<\/p>\n
In early June, hundreds of fans dressed to the nines were in attendance at a rock star\u2019s sold-out show at New York\u2019s Beacon Theatre. There was lace everywhere and leather too. Chains dangled from belt loops and wrists. Some attendees arrived with dyed crimson hair, others with orange or pink.<\/p>\n
Sheer black outfits that looked pulled from the pages of a gothic romance novel were draped on bodies. If \u201cThe Rocky Horror Picture Show\u201d had collided with a modern concert, it might have looked something like this.<\/p>\n
Then a man took the stage. Was it Lestat de Lioncourt, the immortal vampire-cum-rock star, or was it actor Sam Reid?<\/p>\n
Moments earlier, attendees had watched the first episode of AMC\u2019s \u201cThe Vampire Lestat,\u201d<\/a> the rebranded third season of \u201cInterview With the Vampire\u201d<\/a> that premiered earlier this month. This season adapts Anne Rice\u2019s novel of the same name, which is told from the perspective of Lestat, played by Reid, and transforms him into a touring musician.<\/p>\n Now Reid, dressed in black with his chest partially exposed beneath an open jacket revealing a scar, stepped on stage and into the role of Lestat in front of the audience. As he moved across the stage, phones shot into the air. Fans screamed. People sang along to a slew of songs, and for a moment, the line between actor and character seemed to disappear.<\/p>\n At first glance, the assignment to turn Lestat into a rock star seemed straightforward. The vampire at the center of Rice\u2019s beloved novels has flirted with music before. In 2002\u2019s \u201cQueen of the Damned,\u201d<\/a> he emerged as a leather-clad nu-metal frontman capable of commanding massive crowds. But bringing Lestat into the present introduced a different challenge. Rock music no longer occupies the same place in popular culture. Fame is fragmented. Audiences are skeptical of celebrity. Social media can build a star overnight and tear them down just as quickly.<\/p>\n Yet \u201cThe Vampire Lestat\u201d asks viewers to believe something as audacious as a centuries-old vampire still being able to captivate people, launch a music career and inspire a movement. Reid thinks part of what drives the character is something surprisingly modern.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody cares that I exist, nobody cares that I\u2019m not relevant,\u201d Reid said of Lestat\u2019s mindset entering the season. \u201cIt\u2019s really fun to see him struggle with that and see him try to find his place in the world and not immediately get world domination.\u201d<\/p>\n Making that fantasy feel believable required far more than putting Lestat in leather and handing him a microphone. To pull it off, the show\u2019s creative team had to build a rock star from the ground up, crafting a visual identity, creating music that could stand on its own outside the series, and transforming Reid into a performer capable of owning a crowd rather than simply acting in front of one.<\/p>\n \u201cDropping Lestat down into 2025 and making the decision for him to play rock \u2018n\u2019 roll was a really great dramatic switch because while there are many great rock bands that are alive and kicking right now, their hold of the cultural landscape is quite small,\u201d showrunner Rolin Jones said. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t think of a worse way to get your message out than going to be a rock star right now.\u201d<\/p>\n That challenge became the foundation of the season.<\/p>\n A polished aesthetic, marketing and, in Lestat\u2019s case, book buzz can only take a musician so far. It\u2019s the music that had to make diehard fans believe he\u2019s an artistic genius, or at least a star in the making.<\/p>\n That challenge landed with composer Daniel Hart long before a single script was finished. In an unusual twist, many of the songs that would eventually appear throughout the season were written before the writers\u2019 room fully mapped out the story.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were so many unknowns when we started,\u201d Hart said. To find a way in, Hart and Jones started with their familiar reference point: David Bowie.<\/p>\n \u201cWe settled, I think sort of obviously, on David Bowie as the launch pad for our Lestat,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThe way that Bowie was so mercurial, and he was a chameleon. He reinvented himself throughout his career.\u201d<\/p>\n Hart also looked to artists as varied as Kurt Cobain and Chappell Roan, while drawing inspiration from classical music, blues and the old-world sound Lestat would have absorbed over his long life. One early writers\u2019 room exercise even involved breaking down the influences embedded within \u201cLong Face,\u201d the Bowie-coded first single released from Lestat\u2019s fictional album.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Long Face\u2019 feels like a Bowie rip-off to Daniel Molloy [played by Eric Bogosian], and so then Lestat breaks the song down for him and goes into all the other influences that are in there,\u201d Hart said. \u201c \u2018Long Face,\u2019 you could say, was in some way influenced by Bach, and then [he] talked about Willie Dixon, and how the blues had influenced Lestat when he was around the \u2026 1920s and \u201830s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been alive for 250 years,\u201d Hart continued. \u201cHe\u2019s seen and heard a lot of music.