1994
Character: Louis de Pointe du Lac
Release Date: 11 November 1994
Directed By: Neil Jordan
Written By: Anne Rice
Genre: Drama/Horror/Fantasy
Tagline: Drink From Me And Live Forever
MPAA Rating: –
Produced by: Geffen Pictures
Distributed by: Geffen Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
Budget: $50,000,000 (estimated)
Filming Dates: 18 October 1993 – 15 March 1994
Cast:
…Brad Pitt…Louis de Pointe du Lac
…Christian Slater…Daniel Malloy
…Tom Cruise…Lestat de Lioncourt
…Thandie Newton…Yvette
…Kirsten Dunst…Claudia
…Stephen Rea…Santiago
…Antonio Banderas…Armand
Filming Locations:
Albert R. Broccoli 007 Stage, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK (studio) (interiors – Theatre of the Vampires)
Deptford, London, England, UK
Destrehan, Louisiana, USA
Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, California, USA
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, USA
Lafayette Cemetery #1 – 1400 Washington Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
London, England, UK
Louisiana, USA
Marble Hill Park, Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
Market Street, San Francisco, California, USA
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Oak Alley Plantation – 3645 Highway 18, Vacherie, Louisiana, USA (Louis de Pointe du Lac Estate)
Opéra National de Paris Palais Garnier, 8 rue Scribe, Paris 9, Paris, France (Louis & Claudia’s Paris hotel – lobby)
Paris, France
Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK (studio)
Richmond, Surrey, England, UK
Rue de Rivoli, Paris 1, Paris, France
San Francisco, California, USA
Shreveport, Louisiana, USA
St Paul’s Church, Deptford High Street, Mary Ann Gardens, Deptford, London, England, UK (New Orelans church)
Taylor Street, San Francisco, California, USA
Vacherie, Louisiana, USA
Whitechapel, London, England, UK
Wilton’s Music Hall, Grace’s Alley, Ensign Street, Whitechapel, London, England, UK
Synopsis:
In 1791, plantation owner Louis De Pointe Du Lac is unhappy with the life he has, until Lestat De Lioncourt comes into his life. Lestat, a vampire, allows Louis to make the decision of either death or life as a vampire forever. And until his decision is already made, does Louis realize what he has become. He refuses to take human life and is about to leave when Lestat, being the clever being that he is, turns a little orphan girl into a vampire to make Louis stay. The story is told by Louis in 1991 to an interviewer about the lives of himself, Lestat and Claudia through trouble, death, curse and love over the past 200 years
Trivia & Facts:
• Christina Ricci, Dominique Swain, Julia Stiles and Erin Moore auditioned for the role of Claudia.
• Author Anne Rice wrote the part of Lestat with Rutger Hauer in mind. Upon learning that Tom Cruise had been cast, she was quite disappointed and expressed concern that Cruise could not carry the part. After attending a screening, Rice wrote a letter of apology, quite pleased with Cruise’s portrayal.
• Tom Cruise wanted a private set, and hence tunnels were built to escort the actors to and from the set. This was done so that the vampire’s makeup effects would remain a secret.
• Tom Cruise was placed on an elevated platform during some scenes to reduce the height difference between his character and other vampires.
• The scenes set on the riverfront in New Orleans (including the infamous “Chat Noir”) were filmed on a false front built on the levee downriver from the actual French Quarter. The entire set was constructed around the old section of Jackson Barracks, a National Guard post.
• The river scenes were done by removing such modern items as the Greater New Orleans Bridge and radio towers and replacing them with 18th century sailing vessels in post-production.
• Many buildings and street lights were darkened for the filming by agreement with the companies and the city. The set was immediately torn down after the filming.
• The character Lestat’s full name is Lestat de Lioncourt. He was based on Anne Rice’s husband Stan Rice, and even given Stan Rice’s birthday of 7 November.
• The character Louis’ full name is Louis de Pointe du Lac. Louis was based on Anne Rice as she grieved for her deceased daughter, Michelle. Louis was even given Anne Rice’s birthday of 4 October.
