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Interview with the Vampire

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Deerskin

New Member
I saw this film years ago and loved it - I don't know how many times I watched it and fell in love with Louis! After reading the books (and deciding that Lestat was the one for me :D!) I became picky about the changes made in the film and enjoyed it less, though it's still one of my favourites (isn't it awful how reading the book can spoil a perfectly good film?! :D).

Anyone else seen it? Or Queen of the Damned (which I've heard is terrible, but haven't yet seen)?
 
I read the book and loved it. I hate a lot of the casting for the movie. Louis was ok, Lestsat is terrible for me until at least halfway through each viewing till Tom Cruise can make me forget that he is so wrong for the role by doing such a great job with it.. LOL. Armand, why, why, why did they ever cast Antonio for that role??? Armand is supposed to look 16 years old... with long red hair and green eyes.... (My husband would have been PERFECT, looks-wise at the time the movie was filmed. Now he's cut his hair and acquired glasses and a few years..)

I love the movie but hate the casting... go figure.

~Witch
 
Queen of the Damned was a horrible film. I kept thinking maybe it was supposed to be a parody. I stopped watching it halfway through. I'm glad I waited for the video.

As far as Interview...Tom Cruise was NOT Lestat! And, while I adore Antonio Bandares (spelling?), he was NOT Armand. I read the Vampire Chronicles religiously, but Interview was not one of my favorite. I think the character of Lestat wasn't fleshed out (excuse the pun) until The Vampire Lestat.
 
I've got to agree with you both about the casting - especially Armand - his character seemed very different in the film too (I don't know if you've read The Vampire Armand? I found it such heavy going and had to give up, unusual for me).

Dawn - I liked The Vampire Lestat much more than Interview too. I think Lestat is one of my favourite characters from literature - there's just something about him!
 
I'll have to add my two cents and say that Marius (one of my favourite characters) was portrayed horribly on Queen of the Damned...which was nice only because stuart townsend was mediocre in it...though he didnt fit the part. Can anyone say Jude Law? Anyways, though Anne Rice is critisized at times, I think her books are beautiful and quite enjoy immersing myself in them now and again....
 
My favorite part of the movie "Interview with the Vampire" was the Guns N Roses (I think) version of "Sympathy for the Devil" that played at the end. Yeah, I didn't like the movie much. It wasn't a horrible adaptation, but the casting was off.

I've never been a Tom Cruise fan and he didn't fit my idea of Lestat but he bugged me far less than Banderas as Armand. He was just so bland. Kirsten Dunst was good, though.

I'd read the book long before the movie came out, so I was fuzzy on plot points. I remember thinking they'd made some mistakes thematically (not plot points, but more like shifting the focus or leaving out issues), but I can't recall the specifics.
 
Lestat.... maybe Sting could have played him, or David Bowie? There's another, younger actor... the blond in 'brotherhood of the wolf.' he would have been a good choice. Anyone else have any suggestions?

How would you cast this movie.

~Witch
 
casting

anne Rice's original novel was highly homoerotic. Back in 1994 (and I guess still today), you could not have such a high amount of homoerotic themes in a major blockbuster film, especially not with two heterosexual A list stars. As such, Antonio Banderas was cast as Armand, who had starred in 'Philadelphia' the year before, and was still a popular star with gay audiences at the time. His casting was seen as compensation for the reduced homoeroticism between Lestat and Louis in the film. It was for these same reasons that River Phoenix was cast as the interviewer after his success in ' My own private Idaho'. Unfortunately he died 2 weeks into filming (see closing credits for the films dedication to his memory)

Anne Rice was unhappy with the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat initially, and made no secret about it. Upon seeing the initial test screening, she took out a full page ad, stating that she was thoroughly satisfied with the portrayal of his character.
 
Well Tom Cruise to many people's eye probably was not the actor for Lestat. Lestat is more of a rock star image and also younger image. But when you really watch Tom play Lestat you have to say he was better then Peter Townsend in Queen of the Damn.

Also Brad Pitt played a good Louis and Kristine Dunst was brilliant in it as Claudia however Antonio was the wrong wrong actor. First of all we all know how young Armand actually is. But all well beggers can not be choicers.

Anyway I liked Interview from a movie perspective. I liked the darkness and the music was moving in such a dark way. However Queen of the Damn just plain stunk. Marius who is also my favorite character I thought was horribly portrayed in Queen of the Damn.
 
Movies can never, ever do a book justice. We build up in our own minds, how character's look and so forth. Antonio as Armand...no no and a bigger no no!
And I think the actors should have switched roles, Tom as Louis and Brad as Lestat. Brad was closer to looking like Lestat in my mind's eye.
And I agree with Rivenborn at least Claudia was cast well.
As for Queen of the Damned, a major dissapointment on screen.
 
I think Brad would have made a great Lestat in later sequels. This is where we get a different view of Lestat. In the first book, he is a bloodthirty, selfish brat. In later books he mellows out a bit and starts to look for answers. In book one, he couldn't care less.

