Created by Rolin Jones
1.03 “Is My Very Nature That of a Devil”
Written by Rolin Jones & Hannah Moscovitch
Directed by Keith Powell
Starring Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Bailey Bass, and Eric Bogosian
New episodes airing Sundays on AMC & streaming on AMC+

by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

(The following is part of a larger interview about the entire first season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire series, airing on Sundays in October and November of 2022. You can decide if that first part is true or not, though.)

Emily Maesar: Can we actually start with something I haven’t talked about a lot, but that made me completely feral while I was watching this episode?

MovieJawn: (laughs) Sure! I’d love to know.

EM: It’s something that always made me completely lose my mind about Hannibal, too.

MJ: Can’t say I’m surprised.

EM: You jest, but these two shows are so tied together in my mind (and in the minds of lots of people on Twitter [laughs]). They’re cousins or something, you know?

MJ: Yes, yes. But what was the thing?

EM: Right! This is the thing that makes me too pleased to function: fully lifted quotes from the book. In Hannibal, Bryan Fuller pulled a lot from Red Dragon, which was why I read it after the first season aired. He continued to pull from that book throughout the series, since it took place before and through those events, but before The Silence of the Lambs. And in Interview with the Vampire, they’re doing the same thing.

I suppose it’s less shocking, you know, as it’s much more of a direct adaptation of the source material than Hannibal ever claimed to be. But still. Hearing those quotes, however direct or paraphrased for the new adaptational scenario, brings me to my knees. Tumblr used to do this thing to compare book or script against the final product, where it’s the source (such as it was) and a gif of the scene they were referencing. Far more superior, though, is the Twitter video doing the same thing. And boy, howdy, have the Interview with the Vampire video comparisons to both the book and the 1994 movie absolutely god tier.

MJ: That’s always something I really like too.

EM: It’s something they do a lot with Lestat (Sam Reid), which makes sense. He has not, fundamentally, changed in any big way from the source material, not like Louis or Claudia. Which is also something to talk about, given the time change. He’d be an additional 100+ years old, something which has not seemed to change his demeanor too terribly. It’s not something I hate, though, on the contrary—I actually think it makes perfect sense for Lestat to be exactly who he’s been until he meets Louis, no matter what the time period is.

MJ: And in this episode, specifically, does that shine through?

EM: Yes, most ardently. Lestat is the exact kind of messy queer idiot I expect him to be and Sam Reid, who’s a huge fan of The Vampire Chronicles and Lestat in general, does such an admirable job of playing that. Like, we see Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat’s sexual relationship fading as Louis’s reluctance to feed on humans lowers his libido. So, Lestat’s solution is to kill whoever he likes (off property, of course) and then to fuck whoever he likes. And Louis can totally, certainly, definitely do the same. Very cool and chill, no issues. Until he actually does that and hooks up with a guy who returns from WWI, who he has a shared history with. Lestat, as you might imagine, is not pleased about the whole thing.

Also, something I think I mentioned about the first episode, that I was slightly unsure of, was sex in the series. Or, at least, if the sex in the show was the same as Anne Rice presented it in the book, where the bites were sex because vampire don’t really have it in the human (read: alive) way? Or was the sex in the show sex, but with the added unf of bites. Were we fully in Anne Rice land, or had we ventured into True Blood? This episode gives us a really defined answer.

MJ: Which is?

EM: Edge of your seat, I know. (laughs) The latter. These vampires actually fuck, which I’m glad for. The metaphor is lovely and sexy, Anne, but in a visual medium this is the dream of dreams.

MJ: Sounds like there’s a lot happening in this episode.

EM: Yes! There’s the stuff between Lestat and Louis. There’s Louis’s bloodlust and him getting fucked over by the white business men and him losing it and killing that one white guy. Absolutely rules, thank you very much! And then there’s the Claudia of it all, right at the end. Keep me on my emotional seat, why don’t you!

Also, the series just keeps making me love Daniel (Eric Bogosian) and Louis’s relationship. Every moment with them in the present day is a gift. Like, hearing the tapes from the original interview from the 70s? Absolutely inspired. Daniel is holding Louis’s feet the metaphorical fire about the truth of his feelings and interpretation of events with nearly 50 years between tellings. But, as Daniel wrote in his biography and Louis reads back to him, they are both on an odyssey of recollection. Which might be my favorite turn of phrase to come out of the show.

MJ: Do you think it’ll end up being your favorite?

EM: Maybe. Maybe of the first season. But this show is based on material that’s so supremely beautiful and even its original work for the show is deeply moving. I’m sure there will be other phrases that dance around in my brain until I’m six feet under. But I know for a fact that I’m going to be absolutely hootin’ and hollerin’ when I sit down to watch episode four. Which, I’ll have you know, I’m postponing watching to talk to you about this one.

MJ: Oh, that’s so kind of you.

EM: Sure. “Kind” is certainly a way you can describe it.

MJ: What would you say it is, then?

EM: I know that seeing Claudia in this version of the story is going to fuck me up and change my entire idea of the story thus far. That Louis is saving her—that he might possibly be the one to make her? I needed to be able to talk about the episode leading up to those reveals without being clouded by them. It’s much more self preservation than anything else.

MJ: Well, we wouldn’t want to keep you from them any longer!

EM: (laughs) I appreciate that. I can’t wait to sit down again and yell about whatever’s to come. I’m sure it’s gonna be a barn burner.