The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Interview With the Vampire’ Season 2: The Sneaky Best Show on TV Right Now

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan travel to Europe to recap the first six episodes of ‘Interview With the Vampire’ Season 2. They start by discussing whether or not it’s the best show on television right now, how it effectively depicts the cultural complexities of its settings, and why Jacob Anderson’s nuanced performance as Louis de Pointe du Lac anchors the show (1:43). Along the way, they talk about how the AMC drama embraces the queer nature of the story and how Sam Reid’s take on Lestat de Lioncourt is in stark contrast to Tom Cruise’s in the 1994 film adaptation (13:04). Later, they consider the future of the series and what they want out of it moving forward (40:30). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Van Lathan Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, my name is Dave Gonzalez, and I haven't read any of the books in George R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm Joanna Robinson and I've read every book in Georgia R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. And I'm Neil Miller and I have also read those very heavy books. Years ago, we hosted a Game of Thrones podcast called A Storm Spoilers, and we're thrilled to head back to Westrose to cover the second season of House of the Dragon on the Trial by Content feed. We'll be using our book knowledge to dive deep into each episode and answer your lingering questions. So send us a raven every week to Trial by Content at GM. email.com. Follow and subscribe to trial by content on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast

to join us on Thursdays where these two will explain to me which Targaryen is right. Welcome back to the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson joining me today. He thinks this is the best show that's currently on television. It's Van Lathen here to talk about interview with a vampire season two. Van. Van. I'm making a fever face right now. Why wouldn't you make a vampire face if we're talking about vampires? So my beaver face is a vampire face. Like when I try to go, I just look like a beaver. So that's what happened.

I see. I do think this is the best show. Hello, Joe, the Giovanna Experience, RISE again. I do think this is currently the best show on television when you add up a vampire. That's what I'm talking about. When you add up all of the components that make a great show, I think the show has it in spades. And so right now, it's the show that I think is the deepest best show. on television. So we are here to talk up through season two, episode six.

That's what we've watched through. That's what we're here to talk about. So this is dropping after that episode airs. And we're not going to talk beyond that, but we are going to go back and talk a bit about episode one. And this is just a show that we both really, really, really, really like. When I found out that Van had recommended this over in Riggerverse as his recommendation for last month, I was like, I have been waiting for someone to get on my level about

how excited I am about this show. So take me through it. Tell me why it has all the elements to be sort of the best show in television right now. When you think about a lot of the shows that we've liked over the past, the X amount of 10 years, whatever we've been watching, besides succession, I guess there are a couple of others, too. A lot of these shows have had pretty decent and dynamic source material, right? We've seen shows that are sourced do very well

because the lore is so deep and the characters are already so rich that bringing them to television is less of a haul for the creators. Now, of course, there have been shows that haven't needed that, right? The Bear, Ozark, all of that other stuff. We're talking about Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or some of these other shows and stuff like that. A lot of the stuff that you and I talk about for sure on regular events. Yeah. This stuff is being adapted.

Yeah. This show is able to do something because it has such great source material from Anne Rice, New Orleans, his own Anne Rice, and Christopher Rice, her son. But basically, Anne. It's able to take characters that have been around for a long time that we've seen in many different iterations, put a different spin on them, drag and flesh out their backstories, their motivations, change it, modernize it, and make it completely digestible for today's audience. Like ridiculously contemporary story, even the way the pandemic was brought up in the first season, in the first season.

Just it's, it's, the show is beautiful. It looks beautiful. It's got beautiful people. It's poignant. It's incredibly well acted. Despite the fact that I've seen interview with the vampire before, the story still keeps me on edge. There's tons of surprises. Yeah, they're changing a lot of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I just, I don't want to be hyper verbose. Yeah, but I always am. But it's just, it surprises me, wows me, and bewilders me at every turn, seriously. So we should say that, so the original book was written in like 76, 1976, right? And so they set the interview part with young Daniel Malloy interviewing Louis that in the movie is Brad Pitt and Christian Slater. That is still set in the 70s, but they've added, you know, I'm just promising in case people are listening and they haven't watched the show.

They changed the timelines so that the flashbacks are not to the 18th century. the flashbacks are to like the early 19th century or the early 1900s I should say and then the present day is now it's not the 1970s so like our journalist Daniel Malloy interviewed the vampires in 1970s just like he did in the book and then this is a follow-up interview taking place right now in our modern time so they changed the timeline in the past and they changed the timeline in the present and one of the functions of changing the timeline in the past I think is to take us firmly out of anything touching the Civil War so that we do not have to deal with the slavery aspect that is a part of the original novel and the part of the original movie that I think they were just sort of like, we don't want to go there.