\u201d<\/p>\n The creative team never set out to replicate the hard-rock sound that defined \u201cQueen of the Damned.\u201d If anything, Jones felt trying to outdo that soundtrack would have been a losing battle.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, that soundtrack is deservedly very famous,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAnd I think if we decided to out-Korn Korn, we were going to be in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, their Lestat was a musician still searching for his voice. Jones says the season begins in a more performative glam-rock space before gradually evolving into something more personal.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought \u201870s Bowie is where we would start, and that we would musically make a journey with him as we went deeper and deeper,\u201d he said. \u201cHe would put his band on one tour, what a normal band would do, over four albums. The music just keeps changing. And as he gets more and more vulnerable, the songs begin to change. They get more raw. They get more exposure, and the music style evolves.\u201d<\/p>\n Reid sang every song himself, including \u201cLong Face,\u201d \u201cButterscotch Bitch,\u201d \u201cYour Biggest Fan,\u201d \u201cAll Fall Down\u201d and \u201cBlack Licorice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe more bombastic, the more over-the-top songs \u2014 he doesn\u2019t seem to like them by the end of this season,\u201d Hart said. \u201cThe more introspective songs that come later on are more in his new wheelhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n That journey also shaped how Reid approached the material. While audiences will ultimately see the songs unfold within the context of the show, Reid encountered many of them before he fully understood where Lestat\u2019s story was heading.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in the beginning, he\u2019s coming from an artificial kind of construct,\u201d Reid says. \u201cAs the show goes on, the music becomes more personal, and he becomes less interested in actually finding love through his audience and more about finding who he is as an individual and as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n When Jones first began adapting \u201cThe Vampire Lestat,\u201d he briefly considered making the character the sort of arena-filling superstar audiences might expect, like a Beyonc\u00e9 or Taylor Swift. But the more the writers discussed it, the less interesting that version felt.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we were gonna start chipping away at all the armor that Lestat had, one of the great repetitive ways of a tour is you just can\u2019t seem to break a ceiling,\u201d Jones said. \u201cHe\u2019s a niche star. And I think that is part of the gas that fuels this little journey.\u201d<\/p>\n Hart also had the impression that Lestat would be a massive star.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it became more apparent that [he might] not exactly have the kind of success that he wanted and desperately felt like he needed \u2014 that was a more interesting story to tell,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While the audience has to believe Lestat is a rock star, they also have to believe he\u2019s someone with the look \u2014 and worth staring at.<\/p>\n Lex Wood, the show\u2019s costume designer, said that the challenge began long before cameras rolled on Season 3. Jones first floated the idea of rock star Lestat while the team filmed Season 2 in Prague in 2023, giving Wood time to begin imagining what a nearly 300-year-old vampire might wear while reinventing himself as a singer. During a production trip to Paris, she started sourcing pieces and collecting references that would eventually make their way into this season years later.<\/p>\n Being fashionable wasn\u2019t the only goal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe main aim of building costumes for Lestat was to maintain an element of the unachievable,\u201d Wood said. \u201cTo emphasize that Lestat is untouchable. Hence, building specific costume build shapes and patterns that we adapted throughout the season.\u201d<\/p>\n That idea guided nearly every aspect of the wardrobe. While the first two seasons often presented Lestat through structured tailoring and muted palettes, Season 3 arrives in a much louder world.<\/p>\n \u201cA big thing really was that we wanted to push more color into the season in general,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n Wood said the choice reflected where Lestat finds himself emotionally. No longer confined to drawing rooms and period silhouettes, he\u2019s navigating celebrity, performance and self-reinvention. Leather remains. Black remains. But so do bursts of color, softer fabrics and strange patterns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to break Lestat free of the suiting,\u201d Wood said. \u201cThough we wanted to remain true to his roots in the 18th century, we also wanted Lestat\u2019s pieces to feel slightly otherworldly at times.\u201d<\/p>\n That meant weaving in elements of garments from the 18th century and making them feel contemporary. This could look like a very specific cut of a sleeve of a shirt that nods to that time.<\/p>\n Wood also studied the backstage photography of Mick Rock, pulling references of Bowie, Iggy Pop and Freddie Mercury. She blended that with punk-inspired designs from Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier. Goth icon Siouxsie Sioux also became an influence, particularly in the use of layering, texture and attitude.