If you think you know what "Interview With The Vampire" is all about because you read the Anne Rice novel or you saw the movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, a new series has some surprises in store. That's because it takes the familiar tale about a young man named Louis, his handsome vampire lover Lestat and Claudia, the creepy vampire child they adopt, and it keeps introducing twists and layers that complicate and deepen their story. It's funnier, sexier and queerer than you remember. Most importantly, this Louis isn't a white plantation owner. He's an ambitious and closeted Black man. I'm Glen Weldon, and today we're talking about the AMC series "Interview With The Vampire" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.

WELDON: Joining us today is Kristen Meinzer. She is the co-host of the podcast "Movie Therapy With Rafer & Kristen." She's also the co-author of "How To Be Fine." Welcome back, Kristen.

KRISTEN MEINZER: Thanks so much for having me back.

WELDON: Also joining us is Christina Tucker, co-host of the podcast "Wait, Is This A Date?" Welcome back, Christina.

WELDON: "Interview With The Vampire" begins with a framing device. It is 50 years after the journalist Daniel, played here by Eric Bogosian, first interviewed the tortured, soulful vampire Louis, played here by Jacob Anderson. Now they sit down for another interview, and in this one, Louis promises to tell the truth. The major plot points are similar to what you remember from Anne Rice's 1976 debut novel and the 1994 movie. It keeps the New Orleans setting, but the events Louis describes begin in the early 1900s, not the late 1700s. Louis is a single businessman who loves his family but struggles with his sexuality. His financial ambition is kept in check by powerful white men who are cordial to him socially, even as they deny him opportunities.

When Louis meets the striking, swaggering vampire Lestat, played by Sam Reid, the eternal life on offer represents more than just the usual vampire benefits package - your strength, your mind control, etc. Louis convinces himself that being a vampire will allow him to transcend a racist system and triumph over it. He's not entirely wrong, at least at first. But when he and Lestat begin to tire of each other, they do what many couples do. They have a kid. Claudia, played by Bailey Bass, is a vampire forever trapped in a Black teenage body. As you can imagine, this complicates things. "Interview With The Vampire" airs on AMC. Christina, let me start with you. What'd you think?

TUCKER: You know, I liked the show. I had a good time watching this. Do I think it's going to stick with me in any real kind of complicated way? Is going to be something I revisit? Maybe not. But it's campy, and it's fun. It's definitely toned down on, I think, like, the horror and kind of creepy energy that the '94 film had. But we've got, you know, vampires being bitchy and catty, and I love that. I think that's fun.

WELDON: What was your take on the original novel and the film?

TUCKER: So I know I read the original novel because at some point I was a closeted person in college.

TUCKER: And I think that's, like, what college libraries are for.

TUCKER: I do remember thinking, OK, maybe this isn't for me, but this is interesting. I feel like I've done some work here that is, like, you know, on my journey to my gayness.

TUCKER: I do remember being terrified of the '94 movie, but I was kind of famously a chicken when it came to horror as a child. Having revisited as an adult, I'm like, yeah, this is fun. And I do like this. And Kirsten Dunst's performance in that film - really chef's kisses.

TUCKER: I'm thrilled to add this to the space of the "Interview With The Vampire" oeuvre. I'm not sure it is the most thinky (ph) or, you know, really thoughtful take on the material, perhaps.

WELDON: Oh, interesting. OK. Kristen, what do you think?

MEINZER: I think that this just has to be accepted as a completely different beast than the book or the '94 movie. When I think of those, I think of, oh, you are so seductive. I cannot resist you. You're terrible, and you're dangerous. And where did my pants go? I can't resist you. And that's not what this is. This is kind of like domestic bickering.

MEINZER: This is - one minute you are cohabitating with your slippers by your coffin, and then the next minute you're yelling at each other. This is not...

MEINZER: ...The same Lestat and Louis that we know well. And, yeah, it is campy, and it is comedic, and it doesn't feel dangerous or sexy in the same way. And I missed that because I really liked that about the original universe. I liked that in the book. I liked that in the movie. That's not what you're getting here. But if you can just accept this as the domestic comedy that it is, I think it could be perfectly enjoyable. But just don't go in thinking you're going to get what you got in the past.

WELDON: OK. I think you've just nailed why I like this so much better than the book and the movie. You know, of course, I read the book as a closeted college kid, just like Christina...

WELDON: ...Because, Christina, they were the gayest thing that everybody was reading. Sit around Pappy's knee. There was a time, kids, before things could be mainstream and queer at the same time. Like, we didn't have that. I didn't have to hide it. I could read it on the quad. But there was always a veil up for me because Rice's prose is so florid and breathless and swoony, you could just feel Spanish moss dripping off of every paragraph. And she's doing it intentionally, right? It's gothic horror. That's the assignment - Gothic horror, capital Goth. And look. I want to be careful here. Plenty of women have written hot gay romance and hot gay sex. But these books are written by someone whose understanding of gay sex is, I'm going to say, academic, theoretical, weirdly abstract. I would say the exact same thing, by the way, about the next book, where Lestat is a rock star.

