Memory is a monster.
We forget. It doesn't.
Your book makes no mention of our prior meeting.
Yeah, well, things didn't end well the last time,
so a do-over.
Truth and reconciliation.
The year was 1910.
Louis, let me introduce you to Mr. Lestat de Lioncourt.
- That man Lestat? He the devil. - Paul!
I can swap this life of shame, swap it out for a dark gift.
I love you, Louis.
Be my companion.
Rashid, did you always work for him?
You are getting access to very precious items from the archives.
Claudia was everything.
I loved her unconditionally.
There are four pages torn out.
- She wrote about it, and I'd like to read it. - No.
Who am I supposed to love?
You two have each other.
She is poisoning Louis against me.
This is how it has to be for me.
For my family.
This is not a life!
That's 'cause you took my life!
The tapes are an admitted performance.
This is the premise of our interview.
The odyssey of recollection.
I'm gonna go out there and find other vampires.
The vampires out there are vicious.
I'm going to kill him.
We were going to kill Lestat.
So what did you do with it?
We threw him in a trunk and left him out with the garbage.
We got in our car and drove away.
A merchant vessel,
newly christened and headed for Europe,
ready to begin the adventure of our lives.
Well, you didn't kill Lestat.
You chose Lestat over her time and time again.
And you're still Louis the pimp
paying a whore to sit in a room and talk with you.
This session is over.
Louis can sometimes act up.
I protect him from himself.
What was that you said about memory?
A monster, was it?
Daniel Malloy, I'd like you to meet the vampire Armand,
the love of my life.
- Synced and corrected by naFraC - - www.addic7ed.com -
She writes here, "I do not dream."
I can confirm that.
At least, that's what she said to me once
when I was talking about one of my dreams,
which were erratic and often in those years.
Of course, she might have said that to shut me up,
but yet she writes it here,
so let's believe it.
Let's.
She continues.
"We traveled light in our ancestral home.
We slept in the earth,
took circuitous routes around the mad army
goose-stepping its way towards Mother Russia."
Some would say a poorly timed European holiday.
Disregard.
Not for Claudia.
All those years,
scouring libraries for evidence of our kind.
She wasn't going to let humanity's ideological rift
delay her.
And the horrors we walked over every night.
The precision of trains speeding to atrocity.
They only calcified her determination
to find others she could better relate to.
And re-reading these pages,
it's clear she didn't think I qualified any longer.
Can you imagine never dreaming?
Would you look forward to sleep?
Or would it terrify you when the day broke?
Or is it the sleep of an infant?
Tabula rasa.
Once again, that's the voice of a vampire - Armand,
but continue to disregard it as he remains off the record.
It's Louis' interview, Mr. Molloy.
- You're at the table. - I'm in our dining room.
You're not dining.
An ancient doesn't need the blood as often as the young do.
Intriguing and disregarding.
She had stowed us away in ships, trains and wagons.
She had asked the desperate farmers and rationed soldiers
to teach her their languages before she killed them.
And when she had cobbled together
enough words and grammar,
she stopped asking.
Claudia was a thing of little indecision,
a manic tour guide.
And any castle with ties to Vlad Tepes or Vlad Dracul,
however slight, had to be explored.
And I endured it all for Claudia,
whose rage toward me and my refusal to burn Lestat
had dulled into a bitter silence.
This war.
It's affecting the blood.
Been drinking misery,
hopelessness.
It's in the blood, we're taking it in.
Taking it on.
I'm thinking that's why we can't get warm,
warm up.
You think that's it?
"Louis...
did you say something?"
Thank you for asking.
I did say something, Claudia.
I said I'm cold.
I'm sleeping in a hole every night.
I'm worn to a nub.
How about you?
"Well, brother Lou,
I'm a little low myself.
- But, uh... " - Air raid.
It wasn't the murdering Hun
or beasts of Ivan,
or the fire raining down from the RAF
that chased the vampire away.
The vampire hadn't been here for centuries.
The few scraps of forensic proof we found
made the case plain,
but Claudia was unassailable.
