Interview with the Vampire

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Hello, dear listeners.

Before we get into our main episode on Interview with the Vampire today, I want to remind you that this week week on Wednesday and Thursday, October 8th and 9th, we have our first ever live show in New York City.

We're going to be covering twin films.

It is Deep Impact versus Armageddon.

We are so, so very excited.

Now, those tickets for the actual in-person events, they are sold out, but that doesn't mean that you can't watch the live show.

If you are a patron for at least $5,

you can watch a live stream of our very first live show on Thursday, October 9th.

The show will start at 9:30 p.m.

Eastern Time.

And again, if you are at least a $5 patron, you can watch the show.

So come on over, join us on Patreon, and come experience our first ever live show with us.

We're so excited, and we would love to see you there.

And action.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a century-spanning pseudo-romance starring two of Hollywood's straightest actors.

As always, I am Chris Wintermauer, joined by my co-host, Lizzie Bassett.

Lizzie, what do you have for us this evening?

I'm sorry, pseudo-romance?

Come on.

Come on.

It's very romantic.

It's very romantic.

We have interview with the vampire today, as this is our first episode in October.

If you did not already get a chance, please listen to the primer that we released on De Vampierre, just vampires in general, all of them.

As many of them as I could possibly pack into a primer, I did.

That came out on Friday, so give that a listen.

We're not going to be discussing, you know, a lot of sort of vampire film history or even really the history of vampires that much in this episode.

If you want to hear more about it, go back and listen to the primer.

But

today, Chris, we've got a really fun.

Really fun what went wrong because so much more went wrong than I had any idea.

And I will let you go first, but I love this movie.

So I'm very curious to hear what your thoughts were upon watching it this time.

If you'd seen it before, what do you think?

Seen it once before when I was probably too young.

So my uncle and his ex-wife were huge An Rice fans.

Okay.

Huge, like enormous.

Anne Rice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

And the two biggest influences on my taste in especially genre film are my dad and my uncle Mike.

And my uncle Mike sat me down.

I don't remember how old.

And we watched this movie at one point.

And I did not understand

most of this film.

I was too young and I didn't go back to it.

There were many other things that he introduced me to that I loved and went back to.

This was not one of them.

This was my first watch in

25 years, I would say.

Wow.

I have,

this is a conflicting, I guess, point of view.

I think this movie is incredible.

I think it is sumptuous.

It is exquisite.

You can sink into it like velvet.

I think every below-the-line department is straight up flexing in this movie.

Yes.

The lighting, the cinematography, the costume design, the makeup, the production design, the production value, the direction.

It's all really exquisite is the word.

Every frame I want to step into.

And I really think it's a remarkable movie, even though at the end of the day, I still strongly feel that two people are miscast

i think at least one is very miscast and it's probably not who you think brad pitt's miscast yes brad pitt is horribly miscast and he has more screen time than tom cruise as lestat well he's the lead even though he's not who's on the film poster but yeah that's right and Cruise settles into it, I feel, by the end, and there's a pain to his character that once he's, spoiler alert, once he's in in the downturn of his existence, I think it starts working better.

Yeah, I agree.

He's really good.

I think they're both generally miscast, Pitt more than Cruz.

And you can really tell when Kirsten Dunst enters the movie and acts circles around both of these grown men.

But also, Stephen Ray is fantastic.

Antonio Banderez is so good.

Yeah.

So many of the rest of the cast fit seamlessly into this world that Neil Jordan has created.

And my only other complaint, I do think that the ending cheapens what is a very nuanced and thoughtful exploration of loneliness and immortality and ultimately parasitic or narcissistic relationships.

That all of these vampires are, you know, attempting to find some form of companionship and harming each other in the process in a way that feels very human.

And the ending feels like a more typical horror schlocker, the monsters in the back of the car.

And it's fun, don't get me wrong, but it just, those are the only, my only complaints would be those two casting decisions, which I look, that's how you get the exquisite look because this movie must have cost a bunch of bucks.

Oh, yeah, buddy.

It is a testament to everybody involved that I still found this movie endlessly watchable.

It never lost my interest.

And even though Pitt stood out like a very pretty sore thumb for a lot of the film.

So that's my two cents.

I agree with you mostly.

I think Brad Pitt is bad in this movie.

God, his hair is pretty.

It's so pretty.

And it's not a wig.

And his eyes and his jawline.

Except that he looks worse when they turn him into a vampire.

He's the only one.

Somehow, you know, it just, everybody's supposed to get hotter when you turn, except Brad Pitt, who just gets a little sallow and just looks lost.

He looks lost the whole movie.

The other thing I really notice with him is that he seems to struggle big time with those teeth.

Whereas I think Tom Cruise pulls them off.

I think Antonio Banderas, it's like he was born with them, may be an actual vampire.

So I don't agree with you on Tom Cruise.

I think he's very fun in this.

I think that he,

I think he pulls it off.

As we will see, it was his casting that was quite controversial for, I think, some valid reasons.

But between the two of them, I think he is much more successful in this world, in this movie.

I think he's way more fun to watch.

I am bored of Brad Pitt every time he is on the screen in this.

Again, his hair is so pretty and that is his saving grace across this movie.

But you're right.

I mean, everybody else who is opposite him, whether it's Kirsten Dunst, who is just, I cannot believe that's an 11-year-old child.

She is phenomenal in this movie.

Even Tendiway Newton, who shows up for just a couple scenes at the beginning.

You can tell tell she's going to be a movie star when she shows up.

A hundred percent.

A hundred percent.

And it's so interesting to watch Brad Pitt because this was arguably his first big leading man role, and it's not super successful.

So I think it's interesting that he was able to jump from this into the Brad Pitt that we really know.

Can I offer one thesis as to why he may not have bumped as much?

His character is such a tourist in this movie.

Right, he did bump.

Ultimately, oh, yeah.

Well, but I guess what I'm saying is, like, the reason at the end of the day, it didn't make me want to turn off the movie is he is ultimately this kind of, he is an outsider.

He is strange, right?

Compared to all these people.

Chris, Chris, it's sitting right there for us.

He's Bella Swan, okay?

Right.

He is the Bella Swan of this movie.

He has essentially nothing likable about him.

Right.

He's the most merciful, the most human, and yet he's the least likable.

It has nothing to do with it.

And yet I'm rooting for the vampires that are eating everyone.

Yes.

Yeah.

I think Brad Pitt in a period piece in general.

It's a little tough.

Like in anything that comes earlier than 1955, I think is a struggle.

I agree.

To me, it's the only thing that detracts from this movie.

Otherwise, I think this movie is absolutely phenomenal.

I love that they did not dumb it down.

I love that they didn't gay it down.

You know, it's great.

I think we're going to get into that a little bit, but, you know, people would call this movie or even the source material homoerotic.

I don't even think that's an appropriate term.

I think that there absolutely there is romance in this and in Anne Rice's work.

And it's, I think it's very sexy without showing any sex, which I think is pretty cool.

Obviously, there are some naked ladies in this, but not sort of in the way that you might expect them.

Actually, I think all the nudity in this is done very well and is used to a very disturbing effect.

Yeah, like I will never have a woman's body and I'm going to covet this woman's body in this moment.

That serves a very specific narrative function.

Yeah, I just, I think it's phenomenal.

And I honestly, on upon this viewing, so I have seen this movie many times.

I really love this movie.

I love, I love vampires.

I love vampire content.

I love period piece vampire content.

So this is really, sure.

This is really my thing, my cup of blood, if you will.

For me, it's not, I will watch the worst zombies ever and enjoy it.

I will watch the worst vampires ever.

Yes.

Everyone has their genre monster that they will watch no matter what.

It's a vampire.

I love them.

I absolutely love them.

I love the mythology.

I really enjoyed doing the primer and learning more about sort of how it built and evolved and how vampires have changed so much as our own fears have evolved.

And I love that they're a monster that looks.

pretty much exactly like us.

I think that that's an interesting element to them.

The one thing I noticed upon this viewing, honestly, was Antonio Banderas.

I don't think I gave him enough credit in earlier viewings.

He's so good.

He's so creepy, but very charming.

And

he just doesn't tip his hand at all across this movie.

Like, I think by the end, you realize that he is this sort of, you know, whichever way the wind blows parasite.

Oh, he's the most evil of all of them.

He is.

He is.

He intentionally gets Claudia killed so that then he can get his coven killed so that then he can have Brad Pitt to himself.

Right.

He never reveals it, and yet he looks emotional at the end.

I know.

His performance is amazing.

Yeah.

I've been obsessed with him.

I saw Desperado at a young age, and he is so

unbelievably captivating in that movie.

Yes.

I've always thought he is one of our best talents in front of the camera.

He's so good.

I agree.

And I think it's the early decisions that he made coming into Hollywood are so fascinating because he was an enormous star in Spain prior to, you know, coming over to the U.S.

in the early 90s.

But the choices he made are so bold.

He did Philadelphia the year before this.

That was his first big break.

If you have not watched Philadelphia, obviously it's a wonderful movie.

He's one of the most moving performances in it.

And of course, he plays Tom Hanks's partner in that, which was, that's a very risky role to take as somebody, you know, coming into Hollywood as a potential heartthrob.

And then he does this.

And he's so good.

He's so good.

I think he smartly just wanted to work with the most interesting directors and most interesting actors out there.

I think so too.

Yeah.

And I also think he just doesn't pick dumb content.

Like he

the Alma Dovar stuff he does, like he's very,

and even the Robert Rodriguez stuff.

You can tell he's picking edgy, like this is a really cool take on the mask of Zoro

is great.

Like, I know that that's, you know, the biggest, most commercial thing that he did at that point in his career, but that movie fucking rules.

So I just think he knows how to pick great content.

And, you know, don't call it content.

Great.

Sorry.

Great movies.

Great.

This is content.

I love it.

That is art.

That's true.

I love it.

All right.

So, Chris, today we are going to find out how this groundbreaking novel, because of course it was a novel first, took almost 20 years to become an equally, I think, groundbreaking movie, why everyone thought it was going to be an absolute disaster, and who was the most opposed to Tom Cruise's casting.

So before we dive in, basic info as always, this was released November 11th, 1994.

It is rated R for vampire violence and gore and for sexuality, although as we discussed, there isn't really any sex in this.

There is some nudity.

It's directed by Neil Jordan, produced by The Geffen Company, and therefore David Geffen, starring Tom Cruise, Broad Pit,

Antonio Banderas, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, and Stephen Ray.

It is written by, do you know who wrote the screenplay?

Oh, no, I didn't, I wasn't paying attention.

It's Anne Rice.

Oh, great.

