‘Interview With the Vampire’ Filmed Louis and Lestat’s Big Fight From Claudia’s POV to Reveal the “Domestic Violence”

Interview With the Vampire Episode 5 ends with a heartbreaking brawl between Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat (Sam Reid) that transcends the typical vampire battle. When an older and wiser — but still trapped in a tween’s body — Claudia (Bailey Bass) returns home after years on her own, she begs Louis to come with her to Europe. When an angry Lestat lunges for Claudia, Louis intervenes. The two lovers destroy their house in a horrific fight that we see first through Claudia’s perspective. It is domestic violence on a terrible, magical scale.

“I mean, it is a family dynamic. There’s a very abusive person within it who is pulling that family apart,” Interview With the Vampire star Sam Reid recently said about the scene.

The first five episodes of Interview With the Vampire imagine a modern day version of Louis de Ponte du Lac calls up on Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosia), the now much older version of the journalist he talked to in Anne Rice’s novel, to give the man the real story. Louis’s new origin story is as a 1910 New Orleans brothel owner and Claudia has been aged up to 14. At some point, the rebellious Claudia runs away from her plush home to explore what else is out there. The separation is hellacious for Louis. So when Claudia returns, he’s ecstatic. Lestat, on the other hand, is jealous.

Claudia wants Louis to join her in Europe, a place Lestat refuses to return to. This sets off a vicious verbal spat between Lestat and Claudia, with Claudia communicating to Louis telepathically. Claudia points out Lestat’s patterns of emotional abuse, culminating with her begging Louis: “Please come with me! Let’s be vampires worthy of your love!” Lestat chokes Claudia and Louis pounces in the girl’s defense.

“I loved it. I honestly did,” Interview With the Vampire star Bailey Bass said. “When you watch the scene, it’s everything that I read, but onscreen.”

Bass might have loved the two and a half days of shooting the sequence, but she admits that for Claudia, it was far more rough.

“From Claudia’s point of view, it’s domestic violence. And I know Jacob and Sam really understood that as well and we would talk about that because it’s really heartbreaking. She, you know, becomes a little kid again. Like, ‘I just want my dad. I just want my brother. I just want the person that I love more in this entire world to be safe and I want them to come with me because I actually care about them and they see how this mean person (Lestat) is treating them.'”

Reid said, “I think it’s very gut-wrenching to see it from Claudia’s perspective and it’s important that you do see it from Claudia’s perspective because the vampire bond between Louis and Lestat is very very powerful, it’s very hard for them to break.

“For the story to progress, Louis does need somebody there to see outside of that relationship and to see, you know, that perhaps it’s not healthy.”

Lestat and Louis zip through the house, wrecking havoc, before soaring high in the sky for one last bitter argument which ends in Lestat dropping Louis to the ground.

“She thinks [Louis is] gonna die. Like she thinks she’s gonna lose him, bit by bit by bit,” Bass said. “And I think it was really important and really beautiful that it’s done from her point of view because it shows how truly complicated this relationship is.”

Louis obviously doesn’t die. He is an immortal vampire, after all. But his love for Lestat appears to be dead. Or is it?