• The estate of Louis (Brad Pitt) in the beginning of the film was the historic Oak Alley Plantation located on the Mississippi River in Vacherie, Louisiana, which is near New Orleans. The plantation’s “guest book” is on display and was signed by Pitt and Tom Cruise.
• Stephen Rea (Santiago) makes regular appearances in Neil Jordan’s films.
• Johnny Depp was offered the role of Lestat.
• Evan Rachel Wood auditioned for the role of Claudia.
• Heathcote Williams was going to be in this film but was replaced
• Author Anne Rice was so pleased with this adaptation that she took out a two page ad in both Vanity Fair and the New York Times endorsing it as “a masterpiece”.
• The Old Coliseum Theatre in New Orleans, seen when Louis goes to see Tequila Sunrise (1988) in 1988, burned down on 3 February 2006.
• During the cinema montage sequence (depicting the passage of years) towards the last part of the film, where Louis exalts about being able to “see” the sun for the first time in centuries, the clip of a rooster crowing to indicate the coming of dawn is from the silent vampire film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922).
• Christian Slater was given the role of Daniel upon the death of River Phoenix, who was originally supposed to be Daniel.
• While the production was filming in London, Brad Pitt stayed in a house which used to be owned by Peter Cushing.
• Julian Sands was Anne Rice’s choice to play Lestat.
From the gallery
Quotes
Louis: 1791 was the year it happened. I was 24, younger than you are now. But times were different then, I was a man at that age: the master of a large plantation just south of New Orleans. I had lost my wife in childbirth, and she and the infant had been buried less than half a year. I would have been happy to join them. I couldn’t bear the pain of their loss. I longed to be released from it. I wanted to lose it all… my wealth, my estate, my sanity. My invitation was open to anyone. To the whore at my side. To the pimp that followed. But it was a vampire that accepted it.
Yvette: [to Louis] Are you not hungry sir?
Lestat: Aux contraire mon cher, he could eat the whole colony.
[starts to laugh]
Louis: [as Yvette starts to pick up Louis’s plate he grabs her arm and looks at the veins in her neck] I’ll finish it, Yvette. Now leave us.
Yvette: Ummm… Monsieur Louis. You don’t want any supper no?
Louis: No, ma chère.
Yvette: We’re worried about you, master. Why is it that you don’t go riding in the field? And how long since you’ve been to the slave cot? Everywhere there is death. Are you still our master at all?
Louis: That will be all, Yvette!
Yvette: I will not go unless you listen to me! You must, you must send away this friend of yours. The slaves they are all frightened of him… and they are frightened of you.
[touches Louis’s hand]
Louis: I’m frightened of myself.
[Indulges in close contact with Yvette. Then begins to bit her wrist. She starts to scream out. For a moment he is too caught up in bitting her. She cries out lounder and he snapes into reality. He puts his hand over her mouth, wrestles her to the floor and kills her]
Louis: [Louis walks outside carrying Yvette’s lifeless body. He speaks to the slaves who have come to see what all the screaming was about] Hear me now! This place is cursed, damned, and yes your master is the devil! Get out while you can! You are all free men! You hear me?
[Louis gives Yvette to a nearby slave and takes hold of a tourch]
Louis: Run, flee, save yourselves!
[waves tourch wildly at slaves to make them leave and then goes inside to set house on fire]
Louis: Her blood coursed through my veins sweeter than life itself. And as it did, Lestat’s words made sense to me. I knew peace only when I killed and when I heard her heart in that terrible rhythm, I knew again what peace could be.
Louis: For 30 years I had avoided that place. Yet I found my way back there with hardly an upward glance.
Louis: You lack the courage of your convictions sir, do it.
Lestat: No one could resist me, not even you, Louis.
Louis: I tried.
Lestat: [smiling] And the more you tried, the more I wanted you.
Louis: Do you think I would let them harm you.
Claudia: No you would not Louis, danger holds you to me.
Louis: Love holds you to me.