With a little help from somebody else, which we're going to get to.

Okay.

As always, the IMDb log line is: A vampire tells his epic life story: love, betrayal, loneliness, and hunger.

If you aren't already familiar, Anne Rice was an author who was most famous for writing The Vampire Chronicles.

That is a 13-book series that begins with what, Chris?

Is it with The Interview with the Vampire?

That is correct, Interview with the Vampire.

It was her debut novel released in 1976, and despite somewhat mixed critical reviews, it was a massive commercial success.

So, let's talk a little bit about her.

She was born in New Orleans, obviously, as Howard Alan Francis O'Brien in 1941.

Her mother had thought that giving her a man's name would afford her an advantage in life.

The name did not stick around, obviously, and unfortunately neither did Anne's mother, who died of alcoholism when she was only 15 years old.

In fact, Rice told Horror Feminista, quote, I think she swallowed her own tongue.

Anne married Stan Rice at 20 years old and welcomed a daughter a few years later, all while struggling with her own intensifying alcohol addiction.

Now, in 1972, when her daughter Michelle was five years old, she died of leukemia.

Obviously, this is just an unfathomable loss, and it was for both Anne and Stan Rice.

So Anne threw herself into writing to cope with the loss, but she was also spiraling deeper and deeper into alcoholism.

In 1973, she returned to a short story that she had written years earlier, and she began expanding that into Interview with the Vampire.

Even though this is gothic horror fiction at its finest, it was also extremely personal because there are three major elements she drew from her own life.

One, Chris, can you guess what a big one is in this, given what I just said?

Claudia, the character of the child that cannot die as her own daughter.

Yes.

Yeah.

She channeled the loss of Michelle into the concept of a child who, as Chris said, could never die.

Also, Louie, Louie's struggle with the need to drink human blood.

She pulled directly from her own addiction when writing about Louis.

If you think about it, he's very much an allegory for alcoholism.

He's consumed by his need to drink.

It's all he can think about.

He feels shame about it.

And Lestat as well.

But I'm going to let Anne explain the personal inspiration for Lestat herself.

He was really inspired by my husband Stan, especially when Stan was a young man.

Stan, I actually took the physical description of Stan and gave that description to Lestat.

And

Lestat was a man of action the way my husband was a man of action.

And he's also an atheistic vampire the way my husband was an atheist in life.

And

that self-confidence and speed and feline movement, all of that I saw in my husband Stan.

Stan?

Yeah,

I know.

A lot of questions.

I kind of like Stan.

I like that description of Stan.

A lot of qualities to admire.

That's true.

She said some very interesting things about her husband.

I think overall they

did have a very happy marriage, although I believe it was quite tumultuous early on.

I think they both struggled with alcoholism.

And I know one thing that she said that she pulled very much for this was that Stan, like Lestat, was someone who would encourage the drinking and drinking to the point of like almost being ready to explode.

I believe they both got sober with the birth of their second child, though.

So she added a ton to vampire canon that we really see reverberate across so many TV shows and movies in the 21st century.

Just to name a couple things, vampires can fly without shape-shifting.

They're more beautiful than humans, and this transformation happens as soon as they're turned.

Unless, again, you're Brad Pitt and then you just look a little worse.

They can live off the blood of animals if they want, but it's not as satisfying.

So this is the idea of a quote-unquote vegetarian vampire, Twilight.

Twilight is literally interview with the vampire.

It's a massive ripoff.

Yeah.

TikTok with the vampire.

Yes.

That's not as interesting.

They are not affected by the stereotypical vampire offenders, like, you know, the sight of a crucifix or garlic.

They can see themselves in mirrors.

But most importantly, Chris, what is the big change that Anne Rice made to vampires and the way that their stories are told?

Do you know this?

Was sunlight not a part of this until now?

Sunlight is.

No, sunlight is.

That's actually Nasferatu in 1922 that introduced the Sunlight.

No, what's the big change?

Basically, it's that she made the vampires the protagonists.

Oh, okay, sure.

They are the heroes of the story.

They're no longer the villain.

Rice.

Got it.

They're the heroes of the story, and they are very much human.

They're struggling with human things.

You know, it's we are following them.

We care about them.

Prior to Anne Rice, this really was not the case.

I think that you could maybe argue there are elements of this to Dark Shadows with Barnabas Collins and a couple other examples, but she really blows the lid off the coffin, as it were, and changes the way that people start to portray vampires.

And yes, before people come after me in the comments, I know that Gary Oldman's performance in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker Strachula is very, you know, human longing.

Like we see him lose his love at the beginning of it, yada, yada.

That was influenced by Anne Rice.

That is not pulled.

Yeah, that was 16 years after the book.

Right.

But and also, it's not not pulled so much from the source material of Bram Stoker as it is pulled from this.

Got it.

So she sent much of the novel in her hometown of New Orleans, and she found herself really coming back to life when she wrote about her city through Louis's eyes.

When speaking to horror feminista about the experience of writing the novel, she said she, quote, didn't know it at the time, but it was all about my daughter.

the loss of her and the need to go on living when faith is shattered.

The lights do come back on no matter how dark it seems, and I'm sensitive now more than ever to the beauty of the world and more resigned to living with cosmic uncertainty.

So, you've got a commercially very successful novel that's also extremely personal.

It generated a lot of love within the gay community because, as you see in the film, the relationship between Lestat and Louis, while not overtly sexual, is, I would argue, most definitely romantic.

I mean, they have a child together, like they're, they are a family.

Yeah, and there's a way in which the teaching and like the initiation of

louis by lestat it has the feel of a more experienced lover teaching yes a less experienced one

it's as overt as it can be without being explicit totally she pretty much confirms as much in the next novel the vampire lestat and also i believe in this world vampires don't have sex.

They do kiss and they do engage, obviously, in erotic and romantic relationships.

Although they don't kiss in this movie, and boy, do I wish they would.

I thought Armand and Louis were going to for a moment, right at the end there.

Me too.

Even though I've seen it before, I was like, are you guys going to kiss?

I know.

Banditis wanted that one.

It's going to be a biscuit right there.

Brad Pitt, we'll get to this.

He looks the most uncomfortable with all of that to me than anybody else in this movie.

And it does take away from it.

Everybody else is like all on board.

No, Cruz, the reason I, and I, by the way, completely agree with you, Cruz works endlessly better than Pitt.

Yes.

He's not the best choice for that, I don't think, but he's good.

That's my point.

But Cruz throws himself at it with total abandon, which I really appreciate.

Exactly.

That's why it works by the end.

I agree.

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So, pretty much as soon as it was released, Paramount licensed the film rights to interview with the vampire.

But internally, absolutely no one at Paramount wanted to make this movie.

Chris, any guesses why?

Was it the homosexual content of the book?

Yes, the gayness of it all.

Absolutely.

So, Anne Rice, she was very much an LGBTQ ally, always, even would go on to say that she felt she herself transcended gender.

And Chris, of course, what was happening in the early 80s in the gay community that might have been stoking a different kind of horror slash fear?

Well, we have the AIDS crisis, which is a disease communicable through blood.

And so there's an added layer to the conversation now.

Yes, it gave a whole new angle for homophobia to prey on.

So the movie rolls around in development hell at Paramount, but according to some reports, they did offer the role of Lestat to one actor who I actually think could have been really good.

Any guesses, Chris?

This would have been very late 70s, probably early 80s.

He would have been young, pretty young.

Pretty young.

He dances real good.

Patrick, no, John Travolta?

Patrick Swayze?

John Travis.

John Travolta.

Interesting.

You know what?

No, he's a great actor.

I really

like John Travolta is an actor.

I think he would have been good.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe a little campy, but maybe that's okay.

Lestat is a little campy.

So I think he would have been good.

I think that the thing that he may have been able to pull off even a little more convincingly than Tom Cruise is the love

in this movie and sort of the affection that I think Lestat does have.

There's actually one person that Anne Rice was thinking of when she wrote the character of Lestat.

So Lestat is tall, blonde, European.

Any ideas?

Of the 70s?

Is he an actor?

You're thinking it's an actor?

It's an actor.

This is probably too hard.

It was Rutger Hauer.

If anyone's not familiar, he, of course, probably most famously plays Roy Batty in Blade Runner.

Would have been excellent.

Roy Batty, both gentle and domineering, sensual and aggressive.

Athletic, feline,

imposing.

You know, not

Sveld.

He's a big guy, but beautiful.

Lestat's big.

He's tall.

Right.

Yes.

I guess I meant

Sam.

No.

Well, much taller than Tom Cruise in the movie, but there was only a couple inches between him and Brad Pitt in the movie, and that is not the case in real life.

Okay.

But alas, Chris, the project continued to languish in its grave.

And if you're wondering why, according to Anne Rice, quote, one reason the 15 or so scripts of Interview with the Vampire hadn't worked was that people tended to make Lestat a stereotype of a horrible gay person.

And she was not not having it.

So while Paramount still held the rights, producer Julia Phillips, who had become friends with Rice and even worked on a few versions of the screenplay with her, wanted to turn interview into

a Broadway musical.

Tell me, tell me, do you want to die?

I'm going to give you the choice I never had.

Take this little girl and live.

Okay.

This is my child.

So if you don't know who Julia is, she was the first woman to win win a best picture Oscar for The Sting.

She also produced Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, alongside her producing partner, her husband.

I believe by the early 80s, Paramount had let the rights lapse.

So in October of 1985, Anne Rice finally published the long-awaited sequel to Interview, which is The Vampire Lestat,

which debuted at number nine on the New York Times bestsellers list.

So at this point, studios are like, okay, I guess we can't ignore this property anymore.

And the rights to both The Vampire Lestat and Interview with the Vampire were purchased by Lorimar.

Lorimar, not huge or super well-known production company.

They'd had more success in TV than film and definitely were not a major player in terms of studios at the time, which I think is interesting.

These are massively successful books with a huge fan base.

I have to imagine this is still coming back to

people perceiving this as being homoerotic, you know, gay-friendly content and not wanting to touch it.

That's my guess.

Well, also, though, just think of what's programming well in the mid-1980s.

It's the Summer Blockbuster.

I think Laura Marr made Alf.

I'm pretty sure that was their biggest success.

No, I'm just saying, though, that this is the birth of the Macho Man, the action hero.

We're in Schwarzenegger.

Very much.

Bruce Willis is about to hit the scene, Mel Gibson.

And this vampires are at a bit of a nadir right now in terms of their popularity, I feel like.

The interest wouldn't spark again cinematically until we have Fright Night, mid-1980s.

You got The Lost Boys.

The Lost Boys, a couple years later.

The Lost Boys, I think, is 87.

87?

