Louis and Claudia, the Théâtre des Vampires.
Daniel: What about the others out there?
Louis: Giddy to increase their numbers.
The great conversion.
Man: What you're about to see
is for you, an outrage.
You were amazing.
Who's your maker? His name was Brent.
We don't talk about him much.
Who's that handsome man on the wall up there?
Armand: Our co-founder, Lestat de Lioncourt.
Daniel: That means you knew Lestat before he did.
Yes, Armand knew Lestat.
You both fucked Lestat.
Louis: What if they find out we killed him?
I want to go back. It's not safe there.
I do believe I felt some trepidation
when the name Lestat presented.
Daniel: Who? Armand: We could simply return to the interview.
If you're willing to ask your questions and then listen,
which is your job.
What happened next?
[* gentle orchestral music]
[* music intensifies]
[* music fades]
[* light classical music]
Here we go.
Oh...
Partial to the non-wriggling items. I should've said that.
The perils of Omakase.
We cede power to the chef, submit to his whims,
to his eye at the fish market. A series of risks.
- Right. - 'Under the Burning Sky.'
The one about Enron, 'Black Blood' was it?
You're Daniel Molloy. I've read your books.
A reader. Well, prepare yourself for disappointment.
I see they've separated you from your laptop.
They?
Off your game a touch yesterday.
Perhaps they believe you've been humbled.
Clever on their own, now there's two of them.
Of course, there was always two of them.
You just came to that late.
[man clears his throat]
Going to stop looking at you now.
A little pale for Mossad.
Although that could be very Mossad.
I wish. I'd be better funded. No, no, no.
I work for another watchful shop, the name of which
has not come up in your conversations with them.
A stake in the story I'm writing.
You have me bugged, or you want me to think you do.
We were tracking 900 of them a month ago.
We're tracking 1,600 now.
The Great Conversion.
It's real. It's happening.
Well, then you have a more immediate problem
than a book being researched. Got a name?
You're not the first to attempt this, Mr. Molloy.
I could give you the names of four others who have
and they're all dead, or undead.
The name is Raglan James.
[scoffs] Got a real name?
Files have been placed, with proper encryption,
on your comically vulnerable laptop.
Most are primary sources that your infamous friends...
Anyone here a fan of intelligence officers?
We got a live one.
[Raglan in Japanese] Gochisousama, Taisho-san.
[Raglan coughs]
[* light classical music continues]
[Armand] How was your walkabout, Mr. Molloy?
Michelin fish in the desert. I burned my entire per diem.
How many people in the world know what you know, Rashid?
How many Rashids, Rashid?
[Rashid] I suspect just enough to help them stay hidden.
No, that's how billionaire vampires do it.
How does your average Jo Mo vampire
keep people like you in line? Unspoken threats?
The threat is always there. He could kill us both now.
But he doesn't. They are peaceful beings.
They drain and disappear us.
They have a biological imperative
that is in conflict with human morality.
But what is that morality other than rules agreed upon?
Thank you, Rashid.
[Armand] A romantic answer to your question.
The average vampire has minimal contact with humanity.
When exposed, they feed or run or kill themselves.
And I'd say we're multi-millionaires.
Not quite a billion.
It was wrong of Louis to enter your memories yesterday.
You were invited here as a guest.
- Cell phones. - You were rude, but he crossed a line.
Artificial intelligence crunching improbable data.
- I offer my apology... - How do you hide from the cloud?
...on his behalf.
We should probably wait for him.
Probably.
He'll awaken when the sun sleeps.
Your cell phones make you slaves to your fetishes
and data retrieval is primarily about profits,
so I suspect no one at Amazon is trying to sell us blenders.
You kill, nightly.
And sometimes you've watched that kill on the local news.
You've never been easier to distract.
You're at the height of wilful ignorance.
We exploit it. This is, was...
Lestat's prophetic vision.
- Lestat de Lioncourt? - Yes.
We were shadows crouching behind stone
prior to his transformation.
