Exhibit A:

^Basically rock star Lestat. 

Exhibit B:

More gifs/pics from RoA that I consider Lestatuesque.

As for the fandom reaction, tbh I’ve been a fan ever since the dark ages of speculative fic on geocities websites oh gawd i am old I survived the War on Fanfic from the 90’s... but I didn’t actually find the fandom as it exists now until after this movie came out (2012)!

At the time, I myself was excited along with a few RL friends who were my entire VC fandom at that time. We were pleased as punch.

I’ll speculate that the fandom ppl that loved Cruise’s Lestat (like meeee) were very psyched for RoA. Even now, I consider Cruise’s Jaxx to be an older, mortal, brunet, tattooed Lestat. That’s alot of AU there, but still.

In RoA, his character is similar to Lestat: that whole macho shell with a tender, bruised inside that just wants to be loved for who he really is. At the end of RoA, Jaxx ends up with someone who loves him for HIM, rather than the groupies who love his stage persona or want to bang him for his sexual prowess, or his money, or whatever. Same thing with Lestat. So many people want to fuck him, but very few put in the effort, or gain his trust enough to get to know who he really is inside.