Interview With The Vampire Season 2, Episode 8: Assad Zaman & Eric Bogosian Answer Lingering Devil’s Minion Questions

Warning: SPOILERS for Interview with the Vampire season 2, episode 8!

Interview with the Vampire season 2 has reached a bloody conclusion, with Louis (Jacob Anderson) destroying the Théâtre des Vampires as vengeance for Claudia’s (Delainey Hayles) murder in the past and learning that Armand (Assad Zaman) set her up in the present. The latter discovery was only possible thanks to Daniel Molloy’s (Eric Bogosian) tireless investigation and ties to the Talamasca, both of which have been simmering all season. The climactic confluence of events in the finale has been bolstered by outside activity, as AMC continues to expand Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe and officially renewed the show for season 3.

Interview with the Vampire season 2 closes the book on Louis’ time in Paris, temporarily reuniting him with Lestat (Sam Reid) before he appears to go his own way. While details are scarce on what exactly will happen next, creator Rolin Jones has confirmed that season 3 will adapt the second novel in The Vampire Chronicles series, The Vampire Lestat. While that would normally mean fans must bid farewell to characters such as Louis and Daniel for the time being, the show shook things up when Armand turned Daniel into a vampire and Louis beckoned his fellow vampires to find him in Dubai.

Screen Rant interviewed Bogosian and Zaman about their tense final moments together in Interview with the Vampire season 2, as well as the scenes audiences have yet to see play out between them. The duo also speculated how their storyline might play out next, and what role AMC’s Immortal Universe may play in future seasons of the show.

Interview With The Vampire Season 2 Is Not The Last We’ve Seen Of Daniel & Armand’s Animosity

Screen Rant: Assad, how many layers are there to your performance? There is what Louis remembers of Armand, what Daniel is seeing, and then the real Armand. What’s going on in there?

Assad Zaman: I think it’s endless. You can keep digging with Armand. He is like an onion that you keep peeling back, and maybe that’s just 500 years of layers and layers and layers and layers of armor that he’s built up for himself to survive. Yeah, it’s really fun to play.

Eric, you’ve been having a great time playing Daniel’s incessant and simmering rage against Armand, trying to catch him out in every possible lie. Is that the Pulitzer Prize winner in you, or is it just personal?

Eric Bogosian: Oh, I think Daniel has way more craft than I have, especially as an investigative journalist. I’m a writer, and I’ve actually done investigative stuff, but I’m lazy.

I would say this character is persistent, given the fact that he’ll go for the story even when he could be killed at any moment. That’s always present and becomes more so right to that last moment. Did you ever see that video of the guy [Alex Honnold] who climbs Yosemite’s El Capitan with no ropes or anything? I mean, the guy has no fear. I think that’s a Daniel thing: No fear. Get the story.

I think it’s so interesting that Armand holds on so tightly to Louis for 70 years based on a lie, and then the second that lie is revealed, he lets it go much more easily than I would have thought. How would you describe his feelings towards Louis, Lestat, and their whole situation by the end of episode 8?

Assad Zaman: It’s interesting because, in that last scene, the interview’s effectively over and Armand kind of breathes this sigh of relief. He’s got away with it; the worst part has stayed hidden, and he decides in that one moment to gloat.

I think he means it sincerely, but it is a gloat. He decides to say, he “Lestat loved you, and I can say that now. He loved you a great deal.” Because he knew that Lestat did all this for Louis. In that moment, in the sewer after the fire, Lestat didn’t tell Louis, “I’m the one who saved your life, and he’s the one who directed me in this play,” because he let Louis go in that moment.

Armand, he’s a complicated man, but he decides to gloat. Daniel Malloy then sees that and is like, “I’m going to enjoy these next 10 minutes of ripping you to shreds because I know everything.”

Eric Bogosian: Maybe it’s because vampires live forever. They must like to have the most complicated emotional lives that they can possibly come up with because they certainly make things pretty complicated for each other.

Assad Zaman: Exactly. Eternity is nothing. What’s time to a vampire?

How “Devil’s Minion” Might Play Into Interview With The Vampire Season 3

When he pulled the Uno Reverse card with the diary, I was like, “Well, that’s it. I guess he’s dying now!” But Armand does not kill him. He does something, though. What is Armand’s thought process there?

Assad Zaman: Wow. I mean, that’s the million-dollar question. I think one of the biggest questions in season 2 is, “Was what happened in San Francisco?” And I’ve said that going into season 3, one of the biggest questions will be, “What happened in Dubai? What happened after Louis left that penthouse? How did this come about?”

Instinctively, I don’t think it would’ve happened straight away. It wouldn’t have been a snap decision, but it’s going to be really interesting to see how it plays out.

I already hear a million fans screaming in my ear, “Where is Devil’s Minion?” Is that something that you guys have been discussing throughout the season? Are you hoping we’re going to get to unravel that, perhaps in season 3?

