Louis: 49 years and thousands of miles
removed from the room we shared in San Francisco.
I offer for your journalistic pleasures my life story.
Take us back to the beginning of this story of butchery.
- I love you, Louis. - I love you, too, baby brother.
I could not join the transformation
of those in attendance.
He would not let me.
Come to me. Be my companion.
Session ten the vampire Louis and the vampire Armand.
Armand: I failed Louis once in my life.
It wasn't in San Francisco.
Why did I owe you my one act of cowardice?
You broke one of the great laws.
I don't know any great laws. Lestat never told me shit.
Louis: We were on trial for murder.
- You were forced to watch. - Or they'd kill me.
His name was Magnus.
He took me from my room as I kicked and screamed.
- I want to get out alive. - You want a book.
What say you, for the vampire, Louis de Pointe du Lac?
- Banishment. - Banishment.
All: Banishment!
A sentence worse than death.
You saved Louis.
- Yes. - No, no!
But not her.
Armand: I could not prevent it.
A quiet, easeful death.
What else would it be?
I had nowhere to go.
No one to talk to.
She was dead.
I knew it.
Claudia was dead.
I could feel it.
Like I couldn't feel my hands...
or my back.
Like I could feel my heart...
pumping slower every night.
Or my broken arm resetting itself.
My ankles... healed in the coffin,
the flesh having...
circled around the insulating rocks of my death bed.
Are they still there, right now, in your feet?
If you took an X-ray they'd look like little cancers.
He could remove them anytime he wanted to.
Or maybe he has
and he's been lying to you all these years for effect.
What were the consequences of you saving Louis?
Demotion.
Ridicule.
Santiago had suspected I had rigged the audience
to spare Louis's life.
So he made certain I would not forget
my insubordination as part of my penance.
Darkness was delirium.
I tried to paint alternatives.
Lucid what ifs.
Wear a different suit the night you meet Lestat at the Fair Play.
Snatch the piece of candy back from the barber
when you're seven years old.
Would I have been stronger sooner?
Would I have resisted Lestat two decades later?
Snatch the candy!
Be the man in the different suit.
But the suit changes nothing,
and again...
I'm kissing Lestat on the altar.
I'm killing Lestat but won't burn him.
I'm dragged off stage...
and buried alive.
Penny candy's not the answer.
Claudia is dead.
The worst nights were the pragmatic ones.
A rock shifts by my knee.
Could I make another rock move?
Could I free my knee to exploit
the craftsmanship of the coffin?
But it was all ravings.
The rock hadn't moved.
The craftsmanship was solid.
- Claudia is dead.
When a vampire starts screaming from starvation,
he hasn't much time left.
I didn't know I was screaming.
I had no energy to scream.
If I had I would have used it
to ignite the clothes on my body, self-immolate.
What was left to endure for?
Claudia is dead.
Good day, master.
And as Louis withered away,
life in the theater returned to abnormal.
The old plays were remounted,
the pack hunts revitalized,
all under the increasingly self-satisfied eye of Santiago.
You ruined his play.
They didn't get to kill Louis on stage.
And Santiago improvised a worse death.
He had outwitted me...
hurt me deeply.
And I played up that hurt.
My subjugation cemented his power amongst the coven.
So how did you get him out?
I placed a sacrifice in an old vault coffin.
Swapped that coffin for Louis's.
I was the defeated vampire, Mr. Molloy.
No one was looking.
Uh-huh.
Does anyone ever ask Lazarus if he wanted to be woken?
I don't read the Bible much anymore.
No one gives a shit about Lazarus's point of view
is what I remember.
I tasted the blood.
I knew it was his.
"Why?" I thought, "Claudia is dead."
I was dead.
But my rage...
My rage had risen.
Followed closely behind by my madness.
They moved from shadow to shadow,
towards the cemetery in Montmartre.
Why that place, it wasn't certain.
It wasn't safe to return to the apartment.
That would imply it was rational.
Proximity to the theater?
Maybe.
My rage had been denied blood.
