Interview With the Vampire Wants to Do the Anne Rice Jesus Stuff

Even though The Vampire Lestat (formerly known as Interview with the Vampire) is only on its third season, the show’s creator, Rolin Jones, is already planning even wilder seasons to come. The current season introduces Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, played by Sheila Atim. While she’s part of Lestat’s backstory now, if the show continues, she’ll become a major force. Jones told Polygon that Akasha will bring a powerful, furious energy that will completely change the show. She’s an ancient Egyptian queen and one of the first vampires, with a complicated history – she even became a statue at one point. But that’s just the beginning of the strangeness found in Anne Rice’s vampire stories. Jones is particularly interested in exploring a later part of Rice’s work, specifically the storyline where Lestat drinks the blood of Jesus Christ.

The surprising combination of Lestat and Jesus happens in the fifth book of The Vampire Chronicles, called Memnoch the Devil. The story involves Lestat being shown both heaven and hell by the Devil, and a pivotal moment where Jesus offers Lestat his blood. It’s worth noting that in Anne Rice’s novels, vampires lack physical arousal, and sharing blood is presented as their intimate act. This dynamic could make for a particularly interesting scene.

Jones described reading Anne Rice’s books as a deeply moving experience, praising their emotional honesty and beautifully written passages. He noted that readers can truly connect with Rice’s personal struggles as she wrote. At the time of Memnoch the Devil, Rice was transitioning away from atheism and back to Catholicism, a shift reflected in her work. Her books explore unique perspectives on God and the devil, themes that later reappear in her Christ the Lord series. Jones believes that the unconventional and often bizarre elements in Rice’s writing are essential to what makes her a remarkable artist, and that ignoring them would mean missing out on her unique creative vision.

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2026-05-25 22:54