Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) on Netflix
In San Francisco, reporter Daniel Molloy interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac, who says he is a vampire. Louis tells of 1791 Louisiana, where the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt turned him.
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Trailer
Plot summary
In a San Francisco room, the reporter Daniel Molloy interviews a man who claims to be a vampire more than two hundred years old. The man, Louis de Pointe du Lac, describes his human life in 1791 Louisiana as a wealthy plantation owner, despondent after the death of his pregnant wife, drifting through the New Orleans waterfront at night. There the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt attacks him and offers to turn him. Louis accepts, then regrets it: while Lestat revels in hunting people, Louis drinks animal blood instead. During a plague outbreak in New Orleans, Lestat turns a dying girl, Claudia, into a vampire, and the three live together, Louis devoted to the child while Lestat trains her to kill.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Anne Rice rewrote the part of Louis as a woman, hoping singer-actress Cher would play the role, because she believed Hollywood's homophobia would otherwise block the film; Cher even co-wrote a song for the soundtrack that was dropped when Brad Pitt got the part.
- River Phoenix was cast as the interviewer Daniel Molloy but died four weeks before filming was to begin; his replacement, Christian Slater, donated his entire salary to Phoenix's favorite charities, and the film carries a dedication to Phoenix after the end credits.
- Anne Rice publicly called Tom Cruise "no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler" and suggested he and Brad Pitt swap roles, but after seeing the finished film she phoned Cruise to admit she had been wrong.
- Brad Pitt was so miserable during the mostly night shoots in a London winter that he tried to buy himself out of his contract, calling the production "six months in the f—ing dark" and saying the script left him with nothing to do but sit and watch.
- To stencil realistic translucent blue veins on the actors' faces, Stan Winston's makeup team had them hang upside down for 30 minutes so the blood would rush to their heads and make their veins protrude.
SPOILER
Claudia cutting Lestat's throat was filmed by switching from Tom Cruise bleeding from a prosthetic wound to an animatronic model built to wither as it bled out, with CGI blood added; Stan Winston sculpted the charred remains of Claudia and Madeleine using photographs of Hiroshima victims as reference.- Oprah Winfrey walked out of an advance screening after only 10 minutes because of the gore and dark themes, and considered canceling her interview with Tom Cruise to promote the film, saying she did not want to contribute to the force of darkness.
- The film's score opens with the Catholic hymn "Libera Me" rewritten so the line "Save me, Lord, from eternal death" became "Save me, Lord, from eternal life" to reflect Louis's character.
