Tom Cruise as Lestat de Lioncourt | Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Okay, so let’s talk about Tom Cruise for a minute.
One of the things I love about this movie is that the scenes with Lestat make it SO different if you go into them on Lestat’s side. Tom Cruise nailed it so hard and I recall hearing that he read the books for research? So he had such a deeper grasp on Lestat’s personality than if they’d only used the Interview source material and taken Louis’s word on Lestat’s personality and temperament. There’s so much subtext to these two characters that you don’t really get from Interview alone because Louis is such an unreliable narrator*. But for example, the scene with the hookers: Louis makes Lestat out to be this horrifying monster and it’s like such a heartbreakingly different scene if you go into it on Lestat’s side and realize that he’s trying to help. PLZ CHILD PLZ EAT SOMETHING! And they drop a teeny clue earlier in the movie about how Lestat kills evildoers and it’s subtle and I’m not sure if everyone who hasn’t read the book picks it up? But knowing that going into the scene and being able to deduce that these women deserve to die makes it so different.
And there are so many little clues in their scenes about how much he truly cares for Louis, and even just his acting like YOU CAN JUST SEE IT IN HIS FACE HOW MUCH HE ADORES LOUIS and it’s just like so fucking special. Like the part where he drains the rat into the glass, he’s doing that to help, and the look he gives Louis when they have the “there’s nothing in this world now that doesn’t hold some-” “-fascination” exchange UGH. he’s basically like 😍😍😍😍😍
* I MEAN, DEPENDING WHICH ONE OF THESE IDIOTS YOU DECIDE TO BELIEVE. The options are A) Louis is salty as fuck and Lestat is actually like a mostly-loveable happy vampire dude, or B) Lestat is bipolar as fuck and everything Louis said was true and we get to see Lestat’s bullshit behavior unfolding later in the series and we see the way he packages it as if it’s normal because he’s an egomaniac. IDK WHATEVER. Point is, even when Lestat is doing atrocious things, his sense of humor is such a strong voice in the series, and it makes you like him, so what I’m saying is that it was amazing that Tom Cruise played it the way he did, and that the crew obviously used extra source material to get that bit of his personality, and if this movie had turned into a series it would’ve been believable later on when you learn that Lestat is a silly jackass. ❤
It’s something that could’ve been neglected so easily and like I’m forever the happiest and luckiest losernerd that I got the rare Excellent Adaptation for a book I love to death.
You’re so welcome, glad you enjoyed it! Answering asks is so much fun for me, it makes me consider my own current and previous thoughts, sometimes I even ask around privately for more ideas… and try to write it out as best I can, it gives me an excuse to make fresh gifs/memes, sometimes it inspires others to make fanworks… and I always like to hear back from the original asker that the effort was appreciated *u* ((No, you only get one question per quarter. Pffft. Of course you can ask more!))
“in general, how do we as a base know what is unreliable information or not when it comes to our narrators because from what I’ve always gathered, they have the earnest desire to convey the truth as they can see it.”
You would think that, but just like in real life, people can narrate a story for their own motivations.
TL;DR:
The characters telling their stories don’t always have the earnest desire to convey the truth, so it’s not always clear what the reliable information is! When we have accounts of the same event where the details align, that seems to be the best way to confirm it’s canon, bc even Anne Rice can’t always answer fan’s questions about canon stuff to everyone’s satisfaction.
When there’s conflicting details, we have to rely on headcanons, which ppl can choose to agree on or not, hence the fandom phrase, #Your Headcanon May Vary.
For example of facts aligning: I think we can all agree that Armand was the unspoken leader at the Theatre des Vampires bc Lestat left him there in a position of authority in TVL, which is where Louis found him some 80 years later in IWTV, confirming that that was Armand’s role there.
In the scene above,
IDK at that point in canon whether Lestat believes in a God, but if not, he’s deliberately lying to Claudia, bc she’s never going to see her mother again. Even if he does believe in God, he still doesn’t know where his dead go! He’s trying to answer her in a way that will keep her calm and complacent. He knows Claudia’s mother is dead, he saw the corpse in the movie. But she is still a child and he doesn’t want to scare her or depress her, or make her feel guilty about killing, which she just did!
