KELLI: The Claudia séance and what happens at the end of episode 6 were the two scariest moments of my life. It's so scary to hear that she's been trapped in this afterlife by herself for so long. So, filming that, what was it like seeing Delainey perform this scene and just having to absorb it all?

SAM: It was amazing. It was amazing. And Sarah who played Merrick as well was astonishing. Astonishing.

KELLI: So great, so great.

JACOB: When we did the blocking, which was like a blocking rehearsal, we just had to sit down. And I think like halfway through we looked at each other, completely out of character, just like (shocked face)

SAM: Yeah, it was mind-blowing. 

JACOB: It was like watching a beautiful piece– this incredible piece of theater.

SAM: Also 'cause Delainey had this whiskey tumbler, she was like Elizabeth Taylor in Virginia Woolf, and it was just like... wow, this is wild. But it's wonderful closure for these characters as well, because I think they finally get to acknowledge that they were terrible parents and that they really used somebody that's like, a roof shingle that flew off their house, and they had to fully deal with that, that they continued to carry her as this sort of idolized thing, but actually they used her as a crutch in their marriage, and this person is really angry with them and she finally gets her actual say. She finally gets the truth out at them both, which was she fucking hated them both. But they love her for that because she's full of rage and the torrent and the terror that is Claudia and she was this powerful beast of a vampire that they didn't give enough credit to, and that they see her in this final moment with, and she gives them all her rage and they take it. And it's so devastating that she doesn't have a Louis or a Lestat in hell, and she's searching for Madeleine forever. It's the worst.

KELLI: Why did she have to be alone? It's so awful! She's been through enough!

SAM: They have to carry that. And they all carry that now. They carry not just the fact that they lost Claudia. They now carry the fact that Claudia is suffering.

KELLI: Forever.

SAM: Forever, and they did that.

JACOB It's such a good echo– It's such a good rhyme with the yellow dress in the cabinet. This idea of preserving her in amber and putting her in this... and actually we're so obsessed with legacy all the time, but actually Claudia has just been fucking dragged through the mud. She didn't get to be herself fully. She didn't get... all this talk about embracing who you are and what you are.

SAM: She didn't have it.

JACOB: Yeah, the one time she gets to do it she's in hell. It's too late.

KELLI: And that's also why Armand needs to go to jail. [Laughter] But uh to wrap up, in episode–

JACOB: I want to say though! About Armand. 'Cause I'm always shitting on Armand and actually I think the thing that is really key about that scene is that it's Louis and Lestat! Armand might have set the seeds, Armand might have killed her, but so did they. Both of them.

KELLI: Yeah, they're all culpable.

JACOB: Yeah. Yeah.

SAM: And the crazy thing about that too is that it's the final thing that puts Louis and Lestat back on a level where they're like, yeah. Who else is going to want us? [Laughter] We're literally made for each other.

So I have a very specific question for you, Sam, specifically related to the blood shower scene, which is that...  after the many, many horrors these two– that he shared with this, you know, gremlin that has wrought chaos upon him and his family, why does Lestat love toying with him more than he would want to like... just kill him.

SAM: Oh, wow. I don't think he could kill Armand if he– I don't– I think that would be difficult... maybe he could, maybe he has that power in him. I also don't think– I think he'd rather see Armand suffer than like a quick and easy death– I don't think Lestat's pro-vampire dying anyway. I don't think he's like Louis in terms of he doesn't have that "Let's kill him." I don't think Lestat likes killing vampires, unless you're a shitty regional vampire. Those old great ones I don't think he would want to kill, and he has respect for Armand in that regard. I think it's great fun for Lestat to play with Armand in that way. I mean that's their dynamic. I think they both get a kick out of it. I think they do complete a part of each other that is that is necessary for one another. I think that knowing that he can really rile Armand up in that way... yeah, he gets a real kick out of it. And also I think that Armand speaks to a self-destructive element in Lestat that is part of his ignition. He knows exactly why Armand is there. He knows exactly what he's doing is wrong; he knows he's breaking the rules again as he's always done. He's been the rule breaker and Armand's been the goody two-shoes who follows the rules, and is weirdly obsessed with law which is kind of so irrelevant and has no value whatsoever. But Armand, bless him, is just trying to put meaning in their totally meaningless existence and Lestat's like "Dude, just have a good time." But, because Armand is the mouthpiece for this weird vampire cult and how you live and how we operate, they give each other meaning because then Lestat has something to rebel against. Then he is a rebellion, and then he is this character that can create change. You can't create change if everyone's on your side. So, they complete each other in that capacity. And in a way, he wants to probably rile Armand up to bring an army up against him and do all of the things that he does, because it's good to have an enemy. Because if you have an enemy, then you have you have something to fight against. You've got purpose. I mean, they live forever. 