That's what I was thinking.

Yeah.

And then there's, yeah, there's The Lost Boys, there's Near Dark, but again, none of these are like blockbusters for.

No, these are Near Dark is a tiny film, amazing film, but tiny film.

Right.

So in 1988, Warner Brothers bought Lorimar.

And this is how Interview with the Vampire made its way into the hands of David Geffen.

So a little bit about David Geffen.

As of 2025, he is worth, you want to guess, Chris?

A billion dollars?

$8.8 billion.

I knew he was rich.

Just that rich.

Yeah.

Geffen never studied film or entertainment or anything, actually, but in 1964, he lied his way into the mailroom at the William Morris Agency.

And that is where his career in the industry started.

In 1982, he founded the Geffen Film Company.

94, of course, he founds what, Chris?

DreamWorks.

That's right.

DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and the G is David Geffen.

He also does music.

David Geffen does everything.

Asylum records, Geffen Records, he's got Guns and Roses, Elton John, Nirvana, Joni Mitchell.

There's a lot of money, a lot of people.

He also publicly came out as gay in 1992.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he was a man, quote, whose reputation in business was one of complete ruthlessness, who was once called the merciless Macbeth of Hollywood's gay mafia, and who one ex-girlfriend, Cher in the 1970s, also, this is not her last appearance in this episode, described as being able to out-yell anyone.

That's fun.

What a good skill.

I believe, if I'm getting my history correct, there are rumors that he was very much little fingering Jeffrey Katzenberg in

a desire to fuck Michael Obitz over because Ovitz had gone and started CAA and he hated Michael Ovitz is my understanding.

And then Ovitz was at Disney and Geffen's like, yes, Jeffrey, come to the dark side, fuck Disney.

And then they start DreamWorks.

Well, he's very smart.

He's very successful.

He's very, very smart, very successful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, Merciless Macbeth of Hollywood's gay mafia is a little rough.

Come on, guys.

Except, who knows?

I don't know how you get 8.8 billion visits.

That's true.

That being a little merciless.

That's That's true.

Also, if you can out-yell share,

good luck.

Yeah.

So the Geffen company would produce with Warner Brothers handling distribution.

All the while, Julia Phillips kept championing the project.

She's still very much involved.

In fact, when Laura Maher was purchased, she checked in with Geffen about the project.

She said, quote, Laura Marr is merged into Warner's.

David Geffen, who has been staying in touch with me about these books, has a relationship with Warner's.

I asked him to read Ann's Bible.

He says he likes it.

He asked if we have a problem with the rights being assigned to his company.

I confer with Mike, that's her husband.

And we agree that being in business with this guy is the closest we will ever be to getting the fucker made.

Probably true.

So she's just like, whatever, this is going to get it made, no problem.

Except that there would be a problem.

So in the late 80s and early 90s, Anne Rice was also trying to move the project forward.

She and her longtime editor, Victoria Wilson, played around with the idea of a gender-swapped interview with the vampire, where Lestat and Louis were played by women.

angelica houston was of interest for the role of lestat yeah she'd be good i like it she'd be in nicholas rogues the witches shortly thereafter and she's really good in that and also the way anne rice explained it was that at the time obviously a woman couldn't be a land owner so it could have been a situation where a woman was dressing as a man in order to own property and sort of operate in this space According to Nerdist, Chris, we were also robbed of the most insane version of this movie.

I promised you she was coming back where Louie would be played by

Cher.

Wow.

I mean, as close as you'll get to an ageless vampire, and I mean that as a compliment, dude, she's amazing.

She still looks and sounds incredible.

I don't know what she's drinking, but I would like some.

Seriously.

Yeah.

I have great news for you, though.

She actually wrote a song for the movie and it exists.

It's called Lovers Forever.

And I'm going to play a little bit of it for you now.

I love Cher.

It's like Night at the Roxbury meets

the interview with the vampire.

Surrender to me now.

What doesn't work about this version is that both she and Angelica Houston are both like alpha vampires.

So you can't have two alpha vampires together.

It just doesn't work.

No.

But it would have been great.

Cher could be Lestat.

She's not Louie.

That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, you're just casting two Lestats.

Yes.

All right.

Well, sadly, we didn't get that version of the movie, but in 1991, something happened that will change the course of this film, Chris.

Julia Phillips published her tell-all memoir, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again.

Are you familiar with this book, Chris?

I've heard about this book.

Yes, I have.

I've never read it.

Well, we should both read it.

I read a little bit of it for this episode, but not the whole thing, but it pissed a lot of people off.

She was very candid, and one of those people was David Geffen.

Here's why.

Here's what she had to say about him.

Just a few tasty selections.

Quote, he's selfish, self-centered, egomaniacal, and worst of all, greedy.

Geffen, who always seems to dress in polo shirts and jeans, presumably to impress you with what a casual guy he is, is telling me his impressions of Steven Spielberg.

I think it is a pretty good description of him.

Another quote, we walk to his building, unusual in LA, emblazoned all over the door, it says the David Geffen Company.

Think this guy's got an ego problem?

And then finally, the meeting is very long, almost three hours, which means that David Geffen is having what is called fun in Hollywood.

This generally means running someone around the room, preferably someone more talented and less powerful than you.

So what do you think happened next, Chris?

Well, I'm guessing if he's as merciless and egomaniacal as it seems, he's just going to put that script in a drawer and not let anybody touch it.

Wrong.

She's big time fired.

Oh, no, no, I agree.

I'm saying she's out and that project's dead, but he's not going to release it to somebody else.

You know what I'm saying?

No, because he knows a good project when he sees it.

So he just fired her and now he is in control.

I will say, if as he is her technically boss.

100%, those are wild things to say about your boss.

If you were to just go on Twitter or LinkedIn and put those things about it, you're getting fired.

Like,

I appreciate it because I want the book, but

your ass is grass.

You're getting fired.

I'm kind of with Gevin on this one.

She got, she's got to go.

I don't disagree.

So Anne Rice continued tinkering with the script, including a version where vampires are even more explicitly bisexual and Lestat was more sympathetic.

You can actually read that version online.

But by the early 90s, all three of Anne Rice's novels in The Vampire Chronicles were bestsellers, and she had a fourth coming out in 1992, and they still haven't made this freaking movie.

Why, Chris?

Well, Warner Brothers is waiting for another movie to come out in 1992 before they shell out the cash to make Interview with the Vampire, because they want to make sure that there's an audience for this.

Any ideas what that would be?

It's not Philadelphia, is it?

No, sorry.

What is it?

Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Oh, Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I was like, are we still in the gay thing?

Bram Stoker's Dracula.

second only to Philadelphia.

Right, right, right.

Yes.

They wanted to make sure they could miscast a movie as horribly as Keanu Reeves and Bram Stoker's Dracula and still make money.

No, they did worse.

Keanu Reeves is more fun in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Way more fun.

I don't know about that, Dracula.

Oh, sir.

Oh, wait, you're not going to sign the contract?

What?

I have to get back to my wife.

I love that movie.

Don't you beseech Kiana Reeves in that.

that.

That movie is great.

That movie's incredible.

All right.

That movie is Francis Ford Coppola saying, Gary, just turn it.

You got to go to 12.

Kiana's at five.

You got to go to 12.

I have crossed oceans of time to find you.

If you want to hear our episode on that, go back and listen to it.

So Anne Rice at this point is pissed.

She told Dallas Morning News in January of 1993 that studio moguls, quote, have millions and millions and they're making these movies that have a huge impact on America and they're idiots.

they're stumble bums she ain't wrong but lucky for ann gary oldman in a giant furry bat suit did just fine financially yes it did so after more than 15 years interview with the vampire was going to be made into a movie so chris step one find a director and great news and already had some in mind specifically ridley scott and david cronenberg okay well those are both pretty good choices ridley scott i like

it would be a lot less historically accurate.

Yeah.

They would have had planes in New Orleans in 1872.

She said, fuck off, man.

It's a movie.

But everyone's got cigars.

We'll get to him, but I think Neil Jordan was particularly suited for this.

I agree.

Cronenberg, Scott, great directors.

Could have been really interesting.

Well, Cronenberg said, no, thank you.

And Scott was interested, but allegedly wanted a better script.

So speaking of the script, it's not in great shape, which is understandable.

It's gone through a bajillion revisions at this point.

There were people saying Anne Rice couldn't write dialogue very well.

I don't know about that, but I obviously writing a book is a very different skill than writing a screenplay.

The dialogue in books sucks.

It does.

Novel dialogue.

Read Stephen King books.

Mr.

King, I love your books.

No one talks like this.

This is ridiculous.

Yeah.

The one strength of screenwriters, of a good screenwriter, a great screenwriter, they write, and playwrights too, they write incredible dialogue.

And maybe they're terrible at prose, but dialogue from books is generally bad.

That is my hot take, and I stand by it.

I think you're spot on.

Also, it's extremely personal material.

It's probably very hard to have somebody edit this.

Yeah.

So Geffen brought in Michael Christopher, who had adapted The Witches of Eastwick and Bonfire of the Vanities.

Oopsies.

That didn't work.

So Geffen turned to another screenwriter, Stephen Katz.

Turns out Geffen had gotten the rights to the first three books, and he he was trying to get Katz to smush them all together into one.

That also didn't work.

Not a good idea, Dave.

Meanwhile, he is desperately trying to get a director because now there is a resurgence in sexy gothic vampire interest thanks to Gary Oldman and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Right.

So Geffen approached Irish director Neil Jordan.

Now, you said he is specifically suited to this.

I agree.

Why are you saying that?

Well, The Crying Game was 92, right?

Yes, it was.

was.

And Mona Lisa, which I don't know if you've seen with Bob Hoskins, was a few years before that and explores.

Neil Jordan was maybe the most prominent director at the time who explored what would be broadly considered taboo sexual often relationships and humanized them in a way that was really diff like radically different than most other mainstream directors.

And in the crying game specifically, it's a very complicated movie, but ultimately the core relationship is between Stephen Ray, an IRA member.

Yeah, who, of course, appears in this movie and many of Neil Jordan's films.

And who is just an unbelievable actor.

Yes.

And can carry the weight of the world on one expression.

He's so, he has this like amazing, amazingly expressive face.

Anyway, and then his relationship, I think Jay Davidson is the actor.

I think that's right.

Who he ends up in a relationship with a trans woman who is the ex.

lover of a British soldier, Forrest Whitaker, who he was arguably responsible for the death of.

It's very complicated.

It crosses racial lines, sexual lines, like at the time.

And it really broke the doors down, I think, in a lot of ways because it tells this really compelling story and really wraps you into it.

And it's very human.

Very human.

