(I haven’t really watched that show but I’ve seen bits when channel surfing, but here’s some repurposed Cam, Mitchell, and their daughter dialogue…)
One Happy Modern Vampire Family
You remember correctly! AR had suggested casting the same actor for the role 2/16/17:
Also Anne can you please spell it Nicolas w/o the H? Plz? *cries*
Lestat did compare Nicki and Louis, and there are similarities and differences, I think AR was just curious about it as an idea… I’m sure this has been done in live theatre at some point, casting one actor for 2 (or more) roles in a given production. She did say she’d want a talented, versatile actor who could create each role distinctively. Twins could probably create distinctive personalities but they would probably still look basically the same.
However, that “twin” comment from TVL was more about their personalities than physical resemblance:
I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner, who seemed in his cynicism and self destructiveness the very twin of Nicolas.
Nicki’s face is not really described, aside from his having brown eyes. Louis is described in much more detail: narrow face, wide-set green eyes, wavy/curly black hair.
Louis and Nicki are not the same. I feel like looking the same would overpower distinctive personality differences.
Played by the same actor or identical twins, I feel like it would seem too much like “Louis”/”Nicolas” is trying to trick Lestat, a weird consideration I’d rather not have introduced.
…But let’s have the Sprouse twins audition anyway and let’s take one of them!
(Reminder: I am/was not a gender studies major, nor a student of fandom. This is just an entertainment blog and all that follows is my opinion only.)
This is a highly sensitive topic that people study academically for many fandoms, and I will hardly do it justice here. But I felt it was important to share what I can, anyway. Some links are under the cut for further reading about this topic, even though they do not apply to VC fandom specifically.
The short answer is that, from my experience, yes, most ppl in the VC fandom seem to be women. This is based on the past 20 years of AR’s booksignings I’ve attended, online communities, interviews/articles over the years, AR’s FB (her own posts + comments from her People of the Page), and AR’s Twitter. However, I would add that she absolutely does have fans who are men, NB, agender, genderqueer, transgender, etc. It would be difficult to do a thorough demographic study of all of her fans (current/past/specific time period(s)/etc.), so I wouldn’t know what portion of the fanbase is made up of women.
Let’s take a brief look at our superfan from movie!IWTV:
^What is superfan thinking? Does she think Santiago is a REAL VAMPIRE? Does she want to die? … or, is she simply a groupie of that media and enjoying it as a fantasy situation? We don’t get her backstory in the movie, so we may never know.
^Santiago has had to deal with hecklers and admirers for years so he’s not really fazed by her disrupting his show, and when he shuts her offer down, it draws a laugh from the audience. Laugh at the fan who confessed her love for the fantasy of it all and offered herself as tribute.
Before we specify why women are in VC fandom, one thing to consider is What is fandom? In my opinion, it’s a group of people who are drawn to a shared space bc of a shared interest in specific media. Within that, you still have to reach out to individuals in order to become friends. You don’t necessarily have to agree on every aspect of the media you each enjoy, but having chemistry certainly helps. Participating in fandom can also mean creating/consuming fanworks without having any personal connection with other fans. Sometimes it’s just in posting fic and/or leaving kudos. Some join a skype chat group so that they focus primarily on their personal connections with other fans. It’s a wide spectrum and there are different ways to engage with other fans within a fandom.
Why VC fandom? We all have our reasons for being in VC fandom. I would prefer not to speak for other fans as to their reasons, but everyone is welcome to respond in the comments/reblogs of this post, or message me on/off anon, and I might gather up those responses and add them to this post.
Why I was drawn to VC:
Personally, I’m a woman, and I’m in this fandom bc the canon/fanon is intellectually stimulating to me. I’ve made some of my best friends here. We share a love for these characters and we discuss them at length. This does not mean we 100% support everything the characters do in canon. We enjoy them as fictional characters, not necessarily as role models.
Secondly… I had posted a personal account about my reasons for being into VC canon, but later deleted that post bc I was informed that my reasons weren’t acceptable. That VC was not for straight women. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ll briefly tell you my reasons for being attached to VC, under the cut.
