Game of Thrones alum Jacob Anderson will star as Louis opposite Sam Reid in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire series for AMC and its sister streamer, AMC+. The casting will reunite Anderson with GoT director Alan Taylor, who is helming the show’s first two episodes.
Rolin Jones is creator, showrunner and executive producer of Interview With the Vampire. Based on Rice novels, the story centers on an 18th-century lord, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson) who is now a bicentennial vampire, telling his story to an eager biographer. Suicidal after the death of his family, he meets Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid), a vampire who persuades him to choose immortality over death and become his companion. Eventually, gentle Louis resolves to leave his violent maker, but Lestat guilts him into staying by turning a young girl — whose addition to the “family” breeds even more conflict.
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The book famously was turned into a 1994 movie, which starred Brad Pitt as Louis and Tom Cruise as Lestat. The film was released in November 1994 and was a commercial success. It received Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Original Score. A stand-alone sequel, Queen of the Damned, was released in 2002, with Stuart Townsend replacing Cruise as Lestat.
AMC ordered the series in June after acquiring the rights to 18 of Rice’s books in 2020 to turn them into a TV franchise overseen by Johnson. Jones, who has an overall deal with AMC Studios, will executive produce alongside Mark Johnson, Anne Rice and Christopher Rice. Jones is hoping to launch a franchise universe based on Rice’s novels.
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The series is slated to begin production on its eight-episode first season later this year. It will premiere on AMC and AMC+ in 2022.
Anderson is best known for playing Grey Worm in GoT for six seasons. He also appeared in Showtime’s Episodes, The Mimic and Broadchurch. He will be seen recurring in the upcoming season of Doctor Who as a swashbuckling adventurer who joins forces with The Doctor. Anderson is also a singer-songwriter under the alias Raleigh Ritchie and released his latest album in 2020.