I'm listening.
That's my job, right?
[Armand] It was 1556 when the Roman coven sent me
to lead the shambolic Paris coven.
A face from the subcontinent,
French my fourth and poorest language,
I had never led anything in my life.
We called ourselves the Children of Darkness.
We lived in squalor, hunted in shame,
all in strict obedience to medieval laws
put in place to protect us from humanity.
And though I managed to maintain
a discipline and humility for 239 years as Satan's fool,
by the time Robespierre was beheaded,
I was, by any measure, failing.
- Our ways were finished. - [man groans]
We were embers on a waning pyre.
[flames whoosh, man shrieks]
Lestat was the wind to scatter.
[Molloy] I really gotta meet with this guy.
[Armand] I felt his presence before I saw him.
Sired by one of my deserters, Magnus,
this was something new,
something I hadn't felt before.
- [audience laughs] - [man speaks in French]
[Armand] The fourth of our Great Laws was writ:
"No vampire shall ever reveal his true nature to a mortal
and let that mortal live."
And here he was, prancing and preening
in front of 500 mortals a night,
like some patronized, tarted up dervish.
[speaks in French]
[Molloy] To hear Louis tell it...
Lestat becoming a vampire was a horror show.
That may be.
But he made a remarkable recovery shortly thereafter.
How else could you explain his hand feeding the audience?
How words came out like canaries,
summer fruit in the dead of winter.
They were all in love with him.
He had that effect on everyone.
- He... - [Molloy] Was a natural?
Entirely un-natural.
Using the Dark Gift for what? His vanity? It was heresy.
I had to bring him under my control by any means.
[he speaks in French]
[audience laughs]
[* music crescendos]
[ecstatic applause]
[Armand] I followed him for weeks.
His rejections only inflamed me.
And the longer I allowed him to exist outside the coven,
the more unsettled my children became.
They watched in secret, fascinated by his disregard
for the laws I told them could never be broken.
He took a mortal lover. More heresy.
[he whispers in French]
[Armand] I'd tolerated his presence too long already.
I had to act or he'd destroy what little I had left.
Lestat!
[Nicolas] Lestat?
- [Nicolas groans] - [Lestat] Nicky!
- [Lestat yells] - [Armand snarls]
Uhh! Uhh!
[he groans]
Nicky!
[he yells]
[coughing]
[door bangs open]
[man exhales]
[* light classical music]
- Uhh! - [man whimpers]
[Lestat laughs]
[man whimpers]
[Lestat sighs]
- [man gasps] - [Cross crashes]
You let it happen?
Yes.
You led him there, so he could destroy it.
His words had been my thoughts for half a century.
If it had come from me, they wouldn't have believed it.
Hmm?
[chains rattling and snapping]
[Armand] My children left.
They roamed the streets of Paris,
wreaking havoc with mortals.
Some could not reconcile the life I had made for them
with the life Lestat had told them was possible.
They went mad, ended themselves.
[Armand] The only thing that kept me from the fire...
were the old rituals.
[singing]
[* gentle piano music]
[soft groaning]
[audience laughs]
[he speaks in French]
[Lestat in French] Au contraire, Maitre.
- [audience laughs] - [* classical music]
[man speaks in French]
[audience laughs]
[man speaks in French]
[audience laughs]
[cheering, whistling and applause]
[man screams]
[man groans]
[snarling and screaming]
[woman speaks in French]
[they speak in French]
- [woman screams] - [squelching]
[audience gasps]
[screams continue]
- [* music intensifies] - [screams continue]
Lestat.
[* music crescendos and fades]
That's it? You're just going to end it there?
[Louis] They went at it on the floor.
Armand taught Lestat the Mind Gift.
And a week later, Lestat was gone.
The question was how do vampires hide from Google,
not how did Lestat break his heart.
But because you were a good listener, you got answers to both.
When he went to open the theater the next night,
he was met by the lawyer, Pierre Roget I.
Waiting for me with a trunk full of cash and instructions
to cover the theater's cost in perpetuity.
