SerpApi.Org
Like this article? Keep independent journalism alive. Support HuffPost.
The first time I saw the ’90s cult classic, “Interview with the Vampire,” was the summer before middle school. In the wee hours during a slumber party, my best friend and I tiptoed to the living room, slid the R-rated tape out of its thin, cardboard case, and popped it into the VHS player. We sat inches from the television, volume low, so we could watch the whole thing without waking her parents.
After the credits rolled, we whisper-argued about our favorite vampires. Hers was the emo colonial landowner who ate rats so he didn’t have to suck the blood of humans (Louis, played by Brad Pitt). Mine was Lestat, the bratty, charismatic villain (played by Tom Cruise).
“Louis is so moody,” I said.
“But Lestat loves Louis,” my friend said — a fair point.
Even though the movie, based on a wildly popular book series by Anne Rice, presented gay love as just subtext, it was obvious to both of us that Louis and Lestat were romantically involved. We didn’t realize, though, how revolutionary this element of the film was. I grew up in a small town on the Florida Panhandle, knew zero queer people until I was a teenager, and didn’t even have a language for any of the LGBTQ+ identities.
Yet, the idea of two men loving each other and raising a vampire child together in the heart of New Orleans didn’t faze me. The film made it feel natural, maybe because these particular men were vampires, already living on the margins of society. Plus, their story was presented with a lush, captivating beauty.
It’s also feasible that Louis and Lestat’s relationship felt normal because I was queer, though not yet aware of or exploring my identity. Either way, the film set me up for joy. As I grew and woke up to the history of gay rights, the movie, and later the books, primed me for self-acceptance, too.
When I was in high school, the Pentecostals who had flooded my hometown for a world-famous revival protested queer tourists during the annual Pride celebration, screaming vicious threats and homophobic slurs, dangerously blocking foot traffic with their youth group buses. I made rainbow signs with my friends and went out to counter-protest.
On the corner of the street, a man sweating through his buttoned-up shirt told me I was taking another step toward hell every time my lips touched the lips of another girl. My mind flashed back to my earliest romances with boys and girls, the affection, the delight. I almost laughed out loud in his face.
Kissing, affection and love make everything brighter. That’s the kind of “hell” I’d run toward, I thought. The idea echoed as I watched the modern series adaptation of “Interview with the Vampire” in 2022 and 2024. It’s now renamed “The Vampire Lestat,” and is streaming its third season on AMC+.
Unlike the ’90s movie and the books, the reboot makes queer identity and *** explicit, ushering in a new generation of fans and offering needed representation. This round, Louis (this time played by Jacob Anderson) is, as he put it in a recent episode, “gay, gay, gay.” Lestat (now played by Sam Reid) sleeps with both men and women.
Of those who identify as LGBTQIA+, bisexual men are the least represented on our screens. When combined with bi women, we make up the largest group in the rainbow alphabet. A 2023 Pew survey showed that 4% of the U.S. population overall identify as bi specifically — and more than 10% of that demographic is under 30.
Despite our representation, there’s a specific brand of erasure that happens to bi folks because we don’t fit easily into a box. In my adult life, both gay and straight partners have expressed concerns that I’m not “committed” to their gender. Some have wondered if I am a “real” gay or straight person. I can’t count the times I’ve explained that there’s a difference between my capacity to fall in love with people regardless of their genitalia, and my willingness to commit to an individual person once I have fallen in love and a relationship has formed.
I think this is a contributing factor to why bi folks often stay in the closet. A 2026 Gallup poll shows that bi people account for more than half of those who identify as LGBTQ+, but we are also less likely to be “out” than any other group.
That’s why seeing a flamboyant, unapologetic bi guy on our screen matters. It definitely mattered to me. Watching the new “Interview with the Vampire” series as an adult made me think hard about the way I’d managed my sexuality my whole life.
I never officially came out. Part of the reason was my straight-passing privilege when I dated men. I wonder if it also had to do with the gorgeous, complicated model I was given in the 1990s “Interview with the Vampire,” my first — and for a long time only — cultural reference point to gay lifestyles.
In that world, you could be queer without defining it. For better or worse, you could avoid tough conversations by closing yourself off in a New Orleans townhouse with your broody lover and living off of the piles of gold you’d accumulated over centuries.
In the new vampire chronicles universe, the characters still spend time hiding out in a gilded flat, only cloaking their queer love publicly because it was a crime to be gay in early 1900s Louisiana. But they also plainly ask each other about each other’s sexuality. Louis shows a relatable discomfort with Lestat sleeping with women, even though they have an open relationship. Lestat doesn’t use the words “bi” or “pan” to label himself. Like so many bi people ― and me ― he dances a bit around the issue, focusing on loving the people he loves regardless of how they identify.
The new show is both fun and healing, but I don’t fault the ’90s movie for its gentle representation. In Anne Rice’s books, the vampires didn’t have *** at all. The first book, “Interview with the Vampire,” came out in 1976, when being gay was still codified federally as a “perversion,” and many states had “anti sodomy” laws that could land queer people in prison for decades. The second book, “The Vampire Lestat,” came out nine years later, at the height of the AIDS crisis. During these decades, queer *** likely often felt or appeared inherently dangerous.
It makes sense that in the books, romance and intimacy happened through drinking blood instead. Maybe bringing this kind of fluid sharing into a fantasy space softened the blow of their queerness, allowing for mainstream popularity of their stories (including our straight parents rushing to buy the VHS the minute it dropped) while retaining some heat.
And that popularity has been maintained. The stories of Louis and Lestat have been a cultural phenomenon since the books were released, selling millions of copies for 50 years. The ’90s movie was a screaming success, and the modern show recently earned the coveted 100% from Rotten Tomatoes. The vampires are obviously queer, and yet they resonate across generations. Hopefully, Hollywood is paying attention. “Heated Rivalry” worked because the characters were hot and queer, not because a massive population of middle-aged moms had a secret passion for hockey. We love seeing love work, especially if the characters have to fight for it.
In “The Vampire Lestat,” the main character becomes a Bowie-esque rock star after learning that his now ex-lover, Louis, represented him in a memoir. He sings to tell and reclaim his story. He cries into a microphone to draw other vampires out of the shadows, to battle loneliness, to connect, however haphazardly. And he does it all while joyfully banging guys and gals, vampires and humans, alike.
The show blasts us with a lesson I’ve had to learn over and over: This world can be brutal, but love is a force that roots us to the present moment and to each other. There is rarely a good reason to hide it. And when it comes to queer love, there is every reason on earth to sing it, scream it, cherish it, show it for as long as we can.