WELDON: It's giving, how do you do, fellow kids - that book.

WELDON: But anyway, that's why every choice this show makes to depart from the text strikes me, anyway, as a marked improvement. Lestat isn't just hot. He's funny and bitchy, as you both said. Louis is tortured, yeah, but it's not his entire damn personality.

WELDON: Having the interviewer not be this kind of breathless, enraptured young kid but a cynical and very funny Eric Bogosian who is constantly calling Louis out on his BS - I love that. I love the notion that Daniel, the interviewer, has lived an entire life, and now he's looking at this youthful Louis in a different way. He's got real resentment animating that performance in a fun way.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE")

JACOB ANDERSON: (As Louis Pointe du Lac) I got in that coffin of my own free will. In the quiet dark, we were equals.

ERIC BOGOSIAN: (As Daniel Molloy) White master, Black student, but equal in the quiet dark.

WELDON: We touched on how this show is engaging with race. I love the scene where Louis gets to hear what these white jerks think of him, and I love - in a lesser show, he'd be surprised.

WELDON: The show is smarter than that. I love that Claudia and Louis can communicate with each other in a way that Lestat is completely shut out of.

TUCKER: Locked out of, yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE")

ANDERSON: (As Louis Pointe du Lac) It's a special trick only folks like us have, like the nails and the teeth.

BAILEY BASS: (As Claudia) So you can hear me, but he can't. That make him the dumb one (laughter)?

ANDERSON: (As Louis Pointe du Lac) That's funny.

WELDON: It's firing on so many metaphorical levels, not just race but queerness, too. It's all there in the mix. You can see Louis code-switching constantly in New Orleans. I just think the show is really smart. But when a show is this smart - or I find the show this smart, anyway - I worry that it's just clever. So talk to me about how this show is engaging with race. Do you think that adds something? Do you think it's window dressing? How does it hit you?

TUCKER: I actually really think the race stuff is, like, almost surprisingly well-handled.

TUCKER: I was a little nervous when I saw what it was going to do, but I think his interactions with the white people around him make sense. You know, he is wealthy. He is light-skinned enough that they can tolerate him up to a point. But they're always, of course, casually insulting him. Their interests always supersede how much they are willing to think of Louis as a person. And it makes it - like, his place in that society makes a lot of sense, and his reactions to it make a lot of sense, much like his reaction to being like, well, maybe if I'm a vampire, I will best of these men...

TUCKER: ...In some way. Maybe this will be like the cure-all I need because, obviously, my wealth hasn't done that for me. Like, maybe this is the next step I need.

MEINZER: I mean, I think when it comes to being an oppressed person in our world, being a person of color, being anybody who is not treated as a full human, I see vampirism as a fantasy - you know, this idea that I can live forever. You can't hurt me. I can destroy you, and you won't even see it coming. What a fabulous fantasy is that, you know? I love revenge fantasies. And I love the idea that you can look down on me and, in the end, I will destroy you and live forever.

MEINZER: So screw you. That's just the way it's going to be. And I have to agree with Christina as far as how race is handled in this. I thought it was really nuanced, actually. I thought it was very smart. There were no really dumb just blunt, black-and-white moments.

MEINZER: There were different shades of gray throughout it that made it seem more real, including with Louis himself, not just in the world he lived in, but with him and with his family and so on. How do class and race intersect? How does that factor in when the money is coming from maybe unsavory places and so on? All of that is rolled into this story, making it much more nuanced than just, I am a Black, oppressed person who is going to live in a white world forever. It's so much more nuanced than that.

WELDON: Yeah. And I think it is something that the show engages with that the books and the film just didn't bother with. And it does add an entirely new dimension, a - what is it? - a z-axis, a third dimension that the film and the book lack. It allows you to tell different stories. It allows you to admit more voices into the mix. And I think it does enrich this kind of vampire fantasy at the heart of the story.

WELDON: If it doesn't work, of course, you got cynical. It's window dressing because there is a scale here of nuance. On one end, you've got colorblind casting. That's one thing. On the other end, you have this. But somewhere in the middle is the "Bridgerton" approach, where you have one piece of dialogue where you suggest that because the king married a Black queen, that solved racism. That is not engaging with it in any - and this is what I was deathly afraid was going to be happening here.

WELDON: This is doing a lot more with it - not loving everything that it does, like the moment where Lestat impresses Jelly Roll Morton with his piano playing.

WELDON: I could have lifted right up. You know what I mean? I could have just gone.

WELDON: Now, the book was pretty flatly queer. The film, however, had homoerotic subtext. And when I saw the film, I was just coming out.

WELDON: And you know, you had these two incredibly recognizable stars being egregiously heterosexual and flouncing around with these wigs and these flouncy sleeves and having these operatic, tortured emotions, you know? And the emotions - and the whole metaphor was right on the nose because, you know, he was always like, (imitating Lestat) ol' Lestater (ph) lifestyle. It's like, OK.