But in moving it up in time, they still kept some of this conversation active by making Louis de Pont-de-Lac a non-white man. How do you feel about that change and what that did to the story? I think it enhanced a story and I'll tell you why.

Number one, the New Orleans created in the original story is an old-timey version of New Orleans but it has a lot more to do honestly with the antebellum period of the South. I mean, they actually get to the antebellion period

but even the point right after the Civil War or like right before the Civil War slavery era, all of that stuff. Okay. This New Orleans that they create and the show has the complexity culturally of how New Orleans actually is. It's like in 1910, in 1910 when we meet Louis in New Orleans, yeah.

Like in New Orleans, the racial structures there were always a little bit different. There were white people. There were black people. And then there were Creoles. Creoles weren't quite white. They weren't quite black. They certainly weren't white. And they existed in this weird social limbo in between the two of them. Like you could marry a Creole, but you couldn't take their last name. They could own property.

But you know what I mean? So even exploring that, it's more culturally authentic and it makes for a richer world. Because seeing Louis, when we meet him in the show, navigate his new life as a vampire, right? and his old life as a one and a half class citizen in New Orleans, it's like super duper interesting because there are certain people, you want him to drain their blood. Everyone at the poker table and like that. Right.

But at the same time, he's playing poker with them. And it's interesting. And it makes the dynamic between him and, a stat a little bit more interesting because it's like there's a white man walking around with the Creole man in New York in New Orleans. They're gay, but they're also interracial in a place to where things were so hedonistic that they might, you know, look the other way at something like that. That's something that couldn't have happened in St. Louis and in Chicago and places like that. But in New Orleans, there's just enough going on to where people will mind their own

business. So it just, it pulled me into the world a lot more because it actually looked like New Orleans to me. I think, yeah, they did an incredible job to the first season, taking place largely in New Orleans. Second season were in Europe, mostly in Paris, but in Europe in general. Barri. The identity question of Louis specifically as a non-white man and as a queer man and the temptation, the seduction that Lestat then offers, and it's literally like in his speech that he gives him in the first episode when he turns him, as he's like, you know, this is an invitation to be yourself,

be the full version of you, all the parts of you that you've repressed, which is like your sexuality, but also just like the ability to walk through the world, you know, without shame, without all these other things, I'm afraid. this is, I'm going to make you an apex predator, essentially, and that is going to change the power dynamic of who you are in this town, in this city. And I think that it's just like such a brilliant addition.

Jacob Anderson, who is playing Louis, is incredible. Just like so good. And you and I were talking about this a little while ago that you had sort of just realized that he also plays grayworm on Game of Thrones. and I was kind of making fun of you for that, that it took you so long. But I think what is true is that Game of Thrones asked Jacob Anderson as Grey Worm on Game of Thrones to give about 10% of what he's capable of. And this is asking for like the full 100%.

And he is just giving. He is so amazing in this show. And Louis is a character that could easily be so boring and completely overshadowed by the supernova that is. Lista de Leoncore, which we'll talk about a second. But I really feel like Jacob is like holding down Louis as the center of this story, as we meet him in the past, in the 70s, and in the present. Yeah, Louis has so many dimensions to him.

And it's interesting. He becomes that apex predator, like all-powerful, many different ways, aware of everything, but he still has to hide, right? It doesn't matter how strong and powerful you are. if you're a black gay man in 1910, you're going to have to hide. You're just going to have to hide, right? And there's still this trepidation

about the outside world that really plays when you look at it. And it's almost like a stand-in set of emotions for what it must be like to be a vampire as well. Like you move at the speed of sound and do all of this stuff, you fly around and stuff, but you can only do it at night. There's still a prison that you're in

and that prison is your own skin and your own nature, which is something now that you can't change. All of that works, and his ability to be vulnerable at times, scary at times. When he gets pissed off, he can be a scary son of a bitch, and also just resolute in a way. There's a strength to the performance. Even when he is just inside of his own feelings, there's a strength when he was talking about the feelings that he had for LaStat

and the fact that he couldn't escape them. It seemed like he was being brave. And then when you get him in the 70s, he's mellowed. He's a little bit, when you first meet him, there's a lightness about him. It's almost like he's used to everything now. He's got the little half-ro.