Like... like some deranged geologist
waving a woolly mammoth tusk saying,
"Let's knock on the neighbor's door,
there must be one inside."
It's dead.
Maybe it's time we go home.
"He asked me if we can go home.
Home?
Can there be a more offensive question?
Run back to New Orleans.
Pry up his bones, why don't you?
Louis de Pointe du Lac.
Dead weight."
I want to thank you...
for the memories you helped restore the other night.
I understand these diaries much better now.
And I want to thank you, Louis, for yesterday's
eight hours on how to avoid the sun and torpedoes
while cruising the Mediterranean war theater.
And tonight's two hours and counting
on chasing old world vamps who never materialize.
You ever read 'Moby Dick', Real Rashid?
I'm here to serve.
Ah. Yeah, sure.
I'm sorry, this is... this is so weird.
Where did they send you when
Shah Rukh Khan over here was playing you?
Is there a panic room behind the stolen Rembrandt?
My love ran a theater company for 150 years, Daniel.
Your love was in a box
pondering a premediated neck wound,
according to Claudia.
She wrote it, let's choose to believe it.
Unworthy in San Francisco, unworthy in Dubai.
Disregard.
Hmm.
Bonjour, mon amour.
- No. - Oui.
No.
Is it the same question?
Go away.
Or do you miss me?
I miss you.
Despite our recent unpleasantness...
- still missing each other. - Claudia!
Hmm! Four years of grim wayfaring
and still no sight of the benevolent vampire.
So, how does denial manifest itself tonight?
Sniffing German brandy?
You're not here, I'm just fucked in the head.
Quite fucked.
- Was she worth it? - Yes.
- You say it like you believe it. - I do, I do.
I do, I do.
- I do. - Stop!
I do, I do.
I do! I d...
Oh. Purgatory is a lovely room for music.
I have a new piece, Concerto for Gashed Throat and Orchestra.
- I'm sorry. - Don't say it again.
You ruin it with remorse.
It was a perfect betrayal.
You gave me a death of distinction.
Trucks!
But in answer to your question.
Yes.
I'm gonna bloody kill you.
If you were alive you'd have done it already.
Hmm.
Oh, love.
I'm merely waiting until you're happy.
So hurry up, mon cher.
I had taken 7,000 souls by then.
- Argh! - But Lestat was the only one
that felt like murder.
Semantics, surely,
but it's how I felt.
He came by invitation.
My distraction from the monochromatic landscape.
The gray of an obliterated road,
the gray-brown of a charred and bullet-ridden city.
In Germany, Herr Hitler had popped a pill in his bunker
and Europe celebrated.
But in Romania, the champagne fizzled and went flat.
Soviets replaced Nazis.
War became occupation.
Why they shooting up coffins?
Windows shuttered, doors bolted.
Like every other village we seen,
folks left when the Russians rolled in.
Folks left? So who ran garlic around these doors?
Who nailed the crucifix to the wall?
Why don't you knock and ask?
Just like in the books, they think garlic protects them.
- Your books? - They think we hate Jesus.
Don't start back with your books!
- Your books are bullshit. - There's a vampire been here.
Another crucifix.
Hey, now. Okay, okay.
- Oh, shit. - Look like you should.
Don't say anything about anything.
American?
Okay. War, all have sad story.
You understanding my English?
Yeah.
Emilia.
Mary.
This is my father, Robert.
We're tired, we could use a place to sleep.
We got things to thank you with.
Vodka?
Oh, yeah.
You will make the friends.
No more beds.
Boiler room, you can use for night.
Warm, boiler loud.
Thank you. That'll be fine.
American!
They are not used to seeing man with good looks.
And, uh, the rest of everyone?
Most from town, some can't go home.
Home is gone.
How come you're all living out here?
Stone walls, metal doors.
Is something going on out in the woods?
Bombs in ground, wolves,
maybe German soldiers who don't know war is over.
Maybe something, uh, worse.
- Or maybe vampires. - Please!
Oh, look,
soldiers with garlic around their necks.
- No, no, no, no, no! - Oh.
Soup for cigarettes. Bad trade for you.
