Come out, come out, whoever you are.

Bella no match for Sookie at vampire love

2009-06-11T17:38:55Z

Bella no match for Sookie at vampire love
Subservient ‘Twilight’ heroine a terrible role model for pre-teen girls

Sookie’s (Anna Paquin) world may have gotten a jolt once vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) entered her diner, but she makes sure he knows she doesn’t need him to be her dashing savior prince, no matter how charming he may be.

Commentary
By Susan C. Young
msnbc.com contributor
updated 1:42 p.m. ET, Wed., June 10, 2009

For an intelligent girl, “Twilight” heroine Bella easily slips into the passenger seat when it comes to her relationship with her undead boyfriend Edward Cullen. Edward, who has been 17 for almost a century, may drive a snazzy sports car and look like a GQ model, but he has some old-fashioned ideas about a man’s role in a relationship.

He is Bella’s protector, even sneaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep or disabling her vehicle so she can’t go somewhere he deems dangerous. Bella’s besotted by Edward, and willingly wants to enter the vampire world even if it means giving up her family and friends — not to mention hunting down wildlife to suck their blood.

Sookie, like Bella, started as the main character in a popular book series. She took shape in the HBO series “True Blood,” which returns for a second season on June 14. While the two share a common story — the love between a mortal and a vampire — the characters couldn’t be more different when it comes to their relationship with their undead boyfriends.

Sookie doesn’t need a guy with a pulse to make her blood race, but she’s not about to make the leap into that cold, dead world. Bella’s obsessed with spending eternity with her love.

In a long history of girl-meets-blood-sucker fantasies, these two fictional women have taken the spotlight in the resurgence of vampire obsession. Bella slips into a controlling relationship, hoping to toss her mortality away like last year’s fashion trend. Sookie’s just looking for a good time before moving on to something that resembles a normal life.

Young women like 17-year-old Sara represent the target audience for "Twilight", and she admits being uncomfortable with the character of Bella.

“She does everything this guy tells her to do, and it’s not right,” Sara says. “I think too many girls my age don’t want to be themselves. They say they are in love, but they are pretending to be something they aren’t because they want their boyfriends to like them more than they want to be who they really are.”

And, Sara says, who even knows who they really are at 17?

No need for a dashing savior prince

Certainly not Sookie, who is still struggling with those questions at 25. She’s a telepathic waitress in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps. Because of her strange abilities, her social and academic life has suffered. Yet she embodies the independent woman Bella believes she represents. Sookie’s world may have gotten a jolt once vampire Bill entered her diner, but she makes sure he knows she doesn’t need him to be her dashing savior prince, no matter how charming he may be.

In “New Moon,” a distraught Bella contemplates suicide when Edward decides its best for him to leave her to her mortal life. She’s comforted by her friend Jacob, who is in love with her. Jacob believes in Bella, and encourages her to be herself and not be influenced by the controlling Edward. He gets kicked to the curb for his efforts as soon as Edward pops back into the picture. And the author Stephenie Meyer opts to give Jacob a seedy side by suddenly turning him into a person who would force himself on Bella.

Sookie often tells Bill she can take care of herself, and although she’s certainly benefited more than once from his super powers, she doesn’t allow the immortals to dictate her life. From a role model standpoint, that puts her several notches above the more malleable Bella. Yet the soft porn aspect of both the Sookie Stackhouse books, “The Southern Vampire Mysteries,” and the skin fest “True Blood” should be a no-teen zone. And that’s too bad, because young girls could benefit from watching a woman hold her own against the fang gang.

The defining moment in both the Bella/Edward and the Sookie/Bill romances comes early on. Edward seems oddly repelled by new student Bella, but when a van careens out of control in the school parking lot, his quick vamp abilities come into play as he springs to her side and stops the van from crushing her with just his outstretched hand. The damsel has been saved.

Sookie’s immediately mesmerized when Bill wanders into her diner. Finally, someone whose mind she cannot read, who gives her some mental quiet and forces her to discover his thoughts without supernatural means. When he’s lured out to the parking lot by some nasty humans who subdue him with silver chains while they drain his marketable blood, it’s Sookie to the rescue.

While Sookie’s obviously the more self-reliant spirit, there’s no getting around the graphic sex aspect of “True Blood.” So for role models, we’re hoping the new CW series “Vampire Diaries” —based on a book series that predates the "Twilight” saga by more than a decade, might fill the gap. The series offers the same girl-meets-vampire formula, but Elena appears from the pilot to more Buffy than Bella.

Even a vampire slayer like Buffy can’t resist the lure of the blood suckers. Everything about the cold ones, as Edward points out to Bella, is made to be seductive to their human prey. The bad boys represent the ultimate sensual catnip, yet even they can fall under the enchantment of a mortal. These women usually represent a strong, vital personality that proves just as seductive to the vampire as the thought of knocking back a few pints of A negative.

It’s too bad that a force as strong as "Twilight" can’t serve to show young women that they have their own power, and don’t need to be subservient in order to find true love.

jeesereeves also on dreamwidth!

2009-05-30T01:25:53Z

Lately because of the bad feedback that bloodcopy.com is receiving because of their gawker sponsorship I felt sort of compelled to make more regular updates here on my vampy news journal. Sure it started out VC-ish but I've expanded it just enough to stuff I'm familiar with. Meaning no Twilight stuff unless I find it particularly amusing. No Buffy because despite the fact that I love that show. I'm just not hardcore into it.

Also I started a dreamwidth journal(with a slightly different username of jessesookiereeves, as a sort of way to celebrate my new Vamp fandom and crosspost frequently to it for those who would rather use DW instead of LJ. Don't look for too much news regarding True Blood though I'm staying as spoiler free as I can, seeing as the only way I have access to the TV show is though the first season on DVD. I have the first four books in the Sookie Stackhouse series and I 'll get to them properly once I finish the book I'm on.

Harry Potter - Vampires - Amarillo Lestoat

2009-05-30T00:08:51Z

In addition to the mention of the character "Sanguini" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince there's another vampire not mentioned in the book series but as a mention on the video game for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Although not the only vampire who made an appearance on a chocolate frog card in the game it was the one that piqued my interest the most.

Amarillo Lestoat

Amarillo Lestoat (1776-1977) was a flamboyant American vampire. He wrote a book, A Vampire's Monologue, which was intended to bore readers out of their minds and render them more easy to bite.

A Vampire's Monologue is a book that was written by the vampire Amarillo Lestoat. Although presumably disguised as an autobiography, the book's true intent was to bore readers senseless, and thus render them more easily bitten.

*~*~*~*~*~*
VC fans see any similarities between Amarillo and our dear beloved Lestat? *snickers*

Gawker's vampire website has some seeing red.

2009-05-29T01:17:45Z

The thing I was refering to yesterday:

*~*~*~*~*~*

Gawker's vampire website has some seeing red.

NEW YORK (AP) — Is it an ad or a blog?

An attempt by HBO to promote its vampire series True Blood has some blood boiling at the popular Gawker website.

HBO produced a fake blog supposedly written by a vampire. It's embedded within the popular Gawker website and made to look just like it — with no indication that it's paid advertising copy.

Gawker's managing editor objects. Gabriel Snyder says it blurs the line between editorial and advertising. Although Gawker later added a small disclaimer at the bottom of the fake Bloodcopy blog, the company's advertising chief suggests critics like Snyder should remember what pays the bills.

An HBO executive says it shouldn't be a hard joke to get, since it's a blog purported to be written by a vampire.

Stephen Moyer - Marie Claire US June 2009

2009-05-28T05:03:06Z

While just randomly looking through a magazine earlier today I saw something I found very amusing. I've just got into the true Blood fandom and my only access into it is my Season 1 DVD set and the first three Sookie Stackhouse books (We don't have HBO). When I came across this I thought "BINGO! Take that Twilight geeks!"

Stuart Townsend rocks Lestat in Michael Rymer's Queen of the Damned

2009-01-09T22:04:53Z

I don't think I've ever posted this here before I'm almost sure I have, but I can't find it so here it is!

Stuart Townsend rocks Lestat in Michael Rymer's Queen of the Damned
By Patrick Lee and Cindy White

In Queen of the Damned, director Michael Rymer's upcoming movie based on two of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles novels, Irish-born actor Stuart Townsend takes a bite out of a role originated by Tom Cruise in the first Rice adaptation, 1994's Interview with the Vampire. Townsend plays Rice's most famous creation: Lestat de Lioncourt, an 18th-century French nobleman inducted against his will into the brotherhood of vampires.

Townsend appears opposite the late Aaliyah, the 22-year-old pop star and actress who died tragically in a plane crash last summer, and Marguerite Moreau, who will soon star in the SCI FI Channel's upcoming miniseries Firestarter: Rekindled.

Australian-born director Rymer faced the challenge of not only following up the previous movie, but also compressing the events in Rice's The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned into a single film. Townsend, Rymer and producer Jorge Saralegui took a moment recently to speak with Science Fiction Weekly about Queen of the Damned, which opens Feb. 22.

Stuart Townsend, how did you feel about the opportunity to do this and how do you avoid the cliches?
Townsend: For me it was an opportunity to fulfill all those teenage fantasies of being a rock star, you know? We all want to do it. But yeah, I mean there's a lot of resources to look at—all the old vampire films. It's so much a part of our culture. For me, I guess at the end of the day it's the script. Like a lot of people ask me, "Is it intimidating because Tom Cruise was Lestat?" and that kind of thing. But for me this was such a different story. It was rock and roll.

Did you ever worry that Anne Rice fans might not like you in that role?
Townsend: Yeah. When you're doing it, it's like, "Yeah, I can't please everyone." I can do the best I can and hope that people ... especially the fans, [will] like it. ... I went on the Internet once, and already they were saying, "Oh, he doesn't have blond hair!" I was like, "That's enough. I don't want to know." We hadn't even started the movie.

Did you feel you were stepping into Tom Cruise's shoes?
Townsend: I think it's a very different vampire. ... The Anne Rice themes are the same. That kind of question of eternity and existence and if you actually lived forever, the reality of that. ... Because we already toy with the idea of immortality, especially in this culture. And that's what I love about Anne Rice. She explored that existential question and the fact is, I'm with Lestat, I'd hate to live forever.

Really? Why?
Townsend: Because it would be a drag. ... I mean, why do we all watch movies? Reality is pretty mundane. But we have great imaginations. So there's plenty of beautiful things in this world, but I don't think I'd like to be around them forever.

What was it about the character that made you want to play him?
Townsend: The fact that, I guess, I thought there was a sensitivity. He loved music. And he was created, and he wasn't given a choice. He was just created, and then he was left alone. And he spent a couple hundred years hiding in the shadows, wanting to enjoy all these powers of, like, being able to play music and wanting to connect and usually just having to be this solitary bird, you know? And despising that. He's monstrous at times, you know, what he does is monstrous. And kind of having to deal with that along with existence.

Had you read the whole series of Vampire Chronicles books before?
Townsend: Not before. No. I'd read [Interview with the Vampire] and subsequently read the rest.

What was it like shooting the rock concert scene in the rock quarry? Did they have you up in a rig [to fly]? Was that scary?
Townsend: I got on stage, and I was tanked up on a bottle of tequila [laughs] with a few of my mates from Ireland who were there. So we sat in my trailer for a few hours and just got wasted. It was the only thing to do. ... It was a stunt man up there on these two little wires attached to his waist, and they said, "Are you scared of heights?" And I said no, which is a lie. But he didn't look that high, you know, from my perspective. He just looked like he was up there. And then they pulled me up, and it was nine stories high. ... If there wasn't 3,000 people watching, I would have been like, "Take me down!" But there were, so my pride came up and I was like, "I can do this." But it was pretty terrifying, really.

How long did it take to shoot that scene?
Townsend: We had 300 extras for a week, where we did all the stunts and all that, but we had one night at the actual concert, because we had 3,000 people come in. They weren't paid. They were just told to dress in black, fed hot dogs and given a T-shirt. We had DJs and stuff. It was an amazing night.

Was there any discussion about you vocalizing any of the music or songs yourself?
Townsend: I think there was, and I was like, "There's no way I can do [KoRn lead singer] Jonathan Davis." That's not my voice. I mean, I didn't sing the songs, but I was miming, and there was such a big sound rate that I was singing to myself just to get into it. I had no voice after three days, so there was no way I was going to do his vocals.

Can you talk about working with Aaliyah? What was that like?
Townsend: Yeah. It was amazing. I wouldn't say you've ever heard a bad word about her. She was really a special person, and she was amazing on set. We'd walk on, and she created this fantastic character. But it was always a sense of fun. Like, the shoot was fun. Most shoots aren't.

Her death was obviously a shock to everybody. Did you ever ask yourself whether they were ever going to release the film?
Townsend: Yeah. I mean the first thing I asked myself was, "What about the family?" Because I've had death in my own family, and you're the ones who are left behind. So the first thing is, "How are they?" Because I knew they all came to Melbourne, they were so close. And that was the first question. And then the movie was second. Like, are they going to release it, or what's going to happen? And the press. You know, I'm sitting here. What are they going to do? But thankfully [Aaliyah's brother] Rashad is interviewing. And the family, I think, they want the public to see her performance, because it's wild.

Did you do any dialect coaching for this to change your accent?
Townsend: I wanted to just make my own accent up, so I worked with this coach to sort of throw in a little bit of French, not too much, and then a bit of my own voice, a bit of English. ... [We] worked for about a month trying to find his voice. It wasn't really from anywhere.

What did you specifically bring to the character of Lestat?
Townsend: I guess like the accent, coming up with that idea. It's weird, a lot of it happens on set. Because, you know, you go out and you research. ... I researched all these rock stars, I watched all these videos, like David Bowie, Marilyn Manson. And then obviously watched all the Nosferatu movies, Bela Lugosi, and the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But then suddenly the makeup comes on and you're in this scene that you've been creating and that's where most of it happens, you know. ... I tried to bring a sensitivity to him, actually. I didn't want him to be monstrous. I wanted him to be sort of redeemable as human, show the human side of him.

Even though this was a totally different movie, did you go back and look at Tom Cruise's performance?
Townsend: Yeah, I saw the film. For me it wasn't about Tom Cruise. It was never about Tom Cruise. For me, watching Interview was more about Anne Rice. And I was surprised, because when I saw the film when it first came out years ago, I remember just going, "Yeah, whatever." And then I saw it again before I shot the film and I was amazed. I loved it. ... And I think he did a great performance, but it was never going to be the same film.

Did you ever speak to Anne Rice about this?
Townsend: Yeah. I met Anne Rice in New Orleans. Very strange time. ... We chatted for about six hours. She was just amazing. But after about 10 minutes, she gave me this book The Witching Hour, and she said, "You're on page 46." And I turned there to page 46, and there was the life of Stuart Townsend. And I was like, "Aw, Anne. ... You've [written] me as a character in your new book. Is this your new novel?" And she said, "No, I wrote this 11 years ago."

Jorge Saralegui, how did the two of you hook up?
Saralegui: Warner Brothers brought us together. I met Michael after seeing Angel Baby, the way almost everybody in Hollywood did. But then I think it had been, I don't know, four years? Three or four years. I was at Fox, he was doing things at Paramount, and Warner's brought us together on this.

Do you both have the same sensibilities about the genre?
Rymer: We never really broke that down, did we? We agreed about what we thought would work for the film from the books and what wouldn't work. ... Basically, the film represents our sort of collective vision. ... I might like a little more of some elements and, I think, Jorge others.