He's changed. It's really a fantastic performance from this actor, and he completely took me away from Grey Worm. Like, the brother's age and well, too. He looks more handsome to me now. But, like, you know what I mean? But he took me away from it. I didn't even think that it was Grey Worm at all,

but he is anchoring the show. I think especially, I love the show so much. I've rewatched certain episodes. I rewatch the pilot many times. I think it's one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen the pilot. And I think a big part of that is the contrast between the Louis that we meet in the present day in Dubai,

who's just all sleek and still and everything that he is. And then the messy human version of him that we meet throughout that episode until he gets turned at the end. And he is then also like a messy fledgling vampire for a while and then as you as you point out like we get to the 70s things mellow out even even

Louis in season two in Paris is like a more centered version of himself but that that dual performance from Jacob Anderson in that first episode between you know Louis with his brother Louis with his family you know like all of that

and in the Louis who's living with Armand in what he calls his own coffin to your point like Daniel Malo the journalist is like, if you're a vampire, where's your coffin in Dubai? And he's like, you're standing in it. This whole apartment is my coffin. Like, that's, I live in my coffin. And that's just like, to your point about a prison, like something really starting to think about.

Let's talk about Lestat. You told me that you had revisited the Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten, movie recently. And for a lot of people, that's their main exposure to interview with the vampire, the book was really popular, but the movie was like sort of its own thing in the 90s. It's like a phenomenon.

A phenomenon. Remember Oprah said she walked out because it was a darkness in the movie? That's why. No. So just real quick about that movie, real quick. It was a big thing in Louisiana. Any movie that takes place in Louisiana gets the chatter

and going in Louisiana, right? Yeah. I remember when the toy was filming and everybody was like, Richard Price here, Richard Pryor's here. By trying to find Richard Pryor? The Big Easy. Yeah, but actually, the big, see, those, I was too little to remember this, but like people were telling me about it. But interview with the vampire and sex lives and videotape, I remember very specifically, because people were talking about it and stuff like that. And my mother was like, I read the book.

And then that movie, those two men are in love. My daddy was like, what? And she was like, yeah, and then we started watching the movie. He was like, oh, I can see that. I could see how them two fellows would be together. And the film was for like a deep South Catholic group of Louisianaans. A lot of them were pissed off at it. And it was just a big scandal, a big deal.

Because it was too queer, even though it's not even like it's still subtext in the movie. Even though they had to skip it. Yeah. It was still too much for people at the time. And that's another thing I love about this show that it completely embraces the queerness. Like Anne Rice has always been

sort of like an advocate for gay narratives and stuff like that. She did not, I think, originally intend for Louis and Listat to have that relationship in an original novel. But when people were like, that's my interpretation, she's like, you know what?

Yes. Sure. Let's lean into it. You know what I mean? Like I think, It's not like they really edited it out of the movie, but it's sort of like they really leaned into it in the TV show, which I love. Yeah, so Tom Cruise is Lestat.

This is Tom Cruise at the height of his craziness. Like just biggest star in the world in doing an accent, wearing a blonde wig, being a vampire. And it's like his natural movie star, charisma is a huge part of that movie and, and, you know, obviously also Brad Pitt at the height of his Brad Pittness is also there. I mean, it was just like huge. Sam Reed makes Tom Cruise look like a joke in that movie.

It's ridiculous. He is so good. Lestat De Leoncore, this character, this vampire who has, who turns Louis, who enters into this toxic relationship with him, The nickname that he has inside the Anne Rice universe is the Brat Prince. And like, that's a perfect. You meet Lestat and he is like an absolute menace, just the worst. And you're also watching him and you're like, I would though. I would.

How could you not, you know? So when I watched Tom Cruise's performance, he plays it like, he plays it. It's very paternal. And he plays it like, like. He's consistently nagging Brad Pitt to embrace his nature. He's not seducing him to do it. He's not overwhelming him. This performance by Sam Reed is completely overwhelming.

He's got too much sex appeal. He's too worldly. He's got an old but yet still vibrant soul. He's too powerful. Like his, when he looks at someone that is beneath him, you feel it. You feel his air of superiority. You see why this world revolves around him. You know what I mean?

Like when the opera singers come to town and he is so offended by their, you know, poor musicianship. And it becomes the biggest thing in the world. He is snooty. Like, he has so many qualities of someone that I should absolutely. hate. And like, you know, there's no part of me that's like, this is a good guy worth rooting for. But there is a vulnerability to him. There is that like, there's the possessiveness. There's the adoration. And then also the I, the vacillation between I don't need you. I'm list out to Leancourt. I am this big fucking deal. I don't need you. And also, Louie, you're the center of

my universe. I would die without you. This like very toxic yo-yo thing that he does with Louis, you understand why when we get to season two, and Lestat is, we think, dead, but he's not. But, like, as episode six reveals in case people didn't know the story, like, Louis is absolutely, like, literally haunted by him. Because, like, how do you move on from a Lestat? And that's why, you know, Armand, his current partner is, like, absolutely tied up in knots about living in the shadow of Lestat. Like, they're all living in the shadow of a figure like Lestat, you know? Absolutely. The world is, like, created by Lestat with Louis living in it, which is just an interesting way.

