AMC’s Interview with the Vampire series has found its Lestat. The network announced it was working on a TV adaptation of author Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles book series last year, with Perry Mason reboot co-creator Rolin Jones serving as showrunner. Now, the show has cast its lead character, immortal bloodsucker Lestat de Lioncourt.
Australian actor Sam Reid (The Hunting, The Limehouse Golem) has been hired to fill the part made famous by Tom Cruise in the 1994 gothic horror film based on Rice’s book. As directed by Neil Jordan, the movie saw Cruise star opposite Brad Pitt, Antonia Banderas, and Kirsten Dunst (Claudia) as fellow vamps Louis, Armand, and Claudia, respectively. Now that Reid has been cast, expect the rest of those key roles to be filled very soon.
Various studios have been trying to launch a franchise based on Rice’s novels for years. The Stand‘s Josh Boone was going to direct an Interview reboot, with Jared Leto as Lestat, in 2016, before that fell through and Hulu announced a TV series was in development instead that same year. However, this also came to nothing and they eventually let the rights revert to Rice three years later. AMC then revealed they had brokered a deal with Rice to bring Lestat and his cohorts to the small screen in 2020, having acquired the rights to 18 of her books.
The resulting series is slated to enter production on its eight-part first season sometime later this year before it premieres on AMC and streaming platform AMC Plus in 2022. AMC also has the rights to sister novel series The Lives of the Mayfair Witches, with it announced that their plan is to adapt them into a series as well and create an interconnected universe. No formal announcement about a Mayfair Witches show has been made as yet, though. It’s likely AMC is waiting to see if Interview with the Vampire strikes a chord with audiences first.