Impact of Strikes on ‘Interview With the Vampire’ Season 2 Scene

Fans of television and movies know that, for some key moments in our favorite stories, screenwriters work hard so that the emotion of a scene is properly conveyed. For the Season 2 ending of Interview With the Vampire, showrunner Rolin Jones had to find a balance between finally reuniting Lestat (Sam Reid) and Louis (Jacob Anderson) and conveying each other’s mixed emotions about their meeting. Inside our SDCC studio, the series cast members and creator spared some time to talk about working on the project over the past years.

During the interview, Jones revealed to our producer Perri Nemiroff why the Season 2 finale originally felt unsatisfying and the changes he felt he needed to make in order to deliver a thrilling wrap-up for Lestat and Louis’ season-long arc. He also broke down how the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike impacted the development in Season 2, particularly the reunion scene at the end of the season:

“It was a gun to my head. We had a strike, and we had to chuck out scripts really, really quickly. You’re also saving it, right? I know that scene, from the beginning when we took this on, would eventually happen. Three years later, we’re shooting it. Generally speaking, I had Lestat’s track okay. There were some additions I ended up making. When we were finally allowed to come back and start rewriting, I got on the phone with both of them to talk about the scene because it was clear. We were all looking at it, going, ‘This is not working.’ It seems so obvious and dumb and so blatant right now, but the scene needed to be about forgiveness and contrition, and it wasn’t coming out of Louis’ mouth the way it should have. I have two really lovely actors who guided me that way, and we got there together.”

Additionally, Jones talked about the experience of working on Interview with the Vampire for the past several years and how the relationship between the series’ team evolved over the course of two seasons — and now the third that is in production. The showrunner revealed that “doing art with the same people for a chunk of your life, like three years, you’re forced family, and then it does begin to feel like family. You have this intimate relationship on a page with these characters and then you have the people themselves. It was very clear after three years, they had earned a slice of pie that no one else should know about and that was just theirs.”

For the “no one else should know” part, Jones added that he’ll “never reveal” some secrets that might hint at what direction the series and the Anne Rice Immortal Universe is heading. At the same time, it’s always nice to know that there is a plan in motion to make all those different TV shows work together.

Season 3 of Interview with the Vampire is yet to get a release window. You can stream all episodes now.

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Source: Collider