And look, by the time we talk to older Louis, the interesting thing about the show is Malloy has aged, the interviewer, right? So he doesn't need to seem older. You can look at him and he is. He's just older, right? But Louis and Armand, Armand, who made a lot of headway from me in this second season as being the vampire, Mr. Vampire.

They have to seem like their souls have aged. They have to seem older. And when you first meet Laestat, oh, you're like, okay, he's been around for a long time. Like, he knows what to do. He knows how to, but at the same time, his one vulnerability is the same vulnerability. that every single vampire seemingly has,

which is connection, how you stay together in a world that shuns you and ostracizes you and then they should because they're your food, right? So he can't let go of Louis, and that's the only thing that humanizes him. By the way, me and Kali, we were watching the show,

and I told her, I was like, yo, man, this show is toxic as shit. Like, this relationship is toxic. Oh, yeah. We're supposed to be rooting for them, to kill him, rooting for him to be gone, everything that Claudia is saying is true, but I don't want him to die.

Yeah. Not only did I not want him to die, I kind of wanted Louis to like take him back and reform the little three-person the vampire coven that they had. But I don't know why he's terrible to him. But it's so fun to watch. Like in real life, you're like Louis run away,

but fictionally you're like, please stay with. What they did in this season, Season 2, ostensibly, there's a version of the season where you have to wait until the end of episode 6 to see Sam Reid as Lestat, because Lestat is off the board for the majority of the season. These are flashbacks and weird visions and stuff. No, no, but that's what I'm saying, but they made the choice to keep Sam Reed alive in the show, not just in flashbacks, but also this, like, version of Lestat who's actually Louis, like, it's Louise imagined version of Lestat. So I was just to ask you about, you know, you told me before we started recording, you had like a list out take to get off. Like at the Austin Television Festival, I did a panel with the interview with the vampire creators and they were talking about. How dare you?

How dare you? How dare you? How dare you talk about the show without me? Joe, you always do this. You always talk about my favorite shows and TV things without me. How dare you? You wrote a whole MCU book. I didn't even a chance to be a co-author.

I wasn't even, I wasn't even consulted or asked. How dare you, Joe? But something they were aware of is when they knew they weren't going to do the whole. whole book for the first season, the creator of Roland Jones, Jones was like, you got a list that problem in season two. Like, you've got a real problem if you think you're going to do season two and not have list stat in it. And so then they came up with this whole like added thing where he's like in flashbacks and dreams. And I'm just wondering, like for you as someone who thinks about story as like a creative person as like a storyteller, like what would you do

if you're staring down the barrel of a second season and you've got someone like Sam Reed and ostensibly you have to take him off the board for six episodes. It's the baby Yoda question, right? Sure. So that first episode was rough. I'm not going to lie. I agree. I really agree.

I was worried. The first episode, I was like, my God, man. Like, it's not going to work. Because me and Kalika got into the show and then we binged it. We binged it. Binge the first season. We binged the first season just in time for the second season to come on. I'll tell you guys out there and all of these next.

that works. We have the second season of our show coming up. So we're going to continuously show over and over and over again, the first show, the first season, every single hour on the hour of the day. That works. I can't tell you how many times that's worked. They got you. You're flipping through the channels and you're like, yo, why is this interview with the vampire show on again? I got to look at this. And so then we started watching it. I'm like, god damn, nobody told me this was cooking like this. I'm sorry. I feel like I let you down. Yeah, you did. Once again, we're back to it. But then when you get to the first episode,

especially since we watched them, basically in a binge over a couple of days or maybe a week, it was just completely different. I was like, the show can't survive without him. Yeah. And it took a second for them to get their legs. It wasn't beautiful anymore. They looked like shit. They were in

like the whole thing. I was like, I don't know if this version of the show is one that I like very much. Man, they figured it out so quick. Yeah. And I'll say something about LaSat. Armand, is not LaState. However, the dynamic between Armand and Louis in this season grew to be as powerful to me in a different way than the La Statt, Louis. We were just getting to the point, this is my La Statt take.

We were just getting to the point where I wasn't missing him. We were just getting to that point where I wasn't missing him and he popped up. Just when you thought you forgot about, you thought you could forget about me, Lestat. So, Asad Zaman, who plays Armand, like, I, when, so, you know, they do this neat thing in the first season where he's in the background, the whole season, and you don't know it's Armand. And then at the end, there's this, like, big twist and holy shit, it's Armand, right? And for people who are, like, book readers, or for people who maybe remembered that Antonio Banderas' character in the movie is called Armand, it's like a holy shit moment. But for other people, they're maybe like, okay, his name is Armand, why should I care?

