First of all: “Casting Stress™” ? ACCEPTED. New tag. 

RE: “Like, everyone in this fandom has a different headcanon and goddamit that’s tricky!” That’s an understatement, lol. Even AR has a different headcanon than we do, apparently. Reconciling all our headcanons is highly unlikely, but it’s great that we have Tom’s Lestat as evidence that the actor CAN win ppl over based on their acting (and the rest of the cast & crew’s efforts**) to overcome their physical non-compliance re:

headcanon.

Obviously I’m also very attached to Tom Cruise’s Lestat, I feel ya there ❤ 

TL;DR: I would hope that whoever gets cast will give it their professional best AND win us over as best they can, have a whole team supporting them well, and a director/showrunner with a clear vision. It’s not all on the new Lestat’s shoulders. It’s a team effort.

Hit the jump for a little more.

And I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: I’d love to have him train the new Lestat, or at least be available as an adviser, but a new actor will probably want to stake their own claim on the character, like Heath Ledger made his own Joker w/o Jack Nicholson’s advice (I don’t think they talked about it). Different Jokers, different films. Gonna be a different Lestat for a different adaptation. 

What made Tom’s Lestat so great? A lot of factors had to come together but mainly, he did his homework, he had read at least the first three books (maybe the 4th, too), he practiced reading aloud from books from the time period the character lived in, watched videos of lions attacking prey (yes they used to show that kinda thing on TV!), etc., and did a lot of that work on his own. I see it in the tags pretty often that ppl who dislike Tom in general loved him in this role.

**But more than his own work, he had a director* with a clear vision and a full cast and crew supporting that vision. Every department contributed to his (and the film’s) success, makeup, costume, set design, special fx, music, etc., it all harmonized in the end. I’m not saying it was the BEST FILM OF EVER, but it was a successful adaptation in my opinion, and I’m not the only one of that opinion. I’ve been told publicly and privately that that adaptation was the gateway drug to many ppl reading the books, so in that sense, it was successful!

*Apparently Neil Jordan was responsible for most of the comedy that got into the script, mostly in Lestat’s dialogue/actions. It was Neil’s idea to add that ending, which was more upbeat than the original ending (which was the book’s ending). That’s an example of a director making a choice that deviated from canon and it working out (admittedly, it would have caused canon continuity issues for a sequel). I’m sure there are ppl who would still prefer the canon ending, but the majority of opinions I’ve seen/heard have been that ppl liked the changed ending.