Interview with the Vampire

Cast and characters

Main

Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac / Thomas Pitt, a 145-year-old vampire who summons Daniel Molloy to redo their unpublished interview of 49 years earlier. In 1910, Louis is a 33-year-old closeted Creole man and successful brothel owner in New Orleans. He is haunted by guilt and seethes at the racism directed at him. In the present day, he uses the alias Thomas Pitt as a business magnate.

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt, a 265-year-old hedonistic French vampire who falls in love with Louis upon his arrival in New Orleans. He later turns Louis into a vampire but is irritated by Louis's preoccupation with humans. His background of abuse at the hands of his family and maker makes him fearful of abandonment. Lestat forms the rock band The Vampire Lestat as a response to the publication of Daniel's book. Reid also portrays Lestat's body double, Jarda Klapek, in the third season.

Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy, a cynical journalist in his 70s with Parkinson's disease and a long history of drug and alcohol abuse whose interview with Louis in 1973 ends with him being attacked. He later publishes his second interview with Louis as the book Interview with the Vampire without Louis's consent and is made a vampire by Armand.

Bailey Bass (season 1) and Delainey Hayles (season 2–present) as Claudia, a 14-year-old girl whom Lestat turns into a vampire at Louis's insistence to save her life. She forms a daughter-father relationship with the pair and struggles with her fate as an eternal teenager. Hayles also plays Regina, a waitress with a strong resemblance to Claudia, in the third season.

Assad Zaman as Armand, a 514-year-old vampire who is Louis's current turned former lover, who saves Daniel's life during the first interview. In the 1940s, he is the leader of the vampiric troupe the Théâtre des Vampires. Armand first appears under the disguise of Rashid, Louis's dutiful servant.

Ben Daniels as Santiago (season 2), the leading thespian of the Théâtre des Vampires, who is increasingly suspicious of Louis and Claudia. He believes Armand is an inadequate leader.

Joseph Potter as Nicolas de Lenfent (season 3; guest season 2), Lestat's former friend, lover, and fledgling.

Recurring

Kalyne Coleman as Grace de Pointe du Lac Freniere (season 1), Louis's newly married sister

John DiMaggio as Alderman Fenwick (season 1), a racist businessman looking to take advantage of Louis

Chris Stack as Thomas "Tom" Anderson (season 1), the owner of the Fair Play Saloon, an upscale brothel

Rae Dawn Chong as Florence de Pointe du Lac (season 1), Louis's widowed mother

Jeff Pope as Finn O'Shea (season 1), one of Louis's enforcers

Dana Gourrier as Bricktop Williams (season 1), a prostitute who works for Louis

Christian Robinson as Levi Freniere (season 1), Grace's new husband and Louis and Paul's brother-in-law

Maura Grace Athari as Antoinette Brown (season 1, guest season 3), a blues singer who becomes romantically involved with Lestat

Bally Gill as Rashid (season 2, guest season 3), Louis and Armand's servant, later revealed to be a Talamasca agent

Suzanne Andrade as Celeste (season 2), one of Théâtre des Vampires' thespians

Esme Appleton as Estelle (season 2), one of Théâtre des Vampires' thespians

Jake Cecil as Gustave (season 2), one of Théâtre des Vampires' thespians

Roxane Duran as Madeleine Éparvier (season 2), a dressmaker who becomes Louis's fledgling and Claudia's immortal companion

Notable guest stars

Steven G. Norfleet as Paul de Pointe du Lac (seasons 1 and 3), Louis's troubled brother

Damon Daunno as Bruce; later renamed Killer (seasons 1 and 3), a lone vampire Claudia meets during her travels

Luke Brandon Field as young Daniel Molloy (seasons 1–2)

Blake Ritson as Morgan Ward (season 2), an English refugee Louis and Claudia meet in Romania

Stephanie Heyes as Emilia (season 2), a Romanian refugee, Morgan's partner

Gabriel Frielich as Felix (season 2), a fledgling vampire and rat-catcher for Lestat

David Costabile as Leonard (season 2), a TV personality who interviews Daniel

Sheila Atim as Akasha (season 3), "the Queen of the Damned", progenitor of all vampires

Ella Ballentine as Baby Jenks (season 3), a drugged fan Lestat drinks on stage and Bruce's fiancée

Gage Munroe as young adult Lestat de Lioncourt (season 3)

Sarah Afful as Merrick Mayfair (season 3), a New Orleans-based witch Lestat commissioned to summon Claudia's spirit