It was the first time I'd seen a trans character in a movie was The Crying Game, I think.

I think for many people, that's true.

Yeah.

And Mona Lisa was also Bob Hoskins.

It's a love story with a sex worker that's also, again, it's not as radical as The Crying Game, nor was it as big a hit, but it's a great movie too, that you guys should check out.

Well, you just did my job for me in terms of setting up Neil Jordan.

He's wonderful.

He's Irish, we should mention.

He was sort of brought up and mentored by John Borman, who has come up multiple times across the podcast.

But yes, it was The Crying Game, which came out in 1992, which he wrote and directed.

That's something that he always said he wanted to be able to do, was write the screenplay that he was also directing that really put him up for this job.

He also, he won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for The Crying Game.

And if you haven't seen it, watch it.

It's fantastic.

Chris set it up better than I ever could.

Now, Anne Rice agreed.

She told Movie Line, quote, he'll know how to work with those characters without being afraid of their homo erotic quality.

I agree.

And I think he does that very successfully.

I think he is the perfect person to have directed this.

So Jordan was on board with one condition.

He wanted to rewrite the script script himself.

But he did not go to the most recent draft.

He went back to Anne Rice's original draft and the book itself.

This is why Anne Rice got solo writing credit.

They basically threw Stephen Katz's draft in the garbage.

And by all accounts, Neil Jordan did do an enormous amount of work on this script and actually tried to get a co-writing credit.

But with the WGA, the director has to have added at least 50% of the material in the script.

Chris, I think you are familiar with this process.

They decided that Anne Rice had done the majority still.

I think most likely because of the source material.

That's my guess.

Yeah, and even if you rewrite, you could rewrite every line of dialogue, but if the structure is more or less the same, they will say you did not change a significant amount of the script.

Which I think is true.

Yeah, in an effort to protect the writer, they really focus on the structural elements, what characters you have, the themes.

They do not focus on dialogue.

And I can say that from personal experience.

And he had gone back to her draft, was very much following the structure of that.

He actually added in scenes from the book that she had not even put in.

So there's no bad blood between them, though.

She told Movie Line, Neil Jordan, by the way, is extraordinarily nice, one of the most gentle, kind human beings.

In fact, I fear for him in Hollywood.

I don't know how somebody decent can survive with those Panthers out there.

So she's not pissed at Jordan, but she was pissed at the studio.

It had taken 17 years to get this movie off the ground.

And lo and behold, the script that finally did it was the one that was the most faithful to her source material.

So I think she felt at this point, I was right all along.

Why did this take 15 plus years to get off the ground?

Time.

She was ahead of the times.

That's just the truth.

And things take time.

And it takes time for people to come around, you know what I mean, to ideas and whatnot as well.

I agree.

But that's not how Anne felt.

No.

Well, she's also right.

She is right.

But I think it's good that it came out when it did.

I agree.

I don't think it would have done anywhere near as well if it had come out earlier.

No.

Jordan was given a budget of $60 to $70 million.

And it

looks like it.

It looks like $100 million.

This movie is flawless.

And again, credit to everybody involved from the stunt performers to whoever ran the pyrotechnics to the choreography to the location scouting.

Yeah, the stunts in this are insane.

The first shot when we do the first flashback to the New Orleans plantation that when Brad Pitt rides the horse down, you just go, holy shit, the scope of this movie is incredible.

Well, he referenced Gone with the Wind in terms of the scope that he was trying to achieve and he does it.

And then you get a frame of Gone with the Wind later in the film, obviously, when Louie's watching all the movies and you can see, you know, the references that Jordan's pulling from.

Oh, big time.

And also as New Orleans is burning and they're escaping.

Yeah.

Now, as we mentioned, Anne Rice had originally wanted Rutger Hauer for Lestat, but at this point, he's way too old.

So poor Rutger is out like tears in rain.

Rice was adamant that Lestat should be tall, blonde, overpowering, and most importantly, androgynous.

Yeah.

Four things that do not describe Tom Cruise.

So it should be Tilda Swinton, basically.

It should be Tilda Swinton.

She put forth French actor Alain Delon, who honestly pretty old at that point.

That's an interesting choice.

And someone who I think made a lot of sense, Julian Sands.

Julian Sands would have been great.

I had an idea.

He's not blonde,

but I was thinking Day Lewis.

Hold that thought, you snake.

Sorry.

Just very briefly, if you don't know who Julian Sands was, because unfortunately we lost him a couple of years ago.

Really brilliant British actor, blonde, handsome, tall, very feline, kind of looks like a lion almost.

David thule is his handsome older brother yes that's how i always thought very much very much he's wonderful in a room with a view he's great he would have been good for this but he was not a big enough name at the time so they actually they originally want brad pitt for louis there's kind of weird not a lot of other consideration there i agree it's weird but for lestat I thought Johnny Depp for Louie is who I kept thinking of.

I thought...

He has more ennui, and that would have been better, I think.

Yeah, and also, you know who else?

And it's going to sound insane, but just hear me out.

He was so tormented in Moonstruck, Nicholas Cage, just throwing it out there.

I know.

I know.

Maybe I'm crazy.

Nicholas Cage does have his own tomb in New Orleans that's ready and waiting for him.

I know.

And like when you can get him to contain it, I do think there's something tortured about him.

Oh, I love Nicholas Cage.

I don't know.

Just a thought.

I agree.

Well, Chris, you snaky snake, you hit the nail on the head.

They wanted Daniel Day-Lewis for Lista.

There are not that many actors at this time who have not been built from the ground up as hyper-masculine,

right?

Like so many actors at this time, I feel like they've, because of the action stars.

We're going to get to it.

There's someone else that Ann Rice really wanted who I think would have been the primo choice.

All right.

But Daniel Day Lewis, obviously, he can do anything.

He can be a tree.

Of course, he could be Listatte.

He could be a shoe.

He's been a shoe.

He could make a shoe.

Neil Jordan knew right away, though, Daniel Jay-Lewis is not going to do this.

No.

But he did consider it for a really long time.

That's the problem, though.

I know.

He's probably going to say no, and it's going to take him forever to get there.

It took him six months.

He was like,

maybe.

No.

Well, no.

I'm going to go be a cobbler.

I'll see you later.

Reportedly, he had declined because he didn't want to do more costume dramas, but Pitt had a different take.

He told Rolling Stone, quote, when they had offered the part to Daniel Day-Lewis, I heard his response was that he didn't like what it would do to him.

Look, he's one of my favorites, but I thought more actor bullshit.

Now I'd say I understand a little bit of what he was talking about.

Ooh, foreshadowing.

All right, so Rice is like, what about John Malkovich?

What about Alexander Gudinov?

Malkovich had already played Nosferatu, right?

He'd also done dangerous liaisons, I think.

Yeah.

But then she shouts out one name that I think would have been absolutely perfect for this.

Kevin Spacey.

No, that was a joke.

No, Jeremy Irons.

Come on.

Yeah.

He's, I mean, he's wonderful and he's handsome.

How old is he at this point?

That was my only, maybe he's the same age as Day Lewis.

I think he is.

I don't think he's that old at all.

I mean, he would have been delicious.

Absolutely delicious.

You have no idea.

If you've never seen Reversal of Fortune, get out there and watch it.

Fantastic.

But Geffen is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you.

What about Tom Cruise?

Great news.

I've already called him.

That's right.

That's right.

Without running it past Anne Rice, David Geffen called Tom Cruise and essentially offered him the role on the spot.

And Cruz was extremely excited.

Turns out he'd been a fan of the book as a teenager.

Now, Chris, based on what you know about Lestat, why do you think Tom Cruise might not be the first person that comes to mind?

Tom Cruise is short.

Sure.

That's the least of his offenses, I think, in terms of this character.

Well, Tom Cruise is, I don't know if this is specific enough.

He's really American, really American.

Lestad is very European and erudite.

And Tom Cruise is not that.

He's high energy.

He's so aggressive.

He doesn't feel like a patient, ageless, timeless vampire.

And his most recent performances, A Few Good Men was the same year, or so it was close to this.

I can't remember.

But even something like Rain Man or later Jerry Maguire, like it's sold on, he's so, I love him.

He's a great actor.

Yeah, but he's like totally wrong for this on paper.

It's right.

Like that's versus Lestat.

I don't know if you've had a chance to watch the Interview with the Vampire TV series that has been on AMC.

It's really good.

I'm really enjoying it.

But Sam Reed, who plays Lestat in that, he is pitch perfect.

I think he hits what you're talking about.

And there's like a languidity languidity to him, the way that he moves, the way that he speaks.

He's got time, you know, with Tom Cruise.

It's a sense that this character is playing the long game, whereas the fun of Cruise is watching him improvise in a very high-stakes situation.

It's the opposite of Lestat.

I agree.

I agree.

Anne Rice would very much agree with you, Chris, but who cares what Anne Rice thinks?

Tom Cruise was officially cast as Lestat, and all hell broke loose.

Or should I say, Anne Rice broke loose?

Because here's some of her public comments.

Public comments on the casting news.

Quote, The Tom Cruise casting is so bizarre, it's almost impossible to imagine how it's going to work, and it's really almost impossible to imagine how Neil and David and Tom could have come up with it.

I have one question.

Does Tom Cruise have any idea of what he's getting into?

I'm not sure he does.

I'm not sure he's read any of the books other than the first one.

And his comments on TV that he wanted to do something scary and he loved creature features as a kid, well, that didn't make me feel any better.

It's a a little unfair.

Ann.

Another quote, I do think Tom Cruise is a fine actor, but you have to know what you can do and what you can't do.

But the appeal of Tom Cruise is he thinks he can do anything.

Yes.

She didn't like his voice.

She said, quote, I say, you know, Lestat's voice was purring in my ear, or the voice was like roughened velvet.

And here's this actor with no voice.

Maybe he will drop out.

And finally, Tom Cruise is no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G.

Robinson is Rhett Butler.

She even went so far as to suggest that Cruz was pushing them to tone down the homoerotic elements of the script.

But I want to note, David Geffen and pretty much everyone else involved, including Neil Jordan, say this is absolutely not true.

I believe that because as we discussed, I think he pulls it off way better than Brad Pitt does.

He does not look uncomfortable at all.

He's all in.

He's not holding back.

So Anne Rice begged them, hey, you know what?

Swap the roles, which, to be honest, I mean, Brad Pitt may have been better as Lestat.

I say can Brad Pitt, and I like Brad Pitt.

I think get him out of this movie.

Cruise as Louie

actually may be more interesting than Cruz as Lestat.

I agree.

I think I don't think she's wrong about this.

No, yeah.

