“This is the second part of the book,” Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire executive producer Mark Johnson said of Season 2, aka Part 2, at the TCA Winter Press Tour. The saga continues today with the Season 2 premiere now streaming on AMC+ and airing tonight at 9/8c on AMC, and if you’re a fan of the novels, you’ll enjoy reliving the experience. “We follow it somewhat religiously with the same interpretation that Rolin Jones took with the first section. But the book spoke to us, and it really dictated where we went with this. At one point, when we did the first season, we actually toyed with going to Europe, where most of this takes place. But we held off. So, this is really the second half of the book.”
(Larry Horricks/AMC)
“What I think is fascinating, personally, is that we can take an adaptation and lay it out in a very formulaic way to follow the events in the book,” shared Assad Zaman, who returns as Armand, aka Rashid. “What Rolin’s done with Season 1 and now going into Season 2 is added an element that I think is always good with any adaptation, is to go, ‘Okay, what can we do to elevate it a little bit, why are we putting it on screen in this way? ‘And this dynamic, having Armand in the room in Dubai in this version, opens up the other books quicker for an audience who hasn’t read them. We’re not throwing all of Anne Rice’s work on to the screen and going this is all of it. But we’re planting the seeds. So I think it was planted with Season 1 and here with Season 2, we get to watch those seeds grow and then also plant more seeds for the future, which is going to be really exciting.”
At the heart of the show is the relationship between Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, the characters through which this entire world is opened up. “There is a big difference between Louis and Lestat in Season 1 and in Season 2, mostly because Lestat is dead,” explained Sam Reid, who plays Lestat. “But you know, he was dead to begin with, so there's that. But Armand, I suppose, is connected to them in a way because Armand is very old and so Armand knows about a lot of vampires.”
“Louis gets into my head, especially Season 2,” revealed Jacob Anderson, who returns as Louis. “He's on a real rollercoaster, and it can sometimes be like an exercise in like ripping your guts out. But I get to do that with these lovely people. And we try and support each other. Because everybody has had to do some stuff.”
As the series unfolds, Louis is revealing his story to Daniel Molloy, who is trying to get to the truth. “I have to deal with this unreliable narrator, I have to deal with other unreliable narrators, and I have to be the investigative journalist that I am where I have to always be searching for the truth, which in some ways can actually be a threat to me,” Eric Bogosian said of his character, Daniel Molloy. “In the course of this next season, we will butt heads, but we will also form strange alliances, and it gets pretty complex, it gets pretty byzantine. We are living in the realm of Anne Rice and the realm of Rolin Jones, and it is a world of deep imagination. I can barely keep up with it when I'm learning what's going on in the… in fact, honestly, I don't even completely understand it until I see the cut when the show is finished. Then I'm like, ‘Oh, okay, that's what we were doing in that scene I didn't completely understand.’"
“Claudia is still Claudia,” added Delaney Hayles, who replaces Bailey Bass in Season 2. “She still has all the attributes that we know and love. She's still bloodthirsty. And I think this season, we see her evolving into an older version of herself, so I'm looking forward to people seeing that.” Being new to the cast, Bailey had to learn how to perform through fangs and contact lenses, something her costars already sorted out last season. “On my first day, I fell over twice because that was the day that I got my lenses for the first time, and we were doing a night shoot. I forgot that there were props on the floor, and I just walked into them. I did like a little roll… The lenses are my favorite part, but they’re also kind of hard to see, especially when it’s nighttime. And I lost my fang on my first day as well. I was very upset about that, but I got it back.”
AMC+ subscribers can stream the Season 2 premiere of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, and episodes will broadcast on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.