Episodes

Production

Development

A new franchise adaptation of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles was initially in development as a film series at Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. The novel series had previously been adapted into Interview with the Vampire, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, in 1994 and the less commercially successful 2002 sequel, Queen of the Damned. Rice's son, Christopher Rice, had adapted the screenplay, and Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were set as producers. The project paused until November 26, 2016, when Anne Rice had regained the rights to the franchise with the intention to develop the novels into a television series, where she and her son would serve as executive producers. Upon this announcement, Rice stated, "A television series of the highest quality is now my dream for Lestat, Louis, Armand, Marius, and the entire tribe. Though we had the pleasure of working with many fine people in connection with this plan, it did not work out. It is, more than ever, abundantly clear that television is where the vampires belong."

On April 28, 2017, it was announced that Paramount Television Studios and Anonymous Content had optioned the rights after a competitive month-long bidding war. Christopher Rice was attached to rewrite the screenplay, with Anonymous Content's David Kanter and Steve Golin joining as executive producers. On January 11, 2018, Bryan Fuller became the showrunner, but quit later that month to not interfere with what the Rices were planning. In a competitive situation, Hulu put the project in development on July 17, 2018, with Dee Johnson replacing Fuller as showrunner on February 19, 2019. It was later announced on December 19, 2019, that Hulu had decided not to move forward with the project, with Rice adding her trilogy Lives of the Mayfair Witches, the rights to which were still owned by Warner Bros. Pictures, to the larger, complete rights package. Paramount Television was in a position to regain the rights to the novels as it was reported the studio was among the four bidders seeking the property.

On May 13, 2020, it was announced that AMC Networks had purchased the rights to the intellectual property encompassing 18 novels and the possibility to develop feature films and television series from the deal. On June 24, 2021, AMC gave an adaptation of the first novel in the series, Interview with the Vampire, a series order consisting of eight episodes, with the series scheduled to premiere in 2022. Rolin Jones was attached as creator, showrunner, and writer. Mark Johnson was named executive producer alongside Jones under their overall deals with AMC Studios to oversee the universe for AMC, with Anne and Christopher Rice set as non-writing executive producers. On July 19, 2021, it was announced that Alan Taylor was attached as an executive producer and to direct the first two episodes of the first season. On September 28, 2022, ahead of the series premiere, AMC renewed Interview with the Vampire for a second season which will cover the second half of the novel, bringing the series to a total of fifteen episodes.

Writing and themes

With AMC's intention of creating a universe out of Rice's work, show creator and writer Rolin Jones stated that the later books in The Vampire Chronicles influenced the decisions made when adapting the story and acknowledged the challenge between being loyal to the source material and keeping the story interesting to those who are familiar with it. Among the significant changes is Louis's background, which shifted from a white planter and slave owner in the late 1700s to a wealthy black brothel owner in Storyville, a red light district in early 20th-century New Orleans. Jones said that the changes were made to place the story in a "time period that was as exciting aesthetically as the 18th century was without digging into a plantation story that nobody really wanted to hear now". The series also embraces the queer relationship that exists in Rice's novels, unlike the 1994 film adaptation. On the relationship between the two lead characters, Jones stated that the show is a gothic romance and that he wanted to "write a very excitable, aggressive, toxic, beautiful love story". Critics praised the series's writing for avoiding color-blind casting and allowing the series to explore themes such as race, sexuality, history, and abuse.

Other themes explored by the series are subjectivity and memory. With the tagline "memory is the monster", the first two seasons see Louis "recovering repressed memories and reliving the ones he could never forget" while being challenged by Daniel. The series shifts "the whole tone of the world" to Lestat's perspective for season three, in which Lestat refuses to confront his own memories until he's forced to. Speaking at the ATX Television Festival in 2026, Jones admitted that there was "an allergy in the [writer’s] room to the word truth". He went on to say that "there's nothing that's not not truthful" and "there are very few outright lies" in the show.

Casting

In August 2021, Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson were confirmed to play the lead roles of Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac. Two months later, Bailey Bass joined the cast in a starring role as Claudia, whose age was changed from five-year-old in the novel to fourteen-year-old to avoid Louisiana's child labor law. Kalyne Coleman subsequently landed a recurring role as Grace, Louis's sister. In 2022, Christian Robinson and Assad Zaman joined the cast as Levi and Rashid, respectively, while Eric Bogosian was cast as Daniel Molloy in an undisclosed capacity. In April the same year, Maura Grace Athari completed the cast as Antoinette.