And so he did have a big job in the second season to get people to care about Armand. And I feel like I wasn't immediately there. And then all of a sudden I was like all the way in. I love the scene when they're, I mean, the scene where they're in front of the earlier this season, when they're in front of the burning manner and they're just having this like calm conversation

and there's just like all this like death and mayhem and screaming. And they're having this. moment. Beautiful. I mean, it's just incredible, incredible television. And then, of course, the episode we got last week with the flashback to the 70s where we find out like everything that happened when they were in the 70s, a huge peeling back of the layer of Armand and his insecurities around Lestat, right?

Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Satt, like all of that. I thought that episode was riveting. I thought that was so good, the 1970s set episode, episode, five. That episode was my favorite episode of the show. It's so good. It just watching them get to the point to where everything just completely comes apart and they don't know where they stand after all of this time. And the stat still the ex, the perfect ex-boyfriend, ex-girlfriend that everybody has to deal with in a relationship.

when there is one, it was done perfectly. It wasn't melodramatic. It was real. And them motherfuckers, everybody, from obviously the older version of Malloy who's played by the veteran actor. Eric Bogosian.

Eric Boghian. Yeah. Like everyone in that episode is acting their fucking asses off. Luke Brandon Field, who's playing young, Daniel. It's like a really tough job. He did it in season one.

It's a really tough job because Eric Begogsian is such like a singular actor. So to give us a 1970s version of Eric Begossian without making it into imitation is really tough and I really feel like he threaded that needle perfectly. You ever see Witch Hunt? I don't know. Have I? I don't think so. Witch hunt is with Dennis Hopper.

And it's supposed to be, it's like a lovecraftian witch tale that was an HBO original movie. You can't fucking find a movie anymore. I don't know why. Every movie HBO ever made should be on Max. The fact that I can't go on Max right now and watch episodes of Dream On,

it's like, I don't think you can. I don't think it's on there. Are you kidding me? I don't think it's on. That's TV history, man. It was on HBO now. When they had HBO now, HBO now had everything on there.

But HBO Max, they don't have a joke. They don't have the same stuff. Anyhow, that's when I first, he's in that movie. And even then, there's just a power that he has when, like, he's on the screen. It's like every single word, every sentence is meaningful. And he's the type of actor that can just cut you down, perfectly cast as the interviewer in this situation. So snide.

And it's, you know, in a situation. And like, then I don't. also occasionally terrified. But then like pushing through the terror to just be like again, superior and snide. Also, I wanted to ask how you feel about, we do want to talk about Claudia, but Justin Kirk has showed up a couple times

in like in the sushi restaurant scenes as this like member of this sort of secret society. They're doing a spin-off series. I was like, what is Justin Kirk doing here in this like tiny role? but they're doing a spinoff series of that organization which is fascinating because this is

because AMC bought like the whole Anne Rice estate did a whole deal with them so they've got the Mayfair Witches is another show that they did that I thought was only okay they're going to have a second season interview I think is a masterpiece and then now they're doing this other spin-off so like they want to have this whole interconnected

this is AMC's like big bid to have like massive IP. This is the move that they're making. It's not, it is and isn't working so far in that it's working in that I think interview with the vampire is one of the best shows I've ever seen. It's not working in that it's not catching fire with people to the way that they like did when they had Breaking Bad and Mad Men and stuff like that. So like I'm always trying to get people to watch interview with a vampire because I think it's so good. But like AMC paid a lot of money for the, you know, the rest.

rights to all of these Anne Rice properties. So that's really kind of fascinating IP, EU, extended universe sort of TV movement that's happening over the AMC right now. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity. Or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zep bound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known

if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thineas. thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include

nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-9 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. Claudia. Recast for season two. Yeah. Where are you with that with Claudia? Took a while, but we got there.

And let me tell you why. So the first actress, well, I think left to go do some superhero shit. No, Avatar. She was perfect. she looked like a little doll but then she was sinister at the end you really felt like she was

a worthy adversary for LaSat you did this actress plays the role totally different and to be honest with you I think they wrote it different I personally think that when they realized that there was a scheduling conflict deal or whatever the hell happened

and the other lady couldn't come back they wrote the character different because she's played much more human in this role than she was. By the time we got to the end of last season, she had been through some things and the last bits of little vampire longing or curiosity

or wide-eyedness about the world have been kind of taken away from her, it's all back when the season first starts. You know, I mean, they are in a new place. She's with the Coven. The whole thing, the character, they regressed the character a little bit to let this actors grow into it. Yeah.

