Jacob Anderson knew that AMC’s television adaptation of Anne Rice’s beloved Interview With the Vampire novel had teeth. “I just had a really strong feeling that I loved the show and I thought it was great,” Anderson said. “At this point, I need to love it in order to do it.” Still, Anderson, who rose to fame starring as Grey Worm on Game of Thrones, was worried that the epic queer supernatural love story between his Louis and the French Lestat (Sam Reid) might take a little while to connect with fans, despite the fact that Interview With the Vampire was renewed for season two before it premiered on October 2.
“Hopefully we surprised some people—people that had reservations about the fact that we’re adapting this really special source material that still stands aside from lots of horror literature,” Anderson said. “I remember just wanting to say to people, ‘Stick with us. Stay with us. There are things that might seem odd now that will make sense or come full circle if you are patient.’”
It all comes full circle on Sunday, November 13, when the seventh and final episode of the season airs at 10 p.m. The penultimate episode of the season, “Like Angels Put in Hell by God,” finds Anderson’s Louis decimated both emotionally and physically after an altercation with Lestat, throwing into question their entire relationship. Rehabilitated by their pseudo-vampire daughter, Claudia (Bailey Bass), Louis realizes that it might be time to leave Lestat once and for all, for both of their sakes. “They’re prisoners in that house and the only way to be free of that is to kill him,” says Anderson. On a Zoom from London, Anderson chatted with VF about vampires, unconventional families, and the thin line between love and hate.
Vanity Fair: Louis begins episode six having just been brutalized by Lestat. What emotional and mental space is Louis in at that moment?
Jacob Anderson: I think that he’s given up. He finds a new purpose in the way that Claudia is looking after him and taking care of him. I think he finds that there’s this other dimension to their relationship, this new dimension. He always thought of himself as being the one in that dynamic that needed to take care of her. In the way that she rehabilitates him, he sees this new grown-up version of her that is able to hold her own. She really nurses him back to life, essentially. So I think that there is a renewed sense of hope in their relationship.
Does Louis still see a romantic future for himself and Lestat?
I honestly think that Louis doesn’t want to take Lestat back at that point. I’ve never been on the receiving end of that kind of abuse before, so I can’t speak to it in a lived way. But I think that he’s at a stage where he can see the wood for the trees. I think that kind of instantaneous brutality—that kind of shock to the system…he’s still in that place when we first come back to him. He’s still reliving the experience. He’s just very confused. I think he never really expected that impulsive violence to be inflicted on him by Lestat. He’s obviously seen it. He’s seen flashes of it.
But it’s often been directed at other people. This is the first time that [Lestat’s violence] has been directed at Louis.
You don’t think that somebody who loves you would ever treat you like that. I think nobody expects somebody that loves them and says they love them to behave like that or to treat them like that regardless of how they behave around others. That’s part of the mirage, I guess, that Lestat puts in front of [Louis] through their relationship. It’s like, ‘I will take care of you. I will love you, I will fight for you. I’ll protect you. I will go with what you want to do. I will be there for you.’ But the bit that isn’t said is ‘unless you try and leave me’ or ‘unless you get on the wrong side of me,’ [or] ‘unless you get in the way of something that I need or something else gets in the way of me and you.’ That’s the line. There’s always a line and the line moves, occasionally.