- My rage was lightheaded.
My rage killed without
a single measure of satisfaction.
My rage found a forgotten crypt
amongst the forgotten dead.
My rage hid its killings there.
Do your job.
And conspired with my madness
on a plan for retribution.
Hans.
Sam... Sam.
Quang. Hans.
Luchenbaum!
Du-du-du! Tuan.
Basilic. Planche.
Eglee. Merde'em.
Santiago!
Armand... Sam. Sam!
Sam, Hans, Tuan, Quang!
Meow! Sam, Hans, Tuan, Quang, Planche,
Estelle, Quang, Sam...
Oh...
There's a lot of 'em in there.
Some'll wake before it gets 'em.
I should think about taking heads.
Speak English!
You're not a farmer. I would use the machete.
One of them tries to escape?
You should stand at the top of the stairs.
Behind the stairs.
Cut their feet off if they go up
but in range if they run downstairs for the sewers.
That's better.
Louis. Louis.
Planche is a big boy. Gustave is strong.
- Why haven't you left Paris? - If you get in a fight or delay,
- you'll be consumed with them. - Pour more gas on this,
and this one... I'm gonna need to borrow your truck.
- Louis. - I don't have any use for it now.
I know you can hear me. You must leave Paris.
Maybe you should answer him. He knows the theater more than you.
Maybe you should shut up!
Louis, save yourself.
They're going to find out what I did. Do not worry about me.
I ain't fucking worried about you!
Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
A-huh. A-huh.
Sam tossed her in the rat box, in the rat box was Sam.
Hans hauled me off, ugly costume.
Tuan wants to die. Quang hauled me out.
- Wants to die. - Louis.
Louis, please listen to me.
If I could explain to you the events,
I think you would understand why it was I acted as I did.
I know you will never forgive me.
- I am not seeking forgiveness. - Shhhhh!
Shh-shh-shh.
Louis? Is that you?
Did you save me at the trial?
Yes.
Did you pull me out of the wall?
Yes.
I could not save her.
If I thought there was a way, I would have...
Shut up. Shut...
How ever you manage it,
do not find yourself at the theater tomorrow night at curfew.
Okay.
Uh, did you know he was going to burn it down?
No.
But I could sense the fatalism in his thoughts.
- You warned him. - Yes.
He'd already betrayed you once.
They were his coven for hundreds of years.
Why risk it?
My rage and madness were asleep?
It was a test?
I don't remember.
If you're wrong, you're dead.
There was 13 of them and one of me.
I was going to die either way.
Same question to you.
They were your coven for hundreds of years.
You had no feelings for any of them?
I had complicated feelings.
But you didn't warn any of them?
No.
Thirteen to one.
Maybe you were hedging your bets?
See who emerges from the ash heap.
I didn't know his plan.
I had shut my mind off to him, Daniel.
My prevailing thought was...
if I am not with him, I am nothing.
"...him, I am nothing."
Okay, so what was the plan?
The plan?
I was going to die
and I was going to take as many of them with me as I could.
When a vampire commits himself to coffin,
all the senses collapse into submission
and the dark boundaries of the world begin to stretch out
in all directions.
And in this state,
in the lair where they slept,
I could have been a marching band,
or a jet engine taking off a tarmac.
Until Paris spun back round to the sun,
the advantage was mine.
Six by fire, two by blade,
one by a combination of the two,
no legs, one arm, still clutching onto his clarinet.
Nine in all.
And with no sign of Armand or Lestat,
that meant four had escaped.
Two out the front, two through the sewers.
But I had planned for contingencies.
It had to be the London coven!
They have always been jealous of us!
It's because we started speaking English.
It's because we took over from Armand
and they smelled weakness, you idiot!
Or maybe it was Eglee?
- Eglee?! - She never got over you stealing Santiago.
You try drinking from Gustave after...
- It was London! - Arson is an act of passion.
Celeste?
Estelle?!
Hello, Francis.
You!
Did I wake you?
