Interview with the Vampire was a 1976 novel published by Anne Rice as her debut novel. The story centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the tale of his life to a reporter. The novel was a huge hit with readers and launched a long-running franchise titled The Vampire Chronicles. The mysterious vampire Lestat de Lioncourt became a breakout character and eventual star of the series. In 1994, Interview with the Vampire was adapted into a feature film starring Brad Pitt as Louis and Tom Cruise as Lestat. The film was a huge hit at the box office, then setting the record for the biggest non-summer release and biggest R-rated film as well as the fifth-biggest opening weekend at the time behind massive hits like Jurassic Park, Batman Returns, The Lion King and Batman.
After years of various studios attempting to reboot Interview with the Vampire as a movie, AMC secured the rights to the late Anne Rice’s body of work, consisting of all 18 novels in The Vampire Chronicles alongside its sister series The Mayfair Witches, and decided to turn it into a prestige television series. Interview with the Vampire premiered on AMC on October 2, 2022, just in time for the Halloween season, and is about to wrap up its first season. The series has been a critical and ratings hit, and praised for what it keeps similar to the novel and film but also what it decides to change in terms of adaptations.
The very nature of film and television will create major differences, but it is also interesting to examine how 28 years apart can determine the ways an adaptation changes. Here is how Interview with the Vampire differs as a movie and as a television show.
AMC Updates the Setting and Timeline
Warner Bros.
One of the biggest differences between Interview with the Vampire movie and the television adaptation is the period in which they take place. The movie sees Louis transformed into a vampire in 1791, whereas the TV series moves the timeline up to 1910. This update is done for character reasons on Louis’ part, but also changes the dynamic between Louis and Lestat as now the two have less time together before Louis breaks away from his maker.
The other major change is in terms of the present framing device. The Interview with the Vampire film saw the interview taking place for the first time in the then present-day, 1994. The television show, though, reframes the interview in two parts. The primary interview with the audience takes place in the present 2022 (in a post-COVID-19 world), but this is the second interview being conducted by reporter Daniel Molloy. There was a prior interview done when he was a younger man, where he reportedly asked to be turned into a vampire like at the end of the first movie. The creators of the series have decided to split Daniel Molloy’s role in the story into two points in his life, with his desire to become a vampire as a younger man recontextualizing his interview in the present.
Louis is Changed in a Major Way For the Series
AMC Studios
The updated setting also means some major characters get reworked as well, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Louis. Louis is the main character in the film is played by Brad Pitt and is a plantation slave owner like in the original novel. The newly updated time period for the series now shifts Louis into being a young closeted Black man in the 1910s played by Jacob Anderson.
The change to Louis’ race and background adds new layers of subtext not present in the original film. For one, it avoids the uncomfortable nature of the lead character having been a slave owner, but it also brings the concept of race front and center. Now he is a closeted Black man during the beginning of the 20th century. He has wealth before becoming a vampire, but is still looked down upon and fighting an uphill battle due to his race and sexual preferences. Even as a vampire, Louis is at times not in full control of his situation as he is at the service of Lestat. While Lestat frames it as love and the two being equals, for Louis the two are not equal in terms of power, and Lestat makes this clear by how easily he can hurt Louis. Louis’ conflict in the television series is more nuanced and layered with thematic text than his film counterpart.
Claudia’s Age Change Refocuses Her Arc
Warner Bros.
Claudia is a young child turned into a vampire by Lestat for Louis. The character is vital in every version of the story. Both the film and the television series change Claudia’s age from the original novel where she is five. The film makes her a ten-year-old girl (played by Kirsten Dunst) and the theme becomes about being an adult stuck in the body of a child, one that will never grow up. In the film, Louis is partially responsible for Claudia’s transformation, while in the television series he appears to be absolved of any direct action in her creation (though he could be leaving out information in his interview, which the series has established he has a history of doing).
The series ages Claudia to 14. While this keeps the focus on a person maturing while their body stays trapped in the same age, in the context of the series it becomes an exploration of puberty and how awful it can be to exist on the cusp of adulthood but never fully have it. She is close enough to adulthood but can’t quite pass it in terms of wanting a romantic partner, making her life all the more difficult as everything she could want as an adult is just out of reach. Recent vampire fiction like Twilight and True Blood has touched on the teenage vampire, but Interview with the Vampire gets truly into the psyche of what decades in that body would do to somebody.
However, the change from child to teenager does sort of take away from Claudia’s biggest conflict. Being stuck in a child’s body means she is dependent on the men she hates for her survival, whereas her television counterpart is more freely able to move about the world.
Subtext Becomes Text in AMC’s Interview
The AMC Interview with the Vampire can fully delve into the LGBTQ+ relationship that the 1994 film did not. The 1994 film kept things vague and made the relationship between Louis and Lestat subtext, allowing the audience to read it as a homosexual romance if they wanted without saying it. Part of this was just the sad reality at the time of the movie’s release, as no major studio was willing to invest heavily in gay or bisexual stories, with most queer cinema being independent.
On the other hand, the television series fully embraces the queer romance and turns the original movie’s subtext into the actual text of the show. Louis and Lestat are a fully out couple, with sexual desires and jealousy. AMC’s Interview with the Vampire embraces the freedom of cable television series by featuring lustfully intimate and also violent sexual acts. Rice’s vampire mythology introduced the concept of vampires needing to share blood to transform into one another, highlighting the sensual act of sharing fluids. While some vampire material might try to downplay this queer subtext, Interview with the Vampire fully embraces it and makes the series feel like a true 21st century adaptation of a classic piece of literature.
