Sophia Michaels
Although Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are still two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Interview with the Vampire remains the only time these two have worked together. The film adaptation of Anne Rice’s same-named novel saw Cruise and Pitt respectively playing lead bloodsuckers Lestat de Lioncourt and Louise de Pointe du Lac, and in addition to its commercial success, the movie has assembled a sizable fanbase since its release in 1994. Ironically though, Pitt really hated shooting the flick, even going so far to say he was “miserable” during the production.
Interview with the Vampire is certainly one of the more dour of Brad Pitt’s movies, with Louis soon regretting being turned into a vampire by Lestat and seeing this form of immortality as a curse rather than a gift. While speaking with EW, the interviewer noted that Pitt looked miserable in the movie, and he confirmed as such, adding that it was “six months in the fucking dark” and described himself as playing the “bitch role.” As Pitt elaborated, despite being familiar with the Interview with the Vampire book, his expectation for playing the character got turned on its head when he received the script just two weeks before filming started, and he hadn’t read any earlier drafts. When the interviewer that once someone’s a movie star, they can ask to see the script much earlier, Pitt answered:
I know, but I wasn’t then, and you learn. By the way, [director] Neil Jordan is a really good friend of mine. We’ve talked about all this, which is the only reason I talk about it now. In the movie, they took the sensational aspects of Lestat and made that the pulse of the film, and those things are very enjoyable and very good, but for me, there was just nothing to do — you just sit and watch.
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When Interview with the Vampire came out, Brad Pitt had only recently started gaining recognition from movies like Thelma & Louise and A River Runs Through It. Between Interview and Legends of the Fall in 1994 (the latter actually shot before the former, but came out afterwards), followed by Seven and 12 Monkeys the year after, Pitt would soon be catapulted to worldwide fame. That said, the actor admitted that when he was cast as Louis, he had “nothing,” so he couldn’t afford to be choosy. Still, one can’t fault him for being disappointed that Interview with the Vampire ended up being more of a “Tom Cruise vehicle,” although Pitt did commend his costar for dealing with all the “pressure” on him from the fans of the source material and making the role “work.”
All this isn’t to say that Pitt’s experience on Interview with the Vampire was entirely negative, as it birthed his “love affair” with New Orleans, and he made some “great friends” there. However, when it came time to switch shooting locations, Pitt became so miserable that he inquired about what it would cost for him to leave the movie. As Pitt recalled:
But then we get to London, and London was f—ing dark. London was dead of winter. We’re shooting in Pinewood, which is an old institution — all the James Bond films. There’s no windows in there. It hasn’t been refabbed in decades. You leave for work in the dark — you go into this cauldron, this mausoleum — and then you come out and it’s dark. I’m telling you, one day it broke me. It was like, life’s too short for this quality of life. I called David Geffen, who was a good friend. He was a producer, and he’d just come to visit. I said, ‘David, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do it. What will it cost me to get out?’ And he goes, very calmly, ‘Forty million dollars.’ And I go, ‘Okay, thank you.’ It actually took the anxiety off of me. I was like, ‘I’ve got to man up and ride this through, and that’s what I’m going to do.’
Despite Interview with the Vampire’s ending teasing a new story between Tom Cruise’s Lestat and Christian Slater’s Daniel Molloy, neither them, nor Brad Pitt, ever reprised their roles. Instead, a standalone sequel called Queen of the Damed, based on the third book in The Vampire Chronicles series, was released in 2002, with Stuart Townsend taking over as Lestat. Two decades later, AMC premiered its Interview with the Vampire TV series, which stars Jacob Anderson as Louis and Sam Reid as Lestat. Season 1 ended in November 2022 (and sidestepped the most obvious cliffhanger), and Season 2 is expected to premiere sometime in 2025.
As for Brad Pitt, he was last seen on the big screen in Babylon, which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription, and he’ll next be seen re-teaming with Ocean’s Eleven costar George Clooney in Apple TV+’s Wolves. Additionally, Pitt is one of the executive producers on The Killer, the Michael Fassbender-led movie that Netflix subscribers will be able to view starting on November 10.