Anderson, Reid, Bogosian, and Zaman reprised their roles in the second season, while Delainey Hayles replaced Bass as Claudia due to "a variety of unforeseen circumstances". In 2023, Ben Daniels and Roxane Duran joined the cast to play Santiago and Madeleine. In February 2024, upon the announcement of the second season's release date, David Costabile joined the cast as a guest star.

The main cast, except Daniels, was set to reprise their roles in the season three. In July 2025, Jennifer Ehle and Damien Atkins joined the show as Gabriella, Lestat's mother, and Magnus. They were also joined by Ella Ballentine, Jeanine Serralles, and Christopher Heyerdahl. Sheila Atim was later cast as Akasha, the mother of all vampires and the title character of the third book The Queen of the Damned in October, while Noah Reid, Ryan Kattner, Seamus Patterson and Sarah Swire joined the cast as Lestat's band members. In January 2026, Amaka Umeh was announced in the role of Dee Pharma, a member of Lestat's entourage.

Filming

Principal photography for the first season began in late 2021, running from December to April 2022 in New Orleans. Production designer Mara LePere-Schloop recreated Storyville district by building about 40 period building facades for the show's Iberville and Liberty Street on a backlot at The Ranch Studios in Chalmette from October 2021 to January 2022. The show was also shot at several New Orleans landmarks, including Gallier House, which Anne Rice used as the model for Lestat's townhouse, and Beauregard-Keyes House, for the interior of Fair Play Saloon.

The second season officially began filming on April 3, 2023, and was expected to end on August 31, for an "early-to-mid 2024" premiere. Most of the shoot took place at Barrandov Studios in Prague, which stood for Paris, with location shootings including Old Town Square, Vyšehrad complex, and Estates Theatre. Additional filmings were also done in Paris and New Orleans. Craig Zisk was named as one of the directors. For the choreography, animation, and stage concepts of the show's theatre troupe Théâtre des Vampires, the show worked with real-life British theatre company 1927, whose founders Suzanne Andrade and Esme Appleton also starred in the show. On May 3, given the script for the series had already been written, AMC spokesperson confirmed that the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike was expected to not disrupt the series's schedule, but rewriting was not allowed. Filming was eventually halted in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike and resumed after "roughly 10-week hiatus" on October 2, following AMC Networks' interim agreements with the union and the conclusion of the WGA strike.

The third season began filming the week of June 16, 2025, in Toronto, with Craig Zisk back to direct the first episode. At the premiere of Talamasca: The Secret Order, executive producer Mark Johnson informed that the filming was set to conclude on October 23, 2025.

Music

Rolin Jones asked his former The Exorcist collaborator Daniel Hart to score the series. Hart and Jones centered the score's style on the period in which the show's protagonists live and discussed early 20th-century American classical musicians as influences. Hart composed a theme for each of the main characters on the tone of their voices so the music would be a part of their internal monologues. Milan Records released the first season soundtrack album on October 22, 2022, which includes the song "Come to Me," performed by Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt. The second season soundtrack album was released on May 17, 2024, five days after the season premiere.

Ahead of the release of the third season, the song "Long Face" (written by Hart and performed by Reid as Lestat) was released as The Vampire Lestat's first official single on February 13, 2026, along with artist profiles for The Vampire Lestat on streaming services. The third season's opening theme, "All Fall Down", was released as the second single on March 13, 2026. A cover of Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself" was released as the third single on April 24, 2026, "Butterscotch Bitch" was released as the fourth single on May 15, 2026, and "Your Biggest Fan" was released as the fifth single on May 29, 2026. On 2 June 2026, Reid performed a one-night-only 30-minute concert in-character as the Vampire Lestat at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

Release

The series premiered on AMC on October 2, 2022, with an advance release three days earlier on the network's streaming service AMC+, in all of its regions except Spain, where it premiered on January 12, 2023. The rest of the seven-episode first season was released weekly, with a one-week advance on AMC+. In 2023, the series was aired on BBC Two in the United Kingdom, ABC Television in Australia, and Sky in Germany, alongside a digital release on their respective streaming services. In the Middle East and North Africa region, the series is available on the streaming service OSN+. The first season was included in the AMC+ "programming pop-up" on Max in the US from September 1 to October 31, 2023.

