Sam Reid was “pissed” at the idea of his character, Lestat, being present in Interview With the Vampire Season 2. Because his character is largely absent from the second half of the eponymous Anne Rice novel covered in the sophomore season, the Australian actor didn’t want “Dream-stat” — a ghost-like Lestat projection of Louis’ (Jacob Anderson) tormented mind — to pull focus from Louis and Claudia’s (Delainey Hayles) storyline. But he came around to the Dream-stat idea when it was explained as a way for Anderson to “get further into [Louis’] internal dialogue so he could analyze himself,” Reid told TV Insider when he visited our in-office studio in April. We have Reid analyze his costars’ performances in the video above.
All five stars of AMC‘s Interview With the Vampire received rave reviews for their performances in Season 2. As Emmy nominations voting continues through June 23, Reid reveals his favorite performances from his costars and explains why they’re noteworthy.
“Jacob is easy,” Reid says above. “Watching him as Louis in the very first interview scene with Daniel [Eric Bogosian] in Episode 1, where he realizes that [Claudia] did dream and that he is getting his memories back, it’s actually so heartbreaking and it’s incredible. Everyone was so blown away by that performance that day, and everyone was talking about it for weeks afterwards. When [Louis] thanks Daniel, and you look at the guy at the very end of the [season], the one who ‘owns the night,’ I just think they’re two really phenomenal points of reference.”
Between the Interview With the Vampire pilot and its Season 2 premiere, Anderson has made a habit of delivering some of his best performances in the first episodes of each season.
For Hayles, who played Claudia in Season 2 following Bailey Bass‘ exit, Reid highlights the scene in Season 2 Episode 3 when Claudia reveals what really happened when the monstrous vampire Bruce (Damon Daunno) kept her captive in Season 1. Claudia’s confession to Louis in this painful moment, to Reid, is “the most mind-blowing piece of acting I think I’ve seen in a very, very long time.”
“It’s the most stunning piece of acting,” Reid raves. “You can see every experience flicking through her eyes, and then you also see the way she’s processed it. And you can see that this character is a fully formed adult human being with so much baggage and so much human trauma walking around in a teenage body and will never be able to get out … I’m nearly crying thinking about it.”
Armand jumped out of Rice’s book and onto the screen for Reid (a lifelong fan of The Vampire Chronicles series on which the show is based) in a closeup of Assad Zaman in the 1700s flashbacks in Episode 3. He recalls saying, “Oh my god, that’s literally the character out of the book” while watching the camera zoom in on Zaman’s face. Another stand-out moment for Reid was Armand’s “Arun” speech in the Louvre in Episode 4, which reveals the character’s devastating backstory. “It was so heartbreaking,” Reid says, “and it’s so twisted the whole story of Armand with his past, and with Marius [Armand’s maker who will eventually make his series debut] and the way he was used. It completely explains that character, and I thought Assad just did the most beautiful job there.”
“And then I had to ruin it by saying, ‘Ha!’ really loudly, which I really tried to get rid of because I didn’t want to do it,” Reid adds with a laugh.
When it comes to Bogosian, Episode 5 — a standout episode called “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape” — has Reid’s favorite performance from the Talk Radio star. Asking Louis for help to figure out what really happened in that 1973 San Francisco interview put the entire series in context. “Now you know why we’re watching the second interview,” Reid explains. “Eric completely nailed it.”
Get more of Reid’s explanations for his favorite scenes in the full video interview above.
Interview With the Vampire, Season 3 Premiere, 2026, AMC, Streaming on AMC+
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