Why Eric Bogosian initially said no to an Interview with the Vampire

When Eric Bogosian’s agent asked him if he’s like to play the Interviewer in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire he was blunt in his reply.

“I said ‘I’ll make it easy for you. It’s a hard pass,'” he tells TV Tonight.

“But he said, ‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’

“I’m so glad that he and I finally read the scripts, then I finally understood this is not a simple gig. This is going to be somebody that will challenge you.

“Plus, I have to say, I’ve worked with people who are really good at what they do but are kind of awful people, and I’ve worked with people who are very easy to work with but they don’t make great work.

“This group of people who made the show… are the best at what they do. And they were great to work with Jacob (Anderson), Sam (Reid) , Mara (LePere-Schloop) our set designer who created the whole look of the show and Rolin (Jones, creator), Alan (Taylor) who was overseeing director and the other directors -it was such a pleasure.

“They made it easy.”

An update to the 1994 film adamptation in which Bogosian’s journalist Daniel Molloy was portrayed by a young Christian Slater, the new 7 part AMC+ series delves deeper into Rice’s characters set predominantly in 1910 New Orleans.

But at nearly 40 years on from the novel’s publication also offers Bogosian new creative challenges.

“The parallels with my own life are kind of strange with Daniel Molloy. We’re both in our 60s and maybe not in our heyday anymore, but looking back at myself at 24 or 25 years old when I got to New York, I was ready for anything. I wanted to go into every bar, try every drug, whatever … and that’s the young Daniel Molloy,” he explains.

“The first interview is sloppy, and not as penetrating as it should be.”

“The first interview is sloppy, and not as penetrating as it should be. Now 40 odd years later, he’s won 2 Pulitzers, he’s a veteran journalist, he knows how to get the story. He’s not afraid. He has courage. And here’s his chance to get back.

“That is what has informed my interpretation of the role.”

The interview this time around takes place in Dubai, 2022, in a post-pandemic world. Molloy is offered the channce to re-interview Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) in a thrilling, sometimes combative exchange of ideas between a sexy centuries-old vampire and a sardonic journalist.

“Rolin was a fan of my work and particularly Talk Radio, so he wrote to my voice. He was a playwright before he became a TV writer and the best gig you can get is to write to actors who you know, and write to what their strengths are,” he observes.

“Christian is a great guy, a wonderful actor, but he just wasn’t given that kind of meat that I was given with this role. Also Christian did it when he was a kid, … but what I’m doing in the scenes is in relation to who I was 40 years ago. An impetuous 25 year old who decides he’s going to interview a vampire and kind of do it in a sloppy, quick fashion, not bringing the penetrating skills he has as a as a veteran journalist.

“Daniel is trying to crack the story.”

“That brings up a whole different set of plot points to the story. In the course of the seven episodes, Daniel is trying to crack the story. He’s trying to get past what Louis is saying, to find the truth. And he has the ability to do that, which he didn’t really have, 40-something years ago.

“40 years ago I was a terrible writer. I look back at the things I wrote then, and I’m embarrassed. But you get better at what you do, hopefully, and certainly, if you get a second chance, you want to get it back. I made a movie in 1983 called Special FX. I wish I knew what I was doing when I made that movie. It’s a fun, crazy, weird old movie but it would have been better if I could have brought the skills I have today to that role. Or maybe not. Who knows?”

Bogosian’s work was essentially a two-hander with UK actor Jacob Anderson, whom he admired from Game of Thrones. They were long shoots for the interviews, structured not unlike a two-hander play.

“We did those scenes after he had done a lot of stuff with Sam. Really violent and intense stuff. So he was tired. He’d already been working for three months. But he brought it all. He was hypnotic to interview and listen to,” he recalls.

“These guys would go off and come back all covered in blood.”

“Across the hall was the soundstage for all the houses they were in and these guys would go off and come back all covered in blood. I didn’t know what they were doing in there!

“But I wrapped all my stuff in about six weeks. It was like doing seven guest spots on a TV show in a row, so it was very compressed. Every day was all me / all day, with with Jacob. We went to work at 6pm and finished at 7am.”

Bogosian, who has his roots in Broadway and film, has grown to appreciate the demands of episodic television, the fast pace and mass media success.

“I did over 60 Law & Orders and when I did those, I kind of shook out all of those heebie jeebies I had about cameras and the way a set works. I was able to get more focused and I started to think, ‘This is a skill set you’re gonna have to learn more about how to do this,” he explains.

“Toward the end, there was really hard stuff emotionally”

“I’ve had a busy couple of years with some really interesting stuff Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler, Billions and Succession and so I came into this feeling like ‘I’m in great shape, I’m ready to rock.’ But toward the end, there was really hard stuff emotionally and I got tired. When you’re on the sixth or seventh take of the same thing you have to reach down because this is your only chance to get it. ”

Yet Interview with the Vampire, which catapults Australian Sam Reid onto a world stage as the theatrical, queer Lestat, also explores Louis as a closeted Creole black man.

“The whole show is in tight-rope walk. Everything that Rolin is doing … the queer aspects to it, the changing of the races of people … he knew what he was doing. I’m saying lines that I when I read them, I’m like, ‘Can I say that?’ Can I say ‘You take a black man and you make them a vampire and you get them angry and watch out….?’ Wow. I said it!”

“Sam and Jacob: what they bring to that show takes courage”

“And I want to just say this for the record, Sam and Jacob: what they bring to that show takes courage. To dive in with both feet and say ‘We’re going to do it! We’re going to bite each other’s necks and get in that coffin and we’re gonna go for it!’ …..it shows. Because you’re vulnerable in that way and the audience knows when you’re bringing it and they really brought it.”

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire is now screening on AMC+