Sam Reid has been cast in the lead role of Lestat in AMC’s ‘Interview with the Vampire’ series, Variety has reported. The series, which was officially greenlit in June, is based on Anne Rice’s novel of the same name and will hit the small screen in 2022, nearly twenty years after the film.
Same starting point as Neil Jordan’s film
The book focuses on the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac as he recounts his life story to a reporter, in particular how he became a vampire and was later tutored by Lestat de Lioncourt. The casting could represent a long-term investment in Reid by AMC, as the company owns the rights to all of Rice’s ‘The Vampire Chronicles’ books and Lestat appears in many episodes, Reid could repeat the character in several seasons, although ‘Interview with the vampire’ is, at the moment, the only one approved by AMC.
Reid will be the third actor to play Lestat on screen, after Tom Cruise in the 1994 version and Stuart Townsend in ‘Queen of the Damned‘(Queen of the Damned, 2002), although he could have the face of Robert Downey Jr. Currently, Reid stars in the Australian series’ The Newsreader’, and did a good role in the great miniseries’ Lambs of God ‘.
‘Interview with the vampire’ will have eight episodes with a view to a debut in 2022 in both AMC and AMC Plus. Rolin Jones is the scriptwriter, executive producer and showrunner of the series under his general contract with AMC Studios. Mark johnson he will also be an executive producer with Anne Rice and Christopher Rice also serving as executive producers. Alan Taylor He will direct the first two episodes and serve as an executive producer.