I tried to be quiet coming and going,
but all those iron joists cracking
and load-bearing beams falling down on you, well...
- Is your companion with you? - Didn't you hear?
We broke up.
Oh, I rather doubt that.
Hard to hold hands after he killed my sister and fledgling but think what you want.
Don't let him take credit for the workman role he played, Louis.
It was me that planned their deaths.
It was me that gave Claudia that hot exit from the garden!
Come to me.
Did Armand tell you what we did with her ashes
after he pulled you from the wall?
Come to me, Francis.
We used her as eye shadow
for the next month's performances.
We put them in the pepper shaker for the popcorn
we sold in the aisles.
- And some nights, Louis... - Come to me, Francis.
I put a pinch of them in my fist
before I closed my coffin at night.
I would spit in them
and I'd use her hot, wet ashes to pleasure myself.
Come to me, Francis.
It's Santiago to you, you firebug bugger!
Nah! That's a Spaniard's name you took.
Took it to forget who you were, Francis.
Took it to compensate for what God denied you, Francis.
That joke in between your legs
and that farm girl Lenora who couldn't keep quiet about it.
She only thought it was small 'cause my testicles are so enormous.
Then maybe it was the limp applause Francis got
when Francis finally got on stage in London.
For a week, as an understudy for Osric.
Or was it the nature of your transformation
that made you change your name?
The desperate begging, the urine racing down your leg
as Francis desperately tried to take back his wish to be a vampire.
I can see your maker's face now,
the embarrassment washing over it as you ask...
"Can I be c-called Santi-a-a-a-go?"
Your maker's voice as he walked away.
"I don't care what you call yourself."
Come to me!
Say that shit about Claudia to my face.
Pre-dinner martini, a touch more vermouth
and the newspaper you asked for this morning, Mr. Molloy.
Santiago's failure to protect his coven,
how quickly he ran to save his own flesh,
filled him with unworthiness.
And it made him an uncomplicated seduction.
He brought a cloak to a knife fight.
And all my rage and madness exited my body.
And nothing replaced it.
When did you start lying to me?
The night of Madeleine's transformation.
A while back, then.
We parted at Sacré-Coeur.
I went back to make sure the coven would keep curfew.
Let you do what you were going to do in safety.
They were all on stage, waiting for me.
Told me they had done a rewrite,
tossed the script at my feet and...
I saw the title.
And I thought...
it's my coven of 200 years...
or him.
And at the time, I could not count on your love lasting as long.
You rehearsed it with Lestat?
They rehearsed it with him.
I stayed in my coffin when I was there.
Hmm.
And when you spent nights over here?
I lied to you, over and over.
Didn't once think, in all that time, telling me?
Make a different plan with me?
I will spend my life making it up to you.
You'll never make it up to me.
I know.
Is Lestat still in Paris?
You'll never be able to kill him.
That wasn't my question.
Yes, he's still here.
Wake me when it's night again.
Ask for it, child.
The light's going out of your blue eyes...
like all the summer days are gone.
Was it a good day's rest?
Does it take a lot out of you?
Destroying everything in your wake?
Well, almost everything.
You look small.
Hmm.
He's come home.
This was Magnus's lair.
Some distance between the happy couple.
Details left to work out after the homicidal frolic?
Is this where he kept you, chained to the wall?
No.
This was for the disappointments.
The ones before me.
He had a knack for design. Nordic blonds on walls.
Dirty blonds in piles,
right about where the gremlin stands now.
I don't care.
Oh...
I came here to have a think...
on my origins.
Why I do what I do.
- Why I-- - Burned your daughter alive?
Why you rehearsed a play
that would burn your daughter alive?
Why you crossed an ocean to rehearse a play
that would burn your daughter alive?
The Great Laws.
What fucking law did you ever follow, Lestat?
I've come to kill you.
I have the blood of Magnus in me.
Magnus burned.
I have the blood of Akasha in me.
He doesn't know who that is?
But the fact, in and of itself,
makes your immediate desire an impossibility.
And I have to be willing...
and I'm not in the mood.
