Sam Reid teases where The Vampire Lestat goes after that finale
The Lestat actor says AMC’s vampire saga is looking beyond Anne Rice’s second book as the story heads into darker territory.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Sam Reid says Lestat de Lioncourt’s next chapter will not be boxed in by one Anne Rice novel after The Vampire Lestat closed its first season with the world in ruins.
In an interview with Mashable, Reid said the next season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire series is drawing from a wider stretch of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, rather than sticking only to The Vampire Lestat, the second book in the series and the title used for the current season.
Reid said the writers are looking at “multiple books” across the larger story, with particular attention on the next three novels: The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil.
Rice’s next books are on the table
That tease points to a much bigger canvas for Lestat and the rest of AMC’s undead ensemble. In Rice’s The Queen of the Damned, the story shifts away from one central narrator and moves through several characters’ points of view, including Baby Jenks.
That book also brings Akasha to the center of the saga. In the AMC series, Akasha is played by Sheila Atim. The character’s rise drives destruction across both the human world and the vampire world, according to Mashable’s account of the novels.
The Tale of the Body Thief goes in a different direction: Lestat trades his immortal body for the mortal body of Raglan James. Mashable noted that Raglan James has already appeared in the TV universe since Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire.
Memnoch the Devil, the next book in Rice’s run, finds Lestat back in vampire form and encountering the title character.
Lestat’s failure is still the point
Reid did not spell out exact plot turns for the next season. He did, however, describe Lestat’s wider path as one built around a harsh lesson: the vampire keeps surviving, but he also has to accept that survival has not made him successful.
The Season 1 finale had plenty of wreckage to leave behind. Louis de Pointe du Lac, played by Jacob Anderson, survived a confrontation with his former lover Armand, played by Assad Zaman, after appearing decapitated. Lestat, meanwhile, made it through his own brush with death involving the long table and the Failure Finders.
The final scene then revealed the damage tied to the concert the episode had skipped over, showing a devastated world that Lestat had failed to prevent.
Reid also told Mashable that there is “a lot left unresolved with Gabriella,” Lestat’s mother. In the finale, Lestat pushed back against the long table after recognizing the abuse he suffered from her when he was mortal.
After his head was restored and he returned to life, Lestat confronted Gabriella while she was in her Sofia mode, refused to play the concert and called her a “monster.” Even so, Reid said Lestat’s attempt to break free came too late, because the world had already been destroyed.
AMC has not announced when more of The Vampire Lestat will arrive. The series is streaming on AMC and AMC+.
This story draws on original reporting from Mashable.