Sam Reid’s Rockstar Lestat Just Opened With a Perfect Score Before the First Episode Even Airs
AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s gothic vampire saga has spent years building one of the most impressive critical track records in prestige cable television. The show launched in 2022 with Sam Reid as the mercurial Lestat de Lioncourt and Jacob Anderson as the brooding Louis de Pointe du Lac, quickly becoming one of the most acclaimed properties in the network’s lineup. Few could have predicted just how far the creative team would be willing to push the story when it came time for a third chapter.
‘Interview with the Vampire’ has been rebranded for its third season as ‘The Vampire Lestat’, a title that signals a decisive shift in narrative focus as the series steps away from Louis and centers entirely on Sam Reid’s flamboyant, volatile vampire. Set in 2025, the new season finds Lestat furious about how Louis portrayed him in a published memoir, so he hires journalist Daniel Molloy, played by Eric Bogosian, to spearhead a documentary and goes on tour as a rock star, performing autobiographical music about torture and heartbreak for a public that has largely moved on from the vampire craze.
Critics have responded to that gamble with overwhelming enthusiasm. ‘The Vampire Lestat’ debuted with a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its June 7 premiere on AMC, a result that extends one of the most remarkable streaks in the franchise’s history. The first two seasons of ‘Interview with the Vampire’ earned a 98% score and a 100% score respectively, giving the series an overall Rotten Tomatoes rating of 99%.
Lestat enters the season mid-tour, playing what he calls intimate venues because most of humanity has already moved on from vampires, while his human bandmates genuinely believe his vampire persona is nothing more than a clever stage act, and the wider vampire world mostly wants him dead. A lawyer played by Jeanine Serralles is on his payroll, though she proves just as likely to join the chaos of an after-party as she is to manage the legal wreckage he leaves behind.
Showrunner Rolin Jones, who proved skeptics wrong by adapting Rice’s first novel with a deft hand across the opening two seasons, returns here with another boundary-pushing perspective change that critics say fully justifies the new title. Ahead of the premiere, Jones told Den of Geek, “When you see Sam in costume, under the lights, singing these songs in the context of Lestat’s story, you’re gonna be absolutely knocked out. We’re going for it.” That declaration now reads less like a boast and more like a promise kept.
Reid has spoken about drawing on iconic performers like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie as influences for Lestat’s rock star persona, arguing that rock stars are inherently vampiric by nature. With a perfect critical score to match the ambition of that vision, the real question now belongs to the fans who have followed this show since its first season.
Does Lestat finally getting to tell his own story feel like the payoff you were hoping for, or did the bold new direction catch you completely off guard?