Assad Zaman: I think it’s there in a number of ways that we can explore it, this season was meant to tell a different story. We’ve very much focused on telling Louis’ story and finishing this chapter of Interview with the Vampire, but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t sprinkled in elements that we do want to explore later on. There’s bits of The Vampire Lestat, there’s bits of “Devil’s Minion,” there’s bits of Queen of the Damned and Talamasca stuff that we are hopefully very much going to explore.

And I have always said I am more than willing to go down the “Devil’s Minion” route with Eric or Luke or both. It might be a nice parallel, alternate reality version to do a three-way. [Laughs]

Eric Bogosian: I was playing catch up on reading the books when we started, and I just finished the seventh book after we got back from Prague. But way back in the beginning, when we first met each other, Assad kept saying, “Yeah, we’re hooking up.” And I hadn’t gotten there yet, so I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

Assad Zaman: He didn’t believe me.

Eric Bogosian: And then I found out more and more. Obviously, these books are the foundation of the show. But in this specific case, Rolin has decided to expand the Daniel story greatly, and there are all kinds of things going on that aren’t in the books. We really don’t know where this is all going.

As a writer, it’s definitely fascinating to watch a great writer reinterpret another great writer. This doesn’t happen all the time, but in this particular case, I think it’s been really exciting to watch how Rolin plays this 3D chess with Anne Rice, because her world is so imaginative and full of so many nooks and crannies and ideas — it’s almost too much. He has to figure out, as anybody who adapts does, how to make compromises. I’ve done it; I’ve adapted three or four things.

In some ways, this is not a compromise. This is an additional thing, especially with Daniel. In the books, Daniel sort of peters out, and right now we’re not doing that at all. We’re revving up.

What To Expect From The Talamasca After Interview With The Vampire Season 2

Eric, Daniel got to bring the Talamasca into Interview with the Vampire, and now AMC is giving us the Talamasca spinoff show. Do you hope to do some more investigations with them on this show, or might we see you pop up over there?

Eric Bogosian: I’m just here. [Laughs] I don’t know what they’re planning for me. I’m available for all kinds of jobs that they may have.

I certainly hope that Justin [Kirk] is going to continue with this Talamasca stuff, but I don’t know. I’m not privy to the negotiations that they’re having. I do know that they’re putting together a strong crew for that, and I am even hoping that maybe David Costabile somehow gets pulled into the Talamasca. I don’t know what they’re planning, but it definitely adds layers and layers and layers of fun stuff that can happen and keeps going with how duplicitous all these characters are with each other.

How much fun would it be for Vampire Daniel to say he’s going to go help them out, and then he doesn’t help them out? Or does some other crazy thing to them? My brain isn’t big enough to think of where this is all going. That’s up to other people who are very skilled at doing this stuff.

Assad, is there one character you wish you had gotten to spend more time with, or that you hope Armand spends more time with in future seasons?

Assad Zaman: Oh, dear. I really do wish that we had a few more scenes just exploring that dynamic between Armand and Claudia because that has also been a question that people have. Why does he hate her, or does he hate her? Does he hate her, or does he even care about her at all? I think it’s such an interesting dynamic, and I love Delainey. She’s just such a laugh to work with. There were a few scenes that we had together, and it was so much fun.

Going forward, I hope to see Armand and Daniel’s new relationship and dynamic. Whether we get to see some of that, I think it’s going to be really fun to do.

About Interview With The Vampire Season 2

The interview continues in season 2. In the year 2022, the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) recounts his life story to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). Picking up from the bloody events in New Orleans in 1940 when Louis and teen fledgling Claudia (Delainey Hayles) conspired to kill the Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid), Louis tells of his adventures in Europe, a quest to discover Old World Vampires and the Theatre Des Vampires in Paris, with Claudia. It is in Paris that Louis first meets the Vampire Armand (Assad Zaman). Their courtship and love affair will prove to have devastating consequences both in the past and in the future, and Molloy will probe to get to the truths buried within the memories.

Check out our other Interview With The Vampire season 2 chats here:

Interview with the Vampire

Based on Anne Rice’s novel series that began in 1976, Interview with the Vampire is a gothic horror fantasy series that explores the life of Louis de Pointe du Lac through an interview with a journalist. Told through flashbacks of Louis’ life during the interview, the series examines Louis’ relationship with the vampire that turned him, Lestat de Lioncourt, and a teenage girl named Claudia, whom he turns. The series is the first of Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe media franchise.

Cast

Jacob Anderson , Sam Reid , Eric Bogosian , Bailey Bass

Release Date

October 2, 2022

Seasons

2

Streaming Service(s)

AMC Plus

Writers

Rolin Jones

Showrunner

Mark Johnson

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