- My blood is your blood. - Hmm.
And yet...
Here's your death, Lestat.
He and I are going to spend the rest of our lives together.
And wherever your miserable life takes you,
whoever you find to endure time with,
whatever pale proxy of me,
I'll be with him.
Just wanted you to know that.
Well...
Enjoy him.
Let's see how long it holds.
An odd phrase.
What do you think he meant by that, Louis?
It's fairly obvious.
He didn't think we would make it.
Seventy-seven years.
- Almost to the day. - We left him there.
Walked Paris one last time, completely silent.
Stopped for a moment in the Place de la Concorde,
the Luxor Obelisk.
I stood staring up at it as cars and carriages circled us.
I said, telepathically... Was it telepathically?
I don't remember.
I said, "Let's go see Egypt."
Then sailed port to port.
Settled in New York a good while.
San Francisco.
And we did.
Here, there, everywhere and Dubai.
And that's the end of it.
There's nothing else.
End of session.
Ah!
He loved you.
I can say that now.
He loved you a great deal.
It must have been terrible for him to see us off that night.
Mind if I ask a few follow-up questions?
There's just some things I've been jotting down along the way.
Yeah, of course.
It's just small stuff like, um...
Like, you and the tractor salesman
in the bar in New Orleans, before you killed him.
You said that Lestat telepathically told you
that you were scaring the salesman.
But a maker can't do that anymore
after transformation, right?
Uh... Yeah.
I don't know. Maybe he whispered it to me.
Yeah, I figured as much.
Uh...
You said that four escaped the theater.
Celeste, Estelle, Santiago and...
Sam.
Right. The vampire Sam Barclay.
We never quite figured out how he did it.
Did you ever... get to him?
No. Time heals, Daniel.
- I believe he's a DJ now. - A DJ?
He wears a decorative helmet on his head when he performs.
Does he? It's funny 'cause, Sam's in two places at once
at one point in your story.
He's guarding Armand in the theater box.
But you also have him helping to bury you below stage.
- He was with me in the box. - Yeah. He was with Armand in the box.
Oh. Maybe he did a quick vamp back and forth?
I just got it wrong.
Rashid, shall we begin dinner preparations?
- Yes, sir. - I do hope you'll join us.
I'd be honored.
Okay. Um, let me just look at my list one more time here.
Another New Orleans thing.
I'm... I'm sorry, I'm jumping all over the place here,
but the night that Lestat
brings all those soldiers home and you tell him to throw them out.
How many soldiers did he mind fuck out of the townhouse that night?
- I don't know. - Ten? Fifteen?
Uh, more like 30.
Huh.
"Huh"?
Oh, well, it seems to me, I mean, back to the trial again,
it seems to me that there was
more than one person in the theater that night
who could have saved you.
- Dan... Daniel. - I know. I know.
It's my job. I'm built this way.
I know. It's a stretch but...
It's in your nature, Mr. Molloy.
Couldn't get out the door without lobbing one more bomb.
You said it yourself just now, he loved Louis.
Lestat would have tried to save him as much as you did.
And he certainly would have made it known that he had.
Shall we takes these follow-ups and specious theories to the dining room?
We have something special prepared for you, Daniel.
Uh... "Santiago should...
hand the diary into the audience.
Have them feel the evidence in their hands.
This is too early for Lestat
to acknowledge Louis.
Keep the tension. Have him look at Louis later,
the moment he describes meeting him in New Orleans."
These are just some notes along the margins here.
Uh... "We need an animation here.
It's not clear how extreme the hoarding was."
Where did you get that?
Read it for yourself.
That's when the black angel came!
But he came back.
He did. With her.
Oh...
And now you rise from your chair and walk towards Claudia.
Hmm?
And how do suppose that you will keep her quiet in this moment?
Hmm?
One of your cheap theatrical--
The judges will fog her mind.
You have no idea of Claudia's strength!
He didn't witness the play.
He directed the play!
What say you for the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac,
guilty or not guilty?