JACOB: They're so messy. And they need to be messy in order to give purpose to their existence. To give a sense of meaning to this all. And it goes too far sometimes: like Claudia being– but that I think is part of why Claudia's death is such a monumental earthquake, is that she's gone. Like they have to clash and contrast and collapse into each other and collide and destroy each other, but then come back and– like that's what this is, it's not like... I know I've definitely had some pretty reductive ideas about Armand in the past, but I think this is the fun of him, is that he's not just like– I love Armand in the Vampire Lestat! I will just say that. I just think it's such a delicious thing in this series.

SAM: And you haven't even seen all the episodes, right? So, I mean, like–

One left.

SAM: Yeah, he's a very– He's wonderful character.

JACOB: The subway. That episode ending in... is it episode four?

SAM: Five.

JACOB: Episode five! That is one of my favorite moments, shots, expressions in the history of our show. In the ~great annals~ of the show!

SAM: I know you've asked a really great question and I've not really answered it, but I suppose the answer is also in the lines, because [Lestat] does say "I knew it would torture you. I want to see you tortured. I want to see you suffer. I want that. I want to see you fucking beg", you know, which is really the best response that Armand can get out of Lestat.

JACOB: (Laughs) That's what he wants.

as if Lestat wasn't the one who pushed Larry to the brink of suicide 💀 Larry's actor Noah Reid even pointed this out multiple times:

NOAH: Obviously, I think there's an element of Larry that has a lot of impostor syndrome and insecurity and a need to posture his way through that. And he's being confronted with who he's not when Lestat comes into the picture. [...] where we see Larry at his most vulnerable is after he's been broken down by Lestat and he's like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. RYAN (SALAMANDER) : [...] I mean... is it really Larry's fault that he has the yips? I don't know... NOAH: Well, I mean... he's been bullied. AUTUMN BROWN: Relentlessly! Quite relentlessly. RYAN: Yeah... he just becomes the punching bag for everything that's going on in Lestat's life.

After Dark S3E5: Armand in the closing shot of ep 5

LIZZIE: [Armand] looks so beautiful in that shot!

JACOB: So angelic!

LIZZIE: (Laughs) and he's just done the most evil thing!

SAM: (Shrugs) That's Armand!

ROLIN: What's terrifying is you're in editing, and for a second you start looking at the end and you're like... did it– did it stop? Did we do it on a freeze frame? And it's just– Assad is so in control of his physical body. He's just absolutely frozen for an unnatural long time.

MARK: Natural freeze frame.

ROLIN: It's really really–

What does Armand think of this little number like, 'having a lot of rules for a theatre kid'?

ASSAD: A theatre kid that [Lestat] made, basically!

Right?!

AUTUMN: In this season, Rolin and the writers have talked about, you know, due to creative and budgetary reasons, they can't do all the scenes from the 18th century within the 18th century. So they're moving those plot lines and character journeys into the present day. And I really think that–

ASSAD: If there's anything you don't like or you're confused by, just call it creative and budgetary reasons! That's the party line.

AUTUMN: Well, so here's the thing, too: I think this season really do have to rewatch and you do have to hold out for– Because I'm learning so much upon all of these rewatches where I'm like, wait a second. 