He abandoned Nicky. He abandoned Armand. He abandoned the coven.
Lestat is, was, and will always be, for Lestat.
Never say I love you to a raging narcissist.
And I locked away those words for another 150 years.
And then he arrived...
and shattered that lock.
This is what... frightened me most about you.
[* big band swing jazz]
- [camera shutter clicks] - [Louis] He's in Copenhagen
working at a car factory.
He hates his maker, takes the boat back to America.
He gets me on an El train to Chicago.
I said outside of Chicago. He said he didn't like big cities.
He gets me outside Chicago.
- A diner on the way to Gary. - You find me in Springfield...
Selling chestnuts outside the train station.
By the train station.
He kills himself in Cincinnati.
What the hell do we know about Cincinnati?
What do they know about Cincinnati?
- What's he look like? - They won't ask that.
- They will. - It's been weeks, it's enough.
I'm finally working backstage tonight, I don't wanna be late.
You're the one said he was our maker.
I need this cold for myself.
Black wavy hair... smile crooks up to the left.
Buncha moles on his crotch and thighs.
I don't need that.
Well, he didn't keep you under floorboards for a week.
I don't know what it is that you need.
I remember what I remember.
I pry to keep us safe.
You might be having a good time now,
but there's danger if they find out we lied.
Maybe not Cincinnati. How about Shreveport?
Caddo Lake. My daddy took me and Paul there to fish.
There's a drawbridge there. He burned on the bridge.
Shreveport, Caddo Lake, burned himself on the bridge.
[knock on door]
Armand.
The door was ajar.
Uh... If you open up the windows and the doors,
you get a little breeze.
Cavalier. But I'm sure you're being careful.
A-huh.
Maitre, welcome to our lair.
- Shouldn't you be in the lobby? - I got three minutes.
Did I give you consent to look me in the eye, Puce?
- No, Maitre. - My fault, I was keeping her.
Have I been late once, Maitre?
Have you been early once is the question I'd be asking myself.
[door shuts]
[* romantic piano]
How's she doing?
She's taking the abuse in stride.
- I've never seen her happier. - Mmm.
The coven has grand designs for her.
You're drawn to portraiture.
Hides the cracks in the walls.
Show me where you go at night.
Unconscious death is the fate of all mortals.
Up.
We are conscious death, Rolf Wangler.
[Santiago] And that would make you a groom.
Do you know what it means to be loved by death?
No pain.
This is my favorite part.
No pain.
[Rolf] No pain.
How does he get 'em to beg for it?
Eyes down, Puce, eyes down.
No pain.
- [snarling] - [she sneezes]
Did you fucking sneeze at the end?
I tried to stifle it.
It's the bloody fucking moment of quietus.
It's hay season.
It's not a farm, Estelle!
It still sounded terrifying, Mr. Santiago. I got chills.
Of course you did because I'm a...
[all] Fucking professional!
- Puce! - Coming, sir.
You know, Clau, this is what's called the wet room.
A hateful place. You never get over the smell
and I'm glad to Garryduff it's your job now.
Keep the sacrifice in there till ten minutes to the stage.
- Mm-hm. - This is the body box.
And this is the rat box. You put your freshie...
in the body box.
You close the lid.
You take the safety off the funnel.
[rats screeching]
And, begosh and begorrah, the rats do the dirty for ya.
Now on a Tuesday, this is the body box and that's the rat box.
On Wednesdays, that's the body box, this is the rat box.
Back and forth, back and forth. Keep track.
These rats are smart. They can go quiet.
You open up the wrong box, they go running up the stairs
into the green room, into the theater
and Maitre punishes the entire coven,
which does not win you friends and furain.
We had an incinerator at home.
- How'd that work? - Throw 'em in. Watch 'em burn.
Hmm. Feels a bit German.
You can piddle a week before you have to empty the bones.
This door leads to the sewers, catacombs and various ossuaries
we've got hidden around the underground.
