Trivia / Interview with the Vampire

• Ability over Appearance:
  • Anne Rice openly protested against Tom Cruise being cast as Lestat, but after she saw the film, she issued an apology and praised his performance. However, she did insist that Lestat's hair remain blond in the movie.
  • Claudia gets aged up from five years old to be played by the eleven-year-old Kirsten Dunst, as there was no way a five-year-old actress could possibly take on such a role. She was considered one of the standouts amongst the cast, and there were very few complaints about the change as a result.
  • In the book, Armand is an auburn-haired vampire who looks 17 years old, but the filmmakers threw this out, in part to avoid the sexual overtones of a clearly adult man and a character who looks like a teenager. The filmmakers cast the Spanish Antonio Banderas to give the character an exotic, old-world magnetism.
• Billing Displacement: Tom Cruise receives top billing, but Brad Pitt is the lead character and the titular vampire being interviewed.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Anne Rice initially felt that Brad Pitt would be better as Lestat and Tom Cruise as Louis and tried to get them swapped around.
  I tried for a long time to tell them that they should just reverse these roles — have Brad Pitt play Lestat and have Tom Cruise play Louis. Of course, they don't listen to me.
• Completely Different Title: Became Blood Prisoners in Finland.
• Creator Backlash: Brad Pitt later revealed he had a rather miserable time making this film, disliking the long make-up process and uncomfortable costumes. There was also the fact that filming mostly took place in London at night, in the dead of winter, which ended up sending him into a depression. He even called a producer friend of his, begging to be let off the film. He had been a fan of how Louis was written in the book, but disliked how the film presented him.
  In the book you have this guy asking, "Who am I?" Which was probably applicable to me at that time: "Am I good? Am I of the angels? Am I bad? Am I of the devil?" In the book it is a guy going on this search of discovery. And in the meantime, he has this Lestat character that he's entranced by and abhors... In the movie, they took the sensational aspects of Lestat and made that the pulse of the film, and those things are very enjoyable and very good, but for me, there was just nothing to do — you just sit and watch.
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Anne Rice was very impressed with this adaptation of her novel. She even took a two page ad out in Vanity Fair and the New York Times, calling it a "masterpiece." Part of her very public enthusiasm was probably in recompense for publicly slamming the casting of Tom Cruise.
• Deleted Scene: A scene was filmed showing Lestat in the tunnels of Paris, confronting Louis after Claudia's death, but was cut from the film.
• Executive Meddling: Armand was aged up considerably to avoid the Squick of Louis' second possible love interest being underage.
• Fake Nationality: Stephen Rea is Irish playing the ambiguously continental European Santiago.
• Hypothetical Casting: Anne Rice had envisioned Rutger Hauer as Lestat and was so appalled that Tom Cruise was cast that she boycotted the film, although she later came round. She and the fans also championed Julian Sands.
• In Memoriam: The film was dedicated to River Phoenix, the original choice for Malloy.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Antonio Banderas also voiced Armand in the Castilian Spanish dubbed version of the film. Unlike the rest of the cast, whose Spanish voice actors dubbed their respective characters in Barcelona, Spain, Banderas dubbed his own voice in Los Angeles.
• Production Posse: Neil Jordan regular Stephen Rea appears here as Santiago.
• Reality Subtext: Louis's broody nature parallels Brad Pitt's dislike while making the film.
• Referenced by...:
  • Occurs in the television adaptation of Interview with the Vampire (2022):
    • "A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart" does its own version of the scene from this film where Lestat bites and drains Louis' blood without the latter's consent while flying up into the air, and then Lestat drops Louis from the sky, which leaves his victim close to death.
    • "Like Angels Put in Hell by God" also recreates an aerial shot from this movie of the San Francisco Ferry Building's clock tower.
    • In a 20-second Season 2 TV spot, Lestat's hair is straight instead of being naturally curly, and his mane is almost identical to the hairstyle of Brad Pitt's Louis.
  • In Kingdom of Loathing, when you run into a vampire in the Spooky Forest, one of your potential options is to interview it.
    You pull out your notepad and your tape recorder, and conduct a lengthy interview with this Aristocrat of the Night. You manage to make him sound pretty good, despite his horrible speech impediment and that story about eating the rats that he insisted on bringing up over and over again.
• Scully Box: Tom Cruise was placed on an elevated platform during some scenes to reduce the height difference between his character and other vampires.
• Self-Adaptation: Anne Rice wrote the screenplay based on her novel.
• Star-Making Role: Kirsten Dunst had done commercials and short films before this. Afterwards, she was starring in critically and commercially acclaimed films such as Little Women and Jumanji, eventually transitioning successfully to an adult acting career.
• Stunt Casting: Tom Cruise was cast over Julian Sands for the role of Lestat, precisely because he was a bigger name.
• What Could Have Been:
  • On the belief that Hollywood would never make an adaptation due to the massive amounts of Ho Yay, the first few drafts of the script had Louis as a woman! Anne Rice's preferred actress for the female Louis? Cher or Anjelica Huston! Cher actually worked on a song to tie in with the movie, which was scrapped when Louis got changed back to male. It appears on her 2013 album Closer to the Truth (the title is "Lovers Forever").
  • William Baldwin, Johnny Depp, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Richard E. Grant, Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Malkovich, Sting, John Travolta, Christopher Walken and Peter Weller, were considered for Lestat at various points of development. Anne Rice's choice was Rutger Hauer. She also considered John Travolta or Richard Gere.
  • Val Kilmer turned down the role of Louis.
  • Natalie Portman, Christina Ricci, Leelee Sobieski, Dominique Swain, Julia Stiles, and Evan Rachel Wood auditioned for Claudia.
  • River Phoenix was the original Malloy, but died before production could begin. The film is dedicated to his memory, and Christian Slater donated his entire salary to two of River's favorite charities. Leonardo DiCaprio and Stephen Dorff were considered.
  • In 1978, when John Boorman was planning to direct, he intended for Jon Voight to star as Lestat.
  • Rice wanted either David Cronenberg or Ridley Scott to direct, both of whom turned it down. Tony Scott was a huge fan of the novel and longed to direct the adaptation — even doing The Hunger in the hopes of preparing himself for it.

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