After two seasons spent inside Louis de Pointe du Lac’s fractured memories, “Interview with the Vampire” is cranking the amplifiers, stripping off the old paint and handing the spotlight to everyone’s favorite blood-guzzling charisma machine, Lestat.
Now reintroduced as “The Vampire Lestat,” the series’ third season is less a minor refresh than a full-blown reinvention. Sam Reid’s Lestat has emerged from the shadows as a rock star, launching a tour while looking back across centuries of bloodshed, heartbreak and his long, complicated history with Louis. The shift gives the series an entirely new visual and musical language without abandoning the emotional wreckage that made its first two seasons so compelling. But this time it has a new, highly erratic narrator.
Based largely on Anne Rice’s second Vampire Chronicles novel, the season also opens the door to Lestat’s origins and the increasingly strange mythology surrounding the vampires. Reid leads the cast alongside Jacob Anderson as Louis, Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy and Assad Zaman as Armand, with the series continuing to expand AMC’s larger Immortal Universe.
In the interview below, showrunner Rolin Jones discusses reinventing the series, building Lestat’s rock star world, the creation of original music, the cast’s preparation and the challenges of adapting Anne Rice’s expanding mythology. He also talks about balancing the source material with new ideas and embracing the stranger corners of the Vampire Chronicles.
“The Vampire Lestat” finale premieres Sunday, July 19th on AMC and AMC+.
Watch the full interview with showrunner Rolin Jones below.
Mike DeAngelo is a film writer, podcaster, and entertainment journalist whose work has appeared in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, and beyond. He is the host of The Playlist's podcasts The Discourse and Bingeworthy.