How did you decide what to use from the books?
Rymer: Well, there's two books. The Vampire Lestat is an extremely episodic novel, which will make a brilliant miniseries, I believe. But it was not suitable for a feature. And then the third book is also enormous. I mean, there's dozens of characters and subplots and very gory things going on that you couldn't film. And things that, to my mind, didn't entirely pay off. So we just started culling, and we were quite ruthless about sort of focusing the story.

Did you get any input from Anne Rice?
Rymer: Yeah, Anne was there at the beginning. I met with her, and we talked about the style and the sort of casting we were going to do. Anne and the studio parted ways about which book to do. She, I think, would have preferred the second book if it had gone forward. But then she was copied on all the screenplays. She gave comments and has pretty much given us her blessing.

What about the physicality of Lestat? I understand that the hair is a controversial issue.
Rymer: Totally.

How do you deal with that kind of stuff?
Rymer: I took it more seriously until I started to listen in to some of the Web site discussions going on. This was way back. It became clear to me that a lot of these kids would rather have a bad actor play the role if they looked right.
Saralegui: Actually, the truth is that we were going to make him blond.
Rymer: We had him in a blond wig.

Didn't you release pictures of Townsend as a blond?
Saralegui: No. Someone doctored it on the Web site.

Did you ever think about getting Tom Cruise back again for this movie?
Rymer: I think when I came on it was pretty clear that Tom Cruise was not going to reprise this role. He had no interest in it. He had taken a lot of hits for doing it in the first place. I think as a courtesy he was [offered the part].
Saralegui: Yeah, it was offered to him. He passed.

Has Anne Rice seen the film yet?
Rymer: Yeah, I went to New Orleans and showed it to her.

And what was the response?
Rymer: Very positive. She was very objective. She knew that it wasn't going to be the books. She was prepared to evaluate the film on its own merits. ... I can't quote her, but she's put some quotes on her Web site that are very flattering. So I'm greatly relieved.
Saralegui: She also cleared the use of her name. Which you probably see now in the materials. Not on the one-sheet, because that was already out. But now it's Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned. That was her offering it to us after seeing the movie, so that kind of speaks for itself.

What was it about the whole universal mythos that made you want to do this?
Saralegui: It being a vampire story. Tapping into the vampire mythos happens to have fascinated both of us throughout our lives. And that actually goes to your question about our perspectives. They're actually pretty similar. We never actually compared notes, but they are pretty similar. ... For me it's like dangerous sex. It taps into those feelings. The vampire, to me, stands for that. It's dangerous. It's sexy. It's forbidden. Although, to me, the movie's not really about that.

Was there ever an intention to make this even sexier than it is?
Rymer: I think vampires without their trousers on lose a lot of power.
Saralegui: It's a very sensual movie without showing a whole hell of a lot. And I think that's sort of the vampire thing.

What was [Aaliyah's brother] Rashad's involvement in terms of the looping process?
Rymer: He didn't replace any of Aaliyah's dialogue. It's all Aaliyah. And then underneath you'll hear a sort of whispered version. ... Sometimes it gives a little clarity to the consonants. It also adds a supernatural quality. The primary reason for doing it was to keep Aaliyah's performance, because I was very happy with that tack. But some of the dialogue got lost on the way, so it was just to add a little more sibilance to the consonants.

When you heard about the death of Aaliyah, what was your reaction?
Rymer: My reaction was shock and disbelief. My response was to throw myself into the work and do what she would have wanted, which was to make the best film we could.

Was there any part of her role that was left unfinished?
Rymer: Just the small issue of giving more comprehension to her dialogue.

What was it about her that made you choose her for the part?
Rymer: She brought a lot of grace and regal charm. She did really extensive auditions. She hadn't proved to anyone, including to herself, that she could pull off such a challenging role.
Saralegui: She really wanted the part. I spoke to a journalist a little while ago who interviewed her in Canada when she was doing Romeo Must Die, and he asked her, "What's next?" And she goes, "I don't know, but I'd love to play a vampire." Which is kind of amazing. She loved vampires and she knew a lot about Egyptology. So Akasha was ideal for her. She really wanted it and really pursued this guy [points to Rymer].
Rymer: [In] the audition process I made her do Lady Macbeth and Oscar Wilde's Salome. I gave her things that experienced actresses would say, "I'm not going to do that. Are you crazy?" ... She had every opportunity to freak out and go, "No, this is too hard." Or "You don't really want me." She just plowed through every obstacle.

Her accent was kind of interesting. How did that come about?
Rymer: I don't remember the specifics, but it was a combination of Egyptian and a little African. She had a dialect coach in New York that she worked with. I was in Australia. I just remember thinking, "Good job."

Would you do another one of the Vampire Chronicles books?
Rymer: I'm done. I've said all I have to say about vampires.

The music is such an important part of this film. How did you decide what kind of rock star Lestat should be and what kind of music to use?
Rymer: Well the obvious thing would have been the David Bowie route—glam. But that's not really relevant today, for starters. And secondly, I think with the combination of that and the whole homoerotic vibe of the Anne Rice thing I wanted music that was ballsier. You know, [full of] testosterone. And also darker. As dark as I could figure out how to make it. And Jonathan Davis was the man.

Lost to time.....part 2

2008-11-20T00:18:26Z

As linked to in two posts below this here are somethings I thought interesting regarding questions that commonly asked in regard to the "Queen of the Damned" movie. Quotes from Jorge Saralegui about the QotD film as posted on the official message board before it got shut down.

Fair warning right now this is less than half of the stuff that was posted there and its still looong.

LEAVING OUT KEY VAMPIRES SUCH AS LOUIS ETC.
(Answering why no Mekare, and no story of the twins) Because she has no dialogue? Sorry, just kidding. The Story of the Twins is a movie in its own right; if we told that story, we wouldn't have room for Lestat's. We felt that focusing the movie on Lestat was the more pragmatic way to go. With less than two hours to work with, this meant no Story of the Twins. We kept Maharet, but only in how she connects to our main story. This is one of those changes that was all but dictated by the constraints of our situation, but that I realize is painful to all lovers of the book. You have our sincere apologies for not being able to give you everything that you wanted.

Answering as best I can, and please note, repeating myself, as some of these questions have been answered elsewhere: Louis is not in the movie, because his role in the novel QUEEN is relatively insignificant, and we could only include so many characters. I'm not sure what you mean by "stand alone." The liberties we took in the making of this film were a combination of necessity - a feature film is only so long - and creative license, which in my opinion is the right of anyone engaged in any creative activity. Lestat looks "gothie" because, as you may recall from the novels, his music was "Goth." I can't imagine how one could compare... let alone duplicate... the mood of a novel with the mood of a movie. The story of the Twins has very little to do with Lestat, who is the protagonist of our movie; the Twins' story is a movie in its own right - and this isn't it. The public was considered unwilling to watch a 12-hour movie, which is what I estimate would be required to do full justice to Anne Rice's novels. As to characters living or dying in a way that varies from the novel, refer to the end of my third sentence.

All of the characters you mentioned (Louis, Daniel, Gabrielle, Mekare, Eric) are not in the story, for the reason that you both mentioned: there isn't enough room for all of the vampires, and their roles seemed less crucial to the telling of our story. If you're seeking a connection to INTERVIEW, then you ought to find it in Lestat.

(Gabrielle) She's a very interesting character, but not essential to the novel, and irrelevant to the parts of the novel that we focused on.

Louis and Daniel aren't in the movie because, as you seemingly realize, they don't have a meaningful role in the story. Armand is in the movie, but only briefly. And I can't talk about Jesse's fate without giving away too much; suffice it to say that, given the nature of our story, our ending makes more sense.

CASTING QUERIES
Why is it okay to cast Aaliyah, despite her not looking at all like the Akasha of the novel, but not okay to let Stuart Townsend keep the hair color that suits him best? Are Claudia Black and Matt Newton, to name two of our vampires, ugly? I think some of your fellow posters would beg to differ. I'm not sure how Anne Rice feels about all of the casting, but I have reason to believe that she was happy in the end with our choice of Lestat. In the end, casting is a matter of taste, and very hard to quantify. We made the best choices that we could, given our circumstances, and are quite happy with the overall results.

Tom Cruise was offered the role of Lestat. He passed due to prior commitments and the understandable impulse of an actor not to repeat himself.

Khayman is my favorite male vampire in the novel QUEEN OF THE DAMNED. Bruce Spence was chosen from our Australian casting list for the part due to his talent and distinctive looks. As I said elsewhere, these standards were applied to all of the Ancients, so that they would be more noticeable. Again, due to our need to focus on Lestat in the story that we are telling, Khayman and most of the Ancients don't get nearly as much screen time as we would have liked. Maybe next time!

(About 'Interview' cast members not reprising their roles) It's not so much about a lower-budget version as it is committing to a series of films, as with HARRY POTTER or LOTR. WB didn't do this because the performance of INTERVIEW proved that there wasn't enough interest to warrant it. We failed to get Tom Cruise to reprise the role; Brad Pitt isn't going to take what would have been a very small part in QUEEN; I could go on, but I hope you get the point as to why the cast of INTERVIEW didn't return.

CHANGE OF APPEARANCE OF CHARACTERS
Characters don't often look as they did in the books because this is a movie that hopes to stand on its own feet as an original creation, based on Anne Rice's amazing work. For example, we thought that Stuart Townsend's darkly sexy persona would translate into a terrific Lestat, and it did. However, Stuart looks better with dark hair than light. Because it's Stuart-as-Lestat, rather than the Lestat-as-on-the-page, he doesn't have blond hair. I know that some Anne Rice fans are already pleased. I hope that all of them will be engaged and stimulated, even when they don't agree with some of our changes.

Having already made Lestat a non-blond and Akasha non-Caucasian, we weren't that concerned about making the more minor characters match their written descriptions. We chose our Ancients with a focus for distinctive features, since they weren't going to be onscreen that much, and we wanted to differentiate them from the newbies. We felt very fortunate to gain Paul McGann's interest in the role of Talbot, and went with a younger approach to the role. I understand why these changes may be tough to accept for fans who have visualized the characters in their own minds for years, and again ask for you to consider our perspective, which is that the movie, while an adaptation, is its own creation, and entitled to many of the same creative liberties that other film adaptations have taken.

I was very surprised that so many people cared about things like a character's hair color, mainly because I never think about these things. My own focus tends to be more internal; I never visualize actors when reading a script, for instance. That said, I immediately understood that these characters are indelibly alive in your minds, and that (surprise) they look to you just like Anne Rice described them. I learned something from it, and will take care to remember it in the future. I've already explained why some of the actors don't resemble the source material (Stuart doesn't look good with blond hair; Aaliyah really wanted the part, had obvious promise, and we were already considering casting the role with an African-American, based on the historical reality). Vincent Perez had a long white wig and we all agreed he looked better with his own hair (short and dark). I would say that this type of case-by-case thing occurred with most of the actors. We never decided to deliberately change things as an artistic choice, or anything of the sort. The exception might be Jesse, whom we felt should be younger than Lestat, to better suit some of the themes that were important to us.

Your question about costumes is a good one. In every case, we started with the novel's description of how a character dressed. Some survived, like Marius; others were altered to look as if they were from their geographical origin, like Khayman; others are dressed according to what our story dictates - Armand rises in Pere Lachaise cemetery, promptly drinks the blood of some Jim Morrison worshippers, and absconds with their duds! (PLEASE NOTE: this last is backstory - we don't see it happen.)

Now why does Claudia look like she's from Nepal or somewhere like that? Honestly? We all thought she was associated with such a locale from the novels. Not that she was born there, but that she spent time there, went to sleep there... I forget precisely what it was. Maybe it was a collective gaffe on all our parts. Does anyone know what aspect of the novel QUEEN OF THE DAMNED would have led us to clothe her as we did?

I doubt that Lestat's blond hair is a basic element that attracted anyone to the story. More likely, it's an image that you have become comfortable with over the years, and are having a hard time shaking for the two hours you may spend in a movie theater. I don't know what you mean when you say that changing Lestat's hair color is a "commercial betrayal rather than an aesthetic one." Just who would we be betraying commercially - ourselves? I'm not following you. Nadya, did Tom Cruise look so "strikingly different from most of our world"? I thought he looked like Tom Cruise in a blond wig. Would a blond wig have made Stuart Townsend strikingly different? What you seem to want is the embodiment of an idealization. Movies may or may not approximate our idealizations, but they will never match them. It exists in only one place: the nexus between Anne Rice's imagination, and yours.

Our Lestat isn't blond because the actor playing him looks better with darker hair. As to who our audience will be: it is our hope that all Anne Rice fans come, and that this number is exceeded by those unfamiliar with her work.

My feeling is that the people who don't like the casting of Aaliyah because she's black have the same motivation as the people who don't like Stuart Townsend not being blond. They want everything just as it was in the novel. I've already explained how I feel about this elsewhere, and obviously I sided with those who prefer the most talented available candidate to someone who looks more like the role was described in the novel. That happened to be Aaliyah. I do think it's important that people remember that while bitching about Stuart not being blond comes off as merely fanatical and redundant, bitching about Akasha not being white could seem racist to some, and thusly offensive. Many people have indeed taken this into account, and gone to some pains to stress that their opinion is not racially motivated. If they say so, then I'm happy to leave it at that.

I agree that the color of these characters' hair is integral to their appearance in the novels. But they are not integral to their personalities. Personality - not hair color - is what a character is all about. So when we made our movie, we tried to remain faithful to the characters' personalities; their looks were secondary. Just as they are in life. To some people. For people who can't see Lestat beyond the color of his hair - meaning every single poster who has questioned his hair color, but not asked about his character - I say, don't be so shallow, or so rigid. Your perceptions may expand a little as a result.

COMMENTS ON STUART TOWNSEND’S PERFORMANCE
Everyone who has seen Stuart Townsend's portrayal of Lestat marvels at his charisma and sexiness. He managed to integrate Lestat's soulfulness, brattiness and bravado into one pretty damn seamless performance.

Stuart has a slight Irish accent, which is what you'll hear in the movie. The only person in our very international cast who noticeably altered their normal way of speaking was Aaliyah, who developed an ancient Egyptian accent for the role of Akasha. Stuart is indeed a good singer, but we didn't learn that until after we chose him for the role... which is well after we had already signed up Jonathan Davis to sing (as well as compose our songs and score).

Stuart's stand-in had become quite a favorite of the crowd at Werribee by the time that Stuart was to first appear on stage. He was nervous about being perceived as a "movie star," nervous about performing a rock song in front of a big audience, and very nervous once he found himself suspended fifty feet above the stage for his entrance. Stuart fortified himself as much as was seemly (ahem!) (ie. had a drink or ten), then met his fears. He was terrific from his first swoop down, the crowd loved him, and he now considers that night the highlight of his acting career.

It was difficult to cast Lestat because we were asking a young actor to carry a movie, not to mention risk looking very silly as a rock star. To make the concert work as well as it does, we needed a psyched-up audience, a band that didn't look put together, and someone to hold the center. That was Stuart. He is terrific as a singer, and even better when all hell breaks loose. I think Stuart is a better Lestat from Lestat's point of view than Tom Cruise would have been. (Remember, Cruise played a radically different character - Lestat from Louis' point of view).