Claudia: You… fed on me.
Louis: Yes. And he found me with you, and he cut his wrist and fed you from it and you were a vampire and have been every night thereafter.
Claudia: You both did it.
Louis: [crying] I took your life… He gave you another one.
Claudia: And here it is, and I hate you both.
Louis: You see that old woman? That will never happen to you. You will never grow old, and you will never die.
Claudia: And it means something else too, doesn’t it? I shall never ever grow up.
Louis: Lestat killed two, sometimes three a night. A fresh young girl, that was his favorite for the first of the evening. For seconds, he preferred a gilded beautiful youth. But the snob in him loved to hunt in society, and the blood of the aristocrat thrilled him best of all.
Louis: Where are we?
Lestat: Where do you think, my idiot friend? We’re in a nice, filthy cemetery. Does this make you happy? Is this fitting, proper enough?
Louis: We belong in hell.
Lestat: And what if there is no hell, or they don’t want us there? Ever think of that?
Louis: But there was a hell, and no matter where we moved to, I was in it.
Louis: I’m flesh and blood, but not human. I haven’t been human for two hundred years.
Louis: Claudia, don’t!
Claudia: [Beginning to cut her hair] Why not? Can’t I change, like everybody else?
Lestat: Mon dieu, what melancholy nonsense. I swear you grow more like Louis each day. Soon you’ll be eating rats!
Claudia: Rats? When did you eat rats Louis?
Louis: It was a long, long time ago. Before you were born, and I don’t recommend them.
Louis: How do we seem to you? Do you find us beautiful, magical? Our white skin, our fierce eyes? “Drink” you ask me, do you have any idea of the thing you will become?
Claudia: Madeleine, Louis is shy.
Madeleine: Drink.
Claudia: Do it, Louis, because I cannot, I haven’t the strength. You saw to that when you made me.
Louis: You haven’t the vaguest conception under God what you ask.
Madeleine: Au contraire, Monsieur, I have.
Claudia: You have found your new companion, Louis, You will make me mine.
Louis: That morning I was not yet a vampire, and I saw my last sunrise. I remember it completely, and yet I can’t recall any sunrise before it. I watched its whole magnificence for the last time as if it were the first. And then I said farewell to sun light, and set out to become what I became.
Louis: We reached the Mediterranean. I wanted those waters to be blue, but they were black, nighttime waters, and how I suffered then, straining to recall the color that in my youth I had taken for granted.
Louis: Vampires pretending to be humans, pretending to be vampires.
Claudia: How avant-garde.
Lestat: The trick is not to think about it. See that one there? Widow St. Clair. She had the gorgeous young fop murder her husband.
Louis: How do you know?
Lestat: Read her thoughts.
[Louis looks at him inquisitively]
Lestat: *Read* her thoughts.
Louis: [attempts to read her thoughts] I can’t.
Lestat: The dark gift is different for each of us. But one thing is true for us all, we grow stronger as we go along. Just take my word for it. She blamed a slave for his murder. Imagine what they did to him. Evildoers are easier, and they taste better.
Armand: You are beautiful my friend. Lestat must have wept when he made you.
Louis: Lestat? You knew Lestat?
Armand: Knew him well enough not to mourn his passing
Armand: They had forgotten the first lesson, that we are to be powerful, beautiful, and without regret.
Louis: And you can teach me this?
Armand: Yes.
Louis: To be without regret?
Armand: Yes.
Louis: Then what a pair we could make, but what if it’s a lesson I don’t care to learn.
Armand: What do you mean?
Louis: What if all I have is my suffering, my regret?
Armand: Don’t you want to lose it?
Louis: Why? So you can have that too? The heart that mourns her, her that you burnt to a cinder.
Armand: Louis, I swear that I…
Louis: Ah, but I know you did. I know. You who regrets nothing, you who feels nothing, if that’s all I have left to learn, I can do that on my own.
Claudia: Which one of you did it? One of you did it! Which on of you made me the way I am?