ASSAD: [...] I think structurally it's such a... I'd be really interested, and I know that this isn't me interviewing you, but actually I'm way more interested in hearing how you and also the rest of the audience are navigating this new almost– Because I– I was having sort of um, peaks and troughs of going on a journey myself as I was reading the scripts. And trying to um, reconcile with this form, and how it was so different but also um, taking on a new voice that this was the only way that– this was the perfect way to sort of take it. I was struggling with understanding where we were and where the crux of the story was going to land. [...] But I um. Yeah, I went on a journey. I went on a real journey with this season... as an audience member trying to understand it. Trying to... get into the same rhythm. How has it been for you, this rhythm? Have you...

AUTUMN: No, it's been very very different from my previous two experiences. I'm really glad that I'm not doing my weekly reaction videos because how I'm feeling immediately after watching episodes is very very very different to how I feel now after like immediately re-watching it then and there, and then also rewatching it with the context of the episodes that I have now, which of course I still don't have episode seven but um, there's so many moments from episodes one, two, three and four that make a lot more sense once you reach, up to episode six and everything.

ASSAD: Yeah, but this is it, and one of the things that I found fascinating and I think is really genius is the fact that you're made to feel such– I felt so strongly, for and against some of these things that were happening early on, but they are then revisited later on and acknowledged and completely recontextualized... which I found really fascinating, because I was like, what? why am I going on a bipolar journey here? Sometimes I'm devastated and then other times I'm looking back on that and going, why was I so devastated or... I don't know. But it kind of tracks with Lestat. Lestat is this amalgamation of so much emotion and instinct and performance and chaos and all of that stuff. And I think we should be feeling that as well! We shouldn't be like, you know; Louis was beautifully classy, and beautifully put. His story was beautifully put together and understood with the help of Molloy, because he let Molloy in and helped him navigate and understand the story, so we went on that journey together. Whereas here it's like Molloy is trying but Lestat is like, "Fuck you, I'm gonna tell this my way and I'm not going to tell it in any order that makes sense to you. I'm going to tell it how I feel at the time and I might go back and revisit something that seemed inconsequential to you, but I've just realised something about that thing so I'm going to look at that again. By the way, I'm going to go for a shit, and then I'll come back and tell you some more." and we're all like, "W-What...? Okay..."

AUTUMN: Trying to keep up with it all!

Source

Assad, after the revelations of the previous season, I wonder if you consider Armand as a villain of the story now, or maybe I'm not fair and that he's just one of many ambiguous characters of the show.

ASSAD: As an actor, it's not the– I don't know, I don't think it's wise for me to think of Armand as a villain. I have to go in thinking– figuring who Armand is as a human being. When you think of someone as a villain, you can almost think that they're a god. You deify them in some way. You put them on a pedestal or put them on a thing that makes them– simplifies them too much. So to me, Armand is just a person, who has gone through very very difficult circumstances, and has become– those have shaped him to who he is, and I'm still working out a lot of things about who he is. It's interesting, I don't know if Eric and Jacob also find this, but watching after each season and learning from the last season and watching where it's going, I constantly find new things even after the show is done, even after we finish filming. And I guess maybe that's a part of playing a character for going on 4 years now; we've lived with these characters and almost always kind of ruminating in some way. We finished filming in December, and still every now and again Armand pops into my head: a little moment will pop into my head, something that we filmed or something that we're yet to film or yet to explore and I'll be like, oh, that's interesting... I wonder what Armand would do in that situation, or who he would be. I forgot your question in that answer. I'm so sorry, but I hope that there's something there.

JACOB: So to answer your question as well, I do want to say something about Armand quickly! Because I give Armand so much shit when I talk about the show all the time. And he is probably the character that I, Jacob, watch and I'm like, that guy gets on my nerves, he just seems to kind of get things wrong at every stage... But I think something that this season goes into in a really powerful way, and I think kind of reframes a lot of what you see of him before is that, he's almost– He's what happens if you go through some of the worst personal atrocities from a very young age. So much cruelty is inflicted on you, and then you're just alone. And he tries to, I feel, Armand is continually trying to find community. And so, in one way it manifests in religious fundamentalism and, you know, this really dark sort of cult kind of thing... he tries to control people. And then he just sort of tries to find that– Louis becomes a bit of a weird sort of religious figure to him at some point. And then he's trying to recreate this diet– this horrific dynamic that was inflicted on him from a very young age. And so I think there is a way that you can look at Armand and be like, that guy's evil, his behaviour's not cool on any level. But I think something that our show does really well is that there is a version of every single one of these characters –including Claudia, including Madeleine even– they would be the villain in a lesser story. But we spend the time on getting to know all of these characters and understanding why they make these decisions they make. And I think it's quite easy to sort of pin the villain pin on Armand. And I am guilty of doing it myself. But actually, between Assad and Rolin and Hannah, I think he becomes in this season an even more fully formed, fully understandable character.