The role of Akasha may have been the most demanding in the film, yet Aaliyah's performance exceeded our expectations. What's more, she did it with a sense of cooperation that all of us should emulate. I've written a lot more about Aaliyah on this site, and you may want to look around to find out more about her performance.

Stuart is a very serious actor, who wouldn't take a role he didn't believe in. Lestat is a terrific character, and Stuart enjoyed enacting many of Lestat's aspects. I don't recall Stuart staying in character after "cut" was called, but he certainly didn't crack jokes, either. Rather, he remained focused. Stuart did a lot of training for the fight scenes - working out with a trainer, movement tutoring, wire work, and action choreography - but he was a natural at it. He made it look effortless.

COMMENTS ON CLAUDIA BLACK’S PERFORMANCE
It was a pleasure to work with Claudia Black, and I wholeheartedly agree that her image should be where it belongs in the site. I will pass along all of your wishes to those whose hands are on the tiller. (fans were urging Jorge to do something about the lack of credits for Claudia Black)

(Claudia Black interview on DVD) Let's say that if we already have an interview with Claudia on tape, then it will definitely be in the DVD. And if we don't, I will look into the feasibility of having one shot and included. (This does not fall into the "promise" category)

Claudia Black was very professional, quite adept at wire work, and helped us to flesh out her role. I am trying to make sure that, once the film opens, we post whatever scenes she and the other Ancients shot that don't make it into the final cut.

Thanks for the links to Claudia Black's Pandora diary. It was very funny, very accurate, and sure brought back memories. Actors really are put through a lot, aren't they?

I'm sorry if I missed answering a question amidst the barrage of enthusiasm for Claudia Black. There will be more images of Claudia as soon as the webmasters can dig them up... which may not be all that fast, given that everything is shutting down for the holidays. I'm not sure what is meant by Claudia Black not being in the credits, but I can assure you that what we call "credits" - that list of people and the roles they played at the end of the movie - will definitely include Claudia, amidst her fellow Ancients.

You should know that I have been blown away by the response for Claudia Black, and that such an outpouring of interest does have an effect (at least on this site). I've just asked for her to be listed as she should be here; I don't know how long it will take, due to the holidays, but it will happen. I should know the premiere's date by February 10. I don't know if Claudia will be there, since she may well be working.

(Answering: In her "QOTD" diary, Claudia writes: "One of the producers comes to me saying there have been some changes to the script. My character now has more lines and a more obvious history with one of the characters, Marius (played by Vincent Perez). He says he saw what I did in the "coming out of the tomb dailies" and liked it so much he has increased the size of the role. [Knock knock, who's there, Claudia Black.]" Mr Saralegui, was it you?) Yes, that was me. Claudia looked like she was licking her lips with delight at what awaited her outside her tomb as she emerged. However, not everything we shot will not be in the film. I hope that what isn't will appear not only in the DVD, but also on this site.

(Replying to: In the QotD novel, the third chapter (about the "Goddess Pandora") describes Pandora going to the Himalayan temple retreat of the vampire Azim from the crowded streets of Old Delhi. So, even though her origins were Greco-Roman, Pandora quite plausibly could be depicted as wearing Eastern attire, based on some of her latest travels). Thanks, Tramonto - I knew we weren't totally whacked in our choice of Pandora's costume when she wakes (as opposed to where she was born).

Okay, let's see. Claudia's name is not on the poster because her representatives didn't negotiate that for her. That said, it is obviously a marketing oversight on our part. There won't be any new photos on the site until at least after the holidays are over and I am back in the office (that's the 3d). And I have seen Claudia's work on FARSCAPE.

Claudia's accent is very... ancient. But please, please remember that you'll hear most of it on the DVD and maybe on this site, not too far down the road.

Michael Rymer suggested she audition for the Pandora role, not me. Claudia would be perfect in any part that doesn't call for blond hair, including bald ones.

ANNE RICE’S INVOLVEMENT
As far as I know, Anne Rice was not "not allowed" on this project.

I expect that we will show Anne Rice the movie in a screening room, on film, as soon as we are done with it.

Anne Rice hasn't seen the film yet, because we are still working on the music. I hope she enjoys it even half as much as we do her novels.

I'm sure Anne Rice will let you know when she sees it. It shouldn't be too long now.

I don't know Anne Rice, so I can't say whether she'd like the changes we made. My guess is that it's unlikely she'll like them all. Some novelists are inspired by what someone does with their creation but most shut off their feelings by saying (correctly) that the mediums are different, and shouldn't be compared. However, I think novelists give up the right to complain about what happens to their work, once they sell it. Criticize, yes.

Lost to time---post 1.5

2008-11-19T23:48:15Z

Something I thought was rather important when concerning the "Queen of the Damned" movie. Something to consider while viewing the QotD (Keep an open mind is one of them.) that was pointed by the interviewee out in the previous post.

How many scripts were written and why didn’t you get Anne Rice to write the script?
Neil Jordan worked on an adaptation of THE VAMPIRE LESTAT that never saw the light of day. Our version of QUEEN probably had at least eight distinct drafts by three different writers, as well as a draft by Michael Rymer, and a scene or two by another writer.

If Anne Rice offered to write the script for free and was turned down, it either preceded my involvement with the project, or was never made known to me. I seem to recall her saying on her site that she did, but this could be way off. I do know that Anne wrote a "bible" script of all the CHRONICLES, and she may have offered that to WB.
*~*~*~*
In the auditions, what impressed you about Stuart Townsend who plays Lestat? And also, the same question about Aaliyah, who plays Akasha?
Lorenzo diBonaventura, WB's head of production, heard about Stuart in Cannes, and passed his name along to us. I saw the opening image of RESURRECTION MAN, and knew we had found our Lestat. Why? He was pale, sexy, androgynous, cocksure, and dangerous as all hell. His audition communicated the same charisma that I felt that first moment, but for me, it was redundant. (By the way, this sort of "Hollywood" moment almost never happens to me.)

Aaliyah was actively championed by Lorenzo, who had seen her work on ROMEO MUST DIE. Michael met with her, staged an audition, and felt that her sexuality could work for Akasha. It was a matter of her feeling dangerous as well. Michael saw something that made him believe she had it, and put her to work on honing the skills she would need for such a difficult role.
*~*~*~*
Did Michael Rymer direct his own vision of this film? How much input did you and/or the studio have overall?
Michael definitely directed his own version of the film. In fact, the film was never more his than during production. Michael wanted the movie to have a contemporary raggedness, contrasted by the more traditional lushness of its period moments. You'll see that it does. He got the cast he wanted. And what compromises he made in the script were dictated by my oft-stated belief that we couldn't keep everything. If he has any regrets, it's that he wasn't able to flesh out all of the characters as much as he would have liked.

Michael and I have a very good working relationship. He knows that I support his vision, and he in turn always took my reservations or suggestions seriously. It has been a very rewarding collaboration for me; it wouldn't have been if I hadn't had as much input.

The studio has input on everything; it's how things work. I know this is hard for Anne Rice fans to believe, but WB stuck its neck out making this movie. Given the risk they took, I found them to be often helpful and reasonable overall.

We know that Anne Rice was not involved with this movie. Has the studio received any feedback from her regarding this film?
Anne Rice was much happier with the later drafts of the script than she was with the first. She approved of most of our casting, and got along very well with Stuart, who visited her once we were done filming. She liked the look of the trailer. And she has yet to see the movie.

*~*~*~*~*
What would you tell Anne Rice fans to expect from this film?
Anne Rice fans should expect enough changes and omissions from the novels that they will have no choice but to view this as a creative variation on the author's work. What they will find in common with the novels is a gorgeously textured, very emotional atmosphere, and characters whose psychological concerns mirror the ones they have in the novels. The themes we explore are grand - love, death, immortality, personal expression, loyalty, selfishness - and presented seriously. There is also a well-realized contemporary "rock" feel, very kinetic action, and the occasional dollop of humor. It is a very ambitious undertaking that, like most such undertakings, did not succeed in achieving all of its ambitions. I just hope that everyone who sees the film agrees that the filmmakers gave it their best, and that was enough.

When a book is transferred to the big screen, it is understandable that many alterations must be made. However, a brand new element is the love story between Lestat and Jesse - why was this added, and what importance does this storyline have in the film?
It's hard to find a successful film in which the protagonist doesn't have a relationship through which he resolves his own dilemma. In the film, Lestat's first important relationship is with Marius, who presents Lestat with the "facts of life" that Lestat finds so unsatisfying. This is a teacher-student relationship, and Lestat quickly reaches the familiar place where he feels the need to move on and become his own person - an adult - even though he is still, psychologically speaking, an adolescent. In the novel of QUEEN, Lestat became involved with Akasha, but this occurs near the climax of the story; their relationship doesn't fully convey Lestat's struggle with himself as to what he wants. This is where Jesse comes in. Jesse is the only major human character in the film. (Talbot is very important, but has only a few scenes.) As such, she serves as the way in for the audience - especially those who are unfamiliar with Anne Rice's novels. But characters often serve double duty in adaptations of works as complex as those of Anne Rice, and we thought that Jesse was a perfect counterweight to what Akasha meant for Lestat: everything that vampires find attractive in humans. As such, she attracts him, offering the possibility of assuaging his loneliness with her company, versus feeling good by living in the light and burning down the house with Akasha. While this can be viewed as a romantic choice, and often conveys that feeling, for us it was less about Lestat choosing one woman over the other, than choosing one lifestyle over another. I think you'll find that the movie will give you the same feeling.
*~*~*~*

Some things that were thought lost to time...

2008-11-19T23:38:22Z

I was just going though some QotD -related stuff that you can't find except via web.archive.org and I found a few cool things but this caught my eye:

Jorge Saralegui, is interviewed (hah!) by qotd-cast.co.uk

Jorge Saralegui, the Producer of ‘Queen of the Damned’, was kind enough to grant me this interview. I was helped by Vampvan and various other members of the Forum to compile the questions. As you can see, there are quite a few revelations here! Enjoy!

If you want to read some more of his comments on 'Queen of the Damned', I've compiled a lot of his points, answering various questions on the Official Queen of the Damned Message Board, .

What attracted you to ‘Queen of the Damned’?
Having read INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE when it first came out. I loved it, but it broke my heart at the same time, because it was the vampire novel that I wanted to write. When WB asked me to read QUEEN OF THE DAMNED about twenty years later, I felt the hand of fate (albeit in a corporate glove).

In the official forum you mentioned that ‘Queen of the Damned’ is a sequel to ‘Interview With The Vampire’, but will it be billed as a sequel?
I don't know of any movies that are billed as a sequel - that is, INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, THE SEQUEL - but WB certainly views it as the sequel to INTERVIEW. That we've changed every last actor won't affect that! It's hard for me to say the same thing, because I don't know if that's how Anne Rice sees it. I see it more as part of a series titled THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES. It's hard to say that the story of THE VAMPIRE LESTAT follows INTERVIEW in any traditional manner. In fact, it's more prequel than sequel.

How many scripts were written and why didn’t you get Anne Rice to write the script?
Neil Jordan worked on an adaptation of THE VAMPIRE LESTAT that never saw the light of day. Our version of QUEEN probably had at least eight distinct drafts by three different writers, as well as a draft by Michael Rymer, and a scene or two by another writer.

If Anne Rice offered to write the script for free and was turned down, it either preceded my involvement with the project, or was never made known to me. I seem to recall her saying on her site that she did, but this could be way off. I do know that Anne wrote a "bible" script of all the CHRONICLES, and she may have offered that to WB.

Were there any rumours that annoyed you, ie. ‘Queen of the Damned’ going straight to video (started by E! Online)?
The straight-to-video rumor was annoying. E! Online picked it up from a web site, which got it from some troublemaker who noticed that WB had taken the movie off its 2001 release slate.

(It helped that I was in Alaska at the time, and didn't hear about it until after I returned, and the rumor had been retracted by the offending party.) The rumor that the production kept being postponed due to lack of a script and general cluelessness was also annoying, since I naturally knew the entire time that we were on schedule (as much as any movie is in preproduction). I'm talking about all the people who were rooting for November 2000 to roll around without any film rolling as well, so that the rights to the novel would revert to Anne Rice. That was never going to happen.

To what extent were you involved with the casting and general production of the film?
Casting almost always involves the director, the producer, and the studio. Michael Rymer took the lead on almost every character. The studio sometimes disagreed, but ultimately went along with his instincts. I particularly championed Stuart Townsend and Marguerite Moreau, who were the cast's relative unknowns.
I'm not sure what "general production" means, so I'll give you a rough laundry list. I was actively involved in the development of the story and the script, the casting, and the hiring of our line producer, Su Armstrong. (Su put together the crew, and ran the "business" of the movie.) I supported our general musical direction, and shooting in Melbourne. I went on just about all our location scouts, and was on the set every day. Being "on set" meant many things, but boils down to doing my best to make sure that we were making the movie we had envisioned for months. Afterward, I have been actively involved in the editing of the movie, and consulted with WB on its marketing.

In the auditions, what impressed you about Stuart Townsend who plays Lestat? And also, the same question about Aaliyah, who plays Akasha? Lorenzo diBonaventura, WB's head of production, heard about Stuart in Cannes, and passed his name along to us. I saw the opening image of RESURRECTION MAN, and knew we had found our Lestat. Why? He was pale, sexy, androgynous, cocksure, and dangerous as all hell. His audition communicated the same charisma that I felt that first moment, but for me, it was redundant. (By the way, this sort of "Hollywood" moment almost never happens to me.)

Aaliyah was actively championed by Lorenzo, who had seen her work on ROMEO MUST DIE. Michael met with her, staged an audition, and felt that her sexuality could work for Akasha. It was a matter of her feeling dangerous as well. Michael saw something that made him believe she had it, and put her to work on honing the skills she would need for such a difficult role.

What is your opinion on the costumes and set design?
Angus Strathie's costumes confirm the talent he displayed in MOULIN ROUGE. The contemporary characters all look sexy and vampiric, and the period costumes (in the flashbacks) are seductively rich. There is no question that the look of some of the Ancients is controversial, but that was a conceptual direction that we undertook as a team, after much debate, and with very clear (if complicated) reasons.

I think that Grace Walker's set design is one of the absolute triumphs of the film. I can't say enough about it. It is amazingly varied, consistently inventive, epic in scale... and all, like Angus, on a tight budget.

You mentioned in the official site’s forum, you tried Stuart Townsend and Marius with long, blonde hair, but these looks just didn’t suit them. Will we ever be able to get a chance to see photos of these early looks, maybe on the DVD or the official website? It’ll be a laugh, and it might shut up some of those who have been complaining!
That's a good idea! I'll run it up the flagpole, but don't expect anything until the movie's run is over. By the way, Marius had very long gray hair.

We already know how much research Christian Manon did for his role as Mael. How did the other actors research their roles?
I hope I'm not underestimating any of them if I say that they read the novels, saw the original movie... or not. The exception might be Aaliyah, who was already well-versed in Egyptology, and immersed herself even deeper in that field, Anne Rice's novels, and vampirism.

You were on set every day of the shoot. What was the atmosphere like? Did everyone get along okay?
The atmosphere on the set was usually one of "how are we going to get through everything that's scheduled for today?" Part of that pressure came from how long it took to properly apply the actors' make-up and costumes... particularly Aaliyah. We had the most fun when we were the most prepared, as during the week we spent in Werribee. Everyone got along okay, meaning that there wasn't a single flare-up, and many moments when you could feel the pleasure the actors felt while working with each other. Were there days when people were touchy? You bet.