Lestat: What you are? A vampire gone insane that pollutes its own bed?
Claudia: And if I cut my hair again?
Lestat: It will grow back again.
Claudia: But it wasn’t always so. I had a mother once, and Louis, he had a wife. He was mortal the same as she and so was I.
Louis: Claudia!
Claudia: You made us what we are, didn’t you?
Lestat: Stop her, Louis.
Claudia: Did you do it to me?
[slashes Lestat’s face, and it heals immediately]
Claudia: How did you do it?
Lestat: Why should I tell you? It’s in my power.
Claudia: Why yours alone? Tell me how it was done.
Lestat: Be glad I made you what you are. You’d be dead now if I hadn’t, just like that damned corpse. Now, get rid of it!
Claudia: You get rid of it.
Louis: So you want me to tell you the story of my life?
Daniel Molloy: What did you see?
Louis: No words can describe it. May as well ask Heaven what it sees; no human can know.
Lestat: Perfect! Just perfect! Just burn the place! Burn everything we own! Have us sleeping in the field like cattle!
Louis: You thought you could have it all…
Lestat: Oh, shut up,Louis! Mon Dieu! Come here.
Daniel Molloy: So, what do you do?
Louis: I’m a vampire.
Daniel Molloy: Hmm. That’s something I’ve never heard before. You mean this literally, I take it?
Louis: Absolutely. I was waiting for you in that alleyway: watching you watching me. And then you began to speak.
Daniel Molloy: What a lucky break for me.
Louis: Perhaps lucky for the both of us.
Daniel Molloy: You said you were waiting for me. What were you going to do? Kill me, drink my blood, all that stuff?
Louis: Yes, but you needn’t be concerned with that now.
Daniel Molloy: You really believe this, don’t you, that you’re a vampire?
Louis: We can’t begin this way. Let me turn on the light.
Daniel Molloy: I thought vampires didn’t like the light.
Louis: We love it. I only wanted to prepare you.
Lestat: It’s your coffin, my love. Enjoy it. Most of us never get to know what it feels like.
Louis: Why do you do this?
Lestat: I like to do it. I enjoy it. Take your aesthete’s; taste purer things; kill them swiftly, if you will, but do it. For do not doubt: you are a killer, Louis.
Lestat: Lord, what I wouldn’t give for a drop of good old-fashioned Creole blood.
Louis: Yankees are not to your taste?
Lestat: Their democratic flavor doesn’t suit my palate, Louis.
Daniel Molloy: So there are no vampires in Transylvania? No Count Dracula?
Louis: Fictions, my friend. The vulgar fictions of a demented Irishman.
Louis: Bear me no ill will my love we are now even.
Claudia: What do you mean?
Louis: What died in that room was not that woman. What has died is the last breath in me that was human.
Claudia: Yes, Father. At last we are even.
Claudia: Louis what’s happening to her?
Louis: She is dying. It happened to you too, but you were to young to remember.
Lestat: Come to New Orleans then. The Paris Opera’s in town. We can try some French cuisine.
Louis: Forgive me if I have a lingering respect for mortal life.
Louis: Whatever happened to Lestat I do not know. I go on, night ever night. I feed on those who cross my path. But all my passion went with her golden hair. I’m a spirit of preternatural flesh. Detached. Unchangeable. Empty.
Louis: But the world was a tomb to me, a graveyard of broken statues, and each of those statues resembled her face.
Louis: I walked all night, I walked as I had walked years before when my mind swarmed with guilt at the thought of killing. I had thought of all the things I had done, and couldn’t undo. And I longed for a moments peace.
Louis: We kept to ourselves, pondering the mystery of each other.
Daniel Molloy: So a vampire can cry.
Louis: Once, maybe twice in his own eternity. Maybe it was to quench those tears forever that I took such revenge on them.
Lestat: Whining coward of a vampire that prowls the night killing rats and poodles; you could have finished us both.
Louis: You’ve condemned me to Hell.
Lestat: I don’t know any Hell.
