Corsets vs Facts: Inaccuracy done right in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire

Anne Rice’s cult-classic debut book, Interview with the Vampire (IWTV), much like that of William Makepeace-Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, has had television and film adaptations since its initial 1976 release. Yet, unlike Vanity Fair, IWTV has only two successful adaptations, with a 28-year gap separating their creation: a 1994 film and a 2022 television series based on the volatile companionship between Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise/Sam Reid) and Louis de Point du Lac (Brad Pitt/Jacob Anderson) that explores the blurred line that separates a lover from a maker.

Both versions offer vastly different portrayals, not only of the characters but also, most notably, of their historical and source material accuracy. Directed by Neil Jordan, the 1994 film is set in the 18^th century and closely follows the narrative and plot of Rice’s book. As the first adaptation of IWTV, the film successfully captures the rich elements of 18^th century romanticism, intertwining the allure of vampiric life and fervent passion with the torments of immortality, desire, and homosexuality. Jordan’s adaptation prioritises gothic atmosphere and emotional excess, rendering vampirism as both a curse and an erotic liberation.

One of the revisions that both adaptations made is to the child vampire who embodies the moral paradox at the heart of vampirism. Though aged up from five in the novel to eight in the film, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) remains a haunting symbol of arrested development and eternal punishment. Turned by Louis after he abandons his four-year vow of abstinence from human blood, Claudia marks a decisive turning point in Louis and Lestat’s relationship. From this moment forward, she becomes a living manifestation of Louis’s guilt and moral hesitation, as well as Lestat’s sadism and disregard for consequence.

It is arguably more historically resonant and emotionally poignant

Her presence destabilises their domestic illusion, persistently reminding Louis of the cost of immortality and the cruelty embedded in Lestat’s love. This element is not lost in the AMC adaptation, where Claudia (Bailey Bass/Delainey Hayles) is aged up to a fourteen-year-old girl and reimagined as a young Black girl. In this iteration, Claudia is allowed a fuller experience of growth and life as a vampire, grappling with love, intimacy, and profound alienation from both humans and her own kind. Her yearning for connection leaves her vulnerable, leading her to encounters with other vampires who exploit her desire for community and belonging.

In contrast, AMC’s 2022 television adaptation departs boldly from strict textual fidelity, particularly in its reimagining of Louis as a Black man living in New Orleans during the early 20^th century. This change is not source-material accurate as Rice’s Louis is a white Creole plantation owner, but it is arguably more historically resonant and emotionally poignant. By situating Louis within a racially stratified society shaped by the aftermath and legacy of slavery and the encroaching structures of Jim Crow-era segregation, the series adds a layer of social and historical complexity absent from earlier adaptations. Louis’s vampirism becomes both an existential curse and a metaphor for racial otherness and constrained power within a violently unequal society. Louis’s Blackness fundamentally reshapes his relationship to immortality and morality.

Another imperative dimension of AMC’s portrayal of Louis is his relationship with his younger brother, Paul, and the centrality of Christianity in his life. Paul is depicted as deeply religious, unwavering in his Christian convictions, and openly hostile toward the ‘close’ relationship between Louis and Lestat. In many ways, Paul functions as Louis’s moral mirror: where Paul is devout, rigid, and spiritually absolutist, Louis lives what Paul deems a ‘Godless’ existence as the owner of multiple brothels in New Orleans.

Its absence from the novel does not diminish its significance  

Despite their ideological opposition, Louis and Paul share a profound and enduring love. Their disagreements over Louis’s career and lifestyle do not erase their familial bond but instead heighten the emotional stakes of Paul’s eventual death. When Paul takes his own life, the loss proves utterly destabilising for Louis, unravelling what remains of his moral and emotional certainty. Raised within a Black Christian household, Louis internalises Paul’s death as a spiritual failure, an event that crystallises his guilt as a businessman profiting from vice, but chiefly, as a gay man whose desires have long been framed as sinful.

This guilt culminates in one of the most powerful scenes of the first season, in which Louis collapses in the confessional booth, desperately pleading for forgiveness: for his profession, his sexuality, and his perceived distance from God. The moment is brutally interrupted when Lestat appears, offering Louis the “dark gift.” In a striking act of sacrilege, Louis is turned into a vampire upon the church altar itself, surrounded by blood, death, and shattered sanctity. That Louis and Lestat’s relationship formally begins within a church underscores the profound irony of the scene and further exalts the plight of vampirism: salvation is replaced by damnation, and divine forgiveness by immortal exile.

This narrative thread – the brother, the confessional, the church – has no direct counterpart in Rice’s source material. Yet its absence from the novel does not diminish its significance. On the contrary, these deviations are integral to the AMC adaptation’s success, constructing an entirely new emotional and thematic foundation within the first episode alone.