- Guilty! - Guilty!
And the sentence?
- De... - De...
Banishment.
- Banishment. - Banishment!
Banishment!
Where does the bullshit start, Armand, Amadeo, Arun?
You were supposed to die with Claudia.
He didn't save you, Lestat did!
He just took credit for it
when the opportunity presented itself.
And you wasted everyone
who could have told you differently.
Seventy-seven years based on a seismic lie.
- It's a forgery, Louis. - It's from the Talamasca.
Sam was their guy in Paris, he gave it to them,
they gave it me here.
Louis.
Louis!
This was Santiago's doing.
Just like he put me to work in the wet room after.
- He wanted me to suffer. - Don't!
One night, 70 years ago. You are over this, Louis!
The pain of it has left you.
Don't let an insignificant detail, delivered from am insignificant mortal...
You have forgiven me for what part I played in her death!
And time has opened back up to us
and we are once again teachers of one another.
Louis, everything that gives you happiness gives me... Louis.
Rashid?
I'm guessing Rashid left after he brought me the newspaper.
You're not to touch him. Do you understand?
You harm him in any way,
I will kill you. Do you understand?
I'm leaving now.
When I return, you need to be gone.
You should gather your things from your room.
I'll arrange a car and a plane to take you home.
I'll see there's ten million dollars wired into your account.
Thank you.
I was hoping the 'canes would wait until July.
I had two on the floor for New Edition at the Essence Festival.
But that's all shuttered up now.
Two on the floor, must have cost ya.
Wasn't cheap.
Me and my babe was on the bad side.
Then I see they got New Edition headlining the festival.
She had a thing for Ralph when she was young.
Can you believe that, Ralph?
Then I think, well, each one on the floor
is gonna open back the door.
- She'll be back. - She'll be back for Ralph!
So, answer me this.
How come you coming in when everybody else is gettin' out?
This Odette, said too be at least a three.
Could be a four.
First time in New Orleans?
No. Did my luggage arrive?
Yes, sir. Two bags and an oversized crate, early in the morning.
It's all waiting for you in your suite.
Thank you.
Very generous, Mr. Du Lac, thank you, sir.
Your card. Your key.
We're happy to have you as long as you'll have us,
but we are boarding up the hotel for the hurricane.
So, we're asking our guests
to fill out this liability waiver.
No problem.
Now, everybody, if you want to turn your attention to the right,
at them bit green pearly gates,
this is 1132 Royal Street,
home of the most infamous party ever thrown in New Orleans.
This is where two dozen members of high society,
they walked in them doors right there.
Ain't nobody ever seen them again.
Take a picture if you need to.
The year is 1940.
The man that owned this townhome and that year's King of Raj
went by the name Sebastian Melmoth.
Now, now, history's going have him go down as a little somethin' different.
A Monsieur Lesander Lioncourt.
He was a so-called Frenchman.
A so-called seller of industrial machinery.
But now tell me, tell the Crime Dawg,
why would a man, a known hoarder and an infamous recluse
be named King of Raj in the first place?
Why, Crime Dawg?
Sebastian knew a fella by the name of Tom Anderson.
He was a former Louisiana State Representative
and a full-time Bourbon Street gangster.
Mr. Melmoth, he wasn't alone in 1132.
Also, in residence was a local Creole hustler
and his little child bride, they were running a voodoo cult
in the back rooms above the courtyard garden.
Yes, they were. Now, it's Mardi Gras, 1940.
Mr. Melmoth and Tom Anderson, they brought back
the who's who of who dat.
The next morning, couldn't nobody find head or hairpiece of none of 'em.
What did they find? Blood in between the floorboards
of three different rooms,
bits of indeterminate pieces of bone
inside the factory-sized incinerator.
Why did Tom Anderson, Mr. Melmoth,
the hustler and the child bride lure these particular citizens
to this house of lies and intrigue?
Whoo-hoo-hoo!
Saw a crane smashed into a low-rise.
Big chunks of shit, trash cans, mail boxes,
blowing around everywhere.