I also think he’s a little taken aback bc she’s asking him for the whereabouts of her biological mother just minutes after he turned her into a vampire, a process that’s been compared to birth. It’s the most intimate act a vampire can experience. His smile falls right after she asks bc in a way it seems like he’s a deflated that she wants her biological mother, it’s like she’s already saying, “You’re not my REAL dad!” It might also remind him of his own mother who abandoned him ;A;
Re: Lestat P.1: In TVL, Lestat tells Armand:
“I never lie,” I said offhand. “At least not to those I don’t love.”
I’m still not 100% clear on this, bc of the double negatives. Can we translate it to “I’m honest with those I don’t love.” –> “I lie to those I love.” ? He spent some 65 years lying by omission to Louis and Claudia about the other vampires, and all the secrets he knew. So who’s to say he doesn’t also lie to his readers, “those I don’t love” ? How much does he really love his readers?
Re: Louis: I’ve always felt, and there are others who share this opinion, who gave me this opinion, that IWTV was dictated to Daniel from Louis with the intention of pissing Lestat off enough that he would rise from wherever he was hiding and find Louis. While I don’t think Louis intentionallyLIED, I do think he might have embellished some things, exaggerated here and there, left out certain things, in order to achieve his goal. And it WORKED because…
Re: Lestat P.2: The Vampire Lestat was Lestat’s rebuttal to IWTV, containing all the secrets he couldn’t tell Louis during their time together, so I’m inclined to believe that Lestat earnestly wanted to correct the record and win Louis back, since he still loved Louis.
Re: Armand: TBH, I don’t know Armand’s story well enough, what I believe and what I don’t, in all of canon, to say that he’s a liar. I think, like Louis and Lestat, he embellishes, he lies by omission, and he tells people things when he wants a certain reaction out of them. He lied to his coven when he was a leader all those years since he never really believed in serving Satan. Or did he? It seems like he didn’t.
There is a particular scene that Armand describes in TVA that is questionable, as to whether it happened.
How he tried to “help” Claudia the night she died (fanart by @sheepskeletonhere, if you dare, it’s gorey). Personally, I sometimes believe it’s the truth bc Armand does like… experiments! But then I also remember how David was flirting excessively with Armand in that book, andso it’s possible that “this story was just something that Armand made up; somehow trying to intimidate the others, displaying the cruelty he could be capable of.” (quote from @annabellioncourt)
Hello! I have thought about this, probably thought about it TOO much… and while I don’t a clear answer, it’s a stimulating question:
Was this young ‘nurse’ vampire a fledgling of Lestat’s?
^How does the old fandom joke go? Every time X sound occurs, Lestat makes another fledgling? *facepalm*
I agree w/ your point about re: Antoine, it seems like Lestat or Antoine would have confirmed that it was in fact Antoine who was the unnamed young vampire in that scene in IWTV.
TL;DR: We have unreliable narrators** in BOTH Lestat and Louis*. I personally don’t think that the unnamed ‘nurse’ vampire in this scene was made by Lestat, but it’s quite possible! Lestat has never mentioned him again in canon, but we might find out about him in the next novel.
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
This is an excerpt from the scene
in IWTV (the book, not in the movie) w/ the unnamed young vampire @terryfphanatics is asking about:
“Because shortly after that I saw a vampire in New Orleans, a sleek white-faced young man walking alone on the broad sidewalks of St. Charles Avenue…” (this mystery vampire kills a woman and takes her baby to a shabby old house where he meets up with Lestat) “My eyes widened as I studied this stooped and shivering vampire whose rich blond hair hung down in loose waves covering his face…
… “ ‘You all leave me!’ [Lestat] whined now in a thin, high-pitched voice.
‘You can’t keep us with you!’ said the stiff young vampire sharply.”
(Louis taps at the window)
…“ ‘It’s Louis! Louis!’ [Lestat] said. `Let him in’ And he gestured frantically, like an invalid, for the young `nurse’ to obey. … and I could see the tears welling in his eyes…How baffling and awful it was, this smoothfaced, shimmering immortal man bent and rattled and whining like a crone.”
So yes, Lestat might have made this ‘nurse’ vampire as Marius made Bianca, a dedicated fledgling vampire to help him in his recovery.