But Geffen and Neil Jordan stuck to their top guns and they would not budge.

This is an expensive movie.

They needed Tom Cruise to justify the money they were spending.

And remember that Brad Pitt was not the superstar that he is today at this point.

And Julian Sands, all due respect, wonderful actor is going to get you an indie film budget.

Totally.

It's just not.

It's not going to be a $60 million movie.

But Neil Jordan in particular was adamant that Cruz was the right pick.

He told Variety he had a conviction and a kind of chilling centrality to him.

Yes, he is dead behind the eyes.

That's me, not Neil.

That I thought he'd be great in this role.

It struck me that a huge Hollywood star was forced into a life not unlike the life that Lestat led.

They have to avoid publicity, avoid crowds, keep their legend intact, keep a certain unknowability about them.

And I thought those things were part and parcel of Tom's life, and maybe they would make him a great Lestat.

And it turned out to be the case.

It's very smart.

He also was like, you know what, Anne, you should just, you know, shut up, shut up, sit down.

Like, sometimes you can cast against type, and it works.

And I think he smartly realized: look, ultimately, Tom Cruise is going to be in what, 40 minutes of this movie, 45, in terms of total screen time.

Yes.

Maybe an hour.

And with him, we are going to get to make the most expansive, luscious, fully realized version of this book ever.

Right.

And not only is it an interesting meta riff on Tom's persona, but everything I know about Tom tells me he'll do anything.

I ask him to do

in service of trying to get this character right.

Yeah, I think he was probably a lot easier to work with than Brad Pitt.

So naturally, Warner Brothers was pretty pissed at Anne Rice for this.

Robert Friedman, the president of publicity, essentially accused her of doing this to try to drum up support for her own books, calling it good old-fashioned hucksterism.

And Geffen didn't mince words either.

He said, quote, Anne is a difficult woman at best, and what her motives are remains somewhat beyond me.

But for her to attack this movie for her own self-importance when she has been paid $2 million and stands to make a lot more money selling her books is just capricious.

It lacks kindness.

It lacks discretion.

It lacks professionalism.

I do not want to be yelled at by David Geffen.

I feel like it would hurt a lot.

Just turn up the share.

Just turn up the share as well as you can.

You won't hear him anymore.

Surrender to me now.

Of the whole process, Anne Rice said, quote, you can't imagine how much I despise Hollywood producers and the studio system and many of the people there.

I think they're awful.

I can't warn writers enough to stay away from them.

They will kill you.

At this point, Anne Rice exits stage left.

She's like, I'm done.

I want nothing to do with this project.

And she cut off all communication with Geffen, the cast, the production team, and Neil Jordan.

Yeah.

So Cruz was paid around $10 million for the role, which was a shit ton for a vampire movie, but was actually a price cut for him, which just goes to show you he wanted to do this.

Can I offer a quick hot take?

I don't don't care what authors think about adaptations.

I don't care.

I think there is a need for respect.

They should have a voice in the room.

And ultimately, they should exit stage left because you're making a movie and it's a different medium and it needs to be entrusted to those folks.

And if they get it wrong, they get it wrong.

Yes, but her fan base is particularly engaged.

And when she came out publicly and talked about this, it was bad news for this production.

Oh, no, no, I agree.

I'm just saying, me personally,

I don't really.

Eh.

So it's different than the book.

Then we get something different.

Right.

You know, that's always interesting.

Well, Tom Cruise, his feelings were hurt by Anne Rice.

But being Tom Cruise, he put everything into preparation for the role.

He read all of her novels again.

He learned piano.

He lost 12 pounds on a strict diet regimen.

He traveled to Paris with Nicole Kidman, immersed himself in the city and the architecture.

He wore vampire teeth everywhere to practice how to speak properly.

You can tell.

Yeah, he pulls it off way better.

And he kissed Nicole with them.

And

get away.

He studied lions.

He really throws himself into this.

Now, a ton of young actresses auditioned for the role of Claudia, including Natalie Portman, Christina Ricci, Julia Stiles, and even Evan Rachel Wood, who would have been, I think, really young.

But it was 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst who got the part after her acting coach made her redo her audition.

She said, quote, he was outside of the room.

He listened on the door to hear like what I was doing.

He knows I didn't nail it.

And I walked out and he was like, no, you go back in there.

Apologize to the casting director.

She didn't do what she can do.

Yikes, but she got it.

Yeah.

Now, she had been working since she was teeny tiny.

I think her first role was at six years old in a Woody Allen short film, but this was her big break.

Yeah.

Longtime Neil Jordan collaborator Stephen Ray joins, and Antonio Banderis rounded out the cast along with, as we said, a very young 10 D Way Newton.

Chris, do you know who was originally cast to play the Daniel Malloy role, the reporter?

Christian Slater.

Christian Slater's role, yes.

It was River Phoenix.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I like Christian Slater a lot.

It's a small enough role.

I don't think it matters that much, but Phoenix would have been really interesting.

And he's a hair younger than Slater, I think.

A little bit.

They're pretty close to contemporaries.

I think Christian Slater reads as older than he is.

Because his hair was receding, maybe a little bit.

But I wonder if Phoenix is almost too beautiful.

Because Slater's desperation, you know, wanting what Pitt has,

I feel is supported.

Not, I mean, Christian Slater is a very handsome person, but compared to, you know, the beautiful vampires, he's, he's not.

Whereas Phoenix is almost Brad Pitt 2.0, you know, at that point in his career.

That's true.

Well, more on that momentarily.

In October of 1993, filming began in New Orleans.

In downtown New Orleans, sets were built in the French quarter along the Mississippi waterfront to stand in for colonial New Orleans.

It looks fantastic.

So good.

Husband and wife duo Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Sciavo oversaw production design.

Sandy Powell led costume design.

As Chris said, absolutely phenomenal.

The way they costume Claudia in those iridescent blues and greens, so she just stands out from the background.

And they give Lestat just enough of a punch of blue in his outfits as well.

And then the muddy, kind of muted browns of Brad Pitt's Louis.

It's great and it's really smart because then his eyes pop in a different way.

And you can just see every department's working with each other so well.

Yeah.

Cinematographer was Philippe Roussellau, who was fresh off an Oscar win for A River Runs Through It.

Of course, also starred Brad Pitt.

Cinematography in this is incredible.

And just props to the gaffer, whoever lit it.

I mean, it's amazingly well lit.

So I could be wrong about this.

I'm going to double-check it.

I believe this is lit.

A lot of this is lit by candlelight.

Oh, yeah.

However, they did it.

It's gorgeous.

It's very painterly.

It's very beautiful.

By the way, over the course of the 100-day shoot, there were only two and a half days of daytime photography.

Yeah.

It's so dark and beautiful.

Yeah.

And yes, Russolo used only lanterns and candles candles to illuminate the sets.

Now, Chris, who did the makeup effects in this movie?

Stan Winston.

That's

one in the credits.

Yes.

And it looks great.

Very subtle.

Very well done.

Unbelievably, though, he almost didn't get this job.

He actually had to fight for it.

And it's because he was coming off of the enormous success of Jurassic Park, because they thought, oh, the dinosaur guy, why would the dinosaur guy want to do this?

That he had to really be like, no, I can do this.

And it's amazing.

That neck that gets sliced open on Tom Cruise, the transitions look fabulous.

From the subtlety, the way that they make the veins of the vampires look like they are subdermal right below the skin.

That's so hard.

Well, I can tell you how they did that.

Tell me, because it's amazing.

It is amazing.

They actually tested foam rubber vein prosthetics to create that, and it didn't work.

They stood out a little bit too much.

So they would hang the actors upside down for 30 minutes so the blood would rush to their heads and their veins would protrude.

So the makeup artists could trace the actual patterns of their veins.

So that's why it looks natural.

It's why it looks natural.

Because if you guys are watching our Instagram, you can see my freaking freak old man veins coming down the side of my face and they wouldn't have even had to hang me upside down.

Yeah.

No, it's incredible.

Now, as we mentioned, River Phoenix, just a few weeks into filming, tragedy struck.

He collapsed outside the Viper room in West Hollywood.

He was 23 years old when he died.

The Los Angeles Times reported that toxicology showed, quote, lethal levels of cocaine and morphine in his system.

Brad Pitt's true romance co-star Christian Slater stepped in very quickly to replace him, but the circumstances weighed very heavily on Slater, so he actually did not accept any money for the film and donated his entire $250,000 salary to two charities that River Phoenix supported.

Wow.

Good for him.

It hit everyone in the film really hard, and some even viewed it as a bad omen for the production.

Meanwhile, back on set, the energy was not really very good.

Paparazzi dogged the New Orleans set.

According to Esquire, since filming began, quote, the papers have been filled with unconfirmed reports about tension on the set, beefed up security, secret tunnels connecting Cruz's dressing room to exterior locations, and other extraordinary efforts to protect the star from the press.

The unit press agent has been so besieged with silly rumors that she has given up denying them.

I hope he had tunnels to his dressing rooms.

How fun.

In addition to trying to get a glimpse of Tom Cruise, the gossip rags were quick to report tensions on set between Cruz and Pitt.

According to a 1993 Entertainment Weekly article, quote, sources claim Cruz was obsessing over how much better co-star Brad Pitt looked on screen.

Cruise reportedly demanded to know Pitt's height and then ordered platform heels for his boots.

Ah, that one might be true.

Well, but more likely.

The cinematographers.

Yeah, like make them the same height.

Exactly.

Like, Neil Jordan and this DP just looked in the frame and said, okay, we need to get Tom a, you know, an apple box to stand on because he's out of the shot.

Get him a three-inch heel.

He knows how to walk in heels.

He's doing great.

Yeah.

Brad Pitt's only 5'11, by the way.

He's not like super tall.

What a pip squeeze.

What a hip.

Neil Jordan said, it was like the entirety of the United States was out for me, really.

It created a little paranoid world for us.

We were shooting large scenes in San Francisco, New Orleans, London, and Paris.

And in each case, we had to shield ourselves off from paparazzi.

It was like we were making the movie like vampires in a strange way.

But despite all the media attention and Anne Rice nipping at his little ankles, it turns out Tom Cruise had a great time on this.

And it was Brad Pitt who had an absolute shit fest.

Now, he had expected an introspective philosophical role based on the book, but he claims he didn't see a finished script until two weeks before filming began.

And when he did, he did not like it.

He's like, all Louie does is mope around, which is true.

He told Entertainment Weekly in 2011, there was no script.

I knew the book.

And in the book, you have this guy asking, who am I?

Which was probably applicable to me at the time.

Am I good?

Am I of the angels?

Am I bad?

Am I of the devil?

