

Armand arrives in time to help Louis escape the sunrise, and again offers him a place by his side. Seeking revenge, Louis returns to the theater at dawn and sets it on fire, killing all the vampires including Santiago. Armand does nothing to prevent this, but the next day he frees Louis. Shortly thereafter, the Parisian vampires abduct the three of them and punish them for Lestat's murder, imprisoning Louis in a coffin and trapping Claudia and Madeleine in a chamber, where sunlight burns them to ash. Claudia demands that Louis turn a human woman, Madeleine, into a vampire to be her new protector and companion, and he reluctantly complies. Armand warns Louis to send Claudia away for her own safety, and Louis stays with Armand to learn about the meaning of being a vampire. On their way out of the theater, Santiago reads Louis's mind and suspects that Louis and Claudia murdered Lestat. Armand invites Louis and Claudia to his coven, the Théâtre des Vampires, where vampires stage theatrical horror shows for humans. Louis encounters vampires Santiago and Armand by chance. Lestat attacks them, but Louis sets him on fire, allowing them to escape to their ship and depart.Īfter traveling around Europe and the Mediterranean but finding no other vampires, Louis and Claudia settle in Paris in September 1870. They spend weeks planning a voyage to Europe to search for other vampires, but Lestat returns on the night of their departure, having survived on the blood of swamp creatures. Though Louis is shocked and upset, he helps Claudia dump Lestat's body in a swamp. She tricks Lestat into drinking the "dead blood" of twin boys whom she killed by overdose with laudanum, which weakens Lestat, and then slits his throat. When she realizes that she will never grow older or become a mature woman, she is furious with Lestat and tells Louis that they should leave him. Thirty years pass, and Claudia matures psychologically but remains a little girl in appearance and continues to be treated as such by Lestat.

Louis has a love for Claudia, while Lestat spoils and treats her more as a pupil, training her to become a merciless killer. To entice Louis to stay with him, Lestat turns the dying girl, Claudia, into a vampire. While Lestat revels in the hunt and killing of humans, Louis resists his instinct to kill, instead drinking animal blood to sustain himself.Įventually, amid an outbreak of plague in New Orleans, Louis feeds on a little girl whose mother died in the plague. Louis accepts, but quickly comes to regret it. Lestat senses Louis's dissatisfaction with life and offers to turn him into a vampire. Despondent following the death of his wife and unborn child, he drunkenly wanders the waterfront of New Orleans one night and is attacked by the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. Louis describes his human life as a wealthy plantation owner in 1791 Spanish Louisiana. In modern-day San Francisco, reporter Daniel Molloy interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac, who claims to be a vampire. A stand-alone sequel, Queen of the Damned, was released in 2002, with Stuart Townsend replacing Cruise as Lestat.

Kirsten Dunst was additionally nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. It received two Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Original Score. The film was released in November 1994 to generally positive reviews and was a commercial success. The supporting cast features Christian Slater, Antonio Banderas, and Stephen Rea. The narrative is framed by a present-day interview, in which Louis tells his story to a San Francisco reporter. The film chronicles their time together, and their turning of ten-year-old Claudia ( Kirsten Dunst) into a vampire. It focuses on Lestat (Cruise) and Louis (Pitt), beginning with Louis's transformation into a vampire by Lestat in 1791. Interview with the Vampire is a 1994 American gothic horror film directed by Neil Jordan, based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, and starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