As with the previously unnamed musician vampire in IWTV – who later became known as Antoine in PL – I used to headcanon that
Lestat couldn’t bear to even mention the musician vampire’s name in later canon bc he was either A) an embarrassment to Lestat or B) that they had broken up violently, C) both, D) the musician vampire had really been killed by Claudia, or E) other reasons. This unnamed young ‘nurse’ vampire might fall under A, B, C, or E. Or maybe someone else has killed him since then *shrugs*
When Lestat says: ‘You all leave me!’ – ;A; This could be about his fledglings, bc, yes, when you take TVL into account, up to this point in canon all four have chosen to leave him: Gabrielle, Nicolas, Louis & Claudia (at this point in canon, the unnamed musician vampire appeared to have been destroyed). Armand’s warnings to Lestat about making fledglings
in TVL are relevant:
“Oh, but it’s always a travesty, don’t you see?… And the veil will always come down between you. Make a legion. You will be, always and forever, alone!
If the ‘nurse’ vampire was not made by Lestat: It also would have been possible for a rogue vampire to find Lestat, perceive that he was an older vampire, and might have wisdom or power, or the rogue had heard of the legendary Lestat, and come in search of him purposely. I feel like this is more likely given how beaten down Lestat was from the assassination attempt and his survival of the Theatre des Vampires in such close proximity.
THEN we have THIS (also from IWTV, prior to the scene excerpted above):
“[Armand] told me something he’d concealed from me since the time we were in Paris.
“Lestat had not died in the Theatre des Vampires. I had believed him to be dead, and when I asked Armand about those vampires, he told me they all had perished. But he told me now that this wasn’t so. Lestat had left the theater the night I had run away from Armandand sought out the cemetery in Montmartre. Two vampires who had been made with Lestat by the same master had assisted him in booking passage to New Orleans.”
^Like…. WHAT?
Maybe Armand had heard it through the grapevine that Lestat had these two caretakers, but since Lestat never mentions having siblings in the blood from Magnus, it’s possible that Armand is lying so that Louis thinks Lestat already has enough support and doesn’t need a THIRD caretaker.
Or, of course, Anne Rice either A) forgot about these two sibling vampires or B) chose not to address them. They would probably both have been too old to be the “young nurse vampire” but… MAYBE WE’LL GET THEM IN THE NEXT BOOK WHO KNOWS? Anything! is possible!
*Further complicated by the fact that Louis’s story went through Daniel and Daniel’s publishers, who may have added misinformation of their own for a better story! Reprehensible that this young vampire would bring Lestat a baby as a victim, but in Lestat’s defense, he doesn’t want it: “ ‘You might have brought me something else!’ said Lestat bitterly.”
I don’t know that summarizing VC will allow you to “catch up” with the fandom, you really only need to read the first 3 books and the Vampire Armand to get most of the jokes on tumblr, bc most of the jokes seem to center around:
Louis being a pyromaniac,
Lestat being an obnoxious but somehow lovable glittery murder machine,
Lestat and Louis being awesome and shitty murder dads,
Claudia being an ungrateful spoiled brat,
Armand being a little brat, or a slut, or an evul coven master, or all of the above,
Daniel Molloy just wanting to vampire plz!!!11!,
Marius being a pedo, or too bossy, or both,
Gabrielle is a bad mom and an ice queen,
Nicolas is spelled NICOLAS and he is NOT DEAD!,
Secondary characters not getting enough love from anyone!!
There are often spoilers in summaries tho, do you really want to be spoiled? I LOVE being spoiled.
We have these unreliable narrators, there is a lot of disagreement as to what canon really is, and some fans choose to ignore parts of (or entire books) in the series. We bring our own experiences to the reading, and we choose what to connect with, so I think we can agree on some things about each book, but you will probably get a different summary from any given reader. Even AR has told us to disregard the hybrid Mayfair/VC books (Blood Canticle, possibly Merrick and Blackwood Farm) when moving onto the more recent VC additions (PL and PLROA). So, for example, I have a friend who has only read the first 3 books. She doesn’t even know what happens after that bc she prefers to think it ended after QOTD. So any new vampires made after QOTD do not exist to her.#Your headcanon may vary.
Anyway, you want summaries.
http://vampirechronicles.wikia.com has a pretty good write-up for each of the books (they don’t have PL and PLROA currently, maybe they will eventually). It contains spoilers.