WELDON: We are monsters. And it felt like dating a straight dude where it's like, you tie yourself in knots. I'm going to go hook up with someone who's going to kiss me back. This show kisses me back because it's so much more light on its feet. It's faster. It's funnier. It's weirder. And it is just gay.

WELDON: It's just gay AF. And I am happy with that.

TUCKER: I mean, is there truly anything gayer than, like, furiously killing a tenor because he was bad in the opera that you saw? Like, I saw that, and I said, this is why representation matters. This is why I need to be represented because I, too, am kind of a snobby bitch when it comes to performances from tenors. Like, good. Thank you.

WELDON: Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Yep. And it's not doing what Anne Rice did with it, and it's not doing what the film did with it. It is finding its own vibe. This series is also handling the Claudia character differently because it has to - right? - because in the novel, Claudia is 5, and you can't do that. In the film, Kirsten Dunst was 12, but she played younger, so they kind of stuck to the book script. Here, she's a teenager, a young teenager. But she's a teenager, and that allows the series to be a little bit more direct in her frustration. What do you make of the Claudia here?

MEINZER: Oh. I loved her. When she joined the story, things just got electric. And exciting and all the things that Louis and Lestat were refusing to actually talk about just came front and center because she's going to say that stuff out loud. She's going to be frustrated. She's going to be angry. And she's not going to politely hold it in. She's going to scream it, and she won't have the life skills to figure it out very well, as we know by the trail of dead bodies she leaves everywhere around her, accidentally oftentimes, sometimes not accidentally.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE")

ANDERSON: (As Louis de Pointe du Lac) Stop lying, Claudia.

BASS: (As Claudia) I buried them - OK? - way out of town, nothing out there for miles. Nobody's ever going to find them except maybe criminals burying bodies of their own. I hate you both.

SAM REID: (As Lestat de Lioncourt) Where out of town?

BASS: (As Claudia) Chalmette. Now get out of my room.

ANDERSON: (As Louis de Pointe du Lac) Chalmette's three feet below the river line.

BASS: (As Claudia) So what? Get out of my room.

MEINZER: I am here for all of Claudia just being the teenager that essentially Louis and Lestat are as well but just are pretending they're not.

TUCKER: Yeah, I typically find teenagers kind of exhausting, especially as they are portrayed on TV. It is like, I understand there are many feelings happening. We have to deal with them, but, like, must I be subjected to watching it? I do like what she does for the show and for their relationship. Like, I could watch the two of them argue about, like, what kind of dress material she should have for probably the rest of my natural life and be totally fine. I do think that actress is very charming. I do find her performance very believable, and I do understand the need - like, that she needs to be there to kind of work into their dynamic. And I do think it is successful. I think it is just my kind of personal hang up. Like, oh, must we have a teen introduced now?

WELDON: Oh, I'm so there with you. Like, there's a surfeit of Southern teens on television at any given time, and I - they can miss me. All of them can miss me. But I wasn't looking forward to yet another, here is a creepy Victorian doll child, you know? And we don't get that. It's a deliberate choice on their part to do something different because we've had lots of creepy Victorian doll, you know, horror films lately. So let's find something new.

TUCKER: Do you think vampire effects will ever look good on screen? Or are we just resigned to...

WELDON: That's a good question.

TUCKER: I mean, the colored contacts is a moment, you know?

WELDON: Let's tick off specifically what you're referring to there. You got your colored contacts. You got your...

TUCKER: Colored contacts, the teeth...

WELDON: Your Karo syrup blood, the teeth, sure.

TUCKER: The levitation. The fast moving is always one of those ones that I'm like, if that could look good, if we could successfully pull that off, it would be rather startling. But it always just looks kind of silly. And I just - I don't know what - when we're going to, like, crack that moment. But, again, it kind of works in this show because it's so campy that like, yeah, look at me with your spooky little colored contact eyes. Like, whatever. This is fine. Put your little glasses on. Go off, man.

MEINZER: You know, I think the effects - they're kind of cornball, but the whole show is cornball, so I kind of accept it. I do want to just say, though, that aesthetically speaking, I actually think it looks terrific.

MEINZER: I really love the costumes. I love the way they make New Orleans look in the early 1900s. It is filthy and smelly and exciting and alive. And I want to be there. I think it looks terrific.

WELDON: And, you know, every so often, you'll see them out in the bayou on a boat. And I'm just thinking mosquitoes. Like, what are they doing? Mosquitoes. And then I remember they're immortal and the mosquitoes completely would ignore them, I would imagine, even though they're just giant bags of blood. So maybe they don't.

TUCKER: Bags of blood. So that actually opens a lot of questions.

WELDON: We want to know what you think about "Interview With The Vampire." Find us at facebook.com/pchh and on Twitter @PCHH. And that brings us to the end of our show. Kristen Meinzer, Christina Tucker, thank you both for being here. Great talk.

TUCKER: Thank you so much.

WELDON: And of course, thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. This episode was produced by Candice Lim and edited by Rommel Wood and Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music, which you are probably sucking some blood to right now. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all tomorrow when we will be talking about the new Guillermo del Toro anthology series "Cabinet Of Curiosities."

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