- What are these? - Burial vaults.
Coven members past. Mostly heretics and law breakers.
- What are the laws? - Not till the ceremony, Puce.
- [rats scrabbling] - [gasps] They found the heart!
Rats love hearts.
[Louis] I walk a new part of the city every night.
I try to get lost.
Somehow I always end up back by the river.
The waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful.
Mm-hm.
A vein winding through the heart of Paris.
There's much talk of your camera in the coven.
- Is that right? - [camera shutter clicks]
They say you're mad in love with humanity.
Thieving their private moments with light and shadow.
They pester Claudia about it.
They should ask me if they're curious.
How could they when you're so rarely present?
I saw enough theater back home for several lifetimes.
- No offense. - None taken.
Nothing worse than being dragged around unwillingly
by a companion. This was Bruce?
Yeah, Bruce.
- The opera-loving motorcyclist. - Yeah.
You should talk with Tuan Pham about cameras.
He's very learned. Perhaps the two of you could...
I'm not doing the coven.
Trying to save you a sales pitch.
You got Claudia, she's happy, I'm happy.
But me...
- not much of a joiner. - Mmm.
Yes, you have made that clear enough.
So if that's why you're here.
It's not the whole reason I'm here.
- No. - [Lestat] No.
It's most definitely not the whole reason he's here.
- [Lestat scoffs] - I like you.
I like you, isn't that obvious?
[Armand laughs]
We really must work on blocking your thoughts.
- Excuse me? - Bruce.
- I sense him now in your mind. - A-huh.
Maybe I'm guarding my thoughts just fine.
Maybe I let you into my head on purpose.
Oh, that's nice, mon cher. Lovely.
[camera shutter clicks]
[* gentle classical music]
Ha!
If we were the only vampires in Paris...
For a second I felt like we were.
The coven is envious of your independence.
It's a problem. You outside looking in.
Your problem, not mine.
You want me, I'm here.
But I'm here, here.
In the streets, cafés,
the salons, the bars, ripping hot jazz.
The whole place feels like it's born again.
Everyone's asking, "What's next, what's next?"
Not, "Where were you?" Or, "Be careful."
I had enough of that back home.
I'm out here finding myself.
Then what room is there left for me,
if you have not found yourself?
Hmm!
Oh, there's room.
[sighs]
We were circling each other.
I was putting him in a very difficult position.
I was supposed to be luring him in,
but the opposite was happening.
I started spending less time at the theater
and more nights strolling the boulevards with Louis.
[Louis] The conversation was easy and flirtatious...
- [Armand] And combative. - [Louis] And combative, yes,
but only in the most stimulating ways.
Arguing as foreplay.
Some of my most profound feelings
and thoughts were taking shape.
When my mind was touched by Armand's,
I became deeply excited and driven
to form new conclusions about myself
and vampiric life in the abstract.
[laptop key clicking]
- Something wrong, Daniel? - Mmm...
Oh, no. It's... It's the, um, the computer, uh... [coughs]
Something you were saying made me think of, um...
Think what?
Oh... It's...
It just flew out of my head there. It's gone.
So where's Claudia at this point?
How's she doing? What... What's she doing
at this stage of things?
How do you do it?
How do you get them to accept death?
They'll never hear you in the front row with your head down.
First thing I do when I creak open the lid
is have a chat with my scene partner for the night.
Muck about in their heads, find their shame.
In short, an actor prepares.
See you on stage, Claude.
Who's Francis Naughton?
The best Iago to walk the York Royal.
That was you?
And what was your shabby life in Chicago
before the vampire Bruce bit down on your wee neck?
I was in Springfield...
selling little trinkets at the train station.
- You were an orphan? - You could say that.
And an orphan again. We have that in common.
- I thought Maitre made you? - And why would you say that?
Estelle told me you were the youngest.
But you're also the strongest. Figured you got the best blood.
No.
My maker lies in the walls downstairs.
Maitre put him there.
Woodcutter, three minutes.
