How Anne Rice Felt About The Interview With The Vampire Movie Adaptation

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The mid-1990s were a great time to be a broody, angsty Goth kid. The Cure was active, Lux Interior was still alive, and Morrissey hadn't undergone his a-hole transformation yet. Manic Panic hair dye was everywhere, Tim Burton was making his best movies, and "The Crow" was in theaters. And for the more melodramatic theater-kid Goths, there were outsized costume dramas like "Bram Stoker's Dracula" in 1992 and Neil Jordan's "Interview with the Vampire" in 1994. "Interview," based on the hit novel by Anne Rice, was a notable box office success to boot, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of its year. Recall that 1994 was a big year for movies already ("Pulp Fiction," "The Lion King," "Forrest Gump," "The Mask," "Speed," and "True Lies" all came out), so "Interview with the Vampire" was yet another giant hit to throw on the pile.

But, naturally, there were many Anne Rice purists out there who felt — prior to its theatrical release — that "Interview" couldn't possibly do its source material justice. For once, Rice wasn't involved in its production in any creative capacity. For another, many objected to the casting of Tom Cruise as Rice's famed vampire character Lestat. Cruise, a dashing, handsome, archetypal movie star, couldn't possibly manage the horror and aggressive angst of a character like Lestat, the naysayers seemed to declare.

And many of Rice's fans wondered what she thought of the entire movie. Sure, it was a hit, and it made Rice even more of a household name than she was before, but did she think the "Interview with the Vampire" film was good? Luckily for us, Rice once published an extended missive on the Children of Darkness website that addressed everything she thought about the movie, going into excruciating detail.

In short? She loved it.

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Anne Rice, in her missive, explained very openly that she had no hand in production on the "Interview with the Vampire" movie and that she simply wasn't involved with its development at all. She also had the same trepidations about Tom Cruise as many of her fans. Rice further theorized that her public criticisms had scared Warner Bros. off from inviting her to watch early cuts of the film. In her own words:

"I saw no rough cuts of IWTV; I saw no clips. I went to no screenings. It wasn't until David Geffen, himself took the unusual risk of sending me a VHS tape of the movie, that I saw it. And I approached this tape with a deep fear of being hurt, crushed, disappointed, destroyed by the finished work." 

But Rice fell in love. "When I saw the film on VHS," she wrote, "I came out at once in favor of it, declaring that I loved it." Indeed, she took out ads in the trades, declaring her love of the movie and that it had her overwhelming seal of approval. "It was so eccentric, so extreme, so weird," she wrote, which are words of high praise.

Rice proceeded to break down the movie into all of its constituent elements, addressing each concern individually. She touched on everything from the strengths and weaknesses of the film's actors to Neil Jordan's direction, the production design, and the cinematography. Rice particularly loved Brad Pitt as Louis and Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, describing the latter's turn as "magnificent and flawless." Heck, she even made digressions about the nature of beauty. One could never accuse Rice of failing to be thorough.

Most notably, though, Rice adored Cruise as Lestat. 

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All of Anne Rice's doubts about Tom Cruise's acting in "Interview with the Vampire" dissipated instantly upon seeing him. Rice wrote: 

"From the moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me. He has the immense physical and moral presence; he was defiant and yet never without conscience; he was beautiful beyond description yet compelled to do cruel things. The sheer beauty of Tom was dazzling, but the polish of his acting, his flawless plunge into the Lestat persona, his ability to speak rather boldly poetic lines, and speak them with seeming ease and conviction were exhilarating and uplifting. The guy is great." 

Pretty unambiguous. Rice then heaped praise on Antonio Banderas (who played the vampire Armand), Stephen Rea, who played Santiago, and Christian Slater, who played the film's eponymous interviewer. As for all the other supporting players, Rice declared that they were "all flawless as far as I'm concerned." The production design was flawless too, she added, writing, "The entire look of the film was perfection. It caught the dimness, the filth, the fragile handmade luxury and ornate aspirations of the 18th and 19th centuries; it caught the mud on the hem of the garment." 

Neil Jordan cast Cruise because he was a big star who, he said, had to hide away. Jordan saw a parallel between Lestat and Cruise.

Admittedly, Rice did have a whole section she titled "Quibbles," wherein she nitpicked the movie. She didn't understand, for instance, why ancient vampires would be such messy eaters and felt that the film could have been accessible to kids, had it been less sexed up.

But those were, as she noted, mere quibbles. Rice's general attitude was that "Interview with the Vampire" was great.