In this book, it's a guy going on this search of discovery.

And in the meantime, he has this Lestat character that he's entranced by and abhors.

That's really not what was showing up on the page.

This was his first major studio leading role, though.

So he did not have the star power to ask for the rewrites that he says today he would have asked for.

He's gone back and basically said, I would have required rewrites or I would have left.

You know what's so interesting?

You can absolutely see he is stumbling for the performance that he would eventually give in Meet Joe Black as the version of death that is exploring who am I?

What does this mean?

Am I good?

Am I bad?

There is a naive, childlike, wide-eyed wonder to the character in Meat Joe Black that I feel he wants to give here, but can't because of the circumstances.

And by the way, I love him in Meat Joe Black.

I think he's very well suited for that.

And so I do think in an interesting way, that movie was what he may have been looking for here.

Yeah.

Well, in 2011, in a tell-all interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said of the experience, quote, I am miserable.

Six months in the fucking dark, contact lenses, makeup, I'm playing the bitch role.

It should not be overstated.

Understated, excuse me.

Those contacts are brutal.

You cannot see anything.

But Tom Cruise ain't complaining about the contacts.

If Tom Cruise is the standard that we hold ourselves to, this man will happily jump out of a plane until until his ankles break and say, let's run it again.

Yeah, I think these two did not get along.

Yeah.

Of Brad Pitt's unhappiness, Neil Jordan said it simply wore him out.

Brad's a very active guy.

That was the direction he wanted to go in.

And the passivity of the character got him down.

Still, it did seem like Brad Pitt was enjoying himself in New Orleans.

He really fell in love with the city.

He would go on to own a home there with Angelina Jolie at one point.

I just want to say this now.

I'm not going to get into it in this episode because it's not immediately relevant to what we are discussing.

But if you're unfamiliar with what happened between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on a private airplane in 2016, do a little Google.

Unfortunately for Brad Pitt, production moved to London from December of 1993 to January of 1994, and he hated it.

He hated it.

He said, quote, life's too short for this quality of life.

Shooting nights is also.

It's bad.

It's insane.

I don't know how anybody works a night shift.

And shooting nights in London, too.

Like New Orleans,

it's very vibrant.

It's alive.

There would be stuff to do.

Like it, London would suck.

Noted hellhole, worst place on the planet.

It's a beautiful city, but I would not want to be stuck there doing night shoots for sure.

It's hard.

In fact, Chris, he was so miserable that he called up David Geffen to find out how much it would cost to buy himself out of this movie.

And that's when Geffen said, more than you got, buddy.

No, Geffen very calmly told him $40 million.

And Brad Pitt's like, okey-dokie, back to work.

You gotta go.

Yeah, there you go.

Yep.

So Kirsten Dunst reportedly had zero issues with the violence and gore on screen.

She mostly had a great time on this movie, I think.

The only thing she thought was gross was the blood syrup she had to suck out of the actor's sweaty, disgusting adult necks.

And of course, there was one thing that she did have an issue with in this movie.

Chris, there's something she did not want to do that was in the script.

She does so many things.

I don't know.

What's the one thing?

She's fine with all of them, except for one.

And that one is where she, an 11-year-old child, has to kiss Brad Pitt, a 30-year-old man.

Oh, yes.

Wow.

That's, I didn't even think about that.

She thought it was disgusting.

It is.

That's really weird.

It's really weird.

Outside of the context of the movie.

It's very, very, very weird, which is what makes it a very striking striking image in the movie.

Yeah, I think it's something that she was very uncomfortable with.

I've watched interviews of her talking about it since.

I don't know that she, well, I know she did not like the experience.

This is tough because it's not like they're doing it in the movie to be gratuitous or for any kind of, you know, pedophilia.

Like that's, that's not what it is.

She is like a century old or more at the time when it happens.

And it, it does really demonstrate in such a striking visual how strange their relationship is.

But she thought it was really disgusting.

And it wasn't just her first on-screen kiss.

It was also her first kiss, period.

In 2013, she told Bullet magazine, quote, it was just a peck.

I remember Brad would watch lots of real world episodes.

He had this long hair.

He was just a hippie-ish, cool dude.

Everyone at the time was like, you're so lucky you kissed Brad Pitt, but I thought it was disgusting.

I didn't kiss anyone else until I was 16.

I think I was a late bloomer.

But she didn't just talk about it 20 years later, Chris.

She talked about it at the time.

Here is an interview for Little Women, which came out I think the same year, and she is answering a maybe inappropriate question from the reporter.

Did you really hate kissing Brad Pitt?

Yeah, because, well,

you know what?

Um,

I love Brad, he's so nice.

It was just like, it feels awkward.

I mean, I'm 12 and he's like 31 now and I'm...

It's like he's a man, so why would I enjoy kissing him?

Alright, Samantha, how about you?

If you had a chance to kiss Brad Pitch.

Oh, I don't think I'd turn it down.

He's a wonderful actor, too, though.

But I understand, you know,

maybe you're not into kissing boys yet, so I can relate.

Well, especially because Brad is 31.

I mean, he's not exactly a boy.

If he were 15, maybe.

It might be better.

Yeah.

There we go.

Guys, why does she need to be the one that's explaining this?

But he's so dreamy.

You mean if I could.

36 when I was 12.

Did you practice with your dad?

Did you do it?

It's like, what are you talking about?

That's her co-star, by the way, Samantha Mathis.

You can hear who the way she's talking to her in that interview really grossed me out.

Seems so deeply uncomfortable.

The way she's like, maybe you don't like kissing boys yet and i love that kirsten dunst is like well he's 31 yeah he's not a boy i mean he does have the taste of a boy watching the real world but he's not a boy no

my quick take

you can't ethically capture that i know sorry period i just don't think you can best of intentions i agree what they're trying to portray is not inappropriate in the way that it is in real life, but it just is.

Use a body double if you have to.

It's a compromise that you make.

That's true.

but that's my that's my opinion i just don't think you should have 11 year olds kissing 30 year olds little you know period in order to make your art especially when it's her first kiss you're right use a body double and the fact that she is saying that and by the way that's on neil jordan that is yeah it is and i don't think they should have done it i agree with you this did impact her career decisions down the road.

Four years later, she was offered the Mina Suvari role in American Beauty, and she turned it down because she didn't want to be playing a grown man's object of desire at 15.

Of course, that would go to Mina Suvari, who I think was 19 when she took on the role.

Meanwhile, Anne Rice continued to froth the pot against Tom Cruise to the point where fans would stand outside her book signings holding anti-Tom Cruise signs, not Mylastat.

There were also constant rumors that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise didn't like each other, and Brad Pitt sort of denies it.

I don't know.

Here's what he had to say in Rolling Stone.

Quote, I tell you, the machine Tom runs is quite impressive.

I wouldn't want to live like that, but still, Tom Cruise is good in this film.

I like the guy.

I honestly like the guy.

But at a point, I started really resenting him.

In retrospect, I realized that it was completely because of who our characters were.

I realized that it was my problem.

I think they fucking hated each other.

I don't know.

I don't know if it seems like just an incompatible.

I don't know if Tom Cruise didn't like him.

That's what I was going to say exactly.

I don't know if, but.

I think he really didn't like Tom Cruise.

It's a completely incompatible set of working styles.

Yes.

Yeah.

On top of all of this, people kept pestering Daniel Day-Lewis about why he didn't take the role.

And he's like, I'm still considering it.

Yeah.

I'm still thinking about it.

I could go in and be Tom Cruise.

So let's talk about post-production very briefly.

Rob Legato was hired as the visual effects supervisor, and this was actually his first feature film.

He had done visual effects on the series Star Trek The Next Generation and also had been a live action producer.

He absolutely nails this.

In In fact, Ron Howard was so impressed with his work on this that he hired him for Apollo 13, which also looks fantastic.

And then Jimmy C.

of the Concrete Boots hired him for Titanic, which led to him winning an Academy Award.

He's someone who never set out to do visual effects, and he becomes kind of like an accidental VFX legend.

So pretty cool.

He faced several major visual effects challenges in this movie.

One, showing Claudia's hair growing back after being cut.

And boy, does that look good.

Also, combining the prosthetic teeth with digital enhancements to create that realistic growth effect.

I think they also nail this.

You know, he made the point in a more recent interview that, like, now you could just tell a computer to do that and it would be no problem, but you couldn't do that back then.

They really had to do what they did best in Jurassic Park and what Stan Winston, I think, does best in terms of working with the VFX producers and make it look like the teeth are growing.

growing.

And I think they did.

Also, I'm sure this was done in tandem with Stan Winston, but when Lestat is dying the first time and his body's kind of shrinking and shriveling, that transition looks great.

It's phenomenal.

And yes, that would have been done with Stan Winston.

So let's talk briefly about the score.

Jordan wanted to use George Fenton, who he'd worked with on High Spirits and We're No Angels.

Fenton was hired and he had even been composing score for this film for quite a while, but apparently David Geffen felt his music was too slow and understated and it was not working for the film.

I think he actually may have recorded some of the score for this.

With very little time left, David Geffen fired him and replaced him with Elliot Goldenthal, who only had three weeks to compose a whole new score.

Goldenthal had scored Alien Cubed.

Alien 3 and Demolition Man's interesting choice for this, but he came in, he crushed it.

I think the score is wonderful.

It also still feels pretty subdued to me.

I mean, it's wonderful choral arrangements.

It gets a little avant-garde, I would say.

No, no, sure.

I'm just saying it's not, this is not like a bombastic, driving, enormous Demolition Man style score.

I think it suits the material wonderfully.

Yeah.

He got an Oscar nomination for this, and he would go on to win for Frida.

So at this point, the early November release was swiftly approaching, and in addition to firing the composer, David Geffen took another unusual risk.

On September 21st, he sent Anne Rice a screener of the film.

And Chris, what do you think her reaction was?

I bet you she really, really, really liked it.

Chris, she went in expecting a turd burrito, and she absolutely loved it.

She did a complete 180.

Joined Scientology.

Said, I'm in.

She called up Geffen.

She said it went way above her expectations.

She even called Tom Cruise to personally say that she was wrong and that he was wonderful.

That is a pretty classy thing to do.

And then she sat down at her typewriter and said, Bradley Pitt is the worst actor in this community.

No, I mean, you'd have to, because Cruz, based on what her expectations were, Cruz clears that bar.

Oh, big time.

And it's, again, the commitment.

Yeah.

If I were an author and I saw this level of commitment to the world that I had created on the page, I would be blown away.

Oh, my gosh.

No expense spared.

Especially because she was so in Brad Pitt's corner and Brad Pitt kind of sucks it up in this movie.

