Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) - 8 questions

Question: I still don't understand the purpose of the little boy Armand has with all the bite marks.

Answer: Because his blood tastes really good. The vampires keep him around like a bottle of fine wine. They are careful not to kill him or turn him into a vampire. He must be treated very well in return as he is clearly loyal to Armand, rescuing him from the fire later.

Question: At the end of the film, Lestat bites Malloy, then offers to turn him into a vampire, much the same way he did to Louie. Does Malloy agree to become a vampire, and if he does, what kind of "life" does Malloy live then on?

Answer: In the books, Daniel Molloy isn't attacked by Lestat at the end of the film - Lestat doesn't appear at all. Molloy began a quest to locate Lestat, a quest that fails, but he does meet Armand instead. For some years the two travelled together, with Armand occasionally granting Daniel a sip of vampiric blood, but refusing to fully turn him. Daniel would frequently run away and sink in an alcoholic despair, but the two would always link up again in the end, usually when Daniel had really hit rock bottom. Eventually, Daniel's alcohol abuse did such damage to his body that Armand was forced to turn him into a vampire to stop him dying altogether. The two seperated shortly after, no longer able to tolerate each other. Daniel vanished for some time, eventually resurfacing, having lost his mind, in the care of Marius. What happened to him after that is unknown, although Marius stated that his insanity was only temporary (although precisely what 'temporary' might mean to the 2000-year-old vampire is anybody's guess).

Question: Sometime after Lestats death, Louis is told that a vampires' punishment for killing it's own kind is death. After Claudia and the vampire woman are found turned to dust, Louis begins killing some of the vampires in retaliation, so why didn't any remaining vampires go after Louis and give him the same punishment?

Answer: Firstly, it may not be widely known that he was responsible - he wiped out the theatre coven, other than Armand, who supports him, leaving no-one to tell the tale. Secondly, he has the favour of Armand, a known power in the vampiric world - to go after Louis would risk Armand's wrath, which would not be an appealing prospect to any would-be vengeance-seekers.

Question: This is a strange question, but how does Rice pronounce her hero's name? In the movie I hear two pronunciations: one like the ending in "cat" and one that sounds more like the end of "what." Also, Lestat is French, so shouldn't the final "t" be silent?

Answer: Rice pronounces it something like "Luh-stot", although even she wavers occasionally. Standard French convention would certainly suggest that the final 't' should be a silent one, but, as Lestat would be deeply insulted to be considered conventional, it's highly likely that he wouldn't choose to go along with that.

Question: Is is a coincidence that Claudia wears blue dresses so frequently? I was wondering if it is because blue is a color that Louis loves so much.

Answer: Given that Claudia is very fond of Louis, I suspect that you've hit the nail on the head with your suggestion.

Question: Why did they decide to go with an older looking Armand? I thought the rules about vampire children would have seemed more apparent if the audience could see that he was one, so why the change?

Answer: The first problem was finding a child actor capable of playing the role - Armand is an extraordinarily complex character and it's highly questionable that a child actor could have played him to the requirements of the script. Secondly, there are some extremely homosexual overtones in the relationship between Louis and Armand (and, for that matter, Louis and Lestat) - while the film just about manages to get away with the relationship between Louis and Claudia, it's extremely likely that there would have been major problems with the censors and critics at any attempt to portray the relationship between Louis and a child Armand. The requirements of the story dictated that Claudia needed to be a child, but there's nothing that insists the same for Armand - hence the eventual decision to up his age.

Question: What does Claudia give the twin boys to keep their blood warm, and what does Lestat think it is?

Answer: She says that she gives them laudanum, an opium-based drug that was very popular at the time. She tells Lestat, however, that the two boys are merely completely drunk on brandy. After biting them and feeling the bad effects, he initially asks if she's fed them absinthe, an extremely strong (usually 60%, but can easily be as high as 75%) herbal liqueur with a flavour resembling licorice, before being told the truth.

Question: I never would have picked Tom Cruise for that role, but he did a fabulous job. However, I was wondering who else the casting people considered, and what made them choose Tom Cruise?

Answer: Daniel Day Lewis was offered the part, but turned it down. There's also a rumour, that I've never seen confirmed, that Johnny Depp was approached - if true, he presumably said no. The studio wanted a good name in the role (Lewis was riding high in Hollywood after "The Last of the Mohicans", Depp was very much an up-and-coming actor at the time) so Cruise would have seemed like an obvious choice. He was initially cast against the wishes of Anne Rice (who created Lestat with Rutger Hauer in mind) - after seeing his performance, however, she made a public apology for doubting him.