ASSAD: That's the other thing though; that the show is not about heroes and villains. I say that fully knowing that we are kind of flagshipping a villain for the future. But none of these characters are heroes or villains. And I don't think that Rolin and Hannah, or even Anne Rice, was ever interested in boxing any of these characters into good and evil. She was exploring the nature of humanity through characters who can live through ages and what that does. So yeah, short answer: no, he's not a villain. But he's not a hero either.

ROLIN: What was your question really quick?

Q: Just about Armand, and his relationship with–

ROLIN: Agh, just don't worry about Armand, guys! We can't talk about him because he's doing shit! It's just like, there's stuff going on– and honestly, the screeners that are out there don't know what he's doing yet. He has a huge chunk of episode 7.

While (spoiler alert) his transformation at the end of Season 2 isn't exactly the pinnacle of consent, Bogosian isn't surprised Molloy took it in stride. "When he says he doesn't want it in the first season, I don't think he trusts these guys very much. I mean, he could say, 'Yeah, give it to me', and the next thing you know, he's dinner. But really, deep down? He wants it. Those last moments of the last episode, you see how much fun he's having being awful. He's wanted to be this for a while, and he's gotten all this new energy. He's fully been corrupted." Bogosian laughs. Bogosian shrugs, smirking to himself before venturing into Molloy's offscreen transformation anyway. "I mean look, Daniel and Armand [played by Assad Zaman]. Armand has certainly got reason to be pissed off at me. And he's been told to lay off, and then he just can't help himself, and he jumps me somewhere along the line. Now, he could have killed me, but maybe it's even more fun to 'doom me' to the dark gift. Maybe we just got really drunk together one night and said, 'What the fuck, let's do this! I don't have any answers yet either."

Jul 3, 2024. Playbill

How does becoming a vampire change Daniel, aside from the obvious? "Isn't there a saying like, absolute power corrupts absolutely? You just don't know what's going to happen with a person if they get there," Eric Bogosian said. "How he makes that step, that will be a question," he continued. "How did this happen, exactly? What happened? I mean, I'm, I don't know, did we end up splitting a fifth of Jack Daniels and then all of a sudden his teeth are in my neck? I don't know. But once I'm there, it's time to find out what that's about. I think that's something for Daniel all the time is he goes exploring, and he's not afraid. So here we are. Let's find out what this is about. But I think also his personality will change a little bit. I mean, there are people that he has resentments toward and who knows what kind of revenge.. I don't know, I don't know where we're going with this. And neither does the Anne Rice books, say where we're going with this. There's no roadmap for this.

Jun 30, 2024. The Wrap

Assad, Armand hasn't made a vampire before. How did you respond to the fact that he's the one who turns Daniel? It feels like an act of revenge because Daniel ruined his nearly 80-year relationship. ASSAD: If you put it into human perspectives or human equivalences, it's almost the most heinous and violent act that you commit out of desperation and anger. It is the kind of crime of passion when you either kill someone or really mutilate them. We know how Armand feels because we hear in Episode 6 how he feels about the idea of making another vampire. That's why he's never done it. It repulses him, and I think it truly does. I think it's the idea of bringing someone into this kind of life knowing what he's been through. It's something he wouldn't wish even on his worst enemy until his worst enemy tears his life apart. What is brilliant is we have this question: When and how did this happen in Dubai? This season, the question was: What happened in San Francisco? I think next season is going to be: What happened in Dubai? I'm excited to explore how we got to that moment where Armand did it. Did it happen straight in a flash? I don't think it would have because Louis would have been too close in proximity. I'm really curious about how that goes down. [...] Still, when I said I wanted to see Daniel go for a drink with Lestat, Bogosian jokingly suggested: "I think that's how I became a vampire. I think we get really shit-faced together, and all of a sudden, his teeth are in my neck."