Thank you. Three.
- Sorry. - Oh, don't be.
He deserved his death...
and his blood was exquisite.
I'm a good mimic and I can fly.
- And you kill with panache. - Hmm.
And your dearly departed maker,
what gifts did he bequeath the moppet vampiress?
He taught me how to lie well.
You'll make a fine actor, then.
[distant cheering and applause]
It's Louis who's from Chicago, yes?
Just outside it. Gary, Indiana.
Stick with it, Puce. You're almost there.
[* bright piano]
I'm evil, evil as any vampire who ever lived.
I've killed over and over and I will do it again.
Why does that make you as evil as any vampire?
Aren't there gradations to evil?
Is evil a great perilous gulf
one falls into with the first sin?
I mean, kinda. It's not as logical as you're saying,
but it's dark and it's empty,
and I can't see the bottom of it.
But if evil is without gradation and it does exist,
this state of evil then,
only one sin is needed.
That's your argument.
[coughs politely]
Evil is the product of the ability of humans
to make abstract what is concrete.
- Jean-Paul. - Armand.
- This is my friend, Louis. - Bonjour.
Now, will you two kindly shut up,
so I can hear the music, hmm?
[Armand telepathically] Your argument assumes God exists.
[Louis] I don't know that God exists.
From what I saw in the war, he doesn't.
Then surely, there are degrees and variations to goodness?
The goodness of the child which is innocence.
The goodness of the nun who lives a life
of self-deprivation and service.
The goodness of the saints, the goodness of the midwives.
And how is this evil achieved?
How does one fall from grace? [Armand's voice fades]
[pianist sings] ♪ You little whore ♪
♪ You only want him cos you're feeling blue ♪
♪ Come to me ♪
♪ He'll never run his fingers through your hair ♪
♪ The way I do ♪ That's quite good, hmm.
♪ You'll fumble each other ♪
[Armand] Louis?
♪ Impotent lovers... ♪
- [Lestat continues singing] - I don't... I don't know.
Maybe you're right.
There he is again.
♪ Come to me ♪
I'm sorry.
And we were having such a nice conversation.
I was with Bruce for 30 years.
"Bruce"?
How long are we going to play games, Louis?
- Lestat... - Before you say it,
let me tell you a little something
about 18th-century Armand.
- Lestat. - Oh, dear.
- Finally. - I'm tired of holding onto it.
Lestat was my companion in America.
- And where is he now? - Mm, still a bookbinder's wife?
- He knows. - You know where he is.
I want you to say it.
I killed him and he fucking had it coming.
- Well, that's debatable. - I've known for months.
I've just waited for you to say it.
And that means what? You gotta kill me now?
What does that mean for Claudia?
- Did she help you kill him? - Yes!
- No. - You broke one of the Great Laws.
I don't know any Great Laws. Lestat never told me shit.
- I told you I loved you. - Go away!
- Calm down. - And you said nothing.
Back to hell with you!
[patrons gasp]
Louis...
[* tense violin]
[panting]
Even now, I'm still the only one you trust.
Kill me again.
Go on, kill me again!
Show me the only way you know how to love.
- [Louis grunting] - [Lestat laughs]
[grunting continues]
Aah! Uhh! Aah!
[grunting continues]
[* tense violin]
[Claudia] He was a loner. Had fickle moods,
switched between 'em real fast.
We can take a night off.
Uh, you're probably right.
Probably let it go after we said he burned himself.
No, we should do this. We should be real careful, like you said.
[breathes heavily]
Louis?
Three of us were a little gang for a while.
The open road, roaming America.
Killing at truck stops, motels.
Till one day he set himself on fire. Shocked the shit outta us.
Did it with a lighter.
Held it up to a rag hanging out his gas tank.
Thought we'd be on that road for a long time.
His last words were...
"Had enough of your gloomy faces."
Good.
Lestat could have said,
"Put your coffin on a boat. Go to Paris.
There's a beautiful coven there,
I know cos I fucking founded it."
