Anderson is the first Black actor to portray Louis, who’s written in the books and movie as a white 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner; the AMC show is also the first adaptation in which the romantic relationship between Louis and Lestat is explicitly stated. In the television adaptation, Louis’s race and sexuality inextricably inform the way he moves through the world across decades; his story becomes that of a man who was battling prejudice on the margins of mainstream society well before he was turned into a vampire. For Anderson, one of the joys of playing Louis comes from the fact that he’s allowed to be as nuanced and messy and antagonistic as any white character on the show, or any white Louis from past adaptations.
“The myth of representation is that all representation should be good representation,” he says. “I think one of the exciting things about this show is that [non-white characters] Louis and Claudia and Armand are imperfect characters. They are incredibly rich characters and there is space to explore how problematic they are but also how beautiful and elegant and wonderful they are, but they don’t always have to make the right decisions. I think that’s something to celebrate. And it’s not something that’s that easy to come by now, particularly at the moment. I feel like some of that’s backtracked in the industry, generally.”
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