Talamasca: The Secret Order Producer Teases Some Anne Rice “Surprises”

When Talamasca: The Secret Order premieres to AMC on Oct. 26, it won’t have a wealth of source material to draw from like its predecessors, Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches. Vampire Chronicles visionary Anne Rice never wrote a book specifically about the underground organization tasked with keeping tabs on the supernatural world. The next show in the Immortal Universe will have to forge its own path and write its own rules, which may allow for some creative freedom for co-showrunners John Lee Hancock and Mark Lafferty.

“It’s nice to have Anne’s work as a backstop and to know that she created this organization and talks about it a decent amount,” says Hancock, during his visit to Den of Geek’s San Diego Comic-Con studio, along with the cast of the show. “But we don’t have to follow the strict plot construction of anything regarding a Talamasca book. All the actors here play characters that aren’t in Anne Rice books.”

Hancock and Lafferty lean heavily into the spy thriller genre for Talamasca: The Secret Order, allowing it to blend with the drama of vampire immortality and immorality. The titular group acts as an intelligence organization with its own agenda, hierarchy, and political infighting like any good conspiracy drama, with the addition of supernatural creatures for a unique narrative hybrid.

“​​The idea of a large organization and the difficulty of keeping everyone in line and keeping everyone on mission was a fun thing to explore,” says Lafferty. “It has a lot of analogues for how the spy genre works, and it was really fun to take this concept that had not yet been explored in one of Anne’s books and to say, ‘What would be the logical story if you actually had to keep an organization like this running and keep it together?’”

The audience is introduced to this cloak-and-dagger world through the eyes of Guy Anatole, a new recruit to the order, played by Nicholas Denton. “He’s gone through a lot in his life, and at this point, when we meet him, he’s kind of gotten it back together only to have it all taken away from him by the Talamasca,” says Denton. “Everything he has been brought up knowing and doing has all been planned, plotted, and tested by the Talamasca.”

His handler, Olive, played by Maisie Richardson-Sellers, has her work cut out for her bringing Guy up to speed, but they both have hidden talents that they discover together. “He’s a real handful,” Richardson-Sellers admits. “But at the beginning, she’s looking at this kid and thinking, ‘He’s just another guy—what’s special about him?’ And over the season, she learns. She’s whip smart, and she’s very good at reading people and what their needs and wants are and manipulating those to get what she needs and wants out of them.”

The Talamasca are organized into motherhouses, with a hierarchy that includes Elizabeth McGovern’s Helen, who’s in charge of the New York branch, and William Fichtner’s Jasper, who is described as “a mysterious American who has quietly assumed control and influence over the Talamasca’s London Motherhouse.” Fichtner says cryptically about his villainous role, “All I can say is that the backstory of why the character of Jasper is in London is probably the number one reason why I was excited to take this journey.”

Also in the mix is Doris, played by Céline Buckens, whose questioning of the Talamasca’s supposedly protective motives leads her to embed herself into a reclusive coven of witches. “In this supernatural world, you’ve got the Talamasca to control the bad guys and keep the peace, but Doris doesn’t believe that the Talamasca necessarily is the good guy,” Buckens says. “Not that she doesn’t believe that the bad guys are bad! She just doesn’t trust anyone. And that’s why she ends up with this specific coven, because they stay under the radar.”

Fortunately, the producers promise that the team dynamic of their supernatural spy thriller does have room for lightheartedness. “We wanted the entire world to feel grounded and… strangely enough, to be grounded you also have to have levity,” says Lafferty. “Real life is funny, and there are a lot of absurd situations that our characters get themselves into. Our fourth episode is just one big antic romp. And as you’re going through the spy world, it is kind of fun to take a detour and end up in a place that gives you a laugh and that is fun and is a thrill ride.”

As for the inevitable crossover, Mark Johnson, who oversees the Immortal Universe trilogy of shows, promises there will be plenty of synergy. “Between the three shows, there’s some real commonality between characters,” he says. “There will be some surprises in Talamasca: some that you expect, some that you don’t suspect. Some at the very beginning, some embedded into the season. And don’t be surprised at all if you see one of these [Talamasca] characters in either Interview or Mayfair Witches.”

Talamasca: The Secret Order premieres Sunday, Oct. 26 on AMC.