Jacob Anderson teases 'darker' Interview With The Vampire season, mulls Queen of the Damned adaptation

Interview With The Vampire is one of the best shows airing right now, thanks in no small part to Jacob Anderson's performance as Louis, a Cajun man turned conflicted vampire. Anderson memorably played the warrior Grey Worm on Game of Thrones. Louis is a lot more openly emotional than Grey Worm, but they share a stiff spine and a solid sense of right and wrong, not to mention a lot of charisma.

"He was a very complex human and continues to be a very complex vampire," Anderson told Newsweek about Louis. "But he's not comfortable with it. I think that's the big thing. He's not okay with it. Whereas Lestat embraces what he is. He enjoys it. He's found a way to really enjoy it and kind off gets off on how bad he is. Whereas Louis is really in denial about who he wants to be."

Lestat (Sam Reid) is the vampire who turned Louis; they were in a relationship for decades, but Lestat was abusive, and the first season ended when Louis teamed up with their vampire protégé Claudia to leave Lestat for dead in New Orleans. Louis and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) are now in Paris, but outrunning their past is proving difficult.

"I'd say it's definitely darker," Anderson said of the second season. "Using the term darker feels a bit like it's edgier, and it's not that. I think this season is quite a confronting [look] at what happens when you really dig into your own culpability to things that that you felt you were the victim in or ways that you felt were wronged. And how much did you play a part in both fronts and responsibility you're really willing to take for your own actions and the way that you manifested your thoughts and feelings? Louis is way more powerful than he would ever admit, he is way more responsible for the tragedy of his own life than he would ever admit. And then Claudia is stuck in, she's trapped in her body and she is so much more than others see her. She's stuck there, she can never really advance from that. And they're both outsiders in this very strange land and they are all wrong. These are very complex ideas. [Showrunner Rolin Jones] and writers are just like digging and picking at the scab. Season two is really picking the scab of these characters and the work they need to do on themselves."

Anne Rice from page to screen

The book Interview With The Vampire, originally written by Anne Rice and published in 1976, has been adapted for the screen before, most notably in a 1994 movie starring Brad Pitt as Louis, Tom Cruise as Lestat and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia. With a predecessor like that, you might think that Anderson would be nervous, but Anderson doesn't think about that way. " I think that it would be a fool's errand to try and compete in some way," he said. "This should this feel like a different expression of the story, and this feels like its own thing. I remember Rolin used to say this is a third thing. There's the book, the film, this is the third thing."

I've been impressed with how the show has invigorated a text I thought had been wrung dry, and it has me curious to see whether Jones and company will adapt any more of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles books, which get weirder and wilder as they go on. Anderson has read several by this point. "The later ones are pretty wild," he told Men's Health. "I skipped a few in the middle. Our show is about the essence of an Anne Rice story, rather than always being [exact]. It was a good exercise for me to read as much as I could or wanted to. And not even for Louis’ sake, because Louis disappears after the first book. But just to get a sense of them. ‘What's the vibe?’"

Anderson is a particular fan of Queen of the Damned, where Rice talks things in an apocalyptic direction. That book was adapted as a movie in 2002; while it has its fans, it's mostly regarded as a campy curiosity, although I seriously wonder what Jones and his team could do with it. Obviously they know how to tell a good vampire story.

"Queen of the Damned is just a really fun adventurer story. There are so many set pieces in that book," Anderson said. "There's a lot in that book that I really love. And I would love to see the big action sequences. Louis, Lestat, and Gabrielle in a van, driving away from the Queen of the vampires, blowing it. That would be an amazing thing to see."

You have my attention. For now, new episodes of Interview With the Vampire air Sundays on AMC.

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