Interview With the Vampire Casts Ben Daniels as Santiago

Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire has cast Ben Daniels as the vampire Santiago for the AMC series’ upcoming second season. Daniels is known for his work in Apple’s Foundation as well as Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy and The Crown. He’s also previously appeared in NBC’s live adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar, Fox’s The Exorcist, and in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Daniels’ casting is the first casting news for Season 2 of the popular series based on Anne Rice’s novel of the same name.

As fans of the novel will recall, Santiago is the main vampire actor in the Theatre des Vampires. In the novel, Santiago is increasingly suspicious of Louis and Claudia when they arrive in Paris seeking out other vampires like themselves. The second season of Interview With the Vampire is set to begin filing in April in Prague.

“We’re ramping up now,” executive producer Mark Johnson previously told Variety. “We start shooting in April, and the bulk of it takes place in Paris. I was about to say I was going to miss New Orleans but thank god Esta [Spalding] and Michelle [Ashford] will be taking me back there with Mayfair Witches.”

What to expect in Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire.

Interview With the Vampire ended on a bit of a cliffhanger last month with Lestat (Sam Reid) gravely injured and left for dead by Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Claudia (Bailey Bass) before they headed off to Europe — but there was also a big reveal in the present day when Rashid (Assad Zaman) turned out to be the vampire Armand. Recently, series showrunner Rolin Jones spoke about what fans can expect when the series returns for its second season.

“I can tell you a couple things. The challenge is that in the second half of the book, there’s less plot than there is in the first half of the book and there’s so much internal dialogue,” Jones told AMC’s blog. “There are long scenes of people having discussions. What we’re finding that’s really cool about that is even though it’s not giving you a wealth of plot, what it does have are these really big emotional tentpoles. There are big plot moments that we’re retaining form it, but there are these emotional moments too within our plot that might be slightly different than what’s in the book. I’m feeling really, really excited about that.”

He continued, “We’re going to Europe and Part 2 of the novel is Episode 1 of Season 2. So, we’re going there and we’re going to experience that. Then we’re going to Paris. We’re going to see what coven life is all about, and we have some more time than the movie or even the book. We’re continuing to make the interview part of this and just as important as the flashback, in that there are some very active things that are going to be happening in Dubai. Then, more than anything, and we teased it out a little in Season 1, the idea of memory and what is true and what isn’t true is a big player in Season 2. It’s all going towards, groping towards, who am I? How did I get here? What is to become of me now? There’s a lot!”

Are you looking forward to the second season of Interview With the Vampire? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.