Interview With the Vampire stars felt 'huge amounts of pressure' in adapting Anne Rice's novel
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It's never easy adapting a beloved book series, especially a classic like Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire. Her 1976 novel was previously adapted into a movie starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in 1994, which earned two Oscar nominations. But AMC is resurrecting the undead gothic horror story about the love/hate relationship between two 18th century vampires once more, this time as a new seven-episode series due later this year.
Starring Game of Thrones alum Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac — who was turned into a vampire by Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid, The Astronaut Wives Club) in the 18th century — as he tells his life story to a modern-day journalist. Anderson and Reid, along with their costars Bailey Bass and Eric Bogosian, stopped by EW's Comic-Con video suite on Friday to preview their new series and how they hope that fans of Rice's work are satisfied with this adaptation.
AMC
"I'm a huge fan of the books and always have been so when I heard it was being made I really, really hoped I'd have the opportunity to be in it or audition for it," Reid says. "And then reading [showrunner] Rolin [Jones]'s script, which is such a beautiful adaption of such an extraordinary piece of literature, it's a really exciting thing to be part of. I hope the fans of the book are really excited because we really do serve the original story, and we get to bring in more elements because we're looking at all of the books. It's an undertaking, really."
The cast is definitely feeling the pressure too. "Massively," Anderson says, while Reid adds, "Huge amounts of pressure."
"But the scripts are so strong," adds Bogosian.
"We really created this world in the essence of Anne Rice," says Bass.
Anderson agrees. "It's very much in the spirit of Anne Rice," he explains. "There's something achingly human in it. It's kind of like looking in a mirror. You're seeing things you almost wish people didn't observe or know about you. It's how I felt reading these books. These monsters are so us."
AMC
Bass says that while the characters and story are based in supernatural lore, it's still "very relatable; we have the theme of family and the theme of love." Bogosian adds, "And then there's sort of a sadness underneath it all. The melancholy that's part of Anne Rice."
While filming the series, becoming a vampire required the use of special contacts and, of course, fangs, which delighted Reid the most. "In terms of fangs, as a kid, I had a pair of fangs I used to go everywhere with," he says. "It was literally like living a childhood dream." The cast also got to keep their fangs after filming wrapped on season 1. "I adore them," Reid says before joking, "I go to sleep in them."
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