Did Michael Rymer direct his own vision of this film? How much input did you and/or the studio have overall?
Michael definitely directed his own version of the film. In fact, the film was never more his than during production. Michael wanted the movie to have a contemporary raggedness, contrasted by the more traditional lushness of its period moments. You'll see that it does. He got the cast he wanted. And what compromises he made in the script were dictated by my oft-stated belief that we couldn't keep everything. If he has any regrets, it's that he wasn't able to flesh out all of the characters as much as he would have liked.

Michael and I have a very good working relationship. He knows that I support his vision, and he in turn always took my reservations or suggestions seriously. It has been a very rewarding collaboration for me; it wouldn't have been if I hadn't had as much input.

The studio has input on everything; it's how things work. I know this is hard for Anne Rice fans to believe, but WB stuck its neck out making this movie. Given the risk they took, I found them to be often helpful and reasonable overall.

We know that Anne Rice was not involved with this movie. Has the studio received any feedback from her regarding this film?
Anne Rice was much happier with the later drafts of the script than she was with the first. She approved of most of our casting, and got along very well with Stuart, who visited her once we were done filming. She liked the look of the trailer. And she has yet to see the movie.

Would you like to be involved in any future films based on The Vampire Chronicles?
I would like to produce a mini-series of THE VAMPIRE LESTAT, mainly to give something more... expected... to Anne Rice fans. And there is a movie to be made of TALE OF THE BODY THIEF, although it would be just as vexing as QUEEN.

Have you seen the final cut of the film? If so, what are your thoughts?
I think we made a beautiful, sexy, dynamic and thoughtful movie that demands close attention. Something that you don't see every day. That would be difficult to top if you handed someone a copy of the novel and told him or her to fit it into two hours. And, as with almost any film, I see missed opportunities. I regret these all the more, because I am so proud of what we did achieve.

What are your favourite scenes and characters in the movie?
I like way too many scenes to list. The entire flashback - what we see of what is written in Lestat's journal - is amazing, and probably the film's strongest section. One of my favorite images is our first view of Lestat, after his first feed in 100 years. He looks like he ate the cat's canary, and is now wondering where that cat got off to. My favorite characters are Lestat and Jesse, because they undergo a change. Marius also stands out as a fully realized character. Akasha is terrific, but remains unchanged throughout; a force of nature at its most unnatural.

What are your views of the music featured in this film? How would you describe it? How did Jonathan Davis become involved?
Jonathan Davis wanted to compose a score for a film, and liked QUEEN's subject matter. Landing someone with his level of talent and recognition was perhaps our biggest coup. At first I was apprehensive, as I didn't know what Jonathan Davis would bring to the table. The songs he wrote with Richard Gibbs turned out to be a more melodic, atmospheric version of what he does with Korn, and I found them surprisingly seductive. As for the actual score, it is surprisingly traditional, in that it gives what the scenes call for, quite strongly. Like the movie, it is highly emotional.

What would you tell Anne Rice fans to expect from this film?
Anne Rice fans should expect enough changes and omissions from the novels that they will have no choice but to view this as a creative variation on the author's work. What they will find in common with the novels is a gorgeously textured, very emotional atmosphere, and characters whose psychological concerns mirror the ones they have in the novels. The themes we explore are grand - love, death, immortality, personal expression, loyalty, selfishness - and presented seriously. There is also a well-realized contemporary "rock" feel, very kinetic action, and the occasional dollop of humor. It is a very ambitious undertaking that, like most such undertakings, did not succeed in achieving all of its ambitions. I just hope that everyone who sees the film agrees that the filmmakers gave it their best, and that was enough.

When a book is transferred to the big screen, it is understandable that many alterations must be made. However, a brand new element is the love story between Lestat and Jesse - why was this added, and what importance does this storyline have in the film?
It's hard to find a successful film in which the protagonist doesn't have a relationship through which he resolves his own dilemma. In the film, Lestat's first important relationship is with Marius, who presents Lestat with the "facts of life" that Lestat finds so unsatisfying. This is a teacher-student relationship, and Lestat quickly reaches the familiar place where he feels the need to move on and become his own person - an adult - even though he is still, psychologically speaking, an adolescent. In the novel of QUEEN, Lestat became involved with Akasha, but this occurs near the climax of the story; their relationship doesn't fully convey Lestat's struggle with himself as to what he wants. This is where Jesse comes in. Jesse is the only major human character in the film. (Talbot is very important, but has only a few scenes.) As such, she serves as the way in for the audience - especially those who are unfamiliar with Anne Rice's novels. But characters often serve double duty in adaptations of works as complex as those of Anne Rice, and we thought that Jesse was a perfect counterweight to what Akasha meant for Lestat: everything that vampires find attractive in humans. As such, she attracts him, offering the possibility of assuaging his loneliness with her company, versus feeling good by living in the light and burning down the house with Akasha. While this can be viewed as a romantic choice, and often conveys that feeling, for us it was less about Lestat choosing one woman over the other, than choosing one lifestyle over another. I think you'll find that the movie will give you the same feeling.

Are you involved with the publicity of the film? If so, what more can we expect to see in the weeks to come, and in which countries?
The trailer and the poster are already out. You can expect our three Lestat music videos, the release of at least one single from the movie, the soundtrack, and quite possibly some deleted scenes, in the WB site. There will also be interviews with all of the principals and the usual print articles. As I learn what will be happening in different countries, I will let you know.

How shocked were you when Aaliyah died?
Catastrophes don't shock me. But I was very sad to realize that I would never see Aaliyah again, that I would have to find another way to view her amazing career, and to be so aware of the hole it left in the lives and hearts of her family. They loved each other as much as a family could, and... as cliched as it may sound... it just didn't seem fair that they wouldn't have her with them anymore. I now realize that their spirituality has allowed them to keep Aaliyah close in spirit, and that her work will always speak for her. By dying, she became even more of an inspiration.

Has the extreme reaction from die-hard Anne Rice fans surprised you or were you prepared for their rantings? Is it enough to put you off adapting another book-to-film movie with such a dedicated fan-base?
I was very surprised by the anger of the more reactionary fans of the novels to the changes that we made. The reason is that I couldn't disagree more with the notion that a film must view its source as sacrosanct. When you don't think a certain way, it doesn't occur to you that a lot of people feel diametrically the opposite. However, this revelation wouldn't put me off in the slightest if I wanted to adapt another cult book into a film. Again, I am totally convinced that any filmmaker is within his or her creative rights in changing something that has been sold with no creative strings attached. And, I like fights. I only wish, in responding to some of the more annoying comments I've received, that my responsibility to WB and the image of the movie didn't leave me feeling like I have one hand tied behind my back.

Will you consider using the internet and fan-sites to promote future projects?
We are considering the release of some of the publicity materials I mentioned earlier through some internet fan sites. There is no question that I will think long and hard as to how much fan sites can help any of my projects. I blew it in not coming to you or Vampvan earlier. I don't intend to repeat that mistake.

What are you working on next?
As a producer? I have three films coming out this season: QUEEN, TIME MACHINE, and SHOWTIME. I have over 15 projects in active development, and almost as many more that I'm trying to set up, but none are ready to go before the cameras very soon. The likleliest is a psychological thriller called IN THE LAKE, to be directed by Jon Amiel, which should shoot by the third quarter.

Jorge Saralegui, I thank you!

*!*!*!*

I'll be posting my favorite parts of this interview without an LJ-cut in the next entry

Twilight's Edward Speaks!

2008-11-07T09:23:43Z

To follow up with last night article I give you this from SciFi Wire

Twilight's Edward Speaks!

Robert Pattinson, who stars as the century-old vampire Edward Cullen in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of Twilight, told SCI FI Wire that he didn't feel beholden to any previous depictions or interpretations of vampires and explained that he chose to play Edward more as a diseased human than an otherworldly bloodsucker.

"It's funny, some people talk about vampires, and there have been encyclopedic amounts of fiction about it, but some people forget that they're a fictional creature," Pattinson said in an interview. "So they think behavioral traits are standard in portraying a vampire. I kind of abandoned everything and saw it as, I guess, being a disease. There's nothing really positive about being a vampire."

Pattinson (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) thought of Edward as a 17-year-old boy, the age at which the character was turned. It's also the age of Edward's human girlfriend, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), whom he engages in a risky relationship.

"I thought that he was stuck in the same mentality of a 17-year-old, but having more and more experiences," Pattinson said. "He's still just a 17-year-old guy who is never going to be able to have children, never going to die, always going to have a thirst for human blood. When he was a human, I guess he was a pretty normal, moral, nice person. The vampire aspect of it is completely secondary, and I guess tried to see it as that."

Pattinson added, "I never tried to play it as a vampire. I just saw it as a guy who gets bitten against his will and wakes up three days later with an unquenchable thirst for human blood and goes out and kills 40 people. So he's trying to come to terms with living for eternity when he sees no point in living and doesn't know if he even has a soul. I'm kind of making a short story long, but that's how I see him." Twilight opens Nov. 21. --Ian Spelling

As I like to remind anyone who reads this journal is that I have no particular fondness of Twilight in any form but I do v a softspot for Robert...Er wait that's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say was that this is a journal for anything vampire-related. Although despite the fact that the Twilight -vamps and not vampire in any shape or form I'll post whatever I please and....well Robert amuses me.

Rice Approves Damned Film

2008-11-01T16:28:03Z

From January 25, 2002
Rice Approves Damned Film
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2002-01/25/12.45.film

Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice has put her stamp of approval on Warner Brothers' upcoming Queen of the Damned movie, based on two of the novels in the series. "Queen of the Damned is an energetic and innovative rendition of the Vampire Chronicles, featuring fine performances and a magnificent look," Rice says in a prerecorded telephone message at (504) 522-8634. "Well-directed, elegant and intriguing, the film is surely destined to take its place among notable modern interpretations of vampire mythology."

Queen of the Damned, directed by Michael Rymer and starring the late Aaliyah, opens Feb. 22.

There, that should get someone's attention...

A QotD SciFiWire interview of interest as I posted a while back.

2009 is the Year for Dracula: The Un-Dead

2008-10-04T05:46:47Z

2009 is the Year for Dracula: The Un-Dead
October 3, 2008

LONDON, 1912: Someone is stalking the brave band of heroes who had defeated the vampire Dracula a quarter-century ago.

Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew and blood descendant, Dacre Stoker, and award-winning Dracula documentarian and historian Ian Holt have sold North American-English publishing rights of the Stoker-family-authorized sequel to Bram's classic novel "Dracula" to an alliance of Dutton U.S. (Brian Tart), Harper U.K. (Jane Johnson) and Penguin-Canada (Laura Shin).

The novel will appear in October 2009.

Laura Shin, senior editor of Penguin-Canada, who signed up for two additional sequels, said, "I was thrilled by this page-turning story and loved spending time with those great characters-Stoker and Holt did a fantastic job melding the old with the new, and I found the work to be a virtually seamless continuation of the original. The story has all the hallmarks of a historical novel, but with a modern sensibility that gives it wide-spread appeal."

Dutton and Harper signed a single novel deal. Although other precedent-setting foreign deals are already closed from preempts, Baror is planning to sign the bulk of world territories at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair.

Using Stoker family connections, the writers were able to access Bram Stoker's hand-written notes for his novel - which, before an editor changed the title, was to have been called "The Un-Dead."

"Our story," Stoker said, "includes characters and plot threads that had been excised by the publisher from the original printing over a century ago."

"The Un-Dead" is the first Dracula story to enjoy the full support of the Stoker clan since the original 1931 movie starring Bela Lugosi. Lugosi's appearance in Hamilton Deane's and John Balderston's stage production of the story on Broadway in New York, fifteen years after Bram Stoker's death in 1927, sparked the original novel's bestselling popularity. It has never been out of print since.

AEI's Ken Atchity, Chi-Li Wong, and Michael T. Kuciak (Life or Something Like It, Joe Somebody) will produce the film adaptation with Blue Tulip's Jan de Bont (Speed), and are expecting to see it go before the cameras in June '09.

The script has been completed by Ian Holt with the story co-written by Alexander Galant, who are both managed by AEI and agented by Ron Gwiazda and Amy Wagner at Abrams Artists.

Elizabeth Bathory

2008-08-14T02:06:25Z

Because of tonight's episode of GHI I look up up a few bits of information on Elizabeth Bathory and so here are the links, for safekeeping.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A593084

Lady of Blood: Countess Bathory

5/25/2001 Entertainment Weekly - Stuart Townsend - Queen of the Damned

2008-05-28T01:34:04Z

I noticed that n matter what article I read that this was the only instance in which tequila was involved while filming. And Stuart only did so to get himself loosed up because he was freaking out over the while heights on wires thing.

scan by Sara at http://www.vampires.sarawebsite.com/

Premiere Magazine - Nov. 1994

2008-05-28T01:28:47Z

Despite the site owner's views of QotD (which are the opposite of my own) I posted the two sets of her scans that I found interesting.

November 1994 - Premiere Magazine
(click thumbnails to make larger)

the cover says 'Love Bites' and Title of the article says 'Young Blood'

the cover:

scans by Sara at http://www.vampires.sarawebsite.com/

IwtV scans - Interview magazine - Tom Cruise

2008-05-28T01:06:28Z

November 1994 - Interview Magazine

An interview with Tom Cruise (click thumbnails to make larger)

the cover:

scans by Sara at http://www.vampires.sarawebsite.com/

Moonlight - People magazine

2008-04-22T22:35:22Z

I'm surprised a certain Moonlight (tv series) heard hasn't found out about this already. Although I've never seen the show (one of the reason why I hated working second shift. I miss primetime TV), I found this article very interesting. Seems the star is a fan of the VC (and possibly The Lost Boys!) wow bet that has SomeOne in an uproar (or I think it would if she has seen this particular issue

From the April 28 2008 issue of People magazine (behind a cut because it's kinda big)

I think this is amusing

2008-03-27T20:28:37Z

While one a search for a certain quote I'd seen ages ago about Anne Rice I came up across something from Claudia Black (formerly of Farscape and most recently Stargate SG-1) regarding her being cast in Queen of the Damned (how odd is it that I come across this seeing as Claudia plays my favorite female SG-1 character, Vala Mal Doran?) for nostalgia's sake I didn't correct the one or two typos she had. And yes I was a fan of the movie QotD before I became a fan of Claudia's via SG-1.

*~*~*~*

CLAUDIA BLACK
************************************************** **********
October 4, 2000... Farscape actress Claudia Black has been locked to play the part of the vampire Pandora in The Queen of the Damned. Black made the announcement directly to her fans on the Sci-Fi Channel message boards last night:

Hello there beautiful people!
We are all suffering from post Olympic syndrome after a surprisingly exciting fortnight of sport and entertainment.I am officially very proud to be an aussie (aussie aussie, oi,oi,oi!!!)

My reason for posting today is to let you know that I have been cast to play Vampire Pandora in the sequel to Interview With a Vampire.

For those of you who have read Anne Rice's books,be prepared for some filmic licence and adaptation, if you know what I mean.While being losely called the sequel,The Queen of the Damned is not the book which directly follows interview and will not star Tom Cruise nor Brad Pitt.

I do not post this bit of news to boast, rather to recognize the enormous support I have received from you all on the BB and thank you for it as I feel You have instilled me with a confidence which has pushed me forward.