Just like we absolutely so hard on him.

I don't care.

I don't have a lot of love for Brad Pitt.

He's a good actor.

But when

everything is operating at like basically 10 out of 10 levels, from as we mentioned.

And you're operating at a three, it stands out.

At a six, but four and a half tops.

It's my final offer.

Okay, agree to disagree.

My point is he does, he stands out because everything else is chugging along pretty seamlessly.

That's right.

Well, her stamp of approval came just in time for her fans' rage to subside before the movie came out.

And Chris, do you think she was remorseful about how she had handled everything?

Nope.

Nope.

Go in.

She said, quote, I understand and accept what happened, but to me, movies and books are not like sports.

There is no immediate consensus on whether a player had scored a home run or a touchdown.

So it was okay to speak my mind on the casting.

I don't have any regrets.

Good for her.

Tom Cruise printed those articles, stuck them on his vision board, and said, Anne, I will make you love me the way I made Nicole love me.

And he did it.

You know what?

It worked.

Good job, Tom.

This is a little fun fact.

The film's promotional tour included an interview with Oprah Winfrey, who admitted that she walked out of the LA screening she had been in.

I remember that.

She didn't like all the blood.

She said, there are forces of light and darkness in the world, and I don't want to be a contributor to the force of darkness.

All right, uber capitalist.

Yeah, I was going to say,

come on.

But on November 11th, 1994, interview with the vampire was released.

Warners had actually moved the date forward from November 18th to capitalize on the Thanksgiving box office holiday, and it worked.

It was a hit.

It outperformed blockbusters that November, such as Kenneth Brana's Frankenstein, Star Trek Generations.

It was, of course, overtaken by the Santa Claus, though.

What a year.

Tim Allen waltzes in and says, hold my

fart.

And then he makes a billion dollars at the box office.

And Alan Ricken goes, oh, God.

Yeah.

But it did very very well it did receive as we said an r rating for nudity and violence and sexual content which ann rice really pretty heavily criticized this is this is an appropriate r you have well i agree but she had some commentary on it she said quote my last question why was this film an r-rated film Couldn't it have been just as significant and just as thrilling without being an R-rated film?

I am assuming, of course, that the R rating has to do with the nudity and the misogyny in the film, the sadism towards women with heavy sexual overtones.

If I'm right, then why was that necessary?

Well, I don't know.

I mean, I think what they show is showing something about

the vampire.

I don't know.

I don't have a problem.

Well, I think she's specifically mostly referring to, well, there's Lestotte, who preys on sex workers, obviously, and then Tendiway Newton, but it's probably the Grand Guignol sequence in France, right?

But by the way, Grand Guignol theater was very much a real thing.

It was extremely graphic.

And the fact that the vampires are hiding their consumption of humans inside of this thing and they're presenting this virgin woman,

I think it's illuminating of those characters.

And it ultimately shows why Brad Pitt should not trust Armand, and yet he fails that test.

So I will stand by Neil Jordan's decision to make this a little shocking.

I think it's a deserved R and it's a good R.

I agree.

I think that that sequence is extremely well done.

The fact that it's humans in the audience watching and this woman is saying, please, please help me.

And they're all just watching going like, this play is great.

Yeah.

It's very disturbing.

It's very creepy watching that actress sort of realize that no one is going to help her.

You know, as she's up there, she's exposed both physically and emotionally.

She's in threat the entire time.

And then she just kind of gives up.

I think it's a great sequence.

Could you have done it without her boobs out?

Sure.

I don't have a huge problem with it.

And they strip her down entirely, which is very violating.

And I think that's the point is to make it violating.

I don't know.

It doesn't feel leering in that way.

It feels

like it's implicating the audience in an interesting way.

I agree with you.

But also then he slices Stephen Ray's torso in half with a...

With a scythe.

Yeah.

Yeah, a scythe.

And then, so you're going to get the R rating no matter what, I think, even if they were to cut back on certain sequences.

I'm with you, but Anne Rice is going to haunt you from her grave.

So, despite positive box office returns, Brad Pitt was done with this movie.

In a December 1st, 1994 interview with Rolling Stone, when he was asked, he said the following: You know, Legends of the Fall was great.

And then, when asked about working with Tom Cruise, Pitt gives an earnest look: quote, I'm telling you, Antonio Banderas is the greatest guy.

This is why I think he hates Tom Cruise.

Yeah.

I think he checked himself afterwards and had to, you know, come back and say, oh, it was all me.

You know, Ty, love Tom, Tom's great, love Tom, love Tom so much.

No, you don't, Brad.

No, you don't.

Critics and also, according to Reddit, 90s audiences came down pretty hard on Brad Pitt's performance.

Owen Gleberman at Entertainment Weekly said, as a character, Louis stays tangled up in his his own gloomy remorse.

Forget the casket.

He might as well be living in a confessional booth.

And watching Pitt, about all we register in his stony simian stare, the thick lips and zombie eyes, the look of vague dyspepsia that could be anything from fear to constipation.

Yeah.

Now the film received two Academy Award nominations, Best Art Direction and Best Score.

Kirsten Dunst was nominated for a Golden Globe, I think robbed of a Best Supporting Actress nomination for this because she.

When did Anna Paquin win for the piano?

93.

Okay, so one year before.

Yeah, so I wonder if Anna Paquin's win

as the precocious child actress, Hollywood said, okay, it's cute.

We did it.

But some of us have been doing this for a long time, guys.

We want our hardware.

And yeah, the voters are notably a lot older than these children.

So I wonder if there was a little bit of a, we've been there.

We've done that.

I think Kirsten Dunst was absolutely robbed.

And also

Anna Paquin's great in the piano, but it is not this performance.

Kirsten Dunst believably plays a 100-year-old woman trapped inside of a child's body.

An 11-year-old and a hundred-year-old.

Yes.

She is absolutely incredible.

So interview with the vampire pulled in over $220 million worldwide, narrowly beating out Bram Stoker's Dracula for the title of highest-grossing R-rated vampire movie ever.

And I believe it was only recently dethroned from that title by what movie, Chris?

Big old

tripod Nosferatu?

Is that what we're talking about?

Certainly not.

We're talking about sinners.

Oh, sinners.

Okay.

Yes.

Yep.

That is R-rated vampire.

Which I think was way better than Nosferatu.

What did Nosferatu make?

Made 181.3.

So So

not as strong, but that's very good.

It's good, but Interview with the Vampire beat that in 1994.

Yes, that's true.

When people went to the theaters.

Sinner's accomplishment is

very impressive because we are in a post-COVID streaming world now and still people rush to theaters to see it.

That's right, because it was real good.

All right, Chris.

Well, that wraps up our coverage of Interview with the Vampire.

What went right?

I would like to give my what went right for this film to everybody below the line.

Yes.

If you worked on this movie in any capacity below the line, bravo.

This is,

to me,

I am so upset that I never got to see this in a theater.

I agree.

Almost physically upset.

The images are so

unbelievably beautiful and immersive, but not in any way distracting from the story.

It does not feel as if any department is attempting to stand out or outshine the rest of them.

It's so harmonious in the way that it is constructed.

And I worry that we're

the strength of the Hollywood system was that people

were brought up, you know, apprenticed in many of these roles.

And I think that we've started to move away from that because it's expensive and because people don't want to support unions and because Hollywood movies in this budget range specifically, right?

You know, the 40 to 70 million dollar movie, they're a bit of a rare breed now.

And

I don't think you see movies that look quite this good very often anymore.

I mean, Sinners looks great to its credit.

It does.

But man,

this movie is beautiful.

I think it will, it stands the test of time.

And a lot of early 90s movies don't.

And this movie does.

And it's just, so to anybody who worked on this below the line.

And also, of course, kudos to all the actors and Neil Jordan, et cetera.

But wow.

No, I agree with you.

What an incredible collaboration.

I agree.

Just incredible.

And just the scope of it is stunning.

It's magnificent.

And it never feels like, even when they do the montage of Claudia's drawings to show all the cities that they visit, because obviously they're not going to show all those cities.

It doesn't feel as if it's cheapening the story in any way.

No.

It doesn't feel like a shortcut.

It really, every decision that they make,

God, the catacombs, that sequence when they're bursting out of the coffins on fire and Brad Pitt's walking through the flames.

It's great.

And I will say to Brad Pitt's credit, when his character becomes more active,

he does get a lot better.

He's a lot more fun.

I will say, as soon as my what went right arrives on screen, he also lights up quite a bit.

My what went right is 100% Kirsten Dunst in this movie.

Once she lands this movie, you're like, okay, great.

We know where we're going now.

Yes.

This is great.

Without her, I don't think this movie works.

It's beautiful.

I think it would be fun to watch.

But if that role had been miscast, because she is a huge part of this movie, I understand she's a supporting actor, but.

She's the heart of the movie.

Yeah.

Basically, all of the action revolves around her in this movie.

Because her creation is kind of the original sin more than the creation of Louis.

Right.

And her death is

mortifying.

Yeah.

Technically impossible.

The sun would never go directly over the wall in Paris.

It's a little too high latitudinally.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

But no, it's and that image of her and her mother, the Pompeii-like image.

I mean, it's devastating.

I just think had that role been miscast, had that role been a child actor who was not able to

The thing about her is she seems so adult,

but in a way that makes sense in the context of the character.

Sometimes you watch child actors on screen and they seem adult in a way that feels icky, like they've been forced to grow up in a way that is not necessarily fun to watch.

There's almost like a pretension, like a self-awareness to them.

She doesn't really have that, I think, which is amazing that she manages to pull off the age of this character, the agelessness of this character.

And as you said, she remains an 11-year-old child while also carrying the weight of a century plus of life on her shoulders.

She's still petulant.

She still likes dolls.

And yet she has this sense of grief over the life that she's never going to live.

Right.

As she lives forever.

It's so complex and she's so good.

And I don't think anybody else could have done this.

I just think she is phenomenal.

So my what went right absolutely is Kirsten Dunst.

And as I said, I think she lights Brad Pitt up too.

I think that once she shows up, his performance gets way better.

Their scenes together are much better than his scenes solo with Lestat.

Yes, absolutely.

Although I do think he works better, again, at the very end when he meets Lestat in the old home and Lestat is rotting away, I think once Pitt's more secure with himself, I buy his character more.

Yeah, although I agree with you, I think he is the least successful opposite Tom Cruise

than anybody in this film.

He does better with Antonio Banderas.

He does better with Kirsten Dunst.

He does well with Stephen Ray, where they're mirroring each other.

That's fun.

I know.

Honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm just like, I think he just doesn't like Tom Cruise.

Yeah.

And that may have been what was happening.