And by the time, and at first, once again, at first it did work for me. Yeah. Now I see her as Claudia. It ended up working. I think pound for pound, the first lady who played her was probably, she was just perfect for it, pitch perfect for it, right? But she was probably perfect for Claudia in New Orleans.

and I think Claudia in Paris with the Coven, I think there's something to be said about the softness of this young girl's face and about how she moves through this world that it really works for me. What about you? This is the one area where the movie is slightly edging out the show for me

because Kirsten Dunst, baby Kirsten Dunst is Claudia. First of all, he's literally much younger than the two actresses that they've gotten, you know, they've gotten like women in their 20s who looked like they could maybe pass her teenagers is who they've gotten. Kierston Dunst was like a child.

And we did not yet know Kirsten Dunst and we did not yet know all that she could do. And she's just one of those freaky little children who could like seem 100 years old. And so that was just like real lightning in a bottle situation where you're like she is a perfect

little doll, as you said. She looked like a personal doll, a porcelain doll with teeth. Yeah. With fangs. Yeah. But, like, what is giving, you know, again, this is like, she did this in little women, but, like, she wasn't, like, Kirsten Dunst yet. And so I think, you know, it's sort of like Haley Joel Osman in six cents, you know, it's just like this sort of like one in a million kind of. So that shadow is hanging over, Claudia for me, and I can't help but just see her as, every time she's talking about, like, you know, I'm trapped as a girl for my whole life.

I'm like, you look like a 20-year-old. Like, you look fine to me. You know what I mean? That was my thing was my thing was she could, she really. Yeah. She, I mean, yeah, it's like it. But another thing is, I just think if we look at the times, it's nice to know that you hate black children. But if we just look at it, if we just look at it for the times, they weren't.

If we just look at it for the times, they just weren't going to be able to get away with putting like an 11-year-old like church, look at it. Well, especially for television. This is something that happens all the time on TV. Like, the best example is on Lost. There was the kid Waltz who just got like really tall, really fast. They had to write them off the show. So you can talk to Lost about how they feel about black children. The Claudia, I got really into this character while never really buying into her being like a teenager.

But I got really into like the brother's sister dynamic. And then especially that fight she had where she was talking to Louis about. always choosing someone else over her, Lestat or a mom, that she's always third. I thought that was really a really good scene. And also just like the stuff where, you know, when the Coven slash theater group,

like put her in the baby doll costume, like that does at least drive home that sort of I'm trapped as a little girl idea. Also, can I just say, Santiago, Ben Daniels is Santiago? top-tier TV villains for me, honestly. He's so good. He's so, so good.

How much older is Louise? Louise got to be older than him, right? Because remember when he dashed across the table and grabbed his tongue? Yeah. So he's got to be a little older than him, right? Like, because isn't that how the power is scaling? So I... But Santiago can fly, and not all vampires can fly.

He can fly. Yeah. How do they dole out the powers? It's just luck? Because remember Eric and True Blood could fly. But that's a different vampire universe. I know, but he was the only one that flew in that show. Who else flew?

I mean, no, maybe somebody else flew. I can't remember who else flew in that show. But he would, he could fly. I bet Evan Rachel Wood could fly if she needed to. I bet you she could. I'll tell you, what did I say something before I leave, man? Not before you get off True Blood. We got more popular before you got up to talk to you about other vampire shows.

Talk to me about True Blood. Shout out to the Vampire King of Mississippi. Mississippi. That's my guy, bro. Yo, what was his name? What was his name? Denis O'Harris character? That's my guy. He was great.

What was his name? Hold on. Russell Edgington. Russell Edgington. Yeah. A 3,000-year-old menace. I love them. When he goes on the news, when he went on the news, and he was like,

and now for the weather. Tiffany? Or like, whatever. So funny. No, but I know that you watched Buffy Vampire Slayer for the first time, like, I don't know, like a year and a half ago, two years ago, something like that. And you're a true blood guy. So like, what's your vampire show?

Like, you love a vampire show. Why? I do. I love vampires. Like, I mean, I've always been into vampires. a kid, you know. It's, it was always, you know, you're from Louisiana. It was the type of lore that people would say was actually real.

They'd be like, ah, why did they come up with that? There might be actual vampires. Have you ever been in New Orleans too late? If you've been in New Orleans, literally, I mean, the city is going to go pretty late. But if you've been there really late, when nobody's on the street and you're just walking around, you'd be like, if I was a vampire, this is where I would live. Like, you know, it's a vampire-esque place. It's all gothic and beautiful and ancient.

