In terms of having to really commit, is that something you felt comfortable with right away? Did it require a level of adjustment?
I remember reading the Dubai sections, and just trying to make that language conversational but alien at the same time was always what I was going for. There’s a version of this show I think that is very stoic and takes itself too seriously, and I don’t think any of us ever wanted to make that show and thank God.
This is going to sound like a very random thing to say, but I got a weird bit of inspiration the night before my first day of shooting. One of my favorite films is Hot Rod with Andy Samberg. I think it has one of the best plots of any film ever, and I think the performances in that are incredible. After all of this preparation for season one—learning to tap dance, learning these huge passages of Anne Rice’s writing and Rolin Jones’s writing—I felt really overwhelmed by the whole task ahead. I had a bath and I watched Hot Rod on my laptop. Genuinely, the commitment that everybody in that film gives to what they’re doing, I had this realization that the only way that any story works is if everybody is giving their all.
I don’t mean this in a shady way, because there’s lots of great stuff being made at the moment. But this was never going to be a show where we were banking content and just saying our lines and going home. It was only going to work if all of us allowed ourselves to be as silly as possible and as emotional as possible.
That makes me think of the moment in the finale, in your scene with Lestat, where there’s this very dramatic music playing and we’re having this long-awaited meeting between the two of you—and then Lestat says, “Siri, stop.” The music coming from his phone just stops.
It’s one of my favorite moments! When those heightened moments are infused with humor, that’s what makes it feel real. That’s what grounds these really big feelings. We all metaphorically slip on a banana peel on the worst day of our lives.
Episode five is one of the strongest of this season, where we get to know Louis in the 1970s—and in one of his darkest moments. It also ends with you in head-to-toe prosthetics, after Louis walks toward the sun in a suicide attempt.
I was doing a lot of Jeff Goldblum in The Fly things. It felt reminiscent of that. I was doing a lot of Jeff Goldblum impressions. [Laughs] There are things about Louis in San Francisco at that time [from Anne Rice’s books] that aren’t really in the episode, but hopefully I managed to sneak some in. That version of Louis more closely matches the Louis of the book, the way that he speaks about Lestat. There’s cockiness and a genuine detachment. I wanted to make sure that that would be a little bit jarring, because in season one, we first meet him, he’s charming. As soon as they get back to the apartment, that drops, and he doesn’t have the energy anymore. I always thought of it like, Louis is an addict at that moment. His mood is defined by his meal and by what his meal has put into their body, and so he’s very erratic. I wanted him to feel like he could flip at any moment. He could burst into tears or he could do what he does.
David Canfield
Source link