But God will forget when you die.
God "not" forget.
Americans?
I haven't heard a word of English in half a year.
Say something, anything.
- Uh, something, anything. - Oh!
- Hello. - Hello.
What am I talk?
Oh, you, darling, are talk broken English
by an Englishman too enamored with his student
- to do the job properly. - Mm-hm.
This Robert.
Uh, Louis.
She's a quick studier actually
and very resourceful and I'm desperately in love with her.
I hear you have vodka.
This Morgan.
Morgan Ward, correspondent Daily Herald.
They've forgotten I'm here.
And I've forgotten your name already.
It's, uh, Louis.
Louis! Louis, wonderful strange.
Welcome to, no question, hell on Earth!
And you? What's your name, sweetheart?
Why are they shooting up graves outside?
This is my daughter, Mary.
Oh.
Uh, Andrei.
Maybe you can take Mary here to meet the other children.
I'm fine, sir, thank you.
Go ahead, Mary. Go and meet the other children.
I bet they know everything about this place.
Wait, that's wrong.
She didn't say that in front of Claudia.
Say what? Who?
The wolves, the Germans, something worse.
Emilia, she would not have said that in front of Claudia.
Wolves, maybe German soldiers who don't know war is over.
Maybe something, uh, worse.
She thought Claudia was a child. Claudia left.
And then she said it.
Is something going on out there in the woods?
Bombs in ground, wolves,
maybe Germans who don't know war is over.
Maybe something... worse.
Yes.
Yes!
That's how it went.
We should get every detail right.
In total agreement.
Perhaps this would be a time to take a break, Louis.
You know, Real Rashid, I'm pretty good at my job,
a bright young reporter with a point of view.
Interviewed a fallen Catholic archbishop,
four Enron vice presidents,
and if they've got something to hide
they always start with some kind of disguise.
Not literally, not some dumb Halloween costume,
gloves, contact lenses.
They tell jokes, they're charming.
And then at some crisis point, when I get close,
it drops away and I see a flash of the truth.
Armand didn't want me to do the interview, Daniel.
Still don't.
But he wanted to be close to it, right, Real Rashid?
I mean, hey, whatever it is they're trying to hide,
I'm probably not going to crack it,
which is, you know, who cares? Happens all the time.
But I wanna ask you, as a member of the inferior species,
why say, "Hey, vampires are real.
Here's almost all the story"?
Thank you, Rashid.
That's why I'm coming after you, Real Rashid.
You I can fucking break!
If you'll excuse me.
Wins what?
Ow!
She got all tore up when our boys started shipping out.
Volunteered for the Red Cross.
A sainted wife.
Yeah, grew up in a military family.
Kind of woman you can't argue much with.
I am familiar with the breed.
Up your bum.
Okay.
Why are they firing into coffins here?
Farm boys commanded by farm boys.
German amphetamines,
the superstitions of a backward country.
Mad fog in the dirt, trees and rivers.
I keep my trousers pinned at the ankle when I sleep
for fear it will get me too.
This is an old country
with old things in it.
More mad fog, and she's currently village prefect.
- I believe you. - Oh, I do too.
I believe everything you say, Emilia.
Marry me.
When the priest comes back.
That's our little joke.
The priest was dragged away by our Soviet friends.
And by dragged,
I mean, tied to a truck and dragged.
Something out there
with soul disturbed.
Disturbed?
Argh! Argh! Argh!
Argh!
Oh!
The triumph over Hitler's evil
can be felt throughout France,
and in no more fantastic an example
than the priceless works of art
being bundled up in the countryside,
lifted on to trucks
and returned to their rightful place in Paris.
And we of the BBC World Service,
speaking for the rest of the western world,
send a most grateful thankyou to our allies in France
with one of your very own.
Mm!
Are you a Red, Louis?
You say something?
I did.
Didn't catch it.
Then I'll repeat myself.
Are you... a Red? No judgement. Simple question.
I am...
a magical vodka Negro.
Having the first alright night in quite a while. C'mon now.
You're either a deserter or a Bolshevik, which is it?