- It's fucking wild out there. - Shut up.
Out there, running rats.
Goddamn hurricane out there. Shut up?
I mean, we should be, out of town is where we should be.
Shut up? Crazy old man, playing...
Who you?
Hello.
Who's he?
Louis.
That's Louis?
He's Louis?!
Get out.
Get out? Where?!
I mean, there's a mad hurricane outside!
I keep fucking telling-- Oh, shit!
Goddamn it!
God!
Enjoy your rats, you French fucking...
Motherfucker!
The fire gift in your honor.
A wearisome fledgling.
All the millennials are.
But...
he is an excellent rat catcher.
Would you like one?
Hello, Lestat.
Hello, Louis.
Passing through?
No.
I came to see you.
Oh...
And what does your companion think of that?
I'm companion enough for myself now.
Hmm.
Good for you.
I'm sorry, I don't have much time.
I'm in the middle of rehearsing.
- Rehearsing? - I'm going on tour.
Argerich, she seems...
she seems to have retired and I thought...
who better than me to carry on the great work.
I just need about 50 more years of practice.
Siri, pause.
Did you save my life in Paris?
I gave you to Armand.
You tell me if that was saving.
Why didn't you say...
it was me who saved you, not him?
I don't like to point out my virtues.
Besides...
I knew you'd figure it out.
And look...
you have, I was right.
All hail me.
Been enduring here?
Not enduring.
Living.
Here in New Orleans the whole time?
It's my home.
I am she, she is me.
I didn't know it was a gift.
I wore it like a curse.
I was selfish.
I...
I tried to make nights awful for you.
I see.
I wanted you to suffer.
Because I was... suffering.
Oh...
Shall we list all the ways we have wronged each other
and why it'll never be right between monstrous--
I came to thank you.
For the gift you offered me.
The gift I denied.
For the nights in front of me,
where I might learn to live honestly.
Thank you.
September 8th...
1973.
September 8th, 1973.
It was 11:07 here.
It would have been 9:07 in San Francisco.
Armand called me.
Were you there?
Yeah.
Did you hurt yourself?
I was lost.
I was in a dark way and...
I was thinking about...
I can't... I can't get her out of my mind.
You have the same problem?
Yeah.
I can't, Louis.
- I can't... - Hey, hey.
Hey, it's not on you.
You hear me?
I carried her home.
I made you turn her.
And saved her from a fire...
so a half century later she could...
She looked at me, at the end...
like a child...
looking to her father.
But I was never...
And we are back in five, four, three, two...
Welcome back, Atlanta, and welcome to my next guest,
the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist
and author of the current bestselling fictional memoir
"Interview With The Vampire", Daniel Molloy.
Thanks, Leonard. It's a memoir, it's not fiction.
That is one of the main topics of debate regarding your book.
Is it true or is it a joke?
Well, I've sold five million books in four months...
- Yes. - You can't see the forest for the trees
they killed printing it. Hey, Atlanta, check out
- the book fair this weekend. - It is gonna be quite something.
- The Washington Post... - The Bezos Bugle...
That's a good one.
It called your book a sophomoric footnote
in an otherwise stellar career.
- A conceptually weird... - Middle finger
to the publishing industry that turned its back on him
a decade ago. I don't read reviews.
Is it true you shopped this book to every major publisher
in the country and the UK?
- What is this? - It's a legitimate question.
No, it's not. I mean,
you haven't even told your viewers what the book is about.
Good point! The book purports to be an interview with an actual vampire.
Oh, I know what it's about, it's about you, Leonard,
trying to go viral with your dinky little provincial news desk.
Yeah, I did... I did interview an actual vampire.
Oh, here's the camera. I interviewed an actual vampire...
Actually two vampires, a species that's lived among us for centuries
and it's supported by a mountain of historical documentation.
- You took a noble career. - You didn't even read it.
- Put it in the shredder. - You didn't read the book!