Yeah. I know, it's just a part of it, right? Like the rules, different publications or different vampire lore have different rules. I remember when I was watching an interview with the vampire. The first one, I was a kid, he goes, crosses, can you look at crosses? Can you look at crosses? Oh, is that your Christian Slater impression? I was like, what about crosses?

crosses. You know that was supposed to be River Phoenix, but he passed away. Oh, but he passed away, yeah. He goes, I very much enjoy looking at crosses. And then he goes, what about coffins? All coffins, unfortunately, are a fact. And I'm just, oh, in this world,

the cross doesn't hurt the vampire. The stay through the heart, ridiculous. Like the whole nine. So I like all of those rules. Good lore is based on good rules. Yeah. Lour as only as good as its rule. right?

And vampire lore has fantastic rules no matter where you go some really ironclad rules you know. Daywalkers got to be invited in. Got to be invited in.

Another scene. Terrifying scene. Okay, so this wasn't the best movie. I do think that it's underrated. Vampire and Brooklyn? No. I like that shit.

Don't get me started on that. That's a hidden classic. No. the Fright Night remake, did you see? With Colin Farrell, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And David Tennant. Right.

So Colin Farrell can't go into the house, so he just rips up the gas line of the house. Remember this? Yeah. So he can't go into the house because he's got to be invited, right? Which to me always made me feel good. I'm chilling the crib. You can do nothing.

I'm not, like, if it's a vampire in my town, I'm not leaving at night, okay? Especially not. I got Netflix. I'm good. I'll go out on the day. You can't fuck with me. Are you going to door-dash something?

You're going to subject a door-dash driver to the vampires that are roaming the streets? I'm going to. I'm going to give me door-dashes as I have to to get my food there. He keeps picking you off. We're going to eat. But in that movie, he rips up the gas lines. Yeah. And then he takes a lighter and he's going to set the, to make the house catch a fire so that they have to come out.

That's the kind of terrifying shit. that vampires do to me. So I've always loved vampire lore, man, except for Twilight. I never was a big Tollai person. Yeah, yeah. Same, same. Same.

Same. I love vampire stuff. Buffy is like an all-time top tier show for me. And it makes me really happy that you watched that show. But this is on a different level. Because this is like- Yeah, it's not even, it's real. I love True Blood.

I love Buffy. Buffy for its like 90s, Girl Power, whatever. True Blood for its like earlier HBO, summer. guilty pleasure watch vibe, that was the true blood vibe. This is like genuinely tremendous television. The writing is on a different

level altogether. And a lot of it stuff is like airlifted directly from the text. They'll just like pull lines out of Anne Rice's book. Even though they're changing the plot plenty, they'll just pull lines. And you can see, I mean like a lot of the episodes are maybe all of them, but certainly

plenty of them are named for quotes from Anne Rice's book. The pilot is called In Throws of Increasing Wonder. You know, like the light by which God made the world before he made light was episode six. Like this is what's happening on this show, Incredible Shit. What do you want for the future of this show? Because there's like a million Anne Rice books.

Like, what do you do you want to like follow? Like, Lestat has his like rock and roll star era. Like, do you want to follow it through all of it? Like, what do you want? It's only one book. Interview is, but the character, like, Lestad and Arman and Lumi and all of them are in other books. So that's the question, right? Because you have essentially the vampire Lestat, I never read it, but my mom read it.

She was really into it. The vampire Lestat is the happenings of interview, but it's like Rosham. It's like, I think it's from his point of view. Is that what it is? It's not, it's not like quite interview. I have not read it. I know it's from Lestat's point of view, though. Like interviews from Louis' point of view.

Yeah. There's a lot of Lestat books. There's like Prince Lestat, like the Vampire Lestat. There's like all this, all this. He's, he's, he's Anne Rice's baby. This is her best creation, yeah. So then the question becomes, does this show encompass different elements of all of that?

Do you get a season where Lestat is the main character and you revisit some of the things that have happened in past seasons? that's kind of hearkening back to those other books, or do you cram all of these different Anne Rice texts into this show and do various different versions of it? And I think that will depend on how popular the show is because there's enough writing from her where the show can fucking run for seven seasons.

Now, as with vampire stuff, they're going to get older. So you want to shoot you. but at the same time it it just depends on how the show catches on I'm interested in seeing because I wouldn't saw Queen of the Damned but you know

Alia? Alia. I wouldn't saw Queen of the Damned so I'm interested in seeing how they incorporate all of that stuff but I think right now the crux of the show to me are the four characters of Armand

Lestat Claudia who we know spoiler alert the clock is ticking on her and Lestat and like Louis all together yeah yeah yeah all together

and Daniel and Daniel right and Daniel like where I want to see it go is I just want to see more of how this fucked up family figures out what they're going to be because he's you know

Lestat's coming back he's going to be pissed off the last shot of Lestat in episode six as he's like getting ready in the mirror I don't know I just like I want to scream like he's Elvis.