This is why you have no friends, old man.
I told you already.
- I'm looking for my wife. - Oh.
It's printed on albumen.
I really want to hear the lady sing.
I take my own photographs, I make more money that way.
And your dutiful wife's photograph
was taken by a glass-plate camera,
printed on albumen paper.
That makes this 30 years old, which would make her...
sixty, sixty-five,
and the birth of your daughter a medical miracle.
This is a road you really don't want to go down.
I like you. You seem like a good man.
If you can be quick with it. Song's half over.
If you're AWOL, turn back around and take your punishment.
It'll be paradise in comparison to Uncle Joseph's utopia.
That it?
That's it.
That was unkind.
I'm cutting you off and taking your woman.
Never mess with a magical vodka Negro.
May I have this dance?
If you're a Bolshevik, you're making a fool's bet.
You really want to marry him?
He's got the big one down the pants.
Daddy!
I fell out a tree.
It was this big grayish thing
and clothes were rotting off it like it died in 'em. Do it!
Aargh!
It was strong and it killed
- and carried off its kill. - Was it a vampire?
It had fangs, what else would it be?
- A snake, a baboon. - Baboons?!
- Baboons got fangs. - We're in Romania! Baboons?
Did it speak? Did you try telepathy?
- Yes. - Yes, it spoke?
- Yes, I tried telepathy. - So it didn't speak?
I think it was sick.
Why are you laughing with them, giving out your real name?
You even notice while you're making friends,
everyone's got a crucifix, wearing garlic.
Mortals are scared of vampires
in a part of the world known for vampires,
ain't a surprise or evidence of an actual vampire!
There's one of us out there!
But if he can't take you ballroom dancing
and tell you you're pretty, hell with him, is that it?
- Hello, grudge! - No! Mm-mm!
I forgave you for messing up my plan,
I did not forgive you for bringing him with you.
In a landfill with five years of garbage on top.
In here! You carry him in here.
You slow us down!
What were you gonna ask him if he could talk?
Change the subject when the truth blinds you.
Who made you?
And then what? Who made the one that made you?
What are we looking for here, Adam and Eve of the damned?
God? Are we looking for God, Claudia?
Yeah, get in the hole.
I've known exactly four vampires in my life
and you've all been the worst.
Lestat, Antoinette, the motherfucker and you.
I'm looking for one, just one,
that ain't a goddamn bastard!
Memories just keep bubbling up.
I woke that night to the sound of chaos
erupting nearby.
Claudia was, uh...
She was dreaming.
Her head twitching like you would.
Maybe you're just, uh...
- frosting the pie. - No.
I can feel her.
I can feel her next to me.
She's having a nightmare.
What's worse than a nightmare?
If your soul's projecting out its fears,
at least it's up and running.
But the absence of anything?
The void.
The nothing.
Pieces...
coming back.
Hours,
nights.
Objects...
surfacing in water.
It was just something she wrote.
But it wasn't true.
She could dream.
Thank you.
If you wanna take that break.
No.
I want this.
To remember.
She woke up to the noise.
We arrived back on the factory floor
to a maddening swirl of shouting
and Red Army soldiers.
For God's sake!
Louis, please, help bring some damn sanity to the room!
They think she's a monster.
Louis or Robert, or whoever the hell you are, just help me!
Look, look!
Look! Look!
Look. Look. Right!
No!
Are you coming or not?
They're going to butcher her!
Louis, for God's sake, do something!
Human affairs.
Help her, for God's sake!
Death and how to avoid it.
She was getting them rabbits.
- Their problem. - No!
No, don't! Don't! Don't!
Our concern was in the woods.
That look like a baboon?
It's okay.
It's okay, he's yours. We don't want him.
What the hell is that?
It's...
a vampire.
No, I'm a vampire. That's a fucking catfish with teeth.
It's dirty.
It doesn't like us.
Us, you, the same.
Not the same, not even close. Uhh!
Louis!
Uhh!
Louis!
Claudia!
Shh! Shh!
A woman vampire.
An angry woman vampire.
A mom.
