With “Toronto,” the third episode of The Vampire Lestat, the titular bloodsucker reveals how he got the dark gift through a lusty music video. But of course, that’s not all there is to that story. So, who better to ask about Lestat as an unreliable narrator than Sam Reid, the critically heralded actor who’s brought the Brat Prince to life onscreen and on stage (for one night only)?
Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko sat down with Reid in our Say More studio to dig into “Toronto,” and in particular the bad romance ballad that is “Your Biggest Fan.”
“Your Biggest Fan” is about Lestat’s maker, Magnus.
Sam Reid plays Lestat de Lioncourt in “The Vampire Lestat.”
Credit: AMC+
In “Toronto,” Lestat’s initial telling of how he became a vampire plays out in the music video for “Your Biggest Fan,” which echoes the romance and drama of Meatloaf’s 1993 music video “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).” Here, he is a flawless star on stage performing Lélio (not harlequin!), while a greasy, pale ghoul looks on in awe. This is Magnus, a deranged vampire in search of the perfect fledgling. And Lestat, abducted from his bed, smiles as he’s forced to a dirty cavern floor and bitten by Magnus without warning.
“He’s got a lot of unpacked baggage,” Reid said of Lestat’s transformation trauma, “and so the way that he chooses to talk about it in the real world is, ‘This guy was obsessed with me, and he’s a loser, and here’s his little fun ballad, like a Taylor Swift kind of pop song.'”
Reid continued, “Obviously, the reality of [their relationship] is not a simple at-your-window ballad. It’s much more complex… But he’s trying to control his narrative at any point in time.”
Reid went on to explain,”He very rightfully says to Molloy, like, ‘Who wants another sob story?’ Like, I’m not going to present you my life as some big abuse narrative. I’m not going to sit here and wallow like Louis did, and just talk about how painful my existence is, and suffer when there are so many positive things about the situation that I’m in.”
So, instead Lestat offers a version that Reid described as, “[Magnus] liberated me, he made me who I am, and look how fantastic I am.”
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Of course, with Lestat’s muses unleashed, this pretty lie won’t keep the ghosts of his past at bay.
How does Lestat’s story of Magnus differ from Louis’?
Sam Reid plays Lestat de Lioncourt in “The Vampire Lestat.”
Credit: AMC+
At first, it seems Lestat relished being ripped out of his bed, away from his boyfriend Nicky, and made into an immortal. But in the climax of “Toronto,” Magnus appears in Lestat’s car, and with his arrival come a flood of more gruesome flashbacks that reveal the terror, pain, and lack of consent of this pivotal moment.
Asked about this, Reid compared Lestat’s look back at his life to Louis’ in Season 1 and 2, saying, “Louis is actually actively seeking to get to the center himself [through the recounting of his story]. And Lestat is actively trying to obfuscate the situation and not expose himself. But he has no choice. It’s constantly being thrown back in his face, until he’s forced to deal with it.”
Reid teased this processing will get harder before it gets any easier, not just this season but in seasons beyond. “That’s what The Failures is,” he said of Lestat’s in-show album. “We’re now seeing somebody go through something that actually leads us through to future seasons. But when he’s had time to process, that’s when he can have some more self-reflection, whereas where he is in the story, he doesn’t want to have any self-reflection.”
“But actually, he does have a lot of darkness,” Reid acknowledged, adding, “He’s got two makers. He’s got his mother [Gabriella], and he’s got Magnus. And both of those figures are very, very influential in what forms him as a character, and [both] are abusive.”
From there, Reid connected Lestat’s sultry exhibitionism to what his mother and Magnus valued. “He’s a highly sexualized character,” Reid said, “because he’s been sexualized from the beginning, from whether it’s his mother wanting to love him to the point of being with him, because she wants to live vicariously through him, or whether it’s his maker wanting that, that he sees on stage, that kind of, that performer, that spark, and kind of eroticizing him and making him this kind of perfect immortal being. It’s then all he knows; the only way he knows how to express himself is by thrusting around on stage and writhing around. So we do ask, we ask the audience to come with him on the journey — maybe don’t understand it at first, but it’s a slow unraveling that he begins to unravel too.”
For more from Mashable’s interview with Sam Reid, look for our new Say More episode on Friday, June 19.
The Vampire Lestat streams on AMC+, with new episodes weekly.
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