Brief historical context:
These books are/were written by a straight white woman, and she’s always advised her fans to “write the book you want to read.” She currently writes for herself, presumably, as she does not use an editor in the traditional sense. She began VC in the early 1970s with the short story, “The Master of Rampling Gate” (which eventually became the full novel IWTV). The short story was published in Redbook magazine at the time, which is/was a magazine for women, and the short story was written in the vein (pun intended!) of the older gothic romance novels that were extremely popular in the ‘60s.
^In fact, this edition of IWTV is straight-baiting, as the only female love interest that Louis might have gotten into that physical position with would be Babette, and that… definitely doesn’t happen.
IWTV is a dissection of Louis’ feelings, and Louis was a stand-in for Anne herself. VC in general has a lot of emotion, both in the dialogue, and the introspection woven into the narrative itself. The fact that these books are mostly written from the 1st person perspective is a very intimate means of communication to the reader, and makes the novels that much more emotionally rich. Some might say that such emotional writing tends to appeal to women.
The books are intimate. There is a constant thread of intimacy throughout which seems to appeal to women of all sexual orientations, in my opinion. I started the series with IWTV when I was 11 yrs old and I’ve heard from other fans of other genders that they also started VC when they were young, even around the age that I did. Being right before puberty, maybe that adds some extra addictive quality to it, that it explores a kind of intimacy when we’re in the phase of life where we’re just becoming interested in sexuality. I remember mooning over pics of Brad Pitt in my table group at lunch, and we would talk about him, but I doubt any of us would have wanted to actually kiss him at the time, we just wanted to speculate about dating and romance!
After the first book, the intimacy continues with TVL, where we get Lestat’s backstory, and as the series progresses, it just keeps going. Whichever book new VC fans enter the series, they’re going to hit that vein, more or less. It’s not as strong in the most current books, but it’s still there. I would say that AR found that the way she wrote the first 2 books was so well-received that she felt validated in her style of writing, that it was appealing to her readers, and continued to produce it.
There’s also quite a lot of wealthporn, where the characters describe their expensive clothes, jewelry, or lavish surroundings, none of them have to hold a dayjob or anything menial like that. Since many of us do not currently enjoy such luxuries of material goods and/or freedom of leisure time, it’s another element that might make it appealing to certain demographics. There’s a ton of wish fulfillment in the books.
Hit the jump for a little more.
My reasons for being into VC
Basically, I was bullied when I was 11 (for having a bad fashion sense and bad teeth), which is right around the time that someone gave me a copy of IWTV. I had always loved horror novels and scary stories as a way to study monsters and see if I could unpack them and better understand them. I drew inspiration from the way the VC characters handled their own obstacles, I loved getting Lestat’s backstory, he was not just a colorful antagonist, he had his own reasons for acting the way he did. Reasons are not EXCUSES, but in understanding monstrous behavior, we can equip ourselves to weather it when we see it in real life. Eventually, I got braces, grew out of my 90′s grunge phase, and while the bullies changed form over time, I learned how to deal with them.
Could I have drawn inspiration from other books/movies/music? Yes! And I did. But VC, for the intimacy of the stories, for the vibrancy of the characters, for so many reasons that I can’t go into on a post I’m trying to keep brief… this is a piece of media that I’ve held onto over the years. Not the only one, but certainly the main one, for me.
A few good posts to check out re: women in fandom:
And I don’t mean to attack you, Anon, but these posts are written with a tone because there is so much criticism of what women in fandom are not allowed to enjoy. Please read at your own risk, but they have some very good points about why women might be into certain things in fandom.
♛Silk boxers, usually, in bright colors and wine red. Briefs, among certain company, too. Neutrals, black, grays, pastels. They can emphasize the natural features in a very appealing way. I like the feel of taut cotton. I like the sound it makes when it’s ripped. Some nights, I prefer nothing at all.
…And who says lingerie isn’t an option? Because it very much is.
Um, agreed. TBH I would love for him to audition as Lestat, Louis or even Daniel. Dylan or Cole both. I can’t tell them apart. They are seasoned professional actors, they have such charm and charisma, they’re 25 yrs old but could easily pass for 20 or 21… so many reasons so YES PLZ.
(Happy Birthday, Anon!)
//ooc; Louis is 85% of Lestat’s birth impulse* control.
*Edited bc of @theraphaellus‘s comment!
