Sam Reid delivered otherworldly performances as Lestat in the first two seasons of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, often swinging from seductive to tender to violent in the same scene. But in season three of the show — now titled The Vampire Lestat — Reid gives the antihero a new timbre, literally, by fronting a rock band.
Channeling immortals like Morrison, Mercury and Bowie, he resurrects the type of sex-soaked spectacle unseen since the heydays of CBGB or the Viper Room. Watching him, you’d never know that, while filming, Reid felt like the exact opposite of a rock star. It’s a humbling job, says Reid, who’s characterized as a serious soul by those who know him: "I’m embarrassed when I audition for something and I don’t get it; I’m embarrassed when I get something and realize I have to do it. I got asked a lot [if playing a rock star was fun]. It must look like it’s fun, and that’s all that matters. I look back in retrospect and think, 'Wow, that was a wild thing to have done.'"
Reid is a lifelong devotee of the Anne Rice novels that inspired the series, having devoured them while growing up in New South Wales, Australia. A graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he has frequently mentioned how eager he was to audition when the series was announced. That’s why he considered the role’s grueling workouts (which gave him his lithe onstage physique) and intense vocal training (needed to sing this season’s original songs) to be a privilege. He’d already had to learn piano and violin for season one, and now electric guitar. For a scene in which Lestat sings to his mother, Gabriella de Lioncourt (Jennifer Ehle), Reid had to learn French and sing to her while playing piano and wearing an earpiece to ensure he stayed in sync with a recording.
Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt
“Sometimes you’re going so fast, your body gets exhausted, so it’s just one foot in front of the other,” says Reid, who has sung onstage before. “I’ve done musical theater on [London’s] West End [Girl From the North Country, 2017–18], but when you’re singing eight shows a week, you protect your voice. This was the opposite. I was trying to blow it out to make it sound rawer.”
And all that’s only part of the story. The Vampire Lestat, premiering June 7 on AMC and AMC+, also marks a tonal shift as Lestat challenges what’s been written about him and, through flashbacks, reveals the childhood traumas informing his “Brat Prince” persona. This includes a stutter that Reid says was one of the hardest things to nail, so as not to make the speech impediment too pronounced and distracting. Lestat is no less vicious this time around, but Reid also fleshes out the character’s playfulness, something we’ve only seen glimpses of thus far: “Lestat takes the lightest version of a situation and presents that as his truth. He’ll laugh in the face of pain and suffering.”
Though he may feel a twinge of cringe transforming into Lestat, Reid is honored to portray the beloved literary character and to leave viewers with something everlasting.
“Playing a villain opens yourself up, and it opens the audience up to questions about themselves. So, if you can get over the shame of putting yourself out there to be a piece of meat, the opportunity to kick and scream and be vulnerable and show the worst and best parts of humanity is an amazing gift,” he says. “You can’t really ask for more as an actor."
This article originally appeared in emmy magazine, issue #7, 2026, under the title: "The Reluctant Rock Star."
