Jacob Anderson on Reimagining Louis From a Different Perspective in The Vampire Lestat

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For Jacob Anderson, returning to Louis in The Vampire Lestat wasn’t just about playing the same character again, but discovering who Louis becomes when he’s viewed through Lestat’s eyes.

“It felt like a kaleidoscope version of Louis,” Anderson says. “This is through Lestat’s recollection of events rather than how he might have actually been.”

The shift in perspective gave Anderson the opportunity to subtly reshape his performance throughout the season. Without changing Louis entirely, he incorporated small pieces of Lestat’s mannerisms into certain scenes to suggest that Louis has been filtered through Lestat’s memories instead of objective reality. 

While Anderson keeps many of those choices intentionally vague as a “fun little game” for audiences to discover on their own, he points to the Detroit kill spree as one sequence where that perspective became especially clear. In his mind, Lestat was remembering the events through a heightened, action-movie lens, inspiring Anderson to sprinkle in several distinctly Lestat-like qualities throughout the scene.

Beyond the physical choices, Anderson was equally fascinated by how Lestat and Louis perceive one another while holding onto idealized versions of each other.

“I think they kind of fundamentally misunderstand each other,” he says. “Or at least choose to highlight a certain aspect of the other’s personality.”

That misunderstanding extends to Louis himself. From Lestat’s perspective, Louis appears far more confident than the insecure man audiences met in earlier seasons. Anderson believes that’s attributed to Lestat’s first impression of Louis as a successful businessman who projected confidence, while masking tremendous internal conflict.

“I think Lestat probably sees Louis as an overall more confident person,” Anderson explains. “Your first impression of somebody always kind of lingers.”

As the season unfolds, however, those assumptions begin to soften. Anderson points to Lestat’s music—particularly the song “Brutal Love”as one of the first moments where Louis recognizes genuine vulnerability beneath Lestat’s theatrical exterior.

“I think there’s an element of, ‘Oh, he does understand me,’” Anderson says. “There’s something really familiar about that song.”

To add another layer onto Louis and Lestat’s complicated relationship, Delainey Hayles returns as Claudia in one of the season’s most emotionally charged storylines. Anderson describes her reunion with Louis and Lestat as a painful reckoning, rather than a moment of closure, pushing both characters to face the consequences of their past.

“They kind of needed to hear this from her,” Anderson says. “They have to own it.”

That shared experience ultimately brings Louis and Lestat closer together, allowing them to connect through a newfound vulnerability. As Anderson puts it, “It’s not just the toxic, violent hurricane of their relationship. There is something really solid and gentle about their relationship as well.”

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