The Vampire Lestat Season Finale Interview With Rolin Jones

Jones says they went through a lot of effort to keep that a secret until Armand tells a shattered Louis, and a terrified Regina has to explain herself. “For anybody who is rewatching, just ask yourself in every scene — where’s Armand now?” says the showrunner. “You could feel him. Like Lestat says, he’s like wallpaper that peels off slowly to suffocate you, then jumps on you. That’s what’s going on and it’s hard to pull off because you have to withhold Assad so much.”

But that twist does get Louis to finally understand the depth of the damage he’s inflicted on Armand, which prompts him to make genuine amends to Armand and to forgive Regina as well. Says Jones of Louis’ change of heart, “[His] real turn there is that movement from ‘I want to save Regina’ to ‘What am I actually accountable for when I froze this guy out?’ Yes, this might be a little extreme where [he’s] at right now. But what didn’t [Louis] say when he threw him into the wall in Dubai? So I feel very empathetic towards Armand at that moment.”

While Jones doesn’t say whether Regina’s escape signifies the close of Hayles’ time on the series, he does urge the audience to rewatch the character’s arc this season. “Go look at Delainey. Look at what she’s doing in those scenes that you thought were one note,” he says of her diner scenes with Louis and Lestat. “They’re not. There’s so much going on, and she’s been so crippled about talking about it because she really had to wait for this [finale] to come. Now she’s free to brag, and she should brag. She’s incredible this season.”

Lestat’s Nightmare Dinner Party

Because Season 3 is told from Lestat’s point of view, most of the finale takes place inside the vampire’s muddled head as he dreams of being taken to the dining room of his former Auvergne home. There, he finds the motley crew of his maker Magnus (Damien Atkins), mommy Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle), first love Nikki (Joseph Potter), New Orleans era Louis, ex-lover Antoinette (Maura Grace Athari), Marius de Romanus (Christopher Heyerdahl) and drummer TC (Sarah Swire).

Asked if that table was set from the start, or if it went through different guests, Jones confirms there were many iterations in the writing, and then scheduling of the actors. “It was way weirder in its early stages. We had versions with Claudia there. But after the séance, it was like, ‘What’s left?’” he says of that powerful scene of closure. “She was way harder on Louis in the séance than she was on Lestat. I think she was like, ‘You know what’ll really fuck up Lestat? Silence.’ That she doesn’t give a shit anymore seemed like the last grace note of Claudia.”

Jones remembers that they almost lost out on Magnus actor Atkins because he was booked on a big theater job, but they worked it out. “And I wanted Joey Chestnut to be there, eating the shit out of his soul,” the showrunner laughs.

Yes, Joey Chestnut, the competitive eater and 18-time winner of the Mustard Yellow Belt, was name-checked by Lestat this season, and Jones says he wanted an actual cameo at the table. “We kept trying to call his manager and tell her what it was, and they just kept laughing us off. So there was more Joey Chestnut in this season than what is in there.”

The Devil in the Details

Jones says Lestat’s “maddening, defense-ridden, pop-culture referenced narration” in the first couple of episodes this season is preparation for the intensity and density of this finale. “He’s got the journey of ‘The Failures’ to go from ‘I may have a little something to do with it’ to ‘It was all my fault,’” Jones says of Lestat owning his choices. This in turn leads to the startling cliffhanger ending.

While Lestat is in his dream-like state facing his accusers, Jones and the series editors revisit every era of the vampire’s existence in specifically crafted montages, or as remixed memories which force the vampire to face his perceived failures anew. “It’s actually reframing not only alternative takes, but actually where the take is, or where Lestat’s head is, and literally manipulating both shots to make them go on top of each other,” Jones says of the complexity of what they edited together. “There was a lot of work there, and it takes a lot of risk for my lovely creative suits at AMC, and even the actors, to [accept], ‘Hey, we’re going to build part of this storytelling in the edit, and you’re going to have to trust us.’”

Ultimately, Jones says Lestat’s regrets are what led those supercuts, so each of them reveal a lot about the vampire. He points out a moment when Lestat is looking at Nikki which elicits a series of memories until they hold on Louis walking past. “That was actually the moment where [Lestat] had been caught in the Antoinette of it all,” Jones pinpoints. “And that moment out of everything lives in his death and dying moments as a way larger moment than hurling him from the sky, or anything like that. These are betrayals that are there. And later on, there is a one-second breath, which is 24 frames that are very specifically thought about, [in terms of] what are those [memories] coming back? For the detectives out there, there’s a lot.”

What About Lestat’s Future?

A timer brings Lestat closer and closer to the end of his internal meditation… and eventual acceptance of himself. One last person emerges to speak with Lestat, and it’s Louis’ brother Paul de Pointe du Lac (Steven G. Norfleet), who committed suicide in the very first episode, “In Throes of Increasing Wonder…”

“It was Louis for the longest time,” Jones reveals about who that person was in the first drafts. “But every time something felt well-made this year, it felt wrong like you just hadn’t done the work, or you hadn’t found that extra level.

“There’s so much self-loathing in this season, and so much in this episode,” Jones continues, pointing out what Louis thinks he’s hearing from those who mean so much to him. “Those people don’t necessarily feel that way about you, dude. That is you and such a projection. And so, who would be the messenger that says, ‘It’s okay. You’re not all bad. You have done something beautiful and there is some beauty inside you?’”

Even though Paul may not have approved of Louis’ life choices, he knew how to read his brother even while wrestling with his own demons. “I think there’s a lot of damage to get through with Lestat, and so much of it is self-made,” Jones offers. “But there are germs of great beauty within him, and [Paul] seemed like the only person that could have come out with that.”

Turns out that Paul is also a harbinger of what’s to come. Jones acknowledges, “When he looks up, he says something from the books. There is an energy that’s about to come in that is female rage, writ large,” he says, teasing the world-changing events in Anne Rice’s book Queen of the Damned. “In my own universe, living in a matriarchal world, I think that’s right.”

Asked if he expects a potential Season 4 to finish Lestat’s story, or to shift perspective to Akasha in Queen of the Damned, Jones says, “The savvy of this year was that title change which comes from marketing, so God bless them. I have no control over these things. I’m still just a typing monkey,” he jokes. “What I would say is, the design for a potential Season 4 and a potential Season 5 started pretty deep into the shooting of Season 2 with me and [executive producer] Hannah [Moscovitch] walking around Prague, just talking – as we were going from editing to the stage – about, how would we do it?”

He acknowledges that plenty of important things happened off screen this year, which was by design, not by accident as some fans may think. “It’s not just the concert,” he says of the unseen Great Conversion. “There’s a lot of stuff to revisit.

“And if you know Queen of the Damned really well, it is a series of chapters of strict point of views. So, get ready, folks! This is part two,” he says of what remains untold. “And if there’s stuff that might have frustrated you this year, relax. Everyone will want to comment on that last shot of Montreal, but it ain’t just that. A lot of shit went down this year. And there’s a couple of guys sitting in an auction room,” he recalls about the opening scene of this season. “They are not going at each other’s throats. The puzzle will all come together given there’s a Season 4.”