AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is the best new (to me) show I’ve watched this year. After Season 1 dropped on Netflix, I finished it in like a day then immediately signed up for AMC+ to watch Season 2.
One of the things that makes the show so incredible is how much passion the cast and crew put into making it. So, here are 21 interesting behind-the-scenes facts about the show:
1.
Jacob Anderson (who plays Louis de Pointe du Lac) told Vanity Fair that the key thing he and Sam Reid (who plays Lestat de Lioncourt) have as scene partners “is complete and utter trust.”
2.
The final scene of Season 2 — where Louis and Lestat reunite in New Orleans during a hurricane — was filmed in Prague during a blizzard. Since they were short on time, Jacob and Sam only had two takes each.
3.
For Season 1, Episode 1, Jacob learned to tap dance. However, he got COVID, so he had to take his lessons remotely while self-isolating.
4.
To prepare for Season 1, Sam learned French. He also took singing and piano lessons.
For a scene on the train with Claudia in Season 1, Episode 6, he learned dog training too.
5.
Jacob took home the Amex card Louis used in the Season 1, Episode 6 scene where he met Daniel for the first time.
6.
Sam took home Lestat’s blood-soaked shirt from the Season 1 finale.
7.
SFX artist Howard Berger modeled the vampires’ eye colors after Anne Rice’s descriptions in the books.
8.
Howard also told Below the Line, “We ended up doing pretty average-size fangs. We had three different sizes. I would call it, like, the rest size, which was like their normal size. And then there was, like, their attack, which were bigger teeth.”
9.
The vampires’ nails were a challenge, so Tami Lane, Howard’s co-department head, had the idea of sending the actors to get acyrlics. Having a manicurist come to the trailers ended up being “cost prohibitive,” so they found a local nail salon to work with.
10.
Assad Zaman initially thought he was auditioning to play Rashid, Louis’s household employee. It wasn’t until his third audition that Rolin threw him the “curveball” that Rashid was actually Armand.
11.
During scenes where “Rashid” was on his iPad in Season 1, Assad was often playing Minecraft.
12.
Bailey Bass was eager to tell a story through Claudia’s hair. At first, the hair team struggled to find pictures of Black girls in the 1910s and ’20s, much less examples of Bailey’s curl pattern. However, advice from Jacob encouraged her to persevere.
13.
For Eric Bogosian, playing Daniel Molloy, who’s turned into a vampire at the end of Season 2, fulfilled a longtime dream.
14.
Assad has a secret Armand playlist to help him get into character. He told Vulture, “I told showrunner Rolin Jones about one of the songs in it. No, the rest of it is mine, I’m afraid. It’s quite special to me.”
15.
After Season 1 wrapped, Bailey attended therapy to disconnect herself from Claudia.
16.
The process of casting Delainey Hayles as Claudia (a role she took over in Season 2) moved extremely fast. When she first tried out, “the name of the character was completely different, so [she] didn’t actually know who [she] was auditioning for.” A few days after sending in her self-tape, she received an offer for an in-person audition the very next day. The day after that, she got the role, and the following day, she flew to Prague.
17.
When they weren’t filming, Jacob and Delainey spent a lot of time together. They went on long walks and to dinner.
18.
There are a lot of significant differences between the show and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire novel, but there was never a version of the show where Claudia survived.
19.
Some members of the Théâtre des Vampires were played by actors from the British theater company 1927. Suzanne Andrade and Esme Appleton, who play Celeste and Estelle respectively, co-founded the company with animator Paul Barritt, and composer Lillian Henley.
20.
Since Season 3 is based on The Vampire Lestat, Lestat will become a rockstar. They’re “going to try to beat Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Rocky Horror.”
21.
And finally, showrunner Rolin Jones told Vulture, “If you go into every season like you’re going to get canceled, you just say, ‘Fuck it, go for it!'”
What’s your favorite thing about Interview with the Vampire? Let me know in the comments!