For those of you who out of loyalty went to support Pitch Black I can at least promise this time that although Pandora is a small support role, she will not be knocked off early!

Love and light to you all and thanks again for your continued support not only of Farscape but also of all the people who are bringing it to you.

Your chick with gun,
Claudia

something random

2008-03-27T20:16:31Z

Just a little something I dug up while looking online for a thing Anne has said about the QotD movie

At the end of her 10/1/1997 phone message.:
I heard about it from someone at Warner Bros. I wish, wish Michael Rymer would get involved with INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, not INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, that's done, but THE VAMPIRE LESTAT or THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED. God bless you and keep you. Take care.

Looks like Anne got her wish now didn't she?

Anne Rice short

2007-11-15T18:33:59Z

Interlude With the Undead
Written for the January 1979 issue of Playboy.

The author of "Interview with the Vampire" reveals for the first time an all-too-human aspect of her singular subject.

In the book, "Interview with the Vampire," Louis, who has been a member of the living dead for some 200 years, tells the story of his life to the interviewer, a young radio reporter in San Francisco.

But the book as published represents only a portion of the tapes of that interview made by the reporter. Louis told the young man much that was not included, particularly with regard to the master vampire, Armand, whom he had met in Paris. One tale was Armand's account of his methods of seduction; that is, the art of the vampire at its peak in the year 1876.

ARMAND'S LESSON:

As I've told you, Louis, each vampire selects his victims in his own way. The world is a veritable wilderness of singular beauties and each night too precious too allow for the slightest waste. Each night is a wedding, really, and the vampire is wed to the unique and alluring charms of that victim as surely as he is wed to that victim's life. You hold the spirit incarnate in your arms.

For some of us, monstrous breed that we are, and such a discerning and voracious company, it is the struggle that holds the quintessential fulfillment, the thrashing of the waning lover seems to soothe the preternatural soul. This is nonsense, really. These innocent and unsuspecting victims can't really struggle against a power such as our own. What lurks beneath these gentlemanly trappings is a strength that is unconquerable. Yet there are vampires who crave the semblance of battle, saying that it is the human spirit they love, its endurance, its faith.

I have no taste for violence, voluptuous as it may sometimes appear. It is the seduction that is perfectly in tune with this monster's heart. But do not mistake my meaning. It is not I who seduce the lovely beauties whom I take as my brides. It is they who seduce me through their dreams.

You see, they all want the embrace. There is a kernel in all of them that is "half in love with easeful death" and as I wander through the late-night streets in the chill hours, I can hear their plaintive sighs, a muted chorus rising from those beds, its rhythms penetrating the very walls. They summon me. They long for me. Gentleman Death, that has been my epithet, and I so treasure it. What gentleman can refuse a lady, after all?

Imagine her, my victim, caught in the maw of mortal life and so given to dreaming. She wants an extraordinary passion, something she's only glimpsed before and lost. The memory pricks her, a flicker in the recesses of her soul, a searing rapture known but for an instant when mortal and mortal intertwine.

It is for her summons that I listen, being myself sometimes the silent siren of death that can evoke that plea from her even as I quietly pass by. No one hears my steps. I do not hear them. It seems until she offers that faint murmur, I am not even there. These winding, narrow medieval streets shroud me, no moon cuts between the jutting roofs and I am cold, cold for her as I wander, waiting with a lover's devotion for that perfect call.

You know that our preternatural flesh cannot dispel the icy air that settles on our limbs. Ours is the chill of the wind howling through eternity.

So you can well imagine the ineffable sweetness of the moment of selection, of moving out of that damp and merciless might into the bedchamber. No two of them are the same.

I need not see her. I know she's there. A warmth emanates from her living flesh and, drawing near, I see the shape of that warmth--tender, helpless, prone. There is something melancholy, sad about her nestled among the trinkets of her mortal life, the soft bed, her loose and fragrant garments, remnants of girlhood--she sleeps with the trusting sleep of the child. I tell you if I were not the monster, I would be touched. But back to the pliant treasure herself, breathing deeply in her dreams. Is it more vivid, that dream, as I draw close to her? It seems I see her eyelids flutter, she shapes a name with her lips. I tell you, she knows that the object of her inexpressible longing is there. She feels these eyes on her naked shoulders, this hand on the pale-petal flesh of her soft thigh.

It is seduction, remember.

There is never violence. I tell you that all embraces, no matter how tender, are surfeited with violence. Violence is the throbbing of the unsatisfied heart. Violence is the desperate pulsing of that tender fold between the legs, that precious cleft that shapes its own emptiness; violence is the restless turning of her limbs. This is the heart and core of all violence for which the rest is rude metaphor, rough deceiving, a lie born of abused passion and broken dreams. You want the true violence? Neglect her. Then bend your head to her breasts and rest it there, to hear that awful moan.

"Half in love with easeful death" is half in love with life still. She awakes shivering and I feel my lips surrender to a smile. I know too well that I might quiet her with the stroke of my hand even as its coldness shocks her, but let her wake just a little to the crude world of lamps and torn realities. Let her see her demon lover. Let her see these eyes adoring her. Let her know that in serving me she will make me utterly and completely her slave.

Have I ever failed? It's natural enough, that question. The world is rife with passionate women, so you wonder have they drawn back from me, fought, begged for reprieve? Has some dim alarm ever sounded in the depths of those heaving breasts? Weren't these women just a little frightened by this fervent gaze? Never. Forgive my laughter, you don't understand the promise of my caress.
They have struggled too long and in vain for union, these succulent mortal beauties, they've known the prisons of their own flesh too well. Observe the flare of those narrow hips, the subtle curve of the buttocks; these are but the contours of a dungeon cell. See how their love acts have so often resembled the quarrel, how they've thrashed and, alone afterwards, lain uneasy in half sleep.

Mine is the embrace that will penetrate that isolation, mine is the kiss that will delve to the root of the soul. She knows it, my bride; she knows it without my saying it; she knows it with an instinct that is all too human and that we immortals too quickly forget. Imagine her splendid terror and how easily it melts to languor in my arms. She is meek, pliant, on the verge of some awesome awakening. She hardly feels the little tear. The breath hisses low from between her pearl-white teeth, her eyelids show the barest gleam beneath the dark lash. She cannot know how my pulse quickens with her pulse, how my heart feeds upon her heart, how pulling me toward her, I draw the heated perfumed elixir from her with my own soul, pulling the cords of her being warm through her veins.

She is so warm.

Do I have to tell you how that smooth tight flesh of her arching back burns my fingers, how those taut nipples brand my chest? She is listless, fading. One arm drops to her side, hands close weakly on the lost coverlet and, turning from me even as she is given over to me, her eyes are veiled with her silken hair.

And yet my monster's eye charts her swoon. This is the union she has longed for, and with the cunning of the beast, I have let her go too soon. I measure her, I hold her, I tingle with the life she's given me and see her moist limbs as the vessel of my mounting passion, alive as I am with her life and soothed and tormented as she is with mine.

Nothing divides us now. Her fingers prod, I savor the groans, those piquant and spirited utterances. She's mine.

Ah, but you know the price of this modulation, this rhythm. She cannot imagine my thirst for her. If she placed her hand on the marble stone in the churchyard at midnight, she might begin to understand this harrowing loneliness and, with it, she would come to know my art. I draw back from her, aching for her. I hold her, this struggling sparrow in my easy grip.

How long will that taste of her content me? It is sweet to touch her bent neck, her tousled hair. But she's given me her life's blood; what am I to give in return?

Yes, I said the word, return. Perhaps all along, you've thought me some hard and simple monster who would trick her in her sublime pleasure and give her only darkness finally as her reward? You underestimate me, you fail to understand the fire and the fiber of my own dreams.

And she's too tender to me, little bride. You misunderstand the whole affair.

Rather, I become the fount of secrets. I let her part the open shirt with her own hands. I can feel her lips, quivering, virginal, that touching eagerness, I let her taste, I let her drink, and she is wild. Now I can see the incandescence of a vampire in her eyes, a shimmer to that beguiling form. The clock ticks, the wind whispers in the passage. There is much for her to learn. But she is spent now with the first undulating wave and I am in no great haste to bring this to its close.

Rather, I lie like the bridegroom with her, as if accustomed to these mortal beds and their trappings, and I have time for mortal dreams.

You know that we never forget it. Vampire, Nosferatu, Virdilak. What have we all in common? What separates our cloaked and smiling figures from the other unholy inhabitants of the monster realm? Simply this: that we all were and still are men.

So let me dream for a while. Let me be young. Let me become some anxious, urgent creature riding as I did in the days of brief life through the open country fields. I feel the horse under me, his striding power. The wheat blows in the wind. And through the shifting trees, I see the sun again, warm as by bride's blood; it falls on my face, on my hands. It is her blood that makes this real as I lie there, but even as the sky is shot with those swift gold-edged clouds, it's fading, fading. I must wake. I would lead my fledgling further on.

And she? She dreams as a vampire now. She stirs. And limp and somnolent, she falls into my waiting arms.

What would you have now? That is, if you were I?

Should I usher her into the timeless life on my own? I think not. Look at that superb young form; what does it cry for, if not for another woman equally as beautiful; if not for the craft of another lady-love, supple, scented and schooled by me? And waiting on these dreary winter nights as she always waits for the fledglings that I bring her, for what is always best when shared. This is a dance for three.

Imagine the patience of such a lady-love, dark-haired, succulent; is she petulant when she sees my new bride? What of the postulant herself in such encounters; does she spurn the skilled and nurtured woman to whom I present her? What do you think? Must I instruct my ladylove to flaunt her treasures? Oh, no. She bends with an unconcealed abandon and I see my new bride, afflicted, helplessly drawn. I wonder, would it give the master a little more pleasure if they did not go so willingly into each other's perfumed arms? A cold agony comes over me in watching the soft crush of breast to breast. I see their lips drinking one from the other with a mortal urgency I'd forgotten; they moan with some submissive sentiment I no longer know.

I cannot bear it any longer. I cannot be content with a feast only for my eyes. This is what I've waited for too long, slaves shaped to the will of the master, they may command me. I feel the prick of the hot skin again, that searing luxuriant gush, one and then the other of them, and back again, first my dark and sultry ladylove, then my shimmering bride. When will it ever end, when will I be permitted to rest? It seems these hearts so perfectly tuned now to my own will not release me, they will not permit me to withdraw. My mistresses are merciless. I was a kinder master. "Do you love me?" comes the plaintive question as I lead them. "Do you love me?" as I gaze into those glittering eyes. Their lips are blood red, fledgling teeth tease the tender flesh. "Do you love me?" comes the desperate entreaty as I gather them against my monstrous and lonely breast, lonely, lonely beyond their dazzling preternatural dreams. "Do you love me?" comes the whisper again, even as the sun dissolves the shadows. But their mute and smiling faces are pitiless. And, my anguishes complete, "Do you love me?" I implore them again.

Anne Rice short

2007-11-15T18:29:18Z

Interview With the Vampire

The short story was written in 1973, and later adapted into novel form.

"Do you wish to record the interview here?" asked the vampire.

The boy had drawn the small tape recorder timidly from his briefcase. He hadn't expected this response. "You don't mind . . . that I record the interview, possibly broadcast it on FM radio throughout San Francisco?"

"I haven't the slightest objection," said the vampire. "I was referring to the room." He gestured now to the small round oak table, the straight-back chairs. In the rhythmic flashing of a neon sign beneath the window, the boy saw these, and a door that was not the hall door, partially open.

"0, it's fine," said the boy, and quickly he checked the batteries of his recorder, lifted its clear plastic lid to start the tape, and looked timidly at the vampire. "Is this . . . your room, then?" he asked.

"No," the vampire smiled. "Just a room." He was standing at the window and the red light shone on him at intervals of three seconds. Then there was only the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of traffic. The boy could see a washbasin and a mirror, and again he stared at the partially open door.

"Do you want the light on?" asked the vampire gently.

"You mean you don't mind?" asked the boy.

"No, of course I don't mind," said the vampire, walking slowly and silently to the center of the room. His long cape flared around him. "I know that you did not have a close look at me in the bar. It was very dark. I don't want you to be nervous, frightened."

"Thank you," said the boy. And then the vampire reached above the center of the round table and pulled a cord, flooding the grim narrow room with harsh light. He looked down at the boy, and the boy could not repress a gasp. His fingers danced on the table, backward, to grasp the edge. The vampire was utterly white and smooth, as if sculpted from bleached bone, but in his handsome and seemingly inanimate face burned two magnificent green eyes. He smiled at the boy and the chalk-white flesh moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon.

"You are frightened," he said gently. "Don't be."

"No," said the boy, clearing his throat and loosening his tie.

"Only amazed." He studied the vampire's high cheekbones, his long slender nose. The clothes, as he had seen in the bar, were magnificent, a tapered coat of the last century, collar stiff and white as the vampire's flesh, the large silk tie perfectly folded and knotted, the cape velvet. He lowered his hand now slowly from the light cord and the cape fell gently over his arm. On the hand with which he barely touched the table now he wore an emerald ring, the only color in his total makeup other than the brilliant green of his eyes. Now he sat down in the chair opposite the boy and the boy could see no evil in his face, no menace. He might have been a man of thirty-five if such a man could have ever existed.

"Shall we begin, then?" asked the vampire in the same gentle manner. He laid one hand over the other.

"Yes, yes, of course," said the boy, his voice hoarse as if he were out of breath, and he punched the button of the recorder. He set the microphone on the table between them and he said, "One, two, three," adjusting the dial until the light on the recorder gave an even glow.

"Well," he rubbed his sweating palms. "We're ready. Shall I ask you... anything?"

"Absolutely anything."

"Well, then, I'll just ask you anything at all."

"Yes, anything." The vampire laughed. "Anything at all." And he smiled at the boy as a father might smile at a son, the laugh lines like pen strokes at the corners of his eyes.

"All right. . . . right!" said the boy. "Well." And then he swallowed and stared at the plastic lid of the recorder and only slowly lifted his eyes again to the vampire's. "Ok. Are you really a vampire?"

"Yes," said the vampire, with just a touch of a frown.

"When did you start being one?" the boy asked.

"In 1791," said the vampire.

"What were you doing then?" asked the boy, as if the precise date had surprised him.

"Running an indigo plantation in Louisiana," the vampire explained. "I had come there from France."

"Oh, then you were born in France?"

"I was born in France," said the vampire. "Of a noble family tracing its ancestry to the time of St. Louis. Now, except for me, the family has entirely died out. The name would mean nothing to you."

"Did the whole family move to Louisiana?" asked the boy.

"No. There was a tragedy," said the vampire, his speech suddenly a little slower. "My brother died then and I felt responsible for his death. I was not a vampire then, of course, and did not dream of ever becoming one. I loved my brother and when he died . . . I felt it was my fault."

"Would you like to elaborate on that?" asked the boy. "I mean if you'd like to go into it."

"I don't particularly mind now," said the vampire. He put one of his beautiful white hands out flat on the table and looked at the hand thoughtfully.

"It's not painful . . . ?" the boy asked.

