Interview with a Vampire: “Tom Cruise delved into the character’s cruelty” (interview)

While Interview with the Vampire is released on 4K Blu-ray, director Neil Jordan gave us an interview where he talks about the homoeroticism of the film, the casting of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and this sequel which never saw the light of day.

First: Hello, are you well?
Neil Jordan: Wait a second, I’m going to close the curtain, the sun is hitting my face.

Perfect, we’re already on the theme.
Ah ah, yes, indeed.

I saw again Interview with a Vampire on the occasion of this 4K restoration, and I had totally forgotten how insane Kirsten Dunst is in it. She is by far the best actress in the film, even though she was only 11 years old at the time of filming.
Yes, Kirsten is amazing. Besides, I saw her again last night in Lars von Trier’s film, Melancholia. What a performance! But at the time, I was a little afraid of having children play.

Because it complicates everything?
No, because we’re freezing something about them on screen that they might not want when they grow up. But Kirsten was already such an actress, it was obvious. We could see the rest of her career, she was obviously going to spend her life doing that. Which took away all my scruples. From the casting, she stood out from the crowd. It turns out she was a little older than the kid in Anne Rice’s novel, but it was impossible to hire a five-year-old girl just to stick with the book.

On a completely different subject, I must admit that I no longer remembered how strong the homoerotic tension is between Louis and Lestat.
It was in the book, where their relationship is downright sadomasochistic. But Anne Rice spent a lot of time trying to bring about a film adaptation and at one point I believe she had turned Louis into a woman. She wanted Cher to play the role… Impossible for me. And then the script she had written was a bit theatrical, quite a few homoerotic elements had disappeared. So I re-read the book and asked the studio if I could do my own version. I found it deeply ironic and horribly sad – but actually extremely funny – that these two men were stuck together through…