Louis: The statue seemed to move, but didn’t. The world had changed, yet stayed the same. I was a newborn vampire weeping at the beauty of the night.
Louis: A little child she was, but also a fierce killer, now capable of the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child’s demanding.
Louis: They know about us. They watch us dine on empty plates and drink from empty glasses.
Louis: Blood, I was to find, was a necessity as well. I woke the next evening with a hunger I had never felt.
Louis: Thirty years had passed, yet her body remained that of an eternal child. Her eyes alone told the story of her age, staring out from under her doll-like curls, with a questioning that will one day need an answer.
Louis: Though the fire seemed to spread through the quarter, I stood on that deck, fearful he would come out again from the very river, like some monster, to destroy us both. And all the while, I thought, ‘Lestat, you deserve your vengeance. You gave me the dark gift, and I delivered you into the hands of death for the second time.’
Louis: Then out of curiosity, boredom, who knows what, I left the old world and came back to my America. And there, a mechanical wonder allowed me to see the sun rise for the first time in two hundred years. And what sunrises, seen as the human eye could never see them: silver at first, then, as the years progressed, in tones of purple, red, and my long lost blue.
Louis: In the spring of 1988, I returned to New Orleans, and as soon as I smelled the air, I knew I was home. It was rich, almost sweet, like the scent of jasmine and roses around our old courtyard. I walked the streets, savoring that long lost perfume.
Louis: So it was, when I’d given up the search for vampires, that a vampire found me.
Lestat: Have you said your good-byes to the light?
[bites Louis]
Lestat: I’ve drained you to the point of death. If I leave you here, you die. Or you can be young always, my friend, as we are now, but you must tell me: will you come or no?
Claudia: Where’s mama?
Lestat: Mama… mama has gone to heaven, Chérie, like that sweet lady right there. They all go to heaven.
Louis: All but us.
Lestat: Shh. Do you want to frighten our little daughter?
Claudia: I’m not your daughter.
Lestat: Oh, yes, you are. You’re mine and Louis’ daughter now. You see, Louis was going to leave us, he was going to go away, but now he’s not. Now, he’s going to stay and make you happy.
Claudia: Louis.
Louis: You fiend.
Lestat: One happy family.
Louis: My God, I’ve failed again.
Lestat: Claudia… Claudia. Claudia! What have you done?
Claudia: What you told me to do!
Louis: Leave a corpse here to rot?
Claudia: I wanted her. I wanted to be her!
Lestat: There’s nothing in the world now that doesn’t hold some sort of…
Louis: Fascination.
Lestat: Yes. I’m bored of this prattle.
Louis: But if we can live without taking human life? It’s possible.
Lestat: Anything’s possible. Just try it for a week. Come to New Orleans. Let me show you some real sport.
Louis: Perhaps you’d like another cigarette?
Daniel Molloy: Yeah, I suppose I would. It’s not bothering you, is it?
Louis: No.
Daniel Molloy: No, I don’t assume that it would be, I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna die from cancer or anything, is it?
Louis: No, I don’t think so.
Daniel Molloy: What about crucifixes?
Louis: Crucifixes?
Daniel Molloy: Yes, can you look at them?
Louis: Actually I am quite fond of looking at crucifixes.
Daniel Molloy: What about the old stake through the heart?
Louis: Nonsense
New Orleans Whore: [fearfull whispering] It’s a coffin, it’s a coffin.
Lestat: What’s that my love?
New Orleans Whore: It’s a coffin.
Lestat: Why so it is, you must be dead.
New Orleans Whore: I’m not dead am I?
Louis: No, you are not dead.
Lestat: Not yet.
External Links
…Official website
…IMDB
SB Store (US)
…Interview with the Vampire (Blu-ray)
…Interview with the Vampire (DVD)
…Interview with the Vampire (Book)
SB Store (UK)
…Interview With The Vampire (Special Edition DVD)
…Interview With The Vampire (DVD)
…Interview With The Vampire (Blu-ray)
…Interview with the Vampire (Book)