"No, it's merely something I haven't discussed in so long," said the vampire. "I couldn't say the story brings me pain anymore at all. My brother saw visions," he said and he looked off when he spoke now as though he had become absorbed in memory as he spoke. "He'd always been different, unlike the rest of us, unlike other boys his age. But I had always been very fond of him. As a matter of fact, I protected him. I remember I wouldn't allow the others to make fun of him, and if he didn't want to do certain things, I insisted he be left alone. He was gentle, loving by nature. He wasn't any older then than you are now." He looked up at the boy. His eyes were huge and serene. "But something happened. I'm not sure when it began, but my brother began to see himself as a saint with a mission. He saw a vision in his oratory in which St. Dominic and the Virgin Mary both appeared to him and told him to sell all our property and to use the money for God's works. He was to be a great saint and save France from the rising tide of atheism."

The vampire stopped, extremely thoughtful. "I haven't discussed these things in years," he said softly.

"But did you believe him?" asked the boy.

"No," said the vampire, gazing off again. "I thought he was mad. The day that he came and told me about the vision, I laughed at him. But actually, I was bitterly disappointed. I thought he was mad."

"But that's understandable," said the boy agreeably. "Who would have believed him?" he asked.

"Is it so understandable?" asked the vampire. "I think perhaps it was vicious egotism. Let me explain. I loved my brother as I told you, and at times I did believe him to be a saint. I fully expected him to ask for my permission to enter the priesthood. I had wanted this since he was a small boy. And if someone had told me of a saint in Ars or Lourdes who had had this vision a hundred years before, I might well have believed that. I was a Catholic, not such a bad one for the times. But I didn't believe my brother. Not only did I not believe him, I never even entertained for a moment that he might be telling the truth. His faith I never doubted, nor his love for God. I was simply convinced that no brother of mine could be a saint. That's egotism. Do you see?"

The boy thought about it before he answered that yes, he thought he did. "He might well have seen this vision," said the vampire.

"So you never found out?"

"No. He died within minutes after telling me. He just walked out of my study, stood for a moment at the head of the stairs and then he fell. He was dead when they found him at the bottom, his neck broken, and I was suspected of having told him something that made him fall. Everyone blamed me."

"But how could they?" asked the boy. "Had anyone seen him fall?"

"Yes, two of the servants saw him fall. And they said that he looked up as if he had just seen something in the air. Either that or he had something on the tip of his tongue. He was about to speak and then he fell. But this didn't matter. It was indirect, all that was said against me. I was blamed for not having understood him, for not having cared for him. He was very much loved and people wanted to blame someone. No one said to me to my face that I had killed him. And of course I never told anyone his story of the vision. But I couldn't bear to be in that house after that. I was a very emotional young man, then, you see. And I, too, had loved him. I sat in his room for two days and two nights after he died just staring at him. I was obsessed."

"This must have been dreadful. But you did find out finally... didn't you?"

"Find out what?" asked the vampire, with a slight rise of his eyebrows.

"What made him fall. I mean, after you became a vampire, weren't you able to know?"

"No," the vampire shook his head. "Nor did I ever find out if he truly saw visions. I'm a creature of this world, not the next."

"Not the next!" the boy repeated, astonished. "You mean there is a next?"

"I don't know," the vampire smiled. "As I said, I'm a creature of this world." He studied the boy for a moment, then smoothed a rough place on the table with one of his white fingers. "But we were talking of Louisiana, how I came to be a vampire, weren't we?"

"Yes, how did it happen?"

"Well, I wanted to get away from my family estate. I sold it to a cousin and brought my sister and my mother to Louisiana. They were furious about it, but they didn't have any choice and when they discovered we owned an immense plantation and three houses in the city, they were satisfied. I saw little of them then and could think only about my brother. I went out up the river to see the plantation about twice a week, left the slaves to an overseer and spent my time walking about town. I thought constantly of my brother, about his body rotting in the ground in France. I could think of nothing else."

"How awful for you," said the young man.

"Yes, it was," said the vampire. "And it inclined me to be care- less. I walked in alleys and black streets at night; I drank too much in cabarets; I cared about nothing, really. And consequently, I was at- tacked. It could have been any type of person really, a sailor, a thief, anyone. But it was a vampire. He caught me just a few steps from my door one night and left me for dead in the mud."

"You mean . . . he actually sucked your blood?" the young man asked.

"Yes," the vampire could not repress a slight laugh. "He sucked my blood," he nodded. "That is the way it's done."

"But you lived," said the young man. "You said he left you for dead."

"Quite right. And I remembered nothing, only that a man had approached me, caught me about one arm, and then blackness. I was weak and dazed and lay in bed unable really to answer the doctor's questions. Then a priest came. I told him about my brother. I told him for the first time about my brother's visions, how I had not listened and how my brother must have seen something before he took the fatal step at the top of the stairs. I remember I was feverish and it was important to me that the priest understand my guilt and my love for my brother. I remember I made everyone else leave the room and I clung to his arm telling him everything, even the details of the vision, such as the color of the Virgin Mary's veil."

"Did he believe it?" asked the boy.

"No," the vampire made a short laugh. "As a matter of fact, he scoffed at it. He said my brother was probably possessed of the devil, if he'd seen anything at all, and might even be in hell. As a matter of fact, he said the French Revolution was proof of it. France was possessed by the devil as a country. Probably all of Europe was possessed. There would be another great plague."

The vampire shook his head, his lips forming a slight smile, his eyes moving over the surface of the table as if he were seeing these things spread out before him. "Remarkable," he mused. "But of course at the time, I was furious. I went wild."

"Went wild? What did you do?"

"Well, I wrecked the room for one thing and nearly killed the priest. I think it took two men to tie me down. Then my sister kept trying to feed me soup, and some doctor suggested they bleed me. The fools. I nearly died. But I didn't care. I said life was over for me and death was what I wanted and they didn't dare to bring the priest back to my room. Had they bled me again, I very probably would have died, but that night the vampire came. It was after my sister had fallen asleep and I remember he laid a silk shawl over her face right where she sat at the table with the damp cloth for my forehead and a basin of water. She never once stirred from under that cloth and by morning, I was greatly changed."

"How did he change you? Did it happen that night?"

"No, not that soon. I remember that sunrise distinctly, as a matter of fact. It was the last one I ever saw. And I knew it would be. I can remember it so distinctly, better than any sunrise before it ever. I remember seeing the light at the tops of the French windows, a gleam behind the lace curtains, and the gleam grew brighter and brighter in great star patches among the leaves.

"Finally the sun came through the windows themselves and the lace lay in shadows on the stone floor, and all over the form of my sister who was still sleeping, shadows of lace on the shawl over her shoulders and head. As soon as she was warm, she had pushed the shawl away without awakening and the sun began to make her eyelids tighten. Then it was gleaming on the table and in the water in the basin. And I could feel it on my hands on the counterpane and then on my face. I lay in the bed thinking about all the things the vampire had told me and then I made up my mind that I would do it, become a vampire. It was the last sunrise I ever saw." The vampire was looking at the window now. And when he stopped, the boy heard the noises from the street. It seemed unnaturally quiet in the room suddenly and the sound of a passing truck was deafening. Then it was gone. The tape rolled.

"Do you miss it?" the boy asked timidly. "The sunrise."

"Not really," said the vampire. "There are other things. But where were we? You wanted to know how it happened."

"Yes."

"I left New Orleans and went upriver. The other vampire had a house in St. Jacques Parish. A huge house, as I recall, built by his own slaves. They did excellent brickwork, I remember, and the place was kept by the vampire's blind brother who never knew he had a vampire for a brother. He was the strangest old man, he talked to slaves who'd been dead for years, and kept telling us to eat everything on our plates. I became a vampire there in that plantation house and was fully experienced in killing swamp animals before summer. I remember the first human. It was a runaway slave; he was massive, the man, and wild with fear. They'd been hunting him with dogs and when I came on him at the very middle of the night, he had just fallen asleep. I remember my friend, Lestat, was telling me I had to kill him, no way out of it, a human being at last. I had hardly become accustomed to the swamp myself; the snakes, the stench, all these things aroused in me fear for which I no longer had any real use; I was like a man with a lost limb who insists he feels the limb, feels pain in it or cold. And then, with Lestat just a few feet away, I bent over the sleeping man. He was still wet with perspiration, his torn pants drenched, and when my teeth went into his throat, the throat tensed like a massive arm muscle. I can remember that well, and those eyes glinting for an instant as the breath went out of him."

"My God," the boy said.

"Don't be frightened," the vampire turned away from his thoughts and looked at the boy. "I should imagine this is difficult for you, interviewing a vampire. You've never done such a thing, have you?"

"No," said the boy. He stared as if he'd lost the power to speak. His face was drained and he couldn't take his eyes off the vampire's eyes. "And you mean it . . . every word of it," he murmured.

"What did you say?" the vampire leaned forward politely.

"It's a completely new experience," the boy stammered quickly.

He checked the tape and the light on the recorder. The tape turned and turned as it did all the time. "Did the black man die?" he asked, clearing his throat and repeating the question again immediately in a stronger voice. He looked up at the vampire.

"Black man . . . 0, you call them blacks again. I forgot this. They were blacks then. Then they were Negroes. And now they're blacks."

The vampire laughed. "Yes, he did die. As a matter of fact, I rather overdid it. He had more blood than I really needed and I wasn't particularly comfortable after the feast. But it was the first one, and I could feel him dying as I drank, and with my new vision, my new awareness of things, I simply couldn't pull away from him. I think Lestat forced me finally to go back to the house. It was as close to morning as we dared stay out."

"Your new awareness?"

"Yes, things looked considerably different," said the vampire. "I haven't thought about the difference for years. We become accustomed to things so easily, don't we? I remember that first night when the vampire, that is Lestat, of course . . . when he came to me in New Orleans and I told you we talked the whole night. I was on the other side of the world then. I could only dimly imagine seeing the world as he described it. And now if I speak to you about it, you can only dimly imagine you see what I see. I remember Lestat told me the whole history of the world that night, or so it seemed to me as a human. Time stopped. The night was infinite as if the span of hours had begun to curve, to encompass the entire shape of recorded time like a balloon, swelling slowly without end. World without end . . ." the vampire's voice trailed off, and then he looked at the boy. "Do you understand?"

"I'm trying," said the boy. "You said you see things different now."

"Yes, completely different. But it's no real use trying to tell you about this. It's the story you're after for this radio station, isn't it? You want to know what happened, how I came to be here."

"Yes," said the boy, but he said it so softly he might have said it to any comment the vampire made.

"Well, I stayed on that plantation for years. Lestat left after a while. He really always wanted to be in Europe, and I cared nothing about Europe at all. I saw Louisiana in my new vision and New Orleans was becoming a metropolis. It was a reckless, charming city and I could roam it for hours every night never causing the slightest bit of unwanted attention. I liked the crowds after the opera, the women getting into carriages, and the slaves . . . they were always easy when I had to feast and was ready to go home. They had to stop for me, show me some humility simply because I was a white man, and I had them without the slightest struggle, usually leaving them dead. One did live once and went crazy. They called her Loony Lucy Locket all her life after that, and whenever she saw me she'd scream, but she screamed at all kinds of gentlemen and no one paid her the slightest attention."

"Did anyone put two and two together? Figure out that you were around?" the boy asked.

"I beg your pardon? Oh you mean talk of vampires, suspicion. Not for a long time. There was so much voodoo then, and so many unexplained murders. The fleet was always in there, sailors roaming the streets, women for any price to a fortune. Even when I took young men of property, the victims were often buried without anyone noticing the marks. Of course, I might have made my presence known just for the fun of it. But then I was watching things, seeing things, experiencing my new vision, and I had no desire for personal fame whatsoever. I still have little, really. I don't think I've ever even considered an interview of this type before for that reason. I prowled New Orleans and the swamps around it for years without there ever being a whisper of vampire. And when Lestat's brother died, I buried him in the night and let the old plantation house go to ruin. I liked watching it go to ruin. Some evenings, I sat for hours in one spot and watched it decay. I could hear the termites eating, watch the spiders in the moonlight. I could hear the water rising around the foundations. There was no darkness that wasn't alive with sound, or impenetrable to my eyes. And occasionally I had the opportunity to frighten someone there and that delighted me. I chased two men for a mile through the swamp one night and one of them nearly drowned. And not long after that a group of Negroes came out there at sunset just to see the haunted ruin and I could hear them as I was getting up. I came out on the upper gallery and they went wild. I wish more people had come. But no, there was no talk of vampires. And I decided to go back to France in 1863."

"But how could you do that? How could your friend do it? You can't stay up in the daytime, can you? That's what I've always heard..."

"And you've heard correctly," said the vampire with a nod. "But I travel the way vampires always travel. I have my body shipped. I made all the arrangements one evening at the Hotel St. Louis through an agent. Bought his dinner, gave him an enormous dinner, and had him arrange to pick up my coffin in a suite I had rented the following night. I believe I shipped myself as myself that time, my deceased 'uncle' by my own name. My family was long dead, of course. I was sending myself home for burial at the family estate. And I had no intention of staying around to watch the South lose the war."

"You knew the South would lose?"

"My dear boy, everybody knew the South would lose. On the ship home, I dined on rats, and finally awoke one evening as planned in a Paris apartment I'd rented months before. Everything had gone perfectly. If Lestat had been around, I might have had an easier time. But I'd lost Lestat. I never saw him again."

"Do you suppose he's still alive?" the boy asked, and then he swallowed as if the vampire might be angry.

"I imagine so. There are so few people who even believe in vampires, I can't imagine anything really happening to him. But then that depends on where Lestat went. And Lestat was theatrical. He liked people to know he was about, to frighten ones he had no intention of killing, and acquire a reputation. But even so . . . the truth is, I just don't know. I wanted to see the whole world then, and Lestat would have only been a bore. I'd been a vampire for only a few months when I knew how little Lestat had used his powers, how little he cared about what he could come to know with immortality and vision. He was a prankster, and if I had told him the things I saw or wanted to do, he would have laughed. I suppose the type of vampire a man becomes depends on the man really; it's the way it is in life. I remember, for example, that I was still completely fascinated with animals after years. When I fed upon a new animal, it was a new experience. I worked up from rats, which had never much bothered me, all the way to magnificent horses. Of course, I enjoyed occasional people then for a variety of reasons, but there was so much to be experienced just with animals. I can remember the first time, for example, when I killed a panther in a zoo in Germany. What an experience that was, lying beside that enormous cat, sinking my teeth into the back of its neck—which was by no means easy—and hanging on to the beast as I fed. It was still heaving with breath afterward. And I lay there warm and full beside it—why, it was as long as I am when it stretched out—and I lay there just resting as it died. And the smell of it, such a smell."

"Then you do smell things," asked the boy, after a slight pause.

"Ah . . . yes, but not as you do," the vampire commented. "I mean I am not repelled by odors as you might be." Then he touched his chin with one of his long fingers and his brows met for an instant, making two fine lines in his smooth forehead. "Of course, I'm not attracted by fragrance as you would be either. But I am certainly aware of an odor."

"Did you . . . finally become interested in people? The way you were in animals?" the boy asked. And now he could not help doing what he had almost done several times in the past—that is, looking more carefully at the vampire's mouth. He could see the white lips were of a different texture, like silk, and now as the vampire smiled and said nothing, he glimpsed the white teeth. He swallowed, trying not to show his reaction, because he couldn't see the tips of the upper teeth, and he looked down. When he looked up again, he was aware of the vampire's fine eyelashes, like fine black wire in his lids, curling just slightly at the ends. The boy was staring blankly at the top of the tape recorder at once and he could feel his heart against his shirt.

