Tom riding his horse through the slaves’ fire, and then turning the horse around so that he could face the suspicious mortals. That was on a par with Errol Flynn and Rudy Valentino. It was on a par with the opera greats who have played Mephistopheles. Only a genuine “star” can make a moment like that, and I’m as confused as to why… just as much as anyone in Hollywood. Let’s close this one out with one word: Grand! (No, can’t stop talking about it.)
If I had to settle for one picture in this film, it would be that shot of Lestat on horseback looking back at the suspicious mortals.
That was and is my hero. That was and is my man. Lestat just won’t be afraid of anybody. He won’t stand for it. He hates what he is as much as Louis, but he cannot do anything but move forward, attempt to make existence worth it, attempt to create. He knows the formula for success, and has no patience with the formula for failure. That’s Lestat.”
^So I saw these screencaps going around and I felt like making a fresh post on them, w/ cleaner screencaps and a link back to the post for archival purposes.
Let’s not forget this is also the post that she definitively defines their sexuality and I love this term:
OMNI SEXUAL. Yesss.
In the article, she describes the L/L wedding, so I finally decided to throw in my commentary bc you all love it, don’t deny it. Here’s a sample:
Benji would make a speech; so would Gregory; and also Gremt Stryker Knollys. And also Jesse. And others.
Their speeches are all going to be along the lines of a roast of Lestat and he will sit there and fake laugh and plot revenge. Gabrielle will be asked to make a speech and she will simply lean into the mic and say: “Louis, darling? He’s your problem now.”
Hit the jump for an invite to the wedding of the century!
Ha, no not really, but close enough, right? On with it:
“If Lestat and Louis were to marry, it would take place in the private chapel of Lestat’s chateau in France.
Aww that’s really cute.
They would likely both wear their favorite velvet frockcoats— Lestat in red, Louis in black — in the old style, with a lot of white pearl studded lace at the throat and at the cuffs…
bc #FASHION. Tasteful white embellishment. Thank goodness Lestat’s not wearing a dress, or forcing Louis to wear a dress.
and they would speak their vows in a reverent whisper, and Marius, in a long simple burgundy colored velvet robe, would preside. They would exchange gorgeous and priceless emerald rings.
What vows can they make at this point? “I promise not to kill you again. Unless you ask me to. Even then, I would need some assistance. I’m not sure. Please try to behave in a way that doesn’t provoke me to want to kill you.”
The chapel would be filled with candles, incense, and white roses and white lilies, and all the closest of the vampire kindred would be invited, and the venerable old ones,
Yes ok I’m on board with all this…
including the great Servraine, Gabrielle, Gregory, and Lestat’s body guards, Thorne and Cyril, and other elders.
K for one thing you spelled Sevraine’s name wrong and secondly, what is Gabrielle wearing? Thorne had his eyes removed IIRC so I hope someone’s telling him what’s going on bc otherwise the whole thing is going to be a little less special for him…. And Lestat could explode like the state of Texas with his mind but he needs bodyguards? Not Best Men. Okay.
Armand in finest burnt gold brocade and lace would be best man for Louis.
Ok awkward former ex of 100 yrs is his best man now but whatever…
David Talbot in dark hunter green velvet and white linen would be best man for Lestat.
David is worth his weight in gold and then some. He will be the one handling all the Lestat Bridezilla tantrums.
A choir of Vampire boys led by Notker would sing a cantata from Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimmer — the Chorale or first part. (BWV 140)
^Okay the music sounds cool but WHO’S BRILLIANT IDEA WAS IT to turn a whole choir full of boys into vampires? Wasn’t the child vampire thing very not cool? Who were the Ad wizards who came up with that one….
Then a great ball would take place in the grand or great hall of the chateau: with Notker conducting a vampire orchestra and Antoine playing first violin and occasional solos.
Lestat will dance around with Louis in increasingly dramatic fashion until Louis catches Jesse’s eye, manages to slip out and Lestat doesn’t even notice Jesse has tapped in until he dips her and almost French kisses her.
Benji would make a speech; so would Gregory; and also Gremt Stryker Knollys. And also Jesse. And others.
Their speeches are all going to be along the lines of a roast of Lestat and he will sit there and fake laugh and plot revenge. Gabrielle will be asked to make a speech and she will simply stand up and say into the mic: “Louis, darling? He’s your problem now.”
After the first dizzying Tchaikovsky waltz and a few other Viennese waltzes, there would be a lot of Greek side by side taverna dancing on the part of the vampires, male and female, to Greek taverna music (electronic mandolins), and then the great arched windows of the ball room would be thrown open and those who could take to the air would go out in pairs and groups to hunt in Marseilles amongst the pimps and the dope peddlers.
No vampiry wedding is complete w/o a massive amount of murder at the end y’know? For refreshments. It’s better than a blood fountain, right? You know Lestat would make a mess out of that in 12 seconds. Or less.
(There wouldn’t be too many young ones at the ball, as given their need to hunt, and their inability to defy gravity, they cannot spend long nights in the country; Lestat permits no hunting in Lyon or the neighboring French towns of his old homeland. So they would send their regards from Paris, London, Marseilles, Berlin, Rome, etc. ) It could happen.”
No kids allowed! No kids’ table even?? The invite will say, “You must be at least 100 yrs old to attend.” Daniel and Jesse sneak in anyway, and when asked by the bouncer vampires what makes them think they can get in, they point at Benji and Sybelle and are allowed access immediately.