You were one of our finest,
and now you're a Bigfoot hunter
- chasing Jesus's bloodline. - Hey, man! I've sold...
millions of these books, more than Johnny Grisham,
or Prince Harry and the prisoner of Santa Barbara.
It's a great f-BLEEP read and you're a hack.
What a delight.
Thanks so much for being here, Daniel Molloy.
- Can't wait to read the book. - BLEEP.
Page after page of heresy.
Run him down, all of us.
Rip out him fangs and cut out him tongue.
- Louis! - Hunt him down!
Louis. Louis Du Lac. It's me.
Listen, your royalty checks keep bouncing back to me, man.
I need a forwarding address.
Why not send them to your editors at the Talamasca?
The shit they made me take out.
No editors next book, I promise.
There won't be a next book. There shouldn't have been a first book.
You want the ten million back, just say it, man.
Send me an address.
You know where I live.
I really wouldn't be staying put if I were you.
I'm guessing you haven't heard from my maker?
- No. - Fucking asshole.
I'm sorry you were burdened out of spite.
I shouldn't have left you alone with him.
Make it up to me. We'll do a follow-up book.
What do you want, Daniel?
I'm worried about you.
I'm fine.
I keep hearing the other vamps talking about you.
They're really fucking pissed off about our book.
And you want to write another with me?
Sequels, audio books, sex toys.
Yeah.
You've become a good killer.
You still haven't read it, have you?
It's the top of my stack.
You said that last month.
It's getting early here, Daniel.
Get out of Dubai, Louis.
Hey, where did you get those headphones?
- - Kill him.
Stuff him in the oven like a...
We'll all get a chop.
Burn him!
A hairy, naked banquet!
Burn it!
The skyscraper. The skyscraper. The skyscraper!
- Quiet now. - Who is that?
Is that him?
All of you.
- Is that him? - Shh-shh-shh.
This is the vampire Louis Du Lac.
I live in the penthouse apartment
at the Al Sharaf Towers in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates.
The security staff here is robust but mortal.
My front door is always unlocked,
as are the windows to my balcony,
which were designed with a protective film coating
for those of us "sun-challenged".
So for all you cowards out there talking shit,
talking about taking a run at me,
hear this now and hear it plain.
I own the night.
Johnson: And that's the end of it, and there's nothing else.
That's the end of our season.
It would appear that all is lost.
And these significant characters,
who hopefully have entertained
and fascinated us for all of this season,
come to their end.
Claudia is dead. I was dead.
Louis feels deeply responsible for her,
feels responsible for the good things that happen
and the bad things that happen to her.
Louis: My rage had risen,
followed closely behind by my madness.
However you meant it, do not find yourself
at the theater tomorrow night at curfew.
Burning the theater down physically was really difficult
because keep in mind,
we were just lighting fires in an old wooden building,
and we had firemen and everybody standing by.
Every time a match was lit, there were three people there.
LePere-Schloop: We knew that there was going to be a fire.
So the other thing that we did
is we put a layer of cement board
underneath all of our flooring.
We put cement board behind walls
so that even if our finishes were wood,
there was something underneath it
that was going to help with fire prevention
in the existing structure.
The coven got what they deserved,
every one of them.
Burn it down. Let them burn.
He did what I might do.
That's his sister, his daughter, his companion.
And they were very vengeful.
So occasionally an eye for an eye.
Louis: Nine in all. That meant four had escaped.
Anderson: In shooting that scene.
It's such an iconic part of the book,
but it's also, like, a very iconic part of the film,
and I think we've done something different.
Louis: Hello, Francis.
Anderson: Louis has just left the theater.
Now he's on his way to get Santiago,
who's the ringleader.
Louis: Come to me, Francis.
It's Santiago to you!
An understudy for Osric.
Anderson: I think his main plan, really,
with Santiago is to just, like, wind him up,
is to bait him, lure him to Louis,
and then chop his head off.
I am about to film my death.
Was that a big spoiler?
No, it isn't, not if you've read the books.