Jul 1, 2024. The Daily Beast

ERIC: Of course, what we don't see in the last episode is how did he become a vamp? Did he say, "Yeah, I want to do it?" Or did he get drunk with Armand one night and when he wasn't looking, he became a vampire? I guess we'll find out.

Jul 11, 2024. Vulture

"I have no idea what's coming," Bogosian adds in their joint interview. "No one does. It's all locked in the minds of Rolin and Hannah [Moscovitch, writer]. I'd love to see the two of us after everybody's gone, just getting really s**tfaced someplace, and then all of a sudden, he's biting me." We would, too. Daniel is Armand's first fledgling now, after all.

Jun 30, 2024. TV Insider

ASSAD: Okay yeah, Armand did turn Daniel, that's pretty obvious. It was an act of... a moment of savage madness and vengeance and chaos and all of that. I guess he did, in the moment, the one thing that he's always despised or never been able to... you know, he wanted to do the one thing that he found most distasteful– turning someone else. In that moment, he hated Daniel for breaking what he's been working so hard to keep together and he was like, 'Well, I'm gonna break you.'

May 23, 2026. The Vampire Lestat: After Dark ✕ Preview Special

ASSAD: Vampirism to Armand, I think, acts like a form of self-flagellation, similar to the way prayer and punishment go hand in hand. So yes, there’s agency in turning Daniel, but also, he’s punishing a man whom he also worships in a fucked up way.

Jun 1, 2026. Nerdist

ERIC: [Daniel]'s also– This doesn't come out as much in the very beginning; but he was made a vampire against his will, and that has to do with Armand. And he's really really angry at Armand. You will see at some point how angry he is. So all this combines to– what is it called? [Sam] gave the term– ROLIN: Oh, transformational trauma. SAM: I didn't give it, [Rolin] gave it the term! ERIC: The character [Lestat] gave it the term. So [Daniel]'s sort of in a traumatic state.

Kelli: Do you have an answer about how frequently Armand was wiping Louis's memory?

Rolin: Yeah probably but I don't know how important it is... Everybody, Assad probably has a different idea, Jacob does, and maybe some of my writers room do –I love that, I think that's okay. For me I actually think it was very very very little. And I actually think –many people probably disagree with me– that Louis probably did ask him in Sausalito to erase it. I think he did. I always felt Armand having two really extraordinary lies. And just two. But because you have to continue with those, it becomes a series of lies and lies and lies, and it seems worse to me than it is. I always wanted to find this empathetic version of Armand, but I house it like everything else I did in the show: I house my idea about it, and there are open interpretations of the actor who is embodying it, the people who have had reactions about that, and I think that's cool. And it ends up letting the audience members– you get to see yourself in how you feel about all those things.

Kelli: I always thought that it might be believable that Louis could ask for that, but I don't know if he did, what do you guys think? Do you agree with Rolin?

Jacob: Yeah, I like Rolin's answer, I think it's open to interpretation. And kind of for me, the thing is that... I sort of don't–

Sam: It doesn't matter.

Assad Zaman on 'Daniel's turning'

Something I saw on the tags today.

Now, OP is not the first to just straight up make the FALSE claim that "Armand was not considered a child within the legal and social framework of late 15th century Venice!! which is the actual historical period we are discussing!"

I have responded to this numerous times before and I will again. Here are some TVC book excerpts that I've cited before, of Marius admitting, in his own words, that Armand was only a child. And of people around Marius being alarmed about him showing sexual interest in a child that young, yes, even at that time period:

https://www.tumblr.com/tenaciouslilfreak/800996639806472192/just-read-this-in-the-assad-tag-so-let-me-quote?source=share

the hall of famer is of course this little part from Marius's POV:

Anne Rice literally told us "No no yeah Marius was an unrepentant pedophile even back then!"

Why did you think she made adult!Marius fall in love with 10 year old Pandora and immediately want to marry her?