blonded life

And he's singing this while wearing the trial pants and his hair and makeup done as a nod to Claudia?

That seems like an incredibly clear statement that Armand was deciding that Louis and Claudia had to die.

"At one point, Lestat sings a song that he wrote for Armand, reciting the lyrics, “You’ve got a lot of rules for a theater kid,” and, “Only the big boss gets to decide who dies and who stays alive.”  While he sings the jaunty tune, Lestat dons bright baby blue eyeshadow and matching blue ribbons in his golden pigtails — a glaringly obvious nod to Claudia’s ensemble that she was forced to live in during her time onstage at the Théâtre des Vampires, performing the same maddening “My Baby Loves Windows” song on repeat every night for over five hundred shows in a row. Paired together, the vampire’s newly established music and the old school fit create a powerful humiliation ritual for Armand. The callback serves as the artist’s sharp retaliation to the cruel injustice bestowed upon his late daughter who was killed in season two by the vapid production company. He tops off the baby doll drip with black and white pinstripe pants, not unlike the trousers he wore during the theatrical trial. “A really clever design theme for Lestat during season one that continued into the vision of him in season two, was that he’s often seen in a stripe,” interprets Wood, “because it’s like he’s being imprisoned into this world, this version of himself in the version that Louis is experiencing.”

A question for Assad and Delainey: your performances as Armand and Claudia were life-changing! Could you tell us a little bit about the dynamic between your characters and how it was to play them as rivals and perhaps even narrative parallels? DELAINEY: I think this sea– Oh. I can't even say that. ASSAD: (laughs) DELAINEY: I think this season is new and fun... Wait and see that! But last season I don't think Armand took the time to get to –we spoke about this yesterday– know her. There's a world where they might have gotten along. But, she was in the way, so he did what he had to do. Um, I hate him for it. ASSAD: Who? Armand or me? DELAINEY: Armand. And... I don't remember the rest of the question! ASSAD: What's brilliant is that, we get on (gestures to Delainey) Like we clearly get on– DELAINEY: (Grins) Do weee? ASSAD: (Laughs) Fine, I think we get on. But we had some really nice moments. Like, Armand being threatening towards you– I remember there's a scene in season 2 where I push you up against the wall... DELAINEY: Oh, yeah. ASSAD: Do you remember that? DELAINEY: Oh that was lovely. ASSAD: We had to do that really close to the end. I think it was our last day...? DELAINEY: Yeah! ASSAD: It was freezing cold and I had to push you against the wall, but in-between takes we were both like this: wuwuwuwuuwhwhwh! But yeah it was fun to be frenemies. And maybe we get to do it again... I don't know. DELAINEY: Maybe.

we keep winning!

Yeah. I mean, in all honesty, it's actually the books, really. I did look a lot at David Bowie, particularly bootleg live recordings of his, concerts, particularly the Cracked Actor one, filmed in Los Angeles in the late seventies, I think. But, you know, but mainly to maintain that sort of, like, that there's this sort of alien creature behind the eyes that there is this otherworldliness to him. But, really, Anne Rice is very, very specific about how Lestat is described in the books in the way that he's got this feline like movements, and he's kind of has this lion prowess and and exudes confidence and is a dandy, but also could, kill eight wolves with his bare hands. So there's sort of a lot of the the character is sort of there. And then you have Roland and Hannah's incredible dialogue and and the situations that they put him in in that I feel like, there's so much material to mine that it would be sort of a disservice, I think, to kind of go and copy somebody else. Obviously, Anne Rice makes reference to, like, Jim Morrison and Jon Bon Jovi, but I don't think we really we go down there. I think the Morrison pants are there. And we sort of pay homage to that.

But it was actually really interesting, you know, working with Alex Wood, the costume designer, when we were trying to, like, work out what his on stage persona, is the more clothes we put on him, the more it became less him or at least what he's trying to do. So it was like, oh, maybe I'll put a shirt on in this one, and then I was like, oh, no. It doesn't it doesn't quite work. You know? It's more it is more about showing the scars and show showing himself and and letting the body kind of be the costume for those performances as opposed to kind of, like, building them up to be anything else.

When you're singing as a character, you're performing as a character. And it's it's sort of dangerous because you don't want to be so large that you can't really enjoy the music either. So it was so I that a lot of my questions with Daniel early on were, like, what what does he sound like? What what what what what are we what are we doing? And Daniel sent me a reference, of Kurt Cobain very early on, and that really threw me, to be honest. I was kind of like, how does this work? And, you know, Kurt Cobain sort of slowly came in. In terms of the sound. We we found a kind of scream that he could could access, in terms of his physical sound.

You know, but in terms of the references, yeah. I mean, I think it was at a Comic Con a couple of years ago, Daniel and Roland had the most extraordinarily massive list of references, which was sort of so overwhelming to listen to. But I think it sort of encapsulates what they're trying to do, which is if this character has lived, centuries, then he's absorbed so much musical, influence over his time. And he is picking and choosing what he likes to hear and what he and he's trying different things.

But as the story cracks him open and as he uses music to kind of discover himself, on a more sort of personal and intimate level, the songs become more stripped back, and they become more vulnerable and more honest. And that you feel like he's trying less to portray a character of a rock star, like he would be portraying the character of a eighteenth century comedy dell'arte actor. He's now exploring what it might be like to be just an artist. And make mistakes and be vulnerable and put something out there that people might hate or not want to see and fail.