The fang gang’s all here for the upcoming series adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. Yesterday it was announced that Bailey Bass will play Claudia, a vampire who looks like a young girl. Her vampire family includes Australian actor Sam Reid as Lestat, who enjoys being a vampire, and Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones‘ Grey Worm) as Louis, the sad boy interviewee of the title.
It is virtually impossible to talk about any adaptation of Interview without noting that Lestat and Louis were played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in Neil Jordan’s 1994 film adaptation of of Rice’s book—which also featured a very young Kirsten Dunst as Claudia (pictured above). The ’90s were really a time.
Interview With the Vampire is the first of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and the first step in AMC’s plan to create a Vampire Chronicles universe (they are also working on a Mayfair Witches series, and crossover is inevitable). Rolin Jones (Perry Mason) is the series’ creator, writer, and showrunner; Rice and her son Christopher are among the executive producers. Alan Taylor, who directed several episodes of Game of Thrones and the recent Sopranos movie The Many Saints of Newark, is set to direct the first two episodes.
The most recognizable of the three actors is Anderson, who is best known for Game of Thrones, but was also on the BBC’s Broadchurch, and will be in the next season of Doctor Who. Bailey will appear in the three upcoming Avatar sequels. Reid played John Glenn in The Astronaut Wives Club, and appeared in the Australian series The Newsreader, among other roles.
In the books, Louis is a plantation owner, and Lestat comes from an aristocratic French family that lost its fortune. When Louis meets him, he is living off the blood of slaves. Claudia comes into their lives when Louis finds her, ill with plague and huddled next to the body of her mother; Lestat, who is not the nicest guy, turns her into a vampire to manipulate Louis. How the show may change the vampires’ backgrounds is yet to be seen, but the trio’s casting offers up new possibilities.
There are key characters yet to be cast, including Daniel Molloy, who interviews Louis; the vampire Armand, leader of a coven in France; Santiago, a suspicious member of Armand’s coven; and Madeleine, a companion to Claudia. The show is set to begin next year, so more casting announcements should come before long.
