With the grave-rattling events of Interview With a Vampire: Part II's big finale, fans are lusting for more sex, more blood, and more unreliable narrators. Luckily for us, Season 3 has already been promised, with showrunner Rolin Jones assuring the series would switch focus to Anne Rice's sequel novel The Vampire Lestat. And that means Lestat de Lioncourt becomes a rock star.
While the original novel was set in 1985, the year of its release, the show has already pushed the Vampire Chronicles headline up considerably, from the 1700s to the early 1900s. So swapping from '80s hair bands to the modern music scene seems exactly the kind of challenge Jones and his writers would relish. And if they're going to do it right, they need to include one thing: Chappell Roan.
The sapphic singer-songwriter has been blowing up this year, following her 2023 debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. After opening for Olivia Rodriguez on her Guts tour, Roan went from Tiny Desk Concerts to the already iconic Coachella performance, where she declared herself "your favorite artist's favorite artist" to a Bonnaroo appearance so hotly anticipated that they moved her to a bigger stage. Roan's breakout hit "Good Luck, Babe!" is climbing the Billboard charts, and has been widely embraced on Tiktok — where other jams like "Pink Pony Club" and "Red Wine Supernova" also have fans posting vids enthusiastically.
While Roan's rise seems meteoric, it wasn't an overnight success. The 26-year-old artist has been hustling since 17 to make her music breakthrough. She got dumped by one label, moved back in with her parents, and was on the brink of quitting altogether when things finally started clicking. You know who could relate to that? Lestat.
An aspiring actor whose hunger for the spotlight earned him plenty of pain, Lestat (Sam Reid) threw his heart into one intense but failed romance into another (Nicky. Armand. Louis…). Then, when he shook off the hurt and self-loathing, he rose to channel all his feelings and experiences into a blistering album.
Roan's own The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess tells a story of rocky self-discovery, sexual exaltation, bitter break-ups, and the pleasure of watching your ex suffer. It's easy to imagine Reid's 2024 version of Lestat connecting to her brand of Dark Pop, bringing his snarling French accent to "Good Luck, Babe!"s damning chorus, targeting it at Louis (Jacob Anderson) and his devious boyfriend Armand (Assad Zaman):
"When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night
With your head in your hands, you're nothing more than his wife
And when you think about me, all of those years ago
You're standing face to face with "I told you so"
You know I hate to say, "I told you so"
You know I hate to say, but, I told you so"
And yet, that trial ep of Interview with the Vampire Season 2 (episode 7) has me thinking Lestat also has his "My Kink Is Karma" moments.
Roan's songs are unabashedly about lesbian sex. Her fashion influences, pancake make-up, and stage persona are influenced by drag queens she admires. Roan has local queens open for her on tour and she told a terrified Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that her headline-grabbing Coachella line was inspired by Sasha Colby's "I'm your favorite drag queen's favorite drag queen." She's also being embraced by queer rock legends, like Elton John, who recently shared an Instagram snap of the two after a night of pizza and tea spilling.
So, if we're to believe that Lestat is becoming a rock god in this moment, in this queer pop explosion of Renee Rapp, Billie Eilish, and (sure) Jojo Siwa, he'd not only know Roan, he'd make damn sure they shared air with the most theatrical bad bitch on the scene.
So far the series hasn't delved into cameos. So how might this work without feeling like stunt casting? Perhaps instead of Lestat being inspired to turn to music by a grubby New Orleans punk band practicing near his crypt, it'd be hearing Roan playing at a nearby show. Maybe Lestat — with a variation of his Theatre des Vampires stage make-up — could open for her, connecting him with a crowd that might relish his signature outrageousness and allure. It's easy to imagine the pair having a moment backstage together, both glamorous and chaotic visions of queer desire and messy romance. Maybe they could be on a talk show couch together, parodying the Fallon appearance, where Roan was every inch the queer rock star making the stodgy straight host feel uncomfortably out-of-touch.
Look, we'll leave it to Rolin Jones to roll out the details. But one thing is clear, to have Interview with the Vampire: Part III really rock, it needs some Roan.