Queen of the Damned was a disgrace as a movie. Alot of questions were answered in that book, but nothing was really revealed in the movie. Just blood and guts.
 
When I first saw the film, I'd read the book about a year previously and my heart lifted when I read that the screenplay was by Anne Rice. It plummetted once I'd seen the film though.

It just didn't do the book justice, lots of bits, like their travels through Europe were cut short etc. and the characters just weren't as interesting on screen as they were on the page.

Annette.
 
Hiyah,

adaptation might betray the books but loved it and turned my face back to Cruise after his role, far from Top Gun crap...
also was thinking if i was a scenarist think i would love betray a book: books are being written for being interpreted, aren't they?
 
Casting reaons...

Let's not forget that (for whatever reasons) Anne Rice approved the casting of Tom Cruise after seeing the final cut. Regardless of everyone's own opinion, she officially felt that he embodied Lestat (in feeling if not in form) to make the film work.

Also, let's not forget that Christian Slater - then quite sought after by Hollywood - agreed to take the part of Daniel oringinally offerered to Phoenix if he donated all his fees to charity.

Personally, I thought the film worked well, but needed to funstion in th same way that The Lord of the Rings has, as a proper trilogy.

Tobytook
 
Originally posted by Witchchild
There's another, younger actor... the blond in 'brotherhood of the wolf.' he would have been a good choice.
Click to expand...

Vincent Cassel? Always appears in films with Monica Belluci (partly because they are a couple) such as L'Appartement and Irreversible. If it was him then Monica would have had to have a role; Madeline?
 
Queen of the Damned was awful, but the actor who played Lestat at least had the sort of sexual charisma that I imagine for the character. If only the script hadn't been so, so wretched.

The best way to watch Interview with a Vampire is in French, with English subtitles. Not sure why this is, but it's great.
 
I watched the film before i'd read the book, and really enjoyed the film.
Went out bought the book, carried on reading the series.. then re-watched the film... and didn't enjoy it half as much!! your all right completely wrong casting... only works if you've never read the books.

Oh and I was stupid went out and bought Queen of the Dammed on DVD.. eek!! cheesy film!
 
I usually don't like Tom Cruise or Antonia Banderas but I thought that they were great in this film.
Banderas doesn't really look like the cherub that he is described as in the book but it's a change that I can tolerate.

I thought that the characters showed their motivation better in the movie. That might be because the book is supposed to be from Luis' point of view and therefore could be biased (extremely biased if you are to believe Lestat).
In my opinion "Interview with a Vampire" is one of the best and most faithful movie adaptation that I've seen.

"Queen of the Damned" on the other hand was a horrible movie adaptation. They had changed a lot of the story to connect it to the movie adaptation of the first book so that there wouldn't be any loose ends since there isn't a movie adaptation of the second book "The Vampire Lestat". This is something that you can accept but they also made other changes that I don't think can be justified, e.g. making Akasha a simple sadist instead of the idealist that she was in the book and messing with the whole deal of not drinking dead blood.
I strongly recommend that you read the three first books before seeing the movie adaptation so that you won't have the bitter taste of the movie when reading the book.
 
im a big anne rice fan, i really enjoy the movie, and think tom cruise was great in the role, and i believe its the second best adaptation to a movie i ever seen, being the first Chronicle of a Death Foretold, i remember to had heard that they cast banderas since they have plans for a sequel and wanted to use the same actor.
as a matter of fact (for what i have found in the web) warner has the rights for interview and any subsecuent movies, but they would lost the rights to anne rice if they didnt released a new movie in (dont remember what year) so in order to keep the rights they release Queen of... just for the contract, word is that anne rice offer herself to write the script almost for free, but they said no. an important fact to point is that david geffen who is in big part responsive for the interview movie, droped warner and move to dreamworks (i think, even when he hasnt do anything since interview, but he has an agreement) so actually there is no one in warner really interested in doing a movie, as it should be, but in the other hand they didnt want to let the rights free for dreamworks to pick them up, so.....

what a shame
isnt it a great shame :(
 
Originally I saw the film before I read the series, and I loved the movie as it was. I thought it was very entertaining and I loved Brad Pitt as Louis, ignoring others' complaints that he made the character too "whiny". Then I read the novel. Dear God, was it off. The biggest problem I had was the same most of you have mentioned: Antonio Banderas as Armand. The shock when I read that he had the body of a teenager with curly auburn hair! I will say, though, that the movie did carry the spirit of the story.

And Queen of the Damned... Okay, I haven't read the story yet, so don't kill me, but I truly enjoyed it. NOT as an adaptation of the Vampire Chronicles, but as a movie. Except Aaliyah as Akasha. That was terrible. The music was awesome, and the plot interesting, though I am aware that most Anne Rice fans were infuriated at it's creation.
 
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