Interview With the Vampire: Jacob Anderson Doesn't Think Louis is An Unreliable Narrator

Anderson Louis' story is as much about what he feels as what he remembers.

By Nicole Drum

Season 2 of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire debuted Sunday night on AMC, not only taking the story away from New Orleans in the wake of Louis and Claudia's escape from Lestat to Europe, but also revealing that Louis' memory may not be quite what it seems. The first episode saw Louis not quite remember all the details of his journey with Claudia across Europe in search of more vampires like themselves, something that was a complicated revelation for the titular vampire being interviewed. The idea of memory — and it being a monster — is something that teasers for Season 2 have been tantalizing fans with, suggesting that as the season goes on we'll dig more into what Louis remembers and what he does not. But as for those lapses in memory, for series star Jacob Anderson, that doesn't necessarily make Louis an unreliable narrator. Speaking with ComicBook, Anderson says that everyone is, in a sense unreliable — and that Louis' story is as much about what he feels as what he recalls.

"I think something that I'm always slightly resistant about with the unreliable narrator tag that Louis gets is that we're all unreliable," Anderson said. "I think it's a strange idea that television or storytelling is objective. I think it's a comfortable way to engage with something or to watch something."

"In terms of Louis, I think he's as unreliable as any. The story that we are being told is just as much based on how something felt to Louis as the biographical details or the specifics, which is something that I love about him," Anderson continued. "He's very complicated. He's a very complicaed person, but he's a very complicated character and I love him for that."

Anderson also said that one of the things he loves about Anne Rice's stories and, in turn, the show, is that audiences are given new perspectives that only expand an complicate the story, calling everyone into question.

"There's a lot that hopefully comes through in that there's a difference quite often for Louis between what he says and what he feels," Anderson said. "I think that's fun. I don't know why we need to know exactly how everything happened exactlya ll the time unless it is to contextualize the story. I think that's something I get a lot of joy out of with Anne Rice's books and with the show is that with each new perspective, the story only gets bigger and more exciting and more complicated. So, he is unreliable, but aren't we all? He's also learning. He's learning a lot."

What Is Interview with the Vampire Season 2 About?

You can read AMC's official description of the second season of Interview With the Vampire here: "The interview continues in season two. In the year 2022, the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson) recounts his life story to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Picking up from the bloody events in New Orleans in 1940 when Louis and teen fledgling Claudia (Hayles) conspired to kill the Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid), Louis tells of his adventures in Europe, a quest to discover Old World Vampires and the Theatre Des Vampires in Paris, with Claudia. It is in Paris that Louis first meets the Vampire Armand (Assad Zaman). Their courtship and love affair will prove to have devastating consequences both in the past and in the future, and Molloy will probe to get to the truths buried within the memories.

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Season two of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire is executive produced by award-winning producer Mark Johnson, creator and showrunner Rolin Jones, Mark Taylor, along with Christopher Rice and the late Anne Rice."

Interview with the Vampire airs Sundays on AMC and AMC+.

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