"Yes, I did," the vampire was laughing. "But I was patient, moving up to it slowly, more slowly than most. And seeing the creations of people all the while. Greece, for example. I spent years in Greece just roaming the ruins. Night after night I went alone to the Acropolis, not caring if I was to feed on field mice afterward. But there were always people, and I came finally to think only of people, to meet the greatest richest part of my experience. I think the first real person I truly appreciated was a young woman in Greece. She was unquestionably the most beautiful woman I'd seen at that time. Mortal men would turn and stand dumbfounded when she passed. And she was reckless. She had a little bit of English money and she cared about nothing, really, an unusual Englishwoman for those times. In her youth, she'd known Keats, I believe it was, and she always carried a little velvet volume of his poems with her. She wrote herself then, too, and kept everything locked. I remember one evening I persuaded her to read a poem to me and I thought it was rather good. She said it was shocking and I believe she was right."

"You knew her . . . as a friend?"

"Well, I told her what I was," said the vampire. "But she didn't believe me. I'd come late in the evening, never see her in the day, and I didn't drink tea. But I don't think she believed me even for an instant. Until the night I killed her."

"You . . . killed her?" the boy asked.

"Yes," said the vampire simply. "I told her I was going to do it. She said I was the most peculiar man she'd ever met, and she couldn't have felt any safer on the Acropolis in the moonlight with anyone else she knew, even her own father. Then I showed her my teeth and I prepared to kill her. It was the most thrilling kill I'd made up till that time, easily the most thrilling kill. The experience with the panther was nothing compared to it."

"But she must have gone crazy!" said the boy.

"No," the vampire said calmly. "She was too surprised. 'Then you've been telling me the truth,' she said with amazement. Then she simply closed her eyes. If I hadn't felt her heart beating, I would have thought her dead already. She never opened her eyes. I know she didn't suffer at all. I must have held her there for the better part of an hour and when I left her, she looked as if she'd been made of wax. She was like an enormous old doll. I put one of her gloved hands into the other, arranged her parasol right beside her, and her little velvet book, and smoothed her petticoats and her skirts just as she wanted them. It was as different from the panther as it would have been to have spoken with the panther. How else can I say it to you so you'll understand? And your FM radio audience, so they will understand?"

"0, you're doing beautifully," said the boy, but it was time to change the tape. The vampire rose and walked on the creaking boards to the window, and the boy hurriedly replaced the cassette with another, his hands wet and trembling so that he had to fumble with it, which made him all the more nervous. From the back, the vampire looked quite ordinary; and the boy swallowed and drummed his hand nervously when the vampire turned around, stepped into the light again, and looked down. He could see the Adam's apple move slightly under the smooth white skin of the throat above the vampire's stiff collar. "She was a very old woman," the vampire said, just touching the boy's shoulder now with a firm hand as if he meant to calm him. "I'm sure," said the boy, clearing his throat and shifting in his chair as the vampire sat down. The vampire sat back now and crossed his right knee over his left and rested his long slender arm on the table.

"Was it . . . was it always people after that?" the boy asked, his voice barely audible to himself. He leaned over his own little microphone and started to ask again, "Was it . . . ?"

"They became the main interest," the vampire nodded, glancing just for a second at the recorder's light. "All manner of people. All manner of emotion. I spent considerable time in all European countries, before I came back to Louisiana. And, of course, I was disappointed but not at all surprised to see how it had changed. My mother's and sister's graves were still being tended by a niece there of whom I'd never even known. My sister had apparently married quite late, had two daughters and one of them had left this young girl. She was the only one of my family that I was able to discover and she kept the graves beautifully, even though her husband made almost no money as a grocer. I started a romance with her on the evenings when she ran the little store. He did something those nights, bowled or played cards or some vulgar thing, leaving her alone with the cash register and the late customers who wanted liquor. So I began to come in on those evenings and buy magazines. I bought cigarettes once and she saw me throw them away. I had to tell her then that I came to see her. And she fell completely in love with me. Of course, I never told her what I was or who I was, but I did give her money, a good deal of it, and the last time I saw her, I told her to leave that husband of hers for good. She wouldn't. It was the Church, she said, she went to Mass every morning at five A.M. So I took care of it for her. Of course, I never told her. And I loathed the man. I could hardly bear being around him on general principles, let alone locked to him for fifteen minutes, sucking his sap and listening to him curse. He was drunk, the blood was what you'd expect from a lizard. I was infuriated by him. And then he lay there in the alley breathing like a snoring dog. I had to break a bottle, and cut his throat with a piece of glass. Then I took his wallet so she'd think it was a robbery. I threw that away in a field and put all the money in a poor box outside a church. Of course, she never knew I was her ancestor. . . ." he sighed.

"Did you ever see her again?"

"No, there was no reason for that. It was just a family obligation. All I could do for her. I had some other things to do which were fun. Somebody had restored Lestat's plantation house, put screen porches on it and rebuilt the old cistern and cemetery. I wanted to see who these people were and have a talk with them."

"You mean you went to see them at night?"

"Exactly, and what a bunch they were. They had faked everything, including a name that no one would have known in Louisiana in two hundred years, and a completely false coat of arms. They had old land grants they said came from Louis XIV and a map of the original plantation which almost made me laugh in their faces. There wasn't a mention of Lestat's family, of course, and a phony monument, cracked and distressed to make it look real, had been put over the grave of his old blind brother whom I had buried myself before I left. They wined me and dined me, though I never really touched anything of course, and told me all of this while I talked of visiting the house in my childhood, of the ruins, and of the old story of ghosts. Yes, they'd been in the North then, aunts and uncles living here apparently or in New Orleans, they lied, and they wanted me to know that their oldest girl, who was at the Sorbonne, was to be the Queen in one of the Mardi Gras clubs this spring. I hated them. The air conditioners were droning and the children were brats and the woman's accent was utterly false, and the husband didn't know what to do with his fork or his knife and never blotted his lips once before taking his wine so the glass was murky and ugly before the meal was half over, and I could see it was all lies. Finally, when they got to talking more of their times in Brooklyn, New York, it was clear they'd come from there, and were trying desperately to hide it, and the family money was invested in a chain of dry cleaners, and the great old house was an obligation, something to live for, the past not allowed to die, the great South they must desperately try to preserve. You get the picture?"

"Yes," said the boy. "What did you do?"

"I killed them all," said the vampire with a smile. He showed more of the teeth now than ever before, and the boy just stared at him, his own mouth slack, his hand fluttering for a second by the recorder.

"One by one," said the vampire. "I was furious. Besides, I sensed something else about them, but this is hardly something I can use to explain my actions to you. I know you'll be glad to hear it, though, when I'm finished. Death is something so different to you, I would imagine. Unless, of course, you've been a soldier."

"No, nothing like that ..." the boy nodded weakly.

"Well, to be quick about it, I killed one of the men first. I told him who I was, what I was, and just how I had left the house in 1863. I told him who was buried in the cemetery and demanded to know how he had gotten the house, the stack of forgeries and what he was up to. He went through the gambit of emotions from A to about M and then emptied a gun into me. After that, he was quiet. He offered me everything, deeds, money, even said he would care for me himself, my coffin if I wanted it, and see I was safe. He said he had connections, he could do things I didn't even know about. I killed him. But what he'd said intrigued me. All this happened in his study. I was supposedly in bed for the night, and I just took him out with me and got rid of him on the way home. The next night, he was just 'missing' and I had ample opportunity to kill the woman. I frightened her deliberately and she also went for the gun, but couldn't get a grip on it. Apparently, when they found her in the morning and didn't find their 'guest' in his bed, the police were called. But it was a quick examination, I must say, considering the state in which I left her, blood all over the room; and that was when I began to see there was something strange. There weren't any police around the next night when I came back, but all sorts of other men. And such men. They all came from Brooklyn, New York, or some place like it, and they prowled around as if they could see in the dark. The children were absolutely gone, of which I wasn't glad really, as I didn't see why they should have been involved in the first place . . . that's something we haven't spoken of yet, children... you won't forget to ask me ..."

"No . . ." the boy shook his head, his eyes wide, his lower lip slack as he stared absorbed at the vampire.

"... and the man was alone in his study, with two of these creatures from Brooklyn, New York, outside the door wearing their hats as if they were walking about in downtown Manhattan. They had found the body of the other man in the swamp where I left him, and the only fellow I had left was saying into the phone that something was very wrong, and the man to whom he was talking wasn't going to live till tomorrow night if something wasn't done. At least, I think this is what he was saying. When he saw me in the room with him, he dropped the phone and fired at me with a small handgun. Then the two New York fellows came in, firing at me, and all three men just fired for quite some time."

"What did you do?" the boy asked anxiously when the vampire stopped.

"I was trying to describe it. I suppose it's best to say I picked one of the men and approached him steadily until he was forced to drop his gun and to stare into my eyes, unable to move. He could have avoided this, had he known what to do. But then people rarely do. I then went for his jugular vein at once to kill him. The blood was of no consequence, I wasted it. When he fell on his knees, the other men had already run away. I was alone then with the owner of the house. 'You killed my wife!' he shouted as if it had never occurred to him. I told him I had, indeed, 'and I told him precisely why . . . about the house, about my living there and all his papers being fake. But he was frantic. I doubt he heard or understood what I was saying. The strange thing was, he was not really frightened for himself. He was trying to make a deal with me. The fellow I'd bitten was completely dead now, and he bent down to check his heart two times. Then he told me that he and I could make millions of dollars.

" 'For what?' I asked. But he was so thrilled with this plan of his that he had forgotten all danger. He asked if I minded if he had a drink and said I could have the house, the house was the least important thing in the world, and then he poured himself a glass of Wild Turkey bourbon.

" 'Not to me, it's not,' I said indignantly, explaining that though I had no intention of confiding anything to such a person as he, this was the house in which I had become a vampire. But he was like a person possessed of a grand passion. He was mumbling to himself about the opportunity of a lifetime, and he kept looking at the dead man and laughing. Then three of his other New York friends stormed the room, emptied their guns, and tried to back out, nearly knocking each other down. I killed one of these in the hallway while the others watched, then fled, and the owner just sat there at his desk laughing. 'This is marvelous,' he kept saying. 'No one can stop us,' and this sort of thing.

" 'What do you mean no one can stop us!' I demanded, thoroughly annoyed at this point. I wanted to kill him and I wanted him to know why and be frightened. I wanted him to realize what a vulgar stupid man I thought he was with his false documents and coat of arms; but he didn't even care. He said that I had to listen to him, it was only fair. He had listened to me, after all, when I told him a long and preposterous story and I owed it to him. 'You bored me for two nights as your guest,' I said. I nearly went mad. I owe you nothing. And look what you've done to the house,' but nothing upset him. He was convinced that when I heard what he had to say I would be as delighted as he was. He checked the new body now and clapped his hands like a child. 'This is fantastic!' he whooped, and when I reminded him I had killed his wife in the same way, he just brushed that off, saying this was business.

"I think I listened to him for about a quarter of an hour before I finally understood. He was a gangster which didn't surprise me or mean anything to me one way or another. I read the papers. These things have little interest for me at all. But when I realized that he wanted me to be a gangster with him, I was dumbfounded. And I haven't been dumbfounded in a century. But he had it all planned. And he meant every word of it. We were to be partners and I was to kill people simply when he pointed them out. No one would ever catch me. They wouldn't even know who sent me or why I had committed the murder. And through this, he, my partner, would become the richest man in the world. He could ask as much as one million dollars for a single murder; and there wasn't a 'contract' as he called it that we couldn't handle. I could even kill the present premier of Soviet Russia, or Red China, he pointed out. It would be a 'snap.' You understand I'd heard all these words before and could follow him completely; I just could hardly believe he meant it. I could hardly believe that he knew what I was, had seen what I was, believed it, and still wanted to make this proposition. But it was the only thing on his mind. When I said I had no interest in it at all, he just stared at me. For a moment, I thought his heart had stopped.

" 'Why not?' he asked. Now he was dumbfounded.

" 'Why should I?' I asked.

" 'But you can have millions, anything you want! Don't you believe me, haven't you been ...'

" I don't need them. Of course, I've been listening. What would I want with anything you've mentioned?' I asked.

"He shook his head. But I could see he was beginning to understand. But then his eyes brightened. 'You need someone to take care of you!' he said. 'Your coffin. You need a partner to look out for that thing in the day,' he cried. 'You never thought of that, did you?'" I take excellent care of it, myself,' I told him. 'And you would be the last person I would trust it to, besides.'

" 'But we could be partners,' he said. I got men working for me, and I wouldn't let anything happen to you any more than I'd kill the goose that laid the golden egg!' he pleaded. He went on and on about what a nice room I could have, and how he'd get me whatever vampires want. 'You can't shop around in the day, for instance. I could go to stores for you, get you stuff,' he said.

" 'Thank you, but I can get everything I need at night,' I said. He was reaching the end of his rope. Finally, he began to threaten me. His men wouldn't let this happen. They'd find me, kill me, no matter where I tried to hide, New York, Paris, Rome . . . the whole world was nothing to them, they had men everywhere, did I know what they were called in the underworld, would I like to hear it with my own ears?

" 'Why don't you call them now in one of these places and give them a description?' I suggested, handing him his phone. It was making noises on the carpet. 'Just tell them that I'm a vampire with a coffin somewhere in Louisiana. Tell them how I dress, how tall I am, and that when they find me, it ought to be in the day, and they can find out what to do from any twelve-year-old boy who's been to the pictures.'

"He was enraged. 'You're crazy to do this!' he shouted, hurling the phone across the desk. He swept papers and glasses and guns to the floor. He began to curse. 'A cross!' he shouted suddenly and began to look around.

" 'That's foolishness!' I scoffed. 'Children make that up when they're frightened at night.' I couldn't help but laugh."

"Is it foolishness?" the boy asked, now leaning over the table.

"Yes," the vampire shook with laughter. "So is the nonsense about mirrors," he shook his head, and just smiled for a minute before going on with his story. "Where was I? He was properly frightened and outraged, as I'd wanted it. But he wouldn't give up this scheme. He kept insisting there must be something in the world I wanted, something worth it for me to become his partner. And then came his final plea. Did he have to die? Why couldn't he be a vampire like me?

"Well, this was the last straw!" said the vampire. "I was exhausted, it was nearly morning, and the man had alternately infuriated me and bored me for hours. I personally detested him. 'You become a vampire like me!' I almost spat in his face. It would take more than that to close the gap between us!' I was trying to restrain myself. I dragged him by the collar down the hall and into his wife's bedroom where the blood still stained the wallpaper and the chair. 'Don't you have a particle of feeling for your own wife!' I demanded. 'For your own men? They tried to save your life and you stare at their bodies and clap your hands . . . and you're asking me to make you immortal, to have a thing like you around until the end of time?' I was thundering at him as he hung there by his collar. I can't stand having you around for another five minutes!' I told him. I'm not even going to drink Drop One of your miserable blood!' I rammed him neatly in the throat with both teeth, withdrew and watched it flow over his open shirt. He just stared at me for a few minutes and then passed out. When I dropped him on the bed, I knew he would be dead in a matter of seconds and I had to hurry to get back to New Orleans. But then he said something. As spent as he was, he managed to ask me one favor. If you like to kill people,' he was moaning '... there's this guy in Jersey. I wish you'd get him .. .' Then I slammed the door on him in disgust."

He folded his fingers now and looked at the boy. "Don't you think that's remarkable?" he asked. "The idea!"