The second season premiered on May 12, 2024. The first season was made available on US Netflix for a year starting August 19, 2024. AMC and Netflix then extended and expanded their deal to include the second and third season in September 2025. The third season, titled The Vampire Lestat, premiered on June 7, 2026. The first three seasons were made available through the Australian free-to-air streaming service SBS On Demand on August 21, 2026, as well as broadcast on SBS2, formerly SBS Viceland.

RLJE Films released the first season on DVD and Blu-ray in region A on September 26, 2023, which includes French and Spanish dub as well as the series's panel at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con.

Reception

Critical response

All three seasons of Interview with the Vampire have been widely praised. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the overall series holds an approval rating of 99%. Meanwhile, on Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the overall series has a score of 83 out of 100. IndieWire named the series one of the most essential LGBTQ TV shows of the 21st century.

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 85 critics gave the first season a positive review, with an average rating of 8.15 out of 10. The website's critics consensus reads, "With a playful tone and an expansive sweep that allows Anne Rice's gothic opus to mull like a chalice of blood, Interview with the Vampire puts a stake through concerns that this story couldn't be successfully resurrected." Metacritic assigned it a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 31 critics.

Allison Piccuro of TV Guide gave the season a score of 8.9 out of 10, writing that it "successfully breathe[d] new life into an old story" by not being overly reliant on the original material, as many adaptations are. Judy Berman of Time named Interview "the season's best fantasy franchise reboot", despite House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power debuting in the same period. According Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe, the show alter[ed] specifics of the novel's story line in ways that wind up working spectacularly well," which might surprise fans of the book and frustrate purists. Jenna Scherer, writing for The A.V. Club, opined that the changes added "fascinating depths" to Louis and allowed the show to explore themes, such as race, sexuality, and history. Giving the series an "A-", she also attributed its success to the show's "gothic melodrama vibe", adding that it had the appeal of Rice's work, which is "smart, thoughtful writing with a heaping helping of Harlequin paperback camp". Brian Tallerico from The Playlist noted how the show found a balance between "the Southern Gothic escapism of something like True Blood with the rich cultural commentary of Hannibal". In an article highlighting race change in TV adaptations, Kelly Lawler for USA Today stated that Interview is "a story that is very Black and very gay, and it never feels like either of these choices is tokenism". Meanwhile, on the change to the framing device through Daniel Molloy, Darrin Franich for Entertainment Weekly opined that "there's a legacy-sequel quality to [it], a sense that all parties need to re-examine their lore". He gave the show a grade of "B".

However, some critics lamented the loss of subtlety in the writing. Tallerico found Molloy "can feel a bit too much like a writer's highlighter". Franich called the Dubai portion of the show "the least compelling subplot" and stated that "supporting characters who should feel crucial don't make enough of an impression". Meanwhile, Charles Bramesco of The Guardian argued that the show's choice to be explicitly queer felt like it's "catering to a viewership that's been made to wait too long to see the objects of their affections get it on" and gave the series three out of five.

Critics' top ten lists

Interview with the Vampire was named the best reviewed horror series of 2022 by Rotten Tomatoes, as well as one of the best reviewed TV series and new series of the year. The series was placed at number 19 on Metacritic's year-end list of most mentioned TV shows by critics as "Best of 2022".

Ratings

The premiere of Interview with the Vampire ranked as the number one new series launch ever for AMC+, and along with the return of The Walking Dead, drove the platform to its highest two days of viewership and subscriber growth since its October 2020 launch. The opening weekend performance put Interview with the Vampire alongside The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul as one of the top three new or returning series on AMC+. On AMC, 1.2 million viewers watched the premiere of the series, including 493.000 viewers in the 25–54 demographic based on Nielsen's live+3 ratings, making the series the number one new drama on ad-supported cable in 2022.

Franchise and shared universe

Interview with the Vampire is a part of the shared universe Immortal Universe, which centered around adaptations of Anne Rice's works, such as Mayfair Witches and Talamasca: The Secret Order. In 2023, the short-form spin-off series Night Island was announced to be in development, with Jonathan Ceniceroz of Interview with the Vampire set to write. In September 2025, Night Island was confirmed to still be in development, along with the announcement of an adaptation of Memnoch the Devil.

In 2022, AMC launched The Official Interview with The Vampire Podcast, a pre-recorded weekly audio podcast where host Naomi Ekperigin joined by the cast and crew members to discuss the first season of the show. Ahead of the release of the third season, AMC announced the weekly half-hour aftershow The Vampire Lestat: After Dark, hosted by Lizzie Bassett. The series debuted on May 24, 2026 on AMC+, and was also made available on various podcast platforms.