AMC’s Interview With the Vampire has found its Lestat. Deadline reports that the network has cast Australian actor Sam Reid as the ancient vampire, the third actor to play the role since Anne Rice’s novel was adapted for film in 1994. Based on the novel, the eight-episode first season of the series is slated to begin production sometime later this year, for a streaming and on-air premiere in 2022.
A primary character in many of Rice’s books, Lestat de Lioncourt is the driving force behind many of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, including Interview With The Vampire. Turned from a member of the nobility to a vampire in the eighteenth century, Lestat functions as an antihero and a source of mischief, including for Louis de Pointe du Lac, Interview’s other primary character, whom he turns from human to vampire against his will. What Reid will bring to the character, no one can say, though he will have significantly more time to woo audiences with an eight-episode series rather than the film formats of his predecessors.
Originally published in 1976, Interview With The Vampire was famously adapted for the big screen in 1994, starring Tom Cruise as Lestat and Brad Pitt as Louis. The film was a box office success, earning $36.4 million its opening weekend and winning two BAFTA Awards for cinematography and production design. A standalone sequel, Queen of the Damned, was released in 2002 to middling reviews, with Stuart Townsend replacing Cruise as Lestat.
AMC’s Interview is created and written by Rolin Jones of Perry Mason fame, who will also serve as showrunner. Jones will executive produce the series alongside Mark Johnson, as well as author Anne Rice and her son Christopher Rice. No further casting announcements have been made, but longtime Rice fans may be eager to see who will be joining Reid onscreen as Louis.