Words, language, and moving slow enough
we sensed she wanted us to follow.
I'm not stopping.
Me neither.
And so we did.
Through the forest, as if a fairy tale.
But even if we could get her to talk to us,
what would she say?
What, after all,
can the damned really say to the damned?
Yes.
Tell her about the blood.
Say it in English.
The blood is bad here.
The humans...
there's too much sadness, too much pain.
We feel it too when we drink.
We can't get warm.
Our bodies hurt.
Maybe you need better blood.
America.
What's she saying?
Louis.
Claudia.
Yah!
And that is how we met the old world vampire.
We've received an aggressive offer for the Bacon triptych.
Oh? I didn't know we'd made it available.
It's a new name so I'll have to run due diligence,
but it's a number you wouldn't anticipate.
Could I see the pages we removed?
Of Claudia's diaries.
We made an agreement.
I don't know what else is blurred or misremembered.
My name is in some of those pages.
I sit across from him
and reckon with the knowledge I don't know
what other mis-rememberings made into it.
I won't share them with him but I need to read them again.
- May I make an observation? - I've lost control of the interview.
Yes.
He's skilled.
He wants you in pieces for the privilege
of putting them back together as he sees fit.
- It's his job. - It's his drug.
He's reveling in it. You should end it.
- No. - Put him back on a plane is what I mean.
No.
I'll have Rashid assemble the pages removed.
What's the observation?
The boy we met in San Francisco.
The one who fumbled over his tape recording device,
who barely understood the meaning
of the story he was being told.
He's still in there, somewhere.
We can find him.
We can have him saying what happened next in no time.
How?
We do it together.
Like everything we've done for the past 70 years.
Good morning.
Uh-huh.
So, fellas, what's up?
You have our attention.
Yeah?
Yeah.
On the record?
Okay.
Um...
Session ten, the vampire Louis
and the vampire Armand.
You went west.
Claudia was entirely broken.
She had left a part of herself in Romania.
I knew I had to steer her far away from it.
I chose the city that called to us on the radio.
To the mother of New Orleans.
- Members of my coven sensed... - Uh, uh, uh.
We'll get to you.
The war had turned off the lights,
stripped its streets of their beauty,
sent its avant-garde into exile.
But now, the whole world was ready to return,
to remake their lives.
Pilgrims on their hopeful way.
I wanna say something to you.
I don't need to hear anything back,
I just need you to hear me.
Hard words and soft words.
The hard.
Our life is shit.
It's been shit.
It is shit. It's gonna be shit again.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
No one's watching, no one cares.
A shit life beats no life.
But where we're going now we can't be running away again.
Doesn't mean we forget what we saw.
What she did in front of us.
If I see you going that way, I'm going pull you back.
I don't need that from you.
As long as you walk the Earth,
I'll never taste the fire, you understand me?
We're going to find others like us.
And if it ain't here, cos life is shit,
or I fuck it up again, or you fuck it up,
we'll go to the next place.
We can't be the only good ones out there.
Soft words.
If you were the last vampire on Earth...
it would be enough.
You and me.
Me and you.
You and me.
Me and you.
You and me!
Okay.
CREDITS
Don't be afraid.
Just start the tape.
Welcome to the Théâtre des Vampires.
Americans are here!
It's different here. I love it.
I never want to leave.
Who's that handsome man on the wall up there?
They've got a shrine to him.
What if they find out we killed him?
We both now exist
in two different worlds.
Are you schizophrenic, Louis?
Doomed. Always doomed.
Picked another one over me!
What about me and you,
you and me, me and you?!
Let me tell you a little something
about 18th-Century Armand.
You fear Armand.
You should fear the other one.
Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat!
Episode one is called "What Can the Damned
Really Say to the Damned"?
It is very much the recognition of being damned
and looking for an answer.
And there is no answer.
In the early stages of development
of season one,
we were originally gonna do the entire first book
in one season, and there was always a thought
that we would have Louis and Claudia
post-New Orleans and pre-Paris
to have this episode of upheaval,
where they're in the European war theater
and they're searching out these vampires.
