AMC’s ‘Interview With the Vampire’ Takes a Queer Bite in First Trailer

Author: Alex Cooper

The trailer for AMC’s Interview With the Vampire premiered Saturday following the show’s panel at Comic-Con earlier in the week. And it is queer, so very queer.  

An adaptation of the late Anne Rice’s legendary and best-selling gothic horror novel published in 1976, the AMC series looks to be as queer as the story is in the books. In the novel, Louis de Pointe du Lac details his life and death and vampire life to a reporter. Much of the tale revolves around Louis’s romance with his sire, Lestat de Lioncourt, along with their life with the 10-year-old turned vampire Claudia, whom they essentially adopt as their daughter.

A film starring Brad Pitt as Louis, Tom Cruise as Lestat, and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia came out in 1994 to critical acclaim. Dunst received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.

The new adaptation gets an update with Louis, played by Game of Thrones star Jacob Anderson, featured in a podcast with journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Sam Reid plays Lestat and Bailey Bass takes up the role of Claudia.

The trailer begins with Louis banging on a church door, desperately seeking help, saying “He’s in my head, Father.”

Later, with clips of Reid’s Lestat, Louis explains, “I was being hunted, and I was completely unaware it was happening.”

“I’ve been watching you for some time now, Louis,” Lestat explains at a dinner table. “I could swap this life of shame. Swap it out for a dark gift.”

Louis, irritated at the restraints put on him as a Black man in early 1900s New Orleans, sees the possibility in Lestat’s offer, according to a press release reported by People.

“Bless me, Father, f-for I have sinned. I have laid down with the devil, and I can’t think nothing anymore,” Louis confesses to a priest before Lestat pulls the priest out of the confessional and to his bloody doom.

“You don’t fear me, Louis. You fear yourself,” Lestat tells Louis.

Interview With the Vampire will run for seven episodes in its first season, according to Variety. Rice’s gay son, Christopher Rice, will executive produce the series as well as another Rice adaptation set to premiere on AMC, Lives of the Mayfair Witches.

Anne Rice had been set to also executive produce both of the series before her death last year.

Her books about vampires and other supernatural beings were noted for their homoeroticism. She told The Advocate in 2000 that the homoeroticism in her books developed organically.

“It’s important to me as a writer to let everything come spontaneously and not think too much about it,” she said. “I don’t sit down and think, I’m going to write about gay characters or I’m going to write about a homoerotic theme. It just keeps happening in my work pretty naturally.”

Interview With the Vampire will premiere on AMC and AMC+ on October 2.

Watch the trailer below.

Original Article on The Advocate
Author: Alex Cooper