Jacob Anderson Had Fun With the “Bitchier Side” of Louis in The Vampire Lestat

This article contains spoilers for the premiere of The Vampire Lestat.

The first two seasons of Interview with the Vampire detailed the turbulent relationship between the fiery Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and the brooding Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) from Louis’ point of view. But in the third season of AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s book series, we switch to Lestat’s version of events following the pair’s reconciliation and the notable release of Daniel Molloy’s best-selling book about their relationship.

For the first time, we get to see how Lestat and other vampires perceive Louis rather than how he perceives himself, which Anderson says informed his portrayal of the character this time around.

“It’s something I’m very mindful of,” Anderson tells Den of Geek. “And it’s something that Sam’s had to be very mindful of and Assad [Zaman, who plays Armand] and Delainey [Hayles, who plays Claudia] – the way that these characters are framed – it’s such a deeply subjective show. It’s so deeply inside somebody’s mind and experience. That’s also part of the fun. You get to play a slightly different version of the character each time they appear, more or less.”

The Vampire Lestat‘s premiere catches up with Lestat as he makes his next move in a modern world where society isn’t quite convinced that vampires really exist, but Molloy’s interview has given them an inkling. Though Lestat and Louis are feeling amicable in the wake of their brutal split and renewed understanding during season 2, Lestat takes umbrage at certain aspects of Louis’ tale in Molloy’s book. Having been told from Louis’ perspective and therefore not events as Lestat remembers them, he disparages Louis’ interview in front of autograph hunters and sets the record straight by scrawling furious notes in his copy of the book.

But instead of hiding away until it all blows over, Lestat puts his ego front and center, joining a touring rock band and eventually going public with his true nature. It’s a move that further shakes up a historically secret vampire society after Molloy’s explosive interview. Rocking out on stage and goading local vampires, Lestat is done hiding. Yet he still keeps in contact with Louis, who seems much more light-hearted and casual than we’ve ever seen him before, even happy to banter with Lestat over the quality of his songwriting.

“The thing that I think I’ve sort of noticed only this season is that Louis speaks slightly differently,” says Anderson. “Lestat kind of portrays Louis with a lot more love than Louis ever portrayed himself. Louis always thought of himself as this purely brooding, repressed, angry, wallowing-in-sadness being. And actually, Lestat gives him back some of his essence. Some of the more playful and also fiercer side of Louis that we haven’t really seen.”

Reid describes this as a “bitchier side” of Louis, to which Anderson adds, “It was fun to go there a little bit.”

As our reviewer noted, Reid and Anderson don’t have much shared screentime in the first half of The Vampire Lestat, but there’s a lot to look forward to in the back half, as Lestat and Louis “work through their shared grief” about losing Claudia. Season 3 of Interview with the Vampire is also set to introduce Sheila Atim as Akasha, the mother of all vampires from Rice’s Queen of the Damned.

New episodes of The Vampire Lestat premiere Sundays on AMC.