Lestat’s Bisexual Adventures in 18th Century France
Lestat’s Adventures with the Queen of the Vampires
Lestat’s Adventures as a Human
Lestat’s Adventures with Satan
Lestat’s Adventures in a Coma
Lestat’s Adventures with Polyamory
Lestat’s Adventures in the Deep South
Lestat’s Adventures with Not Being There At All
Lestat’s Adventures with Witches and Other Weird Shit
Lestat’s adventures with Being the Vampire Head of State
Lestat’s Adventures with Literal Fucking Aliens
(Note, Pandora and Vittorio are technically stand-alone “New Tales of the Vampires” books, but Pandora would be No. 6 of the 13 book series).
You can check my #VC Synopsis tag, which has more capsule humorous summaries.
Gonna try to do a little summary for each VC under the cut as a personal challenge.
Spoilers ahead! I’ll try to do this with as few spoilers as possible, as factually as possible.
1. Interview with the Vampire – Louis tells the story of his life and unlife to Daniel Molloy. Louis starts at the point in his mortal life just before he meets Lestat, and how his life up until that meeting influenced the unlife that followed after he became a vampire. Lestat’s reasons for choosing Louis are unclear to Louis, but he wants Louis to choose to be a vampire. Louis is under so much duress (failing health, still in emotional distress over his guilt re: a close family member’s death) that the choice is not 100% legit, Lestat can’t wait for a more opportune time and proceeds to turn Louis anyway.
The whole story could be seen as Anne Rice’s exploration of the role of religion and the reasons why terrible things happen to innocent people, the concept of punishment.
For me, it was also eye-opening bc I was 11 when I read it and it introduced the possibility of love between a same-sex couple, even if that was in more of a read-between-the-lines way.
It also has a child vampire and I hadn’t seen any media even attempt to tell a story with a child vampire before. Few media that attempt it seem to have captured the beauty and tragedy of such a creature as in this story, and she reappears in a few of the other VC. <— bc IWTV is from Louis’s POV, as told to Daniel, and then written out and possibly revised by his editors, this is the beginning of the Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series.
^ok that was too long, I’m going for shorter.
2. The Vampire Lestat – Lestat seeks to “correct the record” that Louis laid out in IWTV by giving us his own backstory, starting at his mortal youth and how that influenced the unlife that followed when he became a vampire, against his will (hence the “I’m going to give you the choice I never had,” line from movie!IWTV). There is more exploration in the role of religion and reasons why bad things happen to basically innocent people, and whether you really can make the best of a shitty situation or just give up. More about punishment. A very unique take on the origin of the vampires as a species is revealed. And the reasons why Lestat behaved the way he did (basically all secretive) in IWTV. <— This is more of the Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series, who are we to believe? Lestat or Louis? And the author’s retconning which is perceived as “making excuses later in canon for behavior that’s already happened.” Some readers really despise this. Personally, I like having the options and trusting one version of events, or none of them.
3. The Queen of the Damned – Lestat’s modern-era rock career wakes the Queen of the Vampires and she has this awesome Radical Feminist idea for world peace. She’s already gotten started on it! She upgrades Lestat physically so that he can help her accomplish her goals, but he’s not really on board. They meet with the vampires she has allowed to survive her purge and it doesn’t go very well. Also in this book, we have different narrators, more about the vampire origin story, and the Armand/Daniel ship is sailing at its best here.
4. The Tale of the Body Thief – Having suffered so much through the past 3 books, Lestat is a suicidal hamburger-brained moron and makes some very bad choices. Despite everyone advising him NOT to, Lestat makes a terrible trade with a body thief and learns quickly that he had idealized being human. He does some horrendous stuff, and wants off the Being Human ride. He has one friend who helps him set things back to the way they should be, and then he betrays that friend in a spectacularly cruel way. More importantly, Lestat also gets a wonderful cuddly doggo.