But he said the vampires out there are vicious.
I should tell you something.
And then I met the motherfucker, and, yeah, Lestat was right.
It was better when he broke my bones,
crammed me under the floorboards.
I fought him, kicked him,
clawed him, bit him.
That was fine.
It was when he had me pinned,
and he'd tell me he loved me.
Before, during,
and after.
Before, during,
after.
That fucked me up.
[sighs]
One day he said, "Had enough of your gloomy face."
Drove off on a motorbike.
Thought I might as well go home, get Louis, head to Europe.
They're gonna let me join the coven end of this week.
It'd be nice if you come.
I wouldn't miss it for the world.
[Rashid] Excuse the interruption.
The lawyer for the buyer is ready for the teleconference.
Uh, the lawyer?
It's about the Bacon triptych.
- Would you mind, Daniel? - I'll take a piss.
A real cold cup of water there, Rashid. I was really in it.
- [Armand] Mr. Philips, yes? - Hello.
This is the owner, Mr. Du Lac.
[Louis] Mr. Philips.
[conversation continues indistinctly]
Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion,
witnesses to Christ's agony.
Mr. Bacon also referred to these as the Three Furies,
punishers of human wrongdoing.
[Philips] And the matter of provenance?
[Armand] Is the buyer questioning the authenticity?
The buyer wants it for her husband.
She probably Googled what questions she should ask.
The reverse on the right panel is inscribed Petersfield,
which is near a cottage Bacon worked at
during the gestating years of the painting.
An X-ray of the Fury on that panel would reveal
the face of a man, likely Eric Hall, the owner of that cottage.
[Armand] It's only had three owners.
The research is basic but on you.
[Louis] We have to run. Thank you.
I'll run it past my clients.
- [Santiago] Woodcutter! - [woodcutter] Who are you?
I am who you think I am, woodcutter.
- Go away. - The clock in your heart.
The gears have stopped meshing.
[groans]
[softly] The vampires are real. They're going to kill us all.
The vampires, they're real!
- They're going to kill us all! - [Sam] What is this?
He's disrupted the performance!
[Santiago] No, no, no, no. Let him speak, Sam.
[Santiago] Look who's graced us with his presence.
What an honor.
[Armand] He's here in support of the girl.
- Finish the performance. - [man] Gonna to kill you next.
Why don't you tell us who you are?
- Did you read Le Monde today? - [Armand] I have not.
A mutilated body found in a park three nights ago.
Crushed skull, puncture wounds on neck,
chest and shoulder blade.
- Was that you? - [Armand] Of course not.
[Santiago] Because everyone was in coffin by curfew.
Suppose we were to let you go?
And I don't see our girl here
at that particular park, do you?
[Armand] Speak plainly.
[Santiago] You've had your time to recruit.
It's not happening.
He will be the ruin of us. Do what must be done.
[Armand] Are you making demands?
[Santiago] The coven would like to know
what you intend to do with him,
beyond comping him a fifth row center aisle ticket?
[Armand] And do you speak for the coven?
[* ominous music]
[Santiago speaking indistinctly on stage]
[Armand] After the ceremony.
After she's committed herself to us.
Then I'll do what must be done. Does that satisfy?
- Did in my maker for far less. - Does that satisfy?
- [snarling] - It does, Maitre.
All respects.
No pain.
[man] No pain.
[squelching]
- [cheering] - [all] Puce! Puce! Puce!
Puce! Puce! Puce! Puce! Puce!
Your first night over the footlights.
- How did it feel? - Like home.
Come, I have something for you.
Sit.
[mechanism rattles]
What is it, Maitre?
It's a flea circus.
May it remind you of your humble beginnings.
Would you have us?
Yes, Maitre.
[Armand] Come.
[* poignant music]
The Five Laws.
Let youngest read in the youngest.
The ceremony is for members only.
Shall we have a walk?
The Five Laws.
Law one.
Each coven must have its leader
and only he might order
the working of the Dark Trick upon a mortal.