I think that’s different for everyone, and #your headcanon may vary, so your headcanon is as valid as any! Who knows how true to canon the new adaptation will be? It would be fine with me if they want to update his musical taste/sound, as long as it seems in character.
But canon-wise, Lestat awoke in the mid-80s, before MCR was formed. AR wrote TVL w/ the 70′s and 80′s in mind. She’s mentioned Bon Jovi was a major Lestat muse for her (she even included him on the PL dedication page).
There’s fanon that Lestat loves Bruce Springsteen, too. So I’d say he would sound like a mix of Guns ‘n Roses, Bon Jovi, and Bruce Springsteen.
When whoever was in charge chose Korn to be the sound for Lestat’s band in movie!QOTD, they weren’t aiming for canon accuracy, but it was an interesting take on it.
There’s also a Lestat band on FB you can check out, I think they officially got AR’s permission to use the name.
Lestat: “Louis I was thinking we could be married under the sea.” Louis: “You mean by the sea, that’s very romantic-” Lestat: “Nonono, you misheard me. I said UNDER the sea.” Louis: “We will drown.” Lestat: “We are part mermaid, it’s totes cool” Louis: “We are not getting married.“
Your guess is as good as mine! I’m guessing Blood Paradise was pushed back to be published after this book. Could be that AR had this book ready and BP is not, bc planning a wedding is pretty complicated and all that!
And my guess, based on outside of tumblr discussions, for the PLROA (yes that is our new acronym gawds) book is that it will be mostly Amel telling us how awesome Atlantis was, and why it fell, and that there’s some unresolved thing for Lestat to swim run over there and fix, and then return to lounging around the castle or whatever they’re doing, bc the Proem seems to set up that everything’s been resolved and this is the report after the fact, like QOTD.
UPDATE: She changed the title of Blood Paradise to Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis:
FURTHER, that the Atlantis story had already been smtg she was working on for years and Lestat was added in later:
“I, myself, identify completely with Lestat. I can say Lestat is my other self, he’s my male self. He and I travel together. He does the things I wish I could do, but can’t. I love the fact that people identify with him. I worked very hard, and at the same time, it was a great joy to get a very intimate voice in the Lestat books. Lestat really sounds like he’s sitting at the table, talking to you, because that’s the way I feel about him when I’m writing–that he’s right there, telling me the story, leaning over my shoulder, telling me to get it right, pointing out things I should change, breathing down my neck, doing everything but biting me! Which he wouldn’t dare!”
“For my characters, I pick my names, really, by instinct and feeling they have to feel right for the character, they have to be pretty to me, and they have to have a sound that I can hear Lestat saying aloud, and Dora was a perfect name. I was also probably influenced by Dora in David Copperfield, by Dickens. I also search passionately for names in many sources. I look through baby name books. I circle the beautiful names when I come across them in history books and art books, and I sometimes write beautiful names on the walls of my room, having come across them in random reading. Names are extremely important to me. I can’t progress with the character until I have the name and can rapidly say the name, and type the name.”
“Lestat’s name doesn’t mean anything. It is a name that I made up. I search hard and long for names that are unique, and Lestat is, in a way, a mistake. There is an old French name in Louisiana, "Lestan”, and my husband’s name is Stan, and I thought I was using the old French name when I wrote Lestat . It was only later that I realized I had added a “t” for an “n”, and created a name that didn’t exist, so you might call it a Freudian slip. Lestat was definitely like Stan. His self confidence, his blonde hair, his blue eyes, his feline grace — all of that was inspired by my husband, Stan. So maybe it means ‘the Stan’.“
I wasn’t even thinking about Lestat when I wrote interview with the vampire I was thinking about Louis. Louis was the hero, everything revolved around Louis. Lestat just sprang to life in the corner of my eye. This character took on all this ferocity. I never sat down and thought “Well, this is based on my husband, Stan,” or “This is what Stan would do.” I had an idea of Lestat as the man of action, the man who could do things that I couldn’t do, that man who could make the decision that I never had the nerve to make; and the person who could go through life joyfully in spite of the questions that torment me — the doubts that torment me, the horror of death that torments me. Of course, that was tied up with the idea that he was an 18th century personality; he was from the age of reason, he was much more rational, much more cynical in some ways than Louis. Louis was more a naïve romantic character, much more I think 19th century. All of that was working in my mind. Not that the Romantic period is limited to the 19th century, certainly not; it starts in the 18th. But still, Lestat represented the Enlightenment. He represented a different view on things. He’s also inherently a comic character, in the sense of always triumphing and always coming back and never being really destroyed. He never really absorbs a tragic definition of himself for very long. He always comes back laughing at everything and just rebounding. It may take him a few years, but he always does it. I really wanted to explore a personality different from my own. He became a kind of dream version of what I’d like to be; he was the man I wanted to be; he was the person I wanted to be. I wanted his strength. And once he became a living character I never had to consciously steer him in any direction. It was just a matter of getting into Lestat and then he’d go, and he’d take me where he wanted in the novel. I never had to worry about his dialogue. My knowledge of him was so complete, and so instinctive, that I could just write. The other characters I might have to think about — where they were coming from, what they had to say. But not him. I know exactly what he thinks about everything. If I walk into a theater and see a play, I know whether he likes it or not. If I watch an opera, I know whether he loves that opera. If I go visit a city, I know what he thinks of that city. I’ll never be away from him; he’ll always be apart of me.
I-want-my-IWTV 