AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire” has returned with a second season that is richer, riskier, and far more emotionally punishing than its predecessor. At the center of Rolin Jones’ dark and operatic adaptation of Anne Rice’s beloved saga is Jacob Anderson, who gives a haunting performance as Louis de Pointe du Lac.
Best known to global audiences as Grey Worm in “Game of Thrones”, Anderson is no stranger to epic storytelling. But as he explains in this interview with Awards Focus, nothing prepared him for what season two would demand. “The first season was the hardest work I’d ever done in my life,” he shares. “We did a hundred nights, shot across different time periods… I thought nothing could be more challenging.”
But creator Rolin Jones had different plans. “He told me we were going to shoot a play and an action movie. This was the best writing I’d ever gotten to work with—and I was already ripped apart.”
This new chapter expands the ensemble, introducing Delainey Hayles as a fierce and grounded Claudia and Ben Daniels as the cunning Santiago. Anderson also reunites with Sam Reid, who returns as the seductive, theatrical, and ever-haunting Lestat. Following the explosive events of the first season’s finale, the story plunges deeper into the emotional wreckage left behind, revealing the psychological toll of Louis’ immortal life.
For Anderson, navigating that weight meant learning to leave Louis behind when the cameras stopped rolling. “You can’t really take it home with you,” Anderson says. Fatherhood, he notes, helped draw the line. “The writing doesn’t just live in fantasy… if you took that home every night, you’d be in trouble.”
Awards Focus spoke with Jacob Anderson on the relatability of fantasy, separating himself from Louis at the end of the day, working with Sam Reid on the reunion scene between Louis and Lestat at the cottage, and what Delainey Hayles did in the audition that impressed him the most.
Awards Focus: Was there a particular mindset you brought with you from season one into the new season?
Jacob Anderson: The first season was the hardest work I’d ever done in my life. We did one hundred nights, and I was in all of them. Sometimes we shot two units and two different time periods. I’d jump from Dubai to New Orleans; I learned how to tap dance; and I had to do various accents. All this stuff was going on that I felt like nothing could ever be more challenging.
So, I went into season two feeling like it would be just a continuation of that, and we were going to do split days and things. I was thinking purely practically, and Rolin [Jones] was like, “I’m really going to put you through it in season two.” I was fine with it, and I felt like I really had this nailed down now. This, physically being a vampire, living at night, wearing these crazy lenses, then Rolin told me what we were doing for the first block. We were going to shoot a play and an action movie. This was the best writing I’d ever gotten to work with, and I was already ripped apart. I started to work with Delainey [Hayles], and this beautiful new version of this character was emerging, and by the end, it just wrecked me. Season two emotionally destroyed me, but I felt like it was worth it. Anything’s worth it for Louis, you know?
AF: When you’re in production, is it hard for you to separate yourself from Louis once production wraps for the day and just switch Louis off, or does he stay with you?
Anderson: You really have to. I’ve got two daughters now, but had a little girl during filming, and I’d get in maybe at 7:00 AM, and she would just be waking up. I’d come out of doing this crazy thing, and then she’d be excited to see me. That just snapped me out. She doesn’t need Rolin’s vampires in her life. So, that really helped. I learned that you can’t really take it home with you. It’s too much because some of this stuff, and I don’t want to make it sound too self-important, but it is really human. The writing of this show doesn’t just confine itself to this fantasy thing. The best fantasy is always very relatable, and this show deals with some really wrenching subjects and some difficult things to hold inside you. I think if you just took that home with you every night, you’d be in trouble, or every morning you’d be in a lot of trouble.
AF: One of the most emotionally explosive scenes was in episode five in San Francisco between Armand and Louis. They’re both trying to hurt each other with escalating severity. How did you and Assad approach the scene and balance the emotions?
Anderson: We agreed to trust each other and just went for it. There are lots of really different energies, but we’re all united in our weirdness and in our idiosyncrasies and our overthinking tendencies. The writing is so strong and it’s so structural, and it means that you can trust the writing, trust each other, and then just respond. We just went for it, and because we’re working in a safe environment and all you have to do is pay attention to what the other person’s doing, and you get there.
AF: Delainey Hayles joined the cast as Claudia this season. How much time did you have to rehearse together and build on Louis and Claudia’s relationship?
Anderson: That was probably really challenging for Delainey. She should be saying this for herself, but I feel like Louis’s and Claudia’s relationship is so lived in at that point that it was more about how do we not have that newness in this relationship. Something that Delainey did in the audition that was amazing was that she didn’t look at me. We did the scene where Claudia’s been picking pockets, and they stood on the Pegasus, and she didn’t look at me the whole time, and I was really trying to get something out of her. Then, after we did the scene, I was like, “Oh, that’s amazing. That’s Claudia.” People who have that kind of relationship aren’t constantly grasping to build chemistry. Delainey is just a brilliant actor and went in with a really strong, personal way into Claudia. I could just respond to her and just enjoy playing alongside her. She completely made it her own from the jump.
AF: For all the explosive moments during the season, it culminates with that heartbreaking conversation in the Creole Cottage between Louis and Lestat. How was it filming that moment with Sam [Reid], and were there different iterations of how that conversation would play out?
Anderson: There were different iterations of that conversation. Because of the writer’s strike, we had to talk about it early. Rolin was asking us how comfortable we felt about it, and there were versions where Louis was sort of just apologizing, or it felt like he was groveling a little bit. It just never felt that comfortable, and it didn’t really feel like that was what it should be. It should be about them connecting.
So, we talked a lot about that scene with Rolin and came to what I think was a really beautiful thing, which is that Louie’s finally accepting his vampirism as a gift as long as he decides to live that existence. We went back and forth a lot on that scene, and then Rolin sent a message saying Sam’s going to hate it, but he wanted me to try something. He asked how I would feel about trying where you will speak as Louis to Sam, but none of us will know what you said, and Sam will speak to you, and none of us will know what he said. It’s just this little secret that you can have, and it was fun.
But that was one of the worst shooting days of the entire shoot. There was a blizzard outside, and there were all sorts of technical difficulties with fire. Then, there were leaf blowers. Sam and I were talking quietly and intimately to each other, and we had these leaf blowers going, and there’s a guy pulling ropes outside to slam the shutters, and there’s stuff flying in our faces.
By the end of the day, we hadn’t shot any coverage of the conversation. We had two takes to do it, and because we’ve built this trust with each other from the beginning, we have done some crazy things, like being suspended from the ceiling. These were really literary, beautifully written, and elegant pieces of writing. We have just built this trust where I implicitly trust him with whatever we must do. I hope that he feels the same way.
It felt symbolic that all we built together meant that we could handle that reunion. I’ve never had a work partnership like that, like you could throw us into anything together and we would be fine.
We’ll figure it out and we’ll have fun doing it.