Will you abide?
I will.
Law two.
The Dark Gifts must never be given to the crippled,
the maimed or to children...
- [Louis] I'm gonna leave Paris. - [Armand] Where would you go?
I was thinking London.
If it's too large, maybe Dublin.
You left a body in the park.
More reason I should leave.
No vampire must commit to writing
the history of the vampires.
You exposed us. Should I allow the London coven such exposure?
No vampire shall ever reveal his or her true nature
to a mortal and let the mortal live.
You revealed yourself to the law firm of Roget & Abert.
They do business with vampires.
No vampire may ever destroy another vampire...
except that the coven master
has the power of life and death over all his flock.
"I will not harm you."
Those were your first words to me.
"My maker was a vampire named Bruce.
Who's Lestat de Lioncourt?" Your first words to the coven.
And it is his obligation to finally seek the destruction
of all those who have broken these five laws.
[Louis] Where are we going?
We're going to get lost
and end up back by the river.
Like all our walks.
Will you abide by this fifth and final law?
I will.
A flea no more.
[soft snarling]
[Louis] Take my head off if you're gonna do it.
I saw what fire does.
I don't want to go out that way.
Any other requests?
Look after Claudia.
[Armand] She doesn't need looking after.
She won't be here very long.
What?!
You made her at 14.
A most turbulent chemistry.
Her mind, as fierce as it is now, will not endure.
It will break apart in time.
You don't know her.
I don't have to.
I've seen it all before.
I've seen too much, Louis.
[all] Surprise!
[Santiago] You didn't think we were going to
leave you in the wet room, did you?
You're a star, Claudia.
A new play for you and the ladies.
'My Baby Loves Windows.'
I play your governess.
And I play your mother.
And I play the little girl?
You'll be their little birdie for the next 50 years.
[all congratulating]
[applause]
What did he call it?
'The Savage Garden.'
Why is it, Louis,
those with the most power are often the weakest?
Don't give up on her.
Tell her she's beautiful. Tell her that every morning.
[flames whooshing]
[metallic clattering]
You walked me home.
Did I?
That's my building over there.
Did he break you, Louis?
Are you broken?
No.
But I carry him.
And I don't know if I...
if I can...
The pain, the...
You will.
I did.
You and him?
A century or so ago.
Yesterday.
What is time to a vampire?
[* poignant piano music continues]
You wanna come upstairs?
Are you inviting me in?
Depends. Are you gonna kill me?
[* piano music fades]
Claudia: I'm a fierce vampire trapped in the body of a little girl.
I'm reminded of it every night of my existence.
There's something broken in me.
♪
Who am I? Am I my history I have endured?
What is vampire life but poor decisions?
[Hisses]
What about you and me? Me and you?
I want you. You sure about that?
♪
Unconscious death is the fate of all mortals.
Up.
Mark: "No Pain" is the name of episode three,
and it is ironic because the whole episode is about pain.
No pain.
Adam: We jump back in time with Armand.
What we get is Armand's back story,
which pulls a little bit from the vampire, Lestat,
which is the next book.
So that's obviously exciting for our literary fans.
Armand: Our ways were finished.
We were embers on a waning pile.
Adam: It also gives us an opportunity
to learn a little bit more about the coven.
Gets us some Lestat in there.
And one of the best things is that for a long time,
we get the Louis version of Lestat,
and now we get the Armand version of Lestat.
And how are they different?
And you watch Sam do that stuff,
and it's just exquisite.
Ah! Madame. [Speaking in foreign language]
By this point,
we've learned that who tells the story
is often more important than how the story is being told.
How much of it is true?
How much of it is used to paint Armand in a good light?
Lestat!
Scott: Tonight, we have a little altercation
between two vampires and a mortal.
Man: Action! [Shouting]
Assad: So I'm gonna be hurling Lestat
up against that wall just over there.
Levan, who's directing this episode,
is detail oriented,
and he's a massive fan of the books, as well,
so he understands where this particular part of the story
fits narratively in the next book.