5. Memnoch the Devil – Lestat Goes to Heaven and Hell, meets Jesus Christ, meets God, meets Satan (who prefers to go by “Memnoch”) it’s all a huge interview process to decide if Lestat might work for God or Satan and it’s basically fanfic of the Bible. Some people hated it for those reasons. I found it really intriguing, bc it presents a reason why God created the earth, and why there’s suffering, why God allows suffering to go on, and where religion comes from. Like Lestat, Memnoch says he’s not the antagonist, but really the good guy in all this. When Dorothy gets back to Kansas Lestat returns to earth, there is disagreement about whether he went on a real trip or he was just fooled by a really talented spirit. Lestat is so confused that he throws a huge tantrum and then gets solitary confinement, then slips into a coma.
6. The Vampire Armand – Armand gets his spotlight and gets to really tell his story, do we believe everything he tells us?
Lots of good Italy times stuff.
Armand visits Lestat in his coma-state, and talks about that, too.
7. Merrick – Merrick is a Mayfair witch in NOLA who bewitches Louis in pursuit of his request for closure with Claudia, and hilarity ensues. Louis gets the most screentime he’s had since IWTV, but the whole book is told from a 3rd wheel’s POV, it would have been so much better from Louis’ or Merrick’s POV. Major fatal thing happens but fortunately Lestat wakes up from his coma in time to save the day.
8. Blood and Gold – Marius tells his story, as does the vampire Thorne tell his own story. Marius talks about his artistic influences and his experience with the early Talamasca and Santino and the Children of Satan. We see Daniel (now living with Marius) under a kind of spell, which Marius says is temporary.
9. Blackwood Farm – Lestat goes to the Deep South and hears the story of vampire Quinn (his story defies summary) and, with Merrick’s help, saves the day.
10. Blood Canticle – More vampire and Mayfair mixing. And Taltos. It’s a very big WTF book. But it has some very funny scenes and lines in it. It ends with Lestat promising the Dark Gift to someone.
11. Prince Lestat – Vampire scientists. A clone. Someone gets kidnapped. Ultimate Vampire Coven Gathering. Lestat is cranky, saves the day anyway. Ghosts apparently can linger on earth after death and make bodies for themselves. Characters from past books reappear. New characters are introduced. Louis writes a chapter about how OK fine, he does love Lestat. FINE.
12. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis – I haven’t finished this but basically… the REAL vampire origin story, and it involves bird-like aliens, who were sent to earth bc the aliens feed on the suffering of mortals. The bird-like aliens didnt want to create Atlantis. in fact they were pissed because this one creature of theirs, Amel, made Atlantis with the Luracastria (i dunno i think thats how it’s spelled) and their viewing tech couldn’t see through the material. Amel made Atlantis to spite the bird-like aliens omg i cant believe im typing this. Louis and Lestat finally have some legit canon cuddletimes.
– Pandora – the story of the vampire Pandora, and why Marius is bad at relationships. Lots of good Roman times stuff.
– Vittorio – is not a VC vampire, and wants nothing to do with that dysfunctional pile of fanged crazies. @monstersinthecosmos and @vittoriathevampire could give you a better summary of that one, since I didn’t absorb it too well 😛
*nods* well, I feel ya, but it is at least addressed in canon. So much more Daniel and Armand is always needed and wanted, tho! That’s what fanfic is for ;D
@monstersinthecosmos has some good Daniel/Armand stuff on AO3 you should definitely check out.
Essays could be – and probably have been – written on the topic of Daniel’s sanity, and on his relationship with Armand before and after he’s turned. Whether it’s real insanity or a “spell” as Marius calls it in B&G, Daniel and Armand are not compatible for a period of time in canon.
TL;DR: Daniel and Armand’s fallout is at least addressed in canon. It seems to me that Daniel left Armand of his own free will, and Marius took him in at some point. It doesn’t seem to be a secret from anyone involved.
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
“Also, I got a bit upset that Marius had Daniel but didn’t tell Armand until much later on the books.”
Well, that’s our unreliable narrator/retconning that AR does. Daniel is turned in QOTD and we see some of his fledgling struggling. I don’t think Daniel’s in TOBT at all, bc that’s a mostly Lestat book, as is MTD, so it’s TVA when we find out from Armand what’s happened between him and Daniel. Then we get a glimpse of Daniel living with Marius in B&G. So Marius couldn’t tell Armand about it sooner than that.
So no, they don’t get a whole book in canon, but we do see where Daniel went and we get some explanation about it.
