiah having a nervous breakdown,” telling IndieWire that the new season will be much more “f*cking impulsive and erratic and wild.” It’s diving deep into Lestat’s psyche, forcing the character to confront centuries of suppressed emotion.
One scene in particular — which involves Lestat (and even Daniel) performing bloody bodily functions — might even force our vampires to reckon with their version of mortality. With half of the world’s bloodsuckers raring to destroy Louis and Daniel for their heretical book, Lestat could find himself caught in the crossfire. It won’t be all fun and games for anyone in The Vampire Lestat, but vampiric angst and interpersonal melodrama are exactly what fans crave from this show, and its latest season is unlikely to disappoint there.