"But what about the henchmen?" asked the boy. "The other men in the hats? Did they try to stop you when you had to get back to New Orleans?"

"No, not a one. As a matter of fact, there was no one around outside the house at all. I took one of the cars, a Cadillac, I believe it was, and taught myself how to drive on the way home. I almost always hire a chauffeur, you know, but this time I was really in a hurry. And I wanted to do it. Cars had begun to interest me. It was fun."

"But what about the newspapers? Did they say anything about the man?"

"Yes, apparently they said things which had to do with the things the man had been saying, these people he knew in other cities, gangs, mobsters. It was all blamed on them. I remember it distinctly, because I was in a bar the next night when I read that he had been stabbed with an ice pick and I laughed out loud. People were staring at me. An ice pick, can you imagine? They were searching the grounds for the murder weapon until dark." The vampire smiled. "I don't often read the papers really, but that whole family had been so remarkable. And the children. I wonder what became of those children."

The vampire stopped. He was looking off out the open window. The neon light was flashing at the same regular interval. And now, at the mention of children, there was a pause, the boy apparently on the verge of moving his lips several times, but not doing it. Finally he said, "You said . . . not to forget to ask you . . . about children."

"0, I did, didn't I?" said the vampire, and now he studied the small cassette. "But this is all the tape you have left, isn't it? And I don't know the time for sure ..."

Quickly the boy drew back his shirt cuff and looked at his watch.

"It's after nine!" he volunteered.

"And I have an appointment . . . we don't have much more time," said the vampire. "Perhaps you should ask me now what is most important to you, best for your interview," he said graciously.

"Well," the boy coughed and shifted in the chair. "This family you mentioned in Louisiana . . . all this happened not so long ago, right? Then you came to California shortly after?"

"Yes, just after. I like California," said the vampire. "I like San Francisco, in particular."

"Yes, it's my favorite town, too," said the boy. "I came here one summer right out of school and I just can't leave it."

"It's beautiful," the vampire agreed, smiling as if he saw the pleasure and sincerity in the boy's face when he spoke of San Francisco. "You relaxed there for a moment," he said. "I wish I could put you at ease. You've only relaxed when you were thoroughly absorbed in my story."

"0, I'm all right," the boy said at once. "But how do you live in San Francisco?"

"I have a house," said the vampire. "And a suite at a downtown hotel. It's no problem really. I get home before sunrise. My coffin locks from the inside. There are messages there for my houseboy, or the maids. I've had many houses since I came, it's the simplest thing in the world. There's nothing that can be done in the day that one cannot do at night. It's a matter of persistence."

"But what if. . . ?" the boy hesitated, looking down at the turning tape and up at the vampire . . . "but what?"

"But what if what?"

"But what if I do take this tape right to the studio and broadcast it here in the city?" he asked.

"But what if. . . why, young man, that's why I granted you the interview. You told me you were going to do just that when we met in the bar," said the vampire. He shrugged. "You puzzle me. I thought that was your purpose."

"But then everyone will know," said the young man, amazed.

"But no one will believe you," said the vampire as casually as before.

"But I have it . - . all here on tape."

"Still," the vampire shrugged again, "who is going to believe you?"

"You're right!" the boy's face colored. He stared helplessly at the cassette. The tape continued to turn. "Quick. Tell me anything. What you do here. How you kill people. Now," he said, flustered, his hands moving wildly in the air.

"I roam around as you saw me tonight, visit bars like the Pink Baby on Chestnut and Union Street and talk to young men and women who go to bars alone. Then I go home with one of them, a man sometimes, other times a woman, and then I kill them. I don't always kill them, you know. It's possible to feed without killing. Killing is more of . . . well, should I say, an event?"

"But how do you get them to go with you? What's your pitch? What do you say, romantic things? What do you say to the men?"

"Pitch? I don't follow you."

"I mean, what do you tell them to get them to invite you home?" the boy asked.

"That I'm a vampire," said the vampire.

"But you're not serious. You don't tell them that!"

"Of course I do," the vampire gestured with his open hand. "I just answer the questions they ask me about it, tell them things they want to know about living forever, what fun it is to wear a long black cape, the places I've traveled, whatever they wish to talk about. Generally, we're on our way 'home' in a matter of minutes. And then I feed upon them. They rarely remember anything in the morning, if they live."

"But they don't believe you," said the boy.

"Of course they don't. They don't believe me at all," said the vampire. "I tell them the same thing I told you tonight in the bar, and they don't believe me any more than you did when you came here." The boy stared at him, aghast. It was as if he were frozen, that his hands could not move off the table beside the recorder and he couldn't ask any more questions.

"Well, you didn't . . . did you?" asked the vampire, folding his arms.

"No," the boy confessed, his eyes fast on the vampire's eyes. "It must be simple for you, very simple."

"Simplest thing in the world. They're all egotists, just as I was when my brother told me he was an elected saint. They might believe in me if some good friend of theirs told them with his hand on a Bible he'd seen me roaming a Transylvanian woods, but no man or woman out there in San Francisco tonight is going to believe I'm a vampire simply because no one they know in San Francisco could possibly be one!" he smiled.

The boy smiled slowly, tensely. "You're right."

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes," the boy said, with a glance to see that the tape was nearly out. "Is there anything you regret?" He studied the vampire more intently now, his own eyes narrow as if he were trying to see through the vampire's calm. The other did not change, however.

"Regret?" His eyes moved slowly over the dreary little room.

"Not really," said the vampire. "I don't think the world's about to end. I can't imagine boredom. I suppose that will be when I begin to regret. If such a time comes, a time of boredom," he said. But he looked as if he wasn't telling the boy everything and the boy saw this. "I suppose I could say something about love now, something 'good' for your radio audience, edifying, you know . . . but when I think of how much I love what I see and hear and understand now, I can't say I truly miss love.' I suppose I'd have to say that as a human I did miss it, then. Never knew it, then. But that was another world," he said.

"Would you have it over, if you could?" the boy ventured. The tape had only a few more minutes.

"There's no way," the vampire said quickly as though he had thought this out a long time ago. "And if you mean would I take that miserable life I had then for this again, the answer is no. I want this. I like being immortal, to put it in your terms, though it makes me laugh. But we have to go now. The owner of this room will be coming back, and I don't want you to be seen here or get into any trouble," said the vampire, rising.

"I don't know how to thank you," said the boy. He pushed the button. The tape was finished. He was keenly aware of the vampire's towering height, of his white fingers barely touching the top of the table. A breeze stirred from Divisadero Street. "I don't know what to say . . ." He realized that he was backing away from the table.

"I don't think it's going to be much use. They won't believe it," the vampire said calmly. "But I've enjoyed it as much as you have."

"I'll go right now and put it on the radio," said the boy, reaching behind him for the doorknob.

"By all means," said the vampire.

"Do you think . . . we'll meet again?" The boy felt the knob and turned it slowly. The door opened with the pressure of a draft.

"Look for me in the Pink Baby, where you saw me tonight," said the vampire with a gracious gesture of his outstretched hand. It was as if he were waving good-bye. "I'm frequently there. And I'll look for you."

"Great, great . . ." said the boy. "Are you coming?" he said awkwardly as he stood in the hallway, his eyes glancing at the dim red lightbulb over the stairs.

"No, I'm going to wait for the owner of the room," said the vampire.

"All right, then. Thanks again," said the boy. "I'll look for you."

"Fine!" said the vampire.

The boy took one last look at the white-faced figure smiling at him across the table and ran down the stairs and out of the building, across the pavement to his car. Then he drove full speed to the FM radio station with his tape, nearly running a red light.

Anne Rice Short

2007-11-15T18:25:02Z

Lestat's Response to IWtV- Letter from Lestat to Anne Rice, appeared in the New Yorker.

To Anne Rice
A Personal Statement by
the Vampire Lestat
Regarding the Novel
Interview With The Vampire

On October 8, 1994, I finally got round to reading your novel, "Interview With The Vampire."

The book is, I am told, a worldwide success, but, as you know, the world has never interested me that much, and I have better things to do at bedtime than sit and read. When I think of all the novels recommended to me over the last two hundred years, I shudder at the hours I wasted in Mr. Stoker, with his quaint "effects," or that vulgar little tramp Mary Shelley.

But a few days ago, still recovering from my exertions at Milan fashion week, I spent the night in the company of your prose.

I am making this personal statement now for my victims, and for myself. It's not a news story. I paid for the space. O.K., I had to rip a couple of throats along the way, but you know publishing.

What I have to say is this:

I loved your book. I simply loved it. I read it to a couple of naval recruits, and they loved it, too. It surpassed my maddest expectations, although personally I would have cut back on the adjectives a teeny bit. But I was honored and stunned to discover how faithful this novel was to the spirit, the content, and the ambience of my life. I was moved by your poignant sympathy, and touched by the good sense with which you banished the old mirror-and-garlic stuff. I mean, I have the sign of the cross on the front of my *car*. Having said that, I noticed you still buy all that crap about white faces, leeched lips, etc. Wake up, honey. Has Clinique not reached New Orleans, or what? And I know you think the books are "really" about guilt and suffering, and the plight of the outsider, but what did you expect me to do? Get married? Let me tell you, outside is a fun place to be. For one thing, I like to watch.

But these are just quibbles. Basically, I'm one lucky immortal. Anne, you are great. I wish every pansexual bloodsucker could know the happiness you gave to me. I love you for it. And I hope and pray, for our sake, that you never meet me.

And now I have a confession to make. I adored the first book so much that I went and bought the sequels, and I loved them, too. I loved their stamina, their restless intensity. And my undead friends in Hollywood tell me that a motion picture is on the way. At last! It must be *years* since I first made those polite enquiries. Never had much time for movies myself, not since von Stroheim died. But some while back, deep in my usher-and-bellhop phase, I spent an evening at the pictures, and there onscreen was this juicy little piece called Cruise, and I thought, *yes*. If anyone ever wanted to play me--no, to become me--it would be that boy. I'm so moved that somebody was kind enough to take an old vamp's advice.

So, did you see the movie? In a theatre, or only on tape? I hear you couldn't get to the screening because of a blood-related problem. Love it.

If I'm wrong, if you don't like the picture--let me know. Laugh in my face. Write me letters. Call me. I have to stick my neck out and say your book is great, and I'm sure the movie is great, too. Do forgive me if I skip the premiere; I have some travelling plans that can't be put off. As I always say, if you're destined to roam the earth for the rest of time, you might as well make a party of it--you know, really *roam*. It's so simple these days; who needs coffins in the hold when you can fly to Europe overnight and still arrive in the dark? I always travel Virgin myself. The stewards taste so fresh.

All my love to you,
Lestat

PAID FOR BY THE VAMPIRE LESTAT. PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRINT THIS STATEMENT AS LONG AS IT IS REPRINTED IN THE BLOOD OF A RAT.

Anne Rice short stories or excerpts

2007-11-15T18:17:57Z

Seeing as Fanlistings rarely stay in the smae place for too long I found a few short stories that Anne Rce wrote. I would just link them alone but if the site should everdisappear I'll have them on this account should I want to read them again.

Lestat Writes the Fans - Before the publication of Blood Canticle, Lestat addresses his fans.

Lestat Addresses His Fans

"Now to those of you, who worship me. You know, the millions.

You say you want to hear from me. You leave yellow roses at my gate in New Orleans, with handwritten notes: "Lestat, speak to us again. Give us a new book. (...) We love the VC (...) Lestat, please come back!"

But I ask you, my beloved followers (don't all stumble over yourselves now to answer), what the Hell happened, when I gave you “Memnoch the Devil”? Hmmm? That was the last of the Vampire Chronicles written in my own words.

Oh, you bought the book, I’m not complaining about that, my beloved readers. Point of fact, “Memnoch” has outsold the other Vampire Chronicles completely, how is that for a vulgar detail? But did you embrace it? Did you understand it? Did you read it twice? Did you believe it?

I’d been to the Court of God Almighty and to the howling depths of Perdition, boys and girls, and I trusted you with my confessions, down to the last quiver of confusion an misery, prevailing on you to understand for me why I’d fled this terrifying opportunity to really become a saint, and what did you do? You complained!

“Where was the Vampire Lestat?” That’s what you wanted to know. Where was Lestat in his snappy black frock coat, flashing his tiny fang teeth as he smiles, striding in English boots through the glossy underworld of everybody’s sinister and stylish city packed with writhing human victims, the majority of whom deserve the vampiric kiss? That’s what you talked about!

Where was Lestat the insatiable blood thief and soul smasher; Lestat the vengeful, Lestat the sly, Lestat the… well, actually… Lestat, the Magnificient.

Yeah, I like that: Lestat, the Magnificient. That sound like a good name for this book. And I am, when you get right down to it, magnificient. I mean, nobody has to say it. But let’s go back to your song and dance over Memnoch.

We don’t want this shattered remnant of a shaman! you said. We want our hero. Where’s his classic Harley? Let kick him start and roar through the French Quarters streets and alleys. Let him sing in the wind to the music pumping through his tiny earphones, purple shades down. Blond hair blowing free.

Well, cool, yeah, I like that image. Sure. I still have my motorcycle. And yeah, I adore frock coats. I have them made; you’re not going to get arguments from me on that. And the boots, always. Want to know, what I’m wearing now?

I’m not going to tell you!

Well, not until further on.

But think it over, what I am trying to say.

I give you this metaphysical vision of Creation and Eternity here, the whole history (more or less) of Christianity, and meditations galore on the Cosmos Big Time – and what thanks do I get? “What kind of novel is this?” you asked. “We didn’t tell you to go to Heaven and Hell! We want you to be the fancy fiend!”

Mon Dieu! You make me miserable! You really do, I want you to know that. Much as I do love you, much as I need you, much as I can’t exist without you, you make me miserable!"

Keep in mind this is beyond the point after Anne lost what little was left of her mind. But it's an interesting read (for those who don't want to waste money on Blood Canticle)

Very Long Time no Post

2007-08-05T09:07:49Z

While no remotely vampire-related I've decided to post about a couple of things, but the main thing is why does SHE (I've long since stopped caring enough to call her by any of her screen names) have to pop up un nearly every fandom I have the remotest interest in? I've been interested in Stardust for a while now, and I was finally able to get out of town, for my birthday, and eventually I found myself at Books-A-Million SPLURGING.

I'd planned for ages on buying Stardust (the novel) when and if I eventually got there. I bought myself a handful of books and a Starlog magazine. Two of those books were by Neil Gaiman,one of course being Stardust, the other Coraline (the other Gaiman book I've been wanting to read for ages). I could give you a reason why I chose one cover over another but I won't, I'll get to my point. Which is, oddly that almost every fandom I like or even slightly interested in, she pops up into it!

Harry Potter
Vampire Chronicles (she's a big blowhard in this fandom, I'm not ashamed to say. She's completely ruined me from ever watching IwtV ever again.)
Doctor Who
Stardust
The 10th Kingdom

...and possibly more than that but my brain is a bit fuzzy now to remember anymore.

I consider it a near miracle that she hasn't intruded upon my SG-1, or I would be beyond pissed. Now it's bedtime my pretties before I doze off on my keyboard.

Something I keep losing

2007-06-04T06:48:44Z

Amethyst Eyes - A Daniel Molloy(Malloy) gallery

It had once had a companion Emerald Eyes once run by the same person as Amethyst Eyes but silverthoughts adopted it from it's creator and gave it a new home.