Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire has arrived on AMC. The reviews online have been stellar enough to encourage me to watch the first episode almost as soon as it was released. Truth is, I was always going to watch this series, but not just for the story. I’ve got personal stakes in this show (pun intended)!
With new series, I tend to plan to watch only after a season is completed. Blame Netflix and its habit of cancelling shows after the first season. I thought I’d do the same with Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Wait till after the entire season was out and then marathon-watch it.
But the internet was profuse with its praise, and the show has already been picked up for a second season, so I had to check it out. And if I’m honest with myself, I didn’t need much cajoling. Curiosity got the better of me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what the new Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt were going to be like. From the posters, I could see that the canonically white Louis was going to be played by Jacob Anderson, a Black actor. Updating stories to be more diverse is always exciting and a major draw for me.
But Louis being race-bent wasn’t the only reason I found myself impatient to watch Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. If my byline didn’t make it clear, I share something with Louis—we’re namesakes!
My pseudonym Louis comes from the very same Louis de Pointe du Lac, or specifically, Brad Pitt’s rather dodgy characterization of Louis in the 1994 film, Interview with the Vampire, which was based on Anne Rice’s 1976 book of the same name, the first of her Vampire Chronicles. Of course, I didn’t see the film in ‘94 but I did see it as a teenager. And even then, I watched a heavily-censored version on a VHS cassette in Dubai, UAE (this’ll be relevant later).
When I watched the film, I thought it wasn’t the best. The acting was sub-par, in my opinion. I could see the cast struggling with the dental prosthesis. Worst of all, none of the actors appeared to have any chemistry with each other in a story that was heavily driven by queer character dynamics.
So how did I end up being named after a character in a film I didn’t even like?
This is what happens when you have a sibling (in my case, a twin). We would randomly quote lines from the film. Ironically at first. And then more sincerely. My sister’s favourite? “Oh Louis, Louis. Still whining, Louis.” It made me laugh every time, which was just the encouragement she needed to say it more, often with variations. Until there was nothing left of the dialogue but just ‘Louis’. And that is the story of how I got the first half of my pseudonym. The story about the second half is very boring and not relevant here, anyway.
FYI: I did watch an uncensored version of the film later and though it was much more picturesque, the pacing felt all over the place and there was more gore than I liked. Somehow, i thought this iteration had less chemistry between the actors!
I also tried to read the Interview with the Vampire book, but I was weirdly sensitive to blood and gore as a teen and was quickly turned off by the many, many descriptive scenes of teeth sinking into flesh and blood slowly flowing out. My connection with Interview with the Vampire should have ended there.
But my sister took the book from me and proceeded to read it. And finish it. And borrow the next one. And the next. I’ve lost count of how many of The Vampire Chronicles she’s read but it’s enough that she’s well acquainted with the lore. What kept her reading the books? None other than Lestat.
Tom Cruise’s depiction of the character in the film may have been one of his worst performances, but it was certainly intriguing. And the books fleshed out more of Lestat’s background and powers. While I took the name Louis in jest, my sister, for the longest time, used the pseudonym Lestat because she stayed in touch with the character. In fact, while the internet definitely encouraged me to watch Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, it really only came onto my radar because my sister had watched screeners of the show. I’d barely thought about this series for years but my sister sure hasn’t forgotten!
A kernel of interest in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was placed by my sister, and then I was coaxed by the internet to watch the first episode. But I also felt like I couldn’t miss this show, knowing that I am already forever connected to at least one character in the story. I’ve had this name for over 20 years of my life and I’ve stopped thinking about the significance behind it. But I was going to see a new version of the progenitor of my name. And I was a little giddy at the prospect.
Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire opens with mirrored opening titles, which got me more excited about what I was about to watch. Was I seeing things or was that the Burj Khalifa? Is this Dubai? I definitely am not imagining it. That is inarguably the sailboat shape of the Burj-al-Arab. This is Dubai!
Why would seeing Dubai get me so excited? It’s kinda my home. I don’t live there right now but I used to for over 10 years and my heart’s still there because that’s where my folks live. I’m not used to seeing the places in the East that were home to me in North American productions. And if I do see my former homelands, they’re rarely depicted well. I’m still annoyed at the two seconds of Kolkata, West Bengal in India that we got to see in The Avengers. Of course, they showed just the slums. And the characters spoke in Hindi. Which is not the dominant language in Bengal. It’s, get this, Bengali!
While I was excited to see my erstwhile home and my namesake in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, I wasn’t really sure how Dubai would be portrayed. We get the glam shots in fairly quickly. The man-made Palm Island (unaffordable to most of us regular folks), and the enormous highway that is Sheikh Zayed Road, with its dizzying array of high-rises—that was a nostalgic punch in the gut for me. I haven’t been to Dubai (or seen my folks) since before the pandemic so even a couple of seconds in a TV show caught me in the feels.
As did my very first sight of the new Louis de Pointe du Lac. A BIPOC Louis who is very easy on the eyes, despite the coloured contact lenses? I found myself leaning in for a closer look.
But I was distracted from my interest in Louis. Was that a sepia filter on the Dubaian landscape? Are we, in the 2022nd year of our lady Akasha, using yellow filters on a Middle Eastern city?
No need to panic! They were not in fact using a filter. Or at least, the show isn’t. Louis definitely is. As a vampire, Louis can’t be near sunlight. He demonstrates by dropping the protective screen on one of his window panes and letting the glorious (often 45°C) sunlight in. You had me in the first half, show. Please never do that again.
With the filter controversy put to rest, I could finally concentrate on the main attraction—Louis. Watching Louis was nothing short of surreal. This man has my name. This man is the reason I have my name. But also, not really this particular man? It’s funny, because I feel like I somehow have a share in the legacy of the Louis de Pointe du Lac name, though nobody really knows my connection until now. I didn’t really want people to know where I got my name from because Interview with the Vampire was critically panned and nobody in my circles has ever heard of it. Plus, it was super queer and I was living in countries that were decidedly not queer-friendly.
But watching Anderson’s many-faceted Louis in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire had me thinking: does it matter if people know where my name comes from? I don’t really mind that people might associate my name with this character in this show. I know it’s just one episode but I like this Louis. He’s doing his best for his family under trying circumstances. He’s patient but not a pushover. He has his principles but isn’t afraid to cross some lines if the situation calls for it. There’s also room for Louis to grow—he’s a man beaten down by the inherent racism of his world but with Lestat, he’ll be able to find new ways to fight back. He’s going to do some bad things, from what I know of the film and the book, but he’s already a layered and nuanced character. Because his history is so different from the Louis of the book and the film, this Louis is more compelling to me and I want to see so much more.
Plus, the first episode of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was really good. I’d have liked the romance between Louis and Lestat to be eked out more but the chemistry between Anderson and Sam Reid is already dialled way up compared to the film. I’m going to be watching this series to spend more time with my namesake and get more glimpses of the place I called home. And I’m going to start owning the quirkiness of my name’s origin story more.