Louis and Claudia are, like,
right in the thick of it.
I think it's a very bold way to start.
It was really exciting to feel
like you're taking these characters
completely out of their comfort zone.
Claudia and Louis are at odds with each other
because of how season one left off.
This war...
it's affecting the blood.
Louise's kind of trying to earn back
Claudia's trust in him,
but Claudia's very reluctant to hear it.
The scene where I threw the heart at Louie,
it was really exciting to film.
The guy that played the dead soldier,
he was very sweet about everything.
He was like, "Hit me in the chest as hard as you want."
And I was like, "I'm not gonna do that."
I had the heart in my hand
and then just, like, preloaded it and then bit into it,
and it's just like an explosion of sugar in your mouth.
So I spent the rest of the night just, like, just buzzing.
If you've committed murder
and you've killed somebody you love more than anyone else,
that's gonna stick with you for a while.
Louis...
Lestat haunts Louis, and it is a fixation.
Louis is never going to shed Lestat.
The way to approach "Dreamstat,"
which is what Jacob called him,
I definitely tried to bring as much Louis into that Lestat
as I possibly could.
He's mimicking his body language.
I do, I do.
He repeats the words that he says in the same way.
I do. Stop!
So you kind of really get the sense that this is also Louis.
I do, I do.
Claudia is looking for where she belongs,
where she comes from.
Where are there other vampires?
We encounter the revenant vampire,
which is described in the book as a zombie vampire.
Anne Rice's vampires are so human.
It's such a departure from these kind of, like,
beautified, glamorous vampires.
Oh, sorry. It's just really fun.
It's a vampire.
Oh. No, I'm a vampire.
That's catfish with teeth.
Action!
The sequence that we're doing today
is the revenant attacking Louis.
We got a wire system that's lifting our actor Jacob
up in the air as if he's being strangled by the neck.
Louis!
And then Claudia does a big wire-assisted leap,
lands on his back, rips his eyes out, saves the day.
Delaney is really good.
She's actually really very handy in a wire.
It's been a lot of fun. I actually really enjoy stunts.
I like doing physical things,
so the more I could do, the more I wanted to do.
A lot of harness work,
a lot of leg locking around actors and pulling.
The trickiest thing is her ripping his eyes out.
So our idea for cheating it
was to slap her fingers onto his eyes
and cover it with the revenant's hands,
and then they drop to their knees,
and we use that as a stitch point
where we can put in the prosthetic eye makeup
and cover it with Delaney's hands.
Eyeballs are kind of in the palm of my hand,
and I'm gouging, gouging. Pop them out.
Dirk's amazing and Dirk's really tall,
so when I was locking my legs around him,
the harness had to be there.
The sounds that he makes as the revenant
and how he embodies it is really amazing.
Claudia!
A woman vampire.
Claudia has never met a vampire
that she was fully on board with,
and finally meeting this female vampire
that she appears to make a connection with
is so joyful for her.
Dasiana throwing herself in the fire...
It's a brutal, brutal moment.
That kind of solidifies everything
that Claudia thinks of herself
and what it means to be a vampire.
It's a lonely life.
The interview becomes more important in season two.
This is the first time
that Armand has been in this conversation.
I think Armand is trying
to knock Molloy off his game.
I think he's trying to frighten Molloy.
May I make an observation?
I've lost control of the interview.
Yes. He's skilled.
He wants you in pieces for the privilege
of putting them back together
as he sees fit. It's his job.
It's his drug.
Armand wants to protect himself,
but also he wants to protect his relationship with Louis
and what they have.
He feels he has no choice
except to come in sharing the narrative with Louis.
Claudia was entirely broken.
She had left a part of herself in Romania.
I knew I had to steer her far away from it.
I want to say something to you.
In the van on the way to Paris,
he's kind of planting a flag in the ground and saying, "Look,
we've been through it.
We're gonna keep going through it."
We're gonna find others like us.
Regardless of what happens, I will be here.
If you were the last vampire on Earth...
it would be enough.
Okay.
- Synced and corrected by naFraC - - www.addic7ed.com -