<\/p>\n Wood said the scattered references reflect a character actively trying to figure out who he wants to be.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s investigating social media himself,\u201d she said. \u201cAs he\u2019s discovering his presence as a rock star. He\u2019s investigating what it means to be a rock star.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s finding his persona,\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd trying on different personas.\u201d<\/p>\n That idea extends all the way down to accessories, with Lestat\u2019s jewelry blending old and new \u2014 a custom necklace created by a U.K. silversmith recalls one worn by Mercury during Queen\u2019s early years, while rings featuring sculpted teeth serve as subtle reminders of his vampiric nature.<\/p>\n \u201cWe purposefully wanted some of his wardrobe to not be recognizable to any particular brand \u2014 at other times, we wanted to celebrate high-end fashion, to explore his playfulness and unpredictable character through his clothing,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n Even the shoes became part of the transformation. One of Wood\u2019s earliest conversations with Reid centered on abandoning the heeled footwear that helped define earlier versions of the character. This Lestat needed something heavier for a performer who could pace a stage.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wanted something that felt more grounded,\u201d Wood said. \u201cSomething he could bounce around more in.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood said the redesigned footwear altered Reid\u2019s posture and movement, helping create a version of Lestat that she noted feels more volatile and more comfortable captivating a crowd than charming one.<\/p>\n For all the work that went into the costumes, music and scripts, none of it mattered unless the watchers believed the actor tying it all together.<\/p>\n Reid had already spent two seasons playing Lestat through other characters\u2019 memories and perspectives. This time around required him to carry the character\u2019s story through his own reflections. More importantly, he had to answer a deceptively difficult question: Why would anyone follow Lestat in the first place?<\/p>\n The surface answer might be fame. The character launches a music career, records songs and steps into the spotlight. But Reid doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s what drives him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not fame that he\u2019s after,\u201d Reid said. \u201cFame is totally temporary for a creature that lives forever.\u201d<\/p>\n Reid sees Lestat as someone searching for validation.<\/p>\n \u201cNot for the vampire that he is, but for the human being that he was,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s been pretty heavily rejected. From Louis through the book, and then his mother knows exactly how to string him along, when to give him love and when to take it away. So he\u2019s really looking for validation and going into an audience space is where he first experienced that.\u201d<\/p>\n While developing the season, Reid says he became increasingly interested in the gap between the public version of Lestat and the person underneath it.<\/p>\n \u201cHis whole life has been performance,\u201d Reid said. \u201cHis whole life has been a lot of adversity, and the way that he kind of climbs out of that is to build a construct that he can perform and operate in. It makes a lot of sense for him to do this rock star persona. Through this season you start to see him realize that the music and the art can allow him to access himself as opposed to it just being a performance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s trying to discover his sound as a musician,\u201d Reid continued. \u201cBut he\u2019s also trying to discover who he is.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the season, viewers see a musician struggling to connect.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy can\u2019t I sell out 5,000 seats?\u201d Jones says, describing the character\u2019s mindset. \u201cI used to be able to walk into a room and everyone would love me.\u201d<\/p>\n For Jones, that\u2019s ultimately what makes Lestat feel like a contemporary artist. Sure, he may be an immortal vampire, but he\u2019s navigating the same questions that confront plenty of artists: How much of yourself to reveal? How much should one perform? Can admiration ever substitute for genuine connection?<\/p>\n By the time the season reaches its conclusion, Lestat is still larger than life. But he\u2019s also a more complicated performer forced to reckon with the distance between being seen and understood. Jones said none of this would be possible without Reid in the role.<\/p>\n \u201cI think his performance in Season 3 is one of the 10 greatest American TV performances of all time,\u201d Jones says. \u201cI\u2019d put him right next to Carroll O\u2019Connor, Walter White [played by Bryan Cranston] and James Gandolfini.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019d look at all of them and say, \u2018You guys didn\u2019t sing.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\nStep 1: Making the music<\/h3>\n
Step 2: Getting the rock star look<\/b><\/h3>\n
Step 3: Becoming the rock star<\/h3>\n