Like, that's how I feel about this character played by this actor. Just, like, thrilling, genuinely. Can we talk about one second, like, just for one second? I know we kind of talked about it, but like, what an intoxicating performance does to a show? When somebody just fucking has it. And it didn't even take a long time, man. When he first showed up, when he first showed up and they're at the car table and they're kind of going back and forth over the lady that was essentially his beard.

Yeah. Like, I'm just like, oh, shit. So even that I'm like, wow, this guy is fucking regal and elegant and stuff like that. Kalika always likes to make fun to me because I go, I go, who's that guy? And then I start Google. I'm like, where the fuck they find that guy at? Where'd that guy come from? But he is mesmerizing as the character in all the ways that a vampire character should be.

Really, I got to be honest with you, as far as on-screen vampire portrayals, I mean, obviously, go all the way back to fucking, I don't know, fucking Christopher Lee or whatever you're talking about, but he is way up there in terms of portraying a vampire and what I think a vampire actually is in this type of vampire lore, you know?

If people want more of him, which I would not begrudge you, but also to see a little bit more of his range, he's, he's Australian and he's on this TV show called an Australian TV show called The News Reader that I saw that it has I think two seasons, and it's about

like 1980s Australian TV journalists. Sort of like broadcast news, but make it like Australian TV. And it's got Anatoorv from Fringe as the other co-lead. And it is very good. And he is very good and very different on it, which just makes me really excited for the future of his career. Because like he is capable of doing more.

This is amazing. And then he's also capable of doing other tones, other kinds of character. And I just think he could be the biggest star in the world if his career goes the way that it should. You know, like, I just think he's... And I also think Jacob Anderson is just...

Oh, he's fantastic. Just tremendous. It's his... For as much as Lestat still scenes, it's... And this is the hardest thing for... It's his show. Yeah.

And that's hard to do. Yeah. Like, it's his show. Eventually, this is going to age... me a little bit, but eventually happy days became about the Fonz. Yeah. It did. It did. Eventually, Happy Days became about the fans.

Well, Richie left the show. Right. Ron Howard left the show. Yeah. This right here, he hasn't gotten Arthur Fonserrelli out of his own show. Yeah. And he has this big, bright, shining, because he's doing his fucking thing, too. Some fantastic television show, man.

Everyone, if you've listened to all of this and you're somehow not watching interview of vampire, please watch interview with a vampire. I really do think I know that they put it, I think they put it on Max for A2MX for like a little while. And then I know the first episode is available

on Amazon Prime that you can just stream. But it being on AMC is a real barrier of entry for people. I've just been talking about this show for years now and it's a real barrier of entry for people. I would just recommend

you can, I mean, AMC is not going to think me for saying this, but like, you can go month a month on AMC. I'm just saying sign up for one month of AMC. Binge this shit. Okay? You know, and then, like, then do what you want to do. And maybe other shows stay subscribed to AMC. Like, I'm not saying you don't need.

But, like, I think a lot of people when they're counting up the, like, digital subscription services and they're like, I got Paramount Plus. I got this, I got that. AMC TV Plus is not like making the cut. for a lot of people, and I'm just saying the show deserves it, you know? A new quote from Joe. Fuck Mad Men.

Joanna Roberts. Well, if you haven't seen Mad Men, watch Mad Men, you haven't seen Breaking Bad and watch Breaking Madden. You haven't seen Better Call Saul. Watch Better Call Saul. But, like, you know, but start with interview with a vampire. It's the one that needs your eyeballs right now.

I'm just, like, really scared that this show's going to get canceled, and it's so good. And so I'm just like... Oh, I don't think it will. I mean, they made this major, investment into Anne Rice, so I really hope it's not. But like, I want more people to watch it. It should be a bigger show than it is. Here's the last thing I'll say, and I say, I've said this every time I've talked about it. Just go watch the first episode. And if you're not with it after

the first episode, you're not going to be with it, but I've not met a single person who has watched the first episode and said, that's all I need to watch at this show. It's a fucking masterpiece. So please go watch it or continue to watch it if you're already watching it. And Van Leithen, Thanks so much talking me about vampires. Thank you, Kai Greedy, for his production work on this episode. Thanks to Justin Sales for his additional production work on all of the Prestige TV podcast feed. We'll be back with more prestige television like Bridgeton and Clipped, et cetera, et cetera. Listen to Rob Mahoney and yours truly talk about presumed innocent.

There's just like a lot of stuff. And then I heard a rumor that Van and Charles are going to be doing the bear. Coming up soon on this feed. So stay tuned. We'll see you soon. Bye!