Levan: What I felt was important in this scene,
we have a time freeze element that happens.
We're using people who are good at standing frozen,
and we're using fishnets to have dresses--
It's very analogue, which I like.
It's pretty impressive I think.
They've managed to freeze some horses
in the background, so the horses are being very well-behaved.
I get dragged on a rig, which was really fun to do,
and it's difficult to see all those
beautiful velvet wolf killer coats get ripped up.
It's lots of stunts. It's lots of French.
[Conversing in French]
We've done a system, we call it a slack line
and a nitrogen ratchet
to motivate our stunt performer toward the wall.
We always take what's on paper
and try to make it bigger and better.
As the scene progresses,
the anger and the emotion increases
so the stunt becomes bigger and bigger.
We go from a slide and a flick to flying against the wall.
[Shouting] [Hisses]
[Grunts]
You're not the first to attempt this.
I could give you the names of four others who have.
And they're all dead, or undead.
The Talamasca is very important
to the Anne Rice canon.
The files have been placed
with proper encryption on your comically vulnerable laptop.
It's almost like "Men in Black".
This is an organization that oversees all of the demons,
witches, vampires,
all of this unexplained phenomena.
Anne Rice's imagination seems to be limitless,
and she's able to create a world
and then add another world onto it.
So the Talamasca world is-- it's just wonderful.
It's a wonderful foil to the whole vampire world.
Mark: Louis, who we met before he was a vampire,
he's almost like an undercover agent
in a world in which he can't be found out.
Armand: There is much talk of your camera in the coffin.
They say you're mad in love with humanity,
saving their private moments with light and shadow.
So Louis is very tentative
and reluctant to join anybody.
Perhaps the two of you-- I'm not joining the coven.
I think the coven, it's a rejection of them
and what a vampire should be and shouldn't be,
while Louis is always teetering on ideas of morality
and who he is and what's right and what's wrong.
He can't commit in the way
that they've committed to their set of rules,
and that just makes him a target.
I'm out here finding myself.
Then what is there left for me?
Oh, there's room.
Stick with it, Puss.
You're almost there.
Puss. Flea.
It's a horrible nickname,
but Claudia doesn't take any of it in
because she realizes what they're doing
in calling her that, and it's flea,
meaning little, like, bottom of the barrel.
They're gonna let me join the coven end of this week.
It'd be nice if you come.
As an audience, everybody roots for Claudia
because she demands to be taken seriously.
[Cheers and applause]
Delainey: Claudia is very intelligent,
so I wouldn't say she completely changed herself.
I'd say she molded herself to appease them.
But I think she's always combating with being
a second choice for people.
So when she meets the coven and all these vampires
are accepting her into the coven,
she is fulfilled,
and she's found what she's been looking for--
a group of people that put her first.
Adam: To finally be in the coven,
have an opportunity to go on stage,
but to have to play a baby
just reinforces all of the issues
that she has about being taken seriously,
being respected.
Man: You'll be their little birdy for the next 50 years.
Adam: Being able to make proactive decisions
about her own life,
it's a void that's created for her
that she can never have that.
Shall we have a walk?
Assad: For all intents and purposes,
Armand is going to kill Louis.
I don't think it was preempted that he might not,
because he feels he has no choice.
His 200 years with the coven
is a lot more important than this new person
who's coming to his life, even though this person is...
magnetic and making him feel all these amazing new emotions.
I will not harm you. Jacob: Louis's in shock--
Those were your first words to me.
...in that moment.
And so, they share a bit of their past
and a bit of their trauma.
What is it, Louis?
I think the cogs are turning.
Those who are the most powerful...
Their power dynamic.
...they're often the weakest.
Louis: You want to come upstairs?
Assad: He doesn't have a way out in the end, he chooses.
Are you inviting me in?
The choice in the end is...
Depends. ...to pursue love...
Are you gonna kill me?
...to pursue this feeling.
[* light classical music]