It's a combination of stuntman, me, and a fake head,
which fortunately, I worked with the makeup designer, Tami Lane,
on a different show and they did a full cast of my head,
so they had one in stock.
He's made of rubber, so he's pretty solid.
He's really hard to destroy, just like Ben Daniels.
So I was really glad I didn't have to do it again.
It's so awful if you're claustrophobic.
You're encased in gel and plaster
with just tiny holes through your nostrils for 15 minutes.
That's just what I sent him.
That was our conversation about this scene,
was that picture.
He just texted it to me.
Man: Three, two, one. Action!
Given what a wonderful character Ben created
with Santiago, it was fitting to give him
a sort of real cinematic death.
Say that about Claudia to my face.
Ask for it, child.
The light's going out of your blue eyes.
The Louis and Lestat relationship in episode 8
is lovely conclusion
to the full two seasons of their relationship.
At the beginning in Magnus' lair,
Louis doesn't know how much Lestat did to save Louis' life.
He does -- He's not aware of that at that point.
Louis: That why you crossed an ocean?
To rehearse a play
that would burn your daughter alive?
Louis really just does the thing
that he thinks will most destroy Lestat,
which is leave him...
Here's your death, Lestat.
...and leave him for someone else.
You know, Lestat's deep, deep insecurity
is the thing Louis just pours salt on in that moment.
Louis doesn't have all the information,
just to clarify.
Reid: Lestat really thinks that Louis knows
that he saved him, so he's quite surprised
when he turns up with Armand,
and Louis' blaming him for Claudia's death,
which is, you know, fair enough, because Lestat was a part of it,
but they all were part of it.
He and I are going to spend the rest of our lives together.
There's a very interesting dynamic
between Lestat and Armand, with Lestat looking at Armand,
and Armand thinking, "Oh, my God."
Enjoy him.
"You could just ruin everything for me right now."
And he doesn't.
Let's see how long it holds.
Everything he's been playing up until this point --
the facade of the stoic, wise, responsible
514-year-old vampire who sticks to his principles
has been shown to be a complete lie.
Back to the trial again, it seems to me
that there was more than one person in the theater that night
who could have saved you.
Anderson: Lestat would have saved Claudia
if he had the energy.
I believe that to my core.
Banishment.
It's just that he had to save Louis.
You were supposed to die with Claudia.
Hedidn't save you.
Lestat did.
What we discover in the course of the 15 episodes
of these two guys is that they have
such profound love for each other,
but they are really capable of hurting each other
in unspeakable ways.
Hello, Lestat.
Hello, Louis.
And I think that that's where they get to
in the final embrace in New Orleans.
I don't want to speak for them
because we don't hear what they say.
As an audience member,
I see them forgiving each other for what they've done.
I carried her home. I made you turn her.
She looked at me at the end like a child...
...looking to her father.
It was a beautiful ending
for this whole chaotic revenge Louis
that we see in those last couple of episodes, yeah.
Anderson: It's a beautiful scene.
And, yeah, there's things that are said at the end
that nobody will ever know other than me and Sam.
Reporter: It is one of the main topics of debate
regarding your book -- is it true or is it a joke?
In this scene, we understand
that Malloy is a vampire,
and I'm very excited about that as a fan.
The reveal really happens in a beat.
It happens in the taking off of sunglasses.
I'm guessing you haven't heard from my maker.
Eric Bogosian both was surprised and not at all
when he realized that his character, Malloy,
was to become a vampire.
I'm sorry you were burdened out of spite.
You get a sense in that, like,
final interaction with them in this season
that Daniel has become kind of like
an annoying little brother to Louis.
Malloy: You still haven't read it, have you?
Louis: It's the top of my stack.
You said that last month.
It's getting early here, Daniel.
Get out of Dubai, Louis.
Louis' Inviting all the vampires to come and get him.
This is the vampire Louis du Lac.
It's his signing off.
So for all you cowards out there talking...
Anderson: I think that...
...talking about taking a run at me...
Anderson: ...he needs that friction.
...hear this now.
He needs something to fight against.
I own the night.