Interview With the Vampire: Sam Reid Teases Lestat's Return, Season 2

By Nicole Drum

AMC released a sneak peek at the eagerly anticipated second season of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire during San Diego Comic-Con this week and while fans will have to wait until 2024 for the next chapter of the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, thanks to that teaser we have an idea of what things will look like when the story shifts to Europe. Now, Lestat actor Sam Reid also teases what fans can expect in Season 2 of the series — including Lestat's return.

The end of Season 1 of Interview With the Vampire saw Louis and Claudia "kill" Lestat so that they could escape his abusive grasp and head off on their own to Europe in search of other vampires like themselves. However, as fans of Anne Rice's novel know, Lestat isn't dead — and the series made that pretty clear as well. That means Lestat will be back in Season 2 and what he went through at the end of Season 1 will have an impact.

"I'm excited to see Lestat learn some hard lessons, but he's an incredibly resilient, enduring character who's had to put his own desires first for a number of reasons," Reid told Entertainment Weekly (prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike). "And what are you left with when you're left to deal with yourself, when you're killed by the person you love the most? Obviously, a vampire dying is exceptionally difficult, but when you live an immortal life, you go through certain stages, so I am most interested in learning and discovering about Lestat's process of accepting that. And I'm not sure if he accepts it entirely. I'm not sure if he feels great about it."

Reid also said that fans can expect some changes from the book, but he thinks that fans will be happy with where the show takes things.

"The way that they have made the changes to the book really stays true to the soul of the book and expands certain moments," he said. "There are enough to keep fans of the book series interested and excited about what is happening, and enough teasers to the expanded universe that exists within Anne Rice's books. What I think is going to be exciting for people to see is that this season really breaks open. It was sort of like a little domestic drama between three vampires in the first season, and we're now meeting a lot more vampires and the world begins to expand. It is a lot bigger than just that drawing room in New Orleans. They have found a way to weave in lots of little Easter eggs about where we're going in the future, and that's exciting."

He continued, "Anne Rice wasn't afraid to break rules, to push boundaries, and make people unhappy with some of the choices that she made. She's not always out to give everyone what they want, and it is confronting as a fan of a book to sort of read some of those things. And we honor that in the show. We're not always making choices that are going to make everyone happy. We're honoring that kind of anarchic element that Anne Rice had in her writing."

What Do We Know About Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire?

Series showrunner Rolin Jones previously teased what fans can expect in Season 2 of the hit AMC series.

"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 revealed on 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 from 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."

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"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!" Jones added.

The first season of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire is now streaming on AMC+. Season 2 does not yet have an anticipated release date. Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for more updates.

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