Hello! I’m flattered that you think so, but I don’t have behind-the-scenes access on the VC TV series, much as I’d like to have it! But I try to be the person who would know at least something about it. I can’t be watching for the news 24/7 so I rely on ppl to shoot links at me of posts from the Official VC FB page, tweets from Anne or Christopher Rice, news articles, etc., something that seems relevant and not just teasing! They do alot of teasing. VC casting crowdsourcing requests.
There was a video posted to the OVCFB (this one from 5/4/17, I think? I can’t watch it now) where AR discussed the state of things, @firelight-fading was good enough to make a recap of the pertinent points!
The most recent thing, which I didn’t post about, oddly, I’ll make a post for it after this, is that the Rices met with Bryan Fuller about the project. He’s been a VC fan for a looooong time:
Was so enamored with Anne Rice’s Interview With a Vampire that, at age 15, he tracked down her phone number and called her, asking to do the screenplay adaptation. When she informed him that producer Julia Phillips owned the rights to the novel, he then called her; she was kind, but firm, in rebuffing him.
Chris gave him homemade shortbread cookies when they met. We all know Bryan’s chomping at the bit for Hannibal, but maybe he can hook the Rices up with someone who’s as passionate about VC as he is, or he can serve in some kind of advisory role? Idk!
OTHER THAN ALL THAT… Currently, to my knowledge, there’s no *new* news. Check my #VC News tag to see some of the past news, and watch the tag for any updates!
AR did post this yesterday (9/19/17), nothing concrete, just that it’s still in the works:
Awww what a sweet thing to say! Yeah I’d be pretty sad if this blog disappeared, too.
(If this blog is ever shut down w/o warning, I’ll set up a new blog (or ask a few specific ppl here) to post the info of whatever happened to me and tag it #iwantmyiwtv, but hopefully we won’t have to deal w/ that.)
YES, I loooooved OLLA! Definitely one of my faves.
So many questions about those characters! I want the backstory on all of them. How are they turned? When was Eve turned? She seems to have some kind of touch-telepathy with materials, like a druid? How did Ava get turned, is she older than Adam? WHAT HAPPENED IN PARIS 87 YRS AGO? Some bad shit went down in Paris for our faves, too.
(From what I understand, based on my behind-the-scenes knowledge (I know a dude who is good friends with the director, Jim Jarmusch) much of what does happen in OLLA is based on real things that happened in the director’s life, specifically, experiences with an ex (in the movie, represented by Ava).)
It’s almost the VC movie we’ve deserved for a long time and I loved it! Like a documentary or a diary entry, almost. It’s humorous, sensuous, clever, dramatic, all built on a strong foundation of the characters’ chemistry w/ each other. It offers its own take on some of the vampire mythology (they don’t have reflections in mirrors, they are susceptible to blood diseases). Not alot actually HAPPENS, plot-wise, but it doesn’t need to. We’re getting a slice of life of these characters. It’s mostly a collection of charming subtle moments, like Adam trying Eve’s new “cuisine” for the first time:
^Yes, this moment has a sexiness to it *drool* but more than that, he is almost childlike in both his resistance to *~and his curiosity about~* this New Thing bc he won’t let Eve know she can improve his mood so easily bc Adam is a SERYUS Brooding Musician ffs.
Btw, there is/was an Adam RPer, @wastefulselfobsession. You might check out their archive for more OLLA. They have character backstories!
So Adam is something of a Louis/Nicolas hybrid, being the bookworm musician who lives in a shambles and doesn’t care for fashion (or conditioner apparently). Like Louis, he doesn’t want to go around hunting the Evildoer. I can’t help but make a few more little comparisons to IWTV…
^Frickin’ house rules, ppl!!! Hot dad is angry.
^Claudia and Ava are SOOO sorry. Like really. So apologetic. They’ll never do it again, seriously. They are voracious little monsters, aren’t they?
^Little sisters to big bro/sis/makers: “We are going to have S O M U C H fun”
More comparisons could be made but I like ppl to think I am just a casual fan and not a corkboard maniac that’s alls I got for now.
Really? Wow. I know it’s wrong in the movie, too. *SIGH*
The books being translated in other languages I can understand a little more bc idk maybe they want the pronunciation taken into effect but the UK version would be in ENGLISH so NO EXCUSE THERE!
I-want-my-IWTV 