Look, at the end of the day, it's a love story.

And so if your two characters in a love story don't have chemistry, which they kind of don't.

They kind of don't.

And that's a problem.

The thing with Banderis, Banderis has chemistry with everybody.

I know.

He really does because he's just, he's that charming and effortless in the way that he does it.

And Stephen Ray is kind of like that too.

Yeah.

And that's the, I think that's the tell of a real,

really seamlessly talented actor is that they can kind of spark chemistry with almost anybody.

Totally.

And Kirsten Dunce does it as an 11-year-old.

Yeah, she's so good.

She's so good.

But I just also like Kristen Dunce should not have had to be the person who was saying, maybe I shouldn't be kissing a 32-year-old man.

And so, again,

as much as we celebrate the performance, I'm very sorry that that, you know, was something she had to deal with in the movie.

Yes.

And I love her, and I think she deserves an Oscar, and it's got to be coming.

It's got to be coming.

As she just said recently, give her Minecraft too.

As she said, I'd like to do a movie and just make some money.

Good.

Give her some money.

I hope she injects up that Minecraft redo their kitchen.

Absolutely.

What kind of Minecraft player are you?

Well, Lizzie, before we dive into next week, I did want us to do, since you're such a vampire fan, I made a list of my top five vampire movies.

I also watched Neil Jordan's Byzantium because I'd never seen it and I was curious.

If you guys are interested, it does feel a bit like he is making the gender swapped version a little bit of Interview with a Vampire.

It's Gemma Archerton and Sercia Ronin.

It almost feels like a continuation of Claudia's story with Madeline, if they had continued on.

Also, you could have called it Bordello of Blood because Jemma Archerton is a vampire who runs a whorehouse in the film.

Great.

Excuse me, a sex worker joint.

I didn't even know what to call it.

Okay, top five vampire films.

Do you want me to go first, Lizzie?

No, I want to go first.

So I'm not going to rank them because I can't.

I love them all, but these are my top five films.

Interview with the Vampire absolutely is on this list.

I genuinely, genuinely love this movie.

It's inspired me to finally start reading the book, which I'm really enjoying.

I'm really enjoying the show.

I'm in an Ann Rice kind of mood this October.

Let the Right One In, the Swedish original.

It's on my list.

It is so fabulous, listeners.

If you have not watched this, please go watch it.

There is a sequence towards the end of the movie in a swimming pool that I will not spoil for you, but it is one of the most beautiful and horrifying sequences I've ever seen on film.

Gotta put what we do in the shadows in here.

That movie will never not make me laugh.

I just think it's so funny.

Again, I also really enjoyed the TV spin-off of that.

I love living in that world.

Love Taiko Etiti.

Obviously, everybody involved in that production is incredible.

Also, I don't know if you've saw recently, but some very fun vampire cameos showed up at one of the vampire councils on that show, including, of course, Tilda Swinton.

And fun fact, Eric Northman did show up in an episode, Alexander Skarsgaard.

Isn't Evan Rachel Wood on the council?

I think she is, yeah.

They got like every famous vampire for one of the episodes, which is great.

I will put sinners on this list.

I thought it was fantastic.

I really enjoyed what they did with that movie.

I talked about this a little bit in the primer, but I think that that movie is maybe one of the first times since Interview with the Vampire that we are breaking away from the need to humanize vampires.

I think what Ryan Kugler did so brilliantly in that is that they are something completely other, both in the way that they think about their own community and their own purpose for afterlife and in the way that they operate and look and feel.

It's just so well done.

I really, really loved it.

The music is fantastic.

There is a sequence in it that shouldn't work, but it really does.

Anyway, sinners, wonderful.

And then, Chris, what would this list be without Twilight?

And yeah, I know everybody's

everybody's going to give me shit for this.

I don't care.

I love Twilight.

I think what Stephanie Meyer did, yes, it's a ripoff of everything.

No, it's not super original and yet it is.

No, it's not very well written and yet I read all of them.

And, you know, what Catherine Hardwick did with the first movie is just so fun.

I love it.

I love vampire baseball.

They are my comfort movies.

I can put them on anytime and really enjoy them.

I used to like them ironically and now I like them

sincerely.

So, you know, that's just, that's just the way that it goes.

All right, Chris, what are your top five?

So we overlapped on two.

Okay.

And I'll leave Interview with the Vampire out, even though it probably would be in my top five.

So the the two we overlapped on were Let the Right One In and What We Do in the Shadows.

But I anticipated we might.

So I will actually omit those because I want to give some people a couple more suggestions.

So in no particular order, Near Dark, Catherine Bigelow, Bill Paxton.

I knew you were going to choose that one.

I love Near Dark.

I think it's great.

Another great child vampire performance in that movie.

Anna Lily Amirpoor's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.

Weird, like revisionist black and white Iraqi vigilante.

Western vampire van.

Yeah, it's great.

Thirst,

the Korean vampire film from 2009.

I highly recommend it.

Very weird.

And then, okay, a couple that maybe folks like or, you know, or maybe not.

The Addiction, Christopher Walkin.

Have you seen that one, Lizzie?

No.

Very strange.

Mid-90s independent film.

I don't want to spoil anything too bad.

And then the last one, because it's just so ridiculous.

And this is not a great movie, but I think it's so fun.

Have you ever seen Daybreakers with Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawk and Sam Neal about a world where everyone's vampires and they're running out of blood?

Great.

And Willem Dafoe is like a vampire hunter and Ethan Hawk is a vampire scientist who's trying to make a synthetic blood.

And Sam Neal is the equivalent of like RFK Jr.

basically saying, we need pure blood.

And it's, it's this Australian directing duo.

They did a couple other films with Ethan Hawk.

And I'm totally blanking on the name of the time travel one that they did.

But anyway, it's so fun.

It's so ridiculous.

It's so over the top.

It's so goofy.

And so I'll just throw that one out there as well.

All right.

I'll put it on my list.

I'm going to add two more honorable mentions.

If you want to do a massive vampire movie marathon, which I think we have to mention, The Lost Boys.

It's very fun.

I do love that one.

I think it owes a lot to Lestat, even in the style of The Lost Boys.

And then Jim Jarmush's Only Lovers Left Alive.

Yeah.

Got to throw that one out here too, which stars actual vampire Tilda Swinton.

And Tom Hiddelson, kind of too.

It's true.

Last thing I'll mention, if you guys are interested in any other Breakfast on Pluto is pretty good.

Neil Jordan with Killian Murphy.

It's great.

And then one of the movies that he did that I think is really overlooked because it was overshadowed by In Bruges, which I think was the same year, is Ondine, which is Colin Farrell.

And

I think it's called a Selkie mythology.

It's a bit of a mermaid mythology.

It's about an Irish fisherman who's a former alcoholic who rescues a woman and believes maybe she's she's a mermaid.

It's actually, at least the first hour, is a really wonderful magical realism love story.

And Colin Farrell, I think of 2009 as kind of the rebirth of Colin Farrell year because you had him Bruce and you had Ondeen.

And he's so good in it and he's so lovelorn and hang dog.

So I would recommend that one as well.

Great.

All right.

That wraps up our vampire coverage, but we've got a whole month of spooky movies coming up for you all, spooky scaries.

And Chris, what do we have coming up next?

Sweet dreams are made of these.

Freddy's going to kill you in your sleep.

Nightmare in Elm Street.

Great.

Very excited.

Very excited.

We are excited to get into the birth of New Line Cinema.

Fantastic.

Well, there are several ways to support this podcast.

You can tell a friend.

You can leave a rating or review.

You can subscribe on whatever podcatcher you are listening to this on.

You can also get some bonus content.

And there are a couple different ways to do that.

You can, of course, join our Patreon, and Chris will tell you momentarily what those tiers mean and what you get with the different Patreon subscriptions.

But now, guys, you can also just subscribe on Apple Podcasts, and you will get at least one, more likely two bonus episodes every single month.

And again, those are paywalled.

So you need to either subscribe on Apple Podcasts or subscribe to our Patreon.

Chris, what can they get on Patreon?

If you head to www.patreon.com/slash what went wrong podcast, you can join for free and just get some free musings and updates from us, mostly me.

If you join for a dollar, you can vote on films that we cover.

Nightmare on Elm Street was the winner of a recent poll.

For $5, you not only get an ad-free feed or bonus episodes.

If you sign up, you can see a live stream of our first live show, October 9th, Thursday at the Caveat Theater.

in Manhattan, 9.30 p.m.

Eastern Standard Time.

We are live streaming it to Patreon for our $5 members or higher.

And of course, for $50, you can get a shout-out

from the Vampire Lestat himself or herself.

All right, I will try to approach this performance with the same gusto that Tom Cruise did.

Here I go, my attempt to convince Anne Rice from the afterlife that I too could play the vampire Lestat.

I assume I need no introduction: Adam Moffat,

Adrian Peng Corea, Angeline Renee Cook, Ben Schindelman, I'm gonna give you the choice I never had, Ben.

Blaise Ambrose, Brian Donahue, Brittany Morris, Brooke, Brooke, Brooke, Brooke, still whining Brooke, Cameron Smith, C.

Grace B.

Chris Leal, Chris Zaka.

I've had to listen to this whining for centuries.

D.B.

Smith, David Friscalanti, Darren and Dale Conkling, Don Scheibel,

Ellen Singleton, M.

Zodia.

There's life in these old hands still.

Evan Downey, film it yourself.

Galen and Nigel, the broken glass kids.

Grace Potter, half greyhound.

Why are you only half a greyhound?

Is it because I ate the other half?

I would never, that's only for stupid Louis.

Jake Killen, James McAvoy, Jason Frankel, Jen Mastromarino, J.J.

Rapido, Jory Hillpiper, Jose Salto.

Jose, what have we told you?

Never in the house!

Kay Canaba, Kate Elrington, Kathleen Olson, Wendy Elgeschlager-McCoy.

An old world vampire, are we, Wendy?

Felicia G, Lan Rillard, Lena, Lydia Howes, Matthew Jacobson, Michael McGrath, Nate the Knife, Nathan Senteno, Rosemary Southward, Roe Ger,

Sadie, just Sadie, Scary Carey, Sermon Chinani, Steve Winterbauer, Suzanne Johnson, and the Provost family.

The O's sound like O's and I bet you taste delicious.

All right.

Thank you all so much for listening and we will be back next week to watch Johnny Depp get eaten by a bed.

Bye.

Go to patreon.com slash whatwentwrong podcast to support what went wrong and check out our website at whatwentwrongpod.com.

What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer.

Editing and music by David Bowman with research from Laura Woods and additional editing from Karen Krepsaw.

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