It seems to me that Daniel left Armand of his own free will and at some point, Marius took Daniel in. Armand says in TVA:
With Benji and Sybelle I rejoined the world in a way which I had not done since my
fledgling, my one and only fledgling, Daniel Molloy, had left me.
Marius tells Thorne in B&G:
“… I took Daniel with me because he needed me. I took Daniel because it’s unendurable
to me to be utterly alone…”
And then in PL, there is a closer relationship implied between Daniel and Marius, possibly a legit canon ship.
I don’t know how much Marius was trying to protect Armand or anyone else from Daniel’s insanity. I wouldn’t necessarily label it “insanity” either, but that he was going through a difficult time. Everyone has their own headcanons about it.
Armand in TVA, he doesn’t say Daniel is insane, just that he and Daniel are out of tune:
Daniel, though alive and wandering, though civil and gentle, can no more stand my
company than I can stand his.
…
I was no Marius to him afterwards. It was too exactly as I supposed: he loathed me in
his heart for having initiated him into Living Death, for having made him in one night
both an immortal and a regular killer.
…
There was never any innocence for us, there was never any springtime. There was
never any chance, no matter how beautiful the twilight gardens in which we
wandered. Our souls were out of tune, our desires crossed and our resentments too
common and too well watered for the final flowering.
Marius explains it to Thorne in B&G, it seems more like being “under a spell,” not a loss of sanity:
“Have you ever seen one of our kind under such a spell?” Marius asked.
Thorne shook his head, No, he had not. But he understood how such a thing could
happen.
“It occurs sometimes,” said Marius. “The blood drinker becomes enthralled. I remember
centuries ago I heard the story of a blood drinker in a Southern land whose sole passion
was for finding beautiful shells along the shore, and this she did all night long until near
morning.
She did hunt and she did drink, but it was only to return to the shells, and once she looked
at each, she threw it aside and went on searching. No one could distract her from it.
Daniel is enthralled in the same way. He makes these small cities.
He doesn’t want to do anything else. It’s as if the small cities have caught him. You might
say I look after him.“
Thorne was speechless, out of respect. He couldn’t tell whether Marius’s words affected
the blood drinker who continued to work upon his world. Thorne felt a moment of
confusion.
Then a low genial laugh came from the youngish blood drinker. “Daniel will be this way
for a while,” said Marius, “and then his old faculties will come back to him.”
^Marius seems to be saying this is some kind of temporary spell, he doesn’t seem to be doing much in terms of mental health care for Daniel other than being supportive and taking physical care of him.
My favorite part of The Vampire Lestat is that he was angry Louis wrote a book that made him look over dramatic so he wrote his own book where he comes off ten times more over dramatic than Louis ever did
Agent Peacock: Lestat spends much of his unlife wearing and surrounding himself with incredible finery, enjoys theater, and exhibits wild mood swings, but he’ll fight anyone and anything.
And:
Unreliable Narrator: The Lestat that appeared in Interview with the Vampire was not merely the antagonist; he was a stupid, cruel and petty villain. The (vastly different) Lestat of the later books claims he was spitefully misrepresented by Louis.
– Although it can be debated whether Vampire Chronicles fits this trope at all, as we’re not talking about one narrator who is inconsistent, we’re talking about two completely different narrators within the series (not counting the multiple points of view of The Queen of the Damned). Of course a depiction of Lestat from the perspective of Louis (who resents him) is going to be more harsh and critical, and a depiction of Lestat from his own point of view is going to be more forgiving. No one sees themselves as being “stupid, cruel and petty.” Lestat knows and fully understands the motivations behind his own action and Louis doesn’t, which would account for any seeming inconsistencies in Lestat’s characterization.
– The simplest explanation is that Lestat went through a lot of personal change as the series progressed, which explains why he became a very different character in the later books than he was in the early ones (toward the end he even starts to believe in God.)
– It is worth noting that Louis is self-absorbed to the point where, unlike most vampires, he almost never seems to exhibit any significant telepathic ability. Thus his point of view is entirely his own. Lestat, in contrast, makes extensive use of telepathy, particularly as his powers grow, and many of the observations in the stories he narrates came directly from the thoughts and memories of other characters. Thus he is to some extent an omniscient narrator.
I-want-my-IWTV 