00:00You said that you began working on your character and his art through the songs even before you had the
00:06scripts.
00:06What did you discover that music could build or reveal about Lestat that a traditional sequence or a traditional approach
00:15cannot do with that precision?
00:19Well, I think the main interesting, mostly the interesting thing for me about that process was that I was getting
00:26a new voice writing the character.
00:28Because usually it's Roland and Hannah and the writing team, and then now Daniel Hart, who's also part of the
00:32writing team as well, was starting to give him a voice.
00:36And for me, it was trying to work out how these songs fit in to the character.
00:42And because he's a very sort of id-based songwriter, he's writing from the first person and through his experiences.
00:52It was trying to work out, oh, he's got a new way of communicating, he's got a new way of
00:56talking about himself,
00:57which took me a little while to get around how Daniel was writing him.
01:04But yeah, it was fascinating. He's a very mercurial character, it changes all the time.
01:08So the more different influences that I can have, the more it helps me.
01:12As the band becomes more popular, the stats influence over humans and vampires grows a lot.
01:18What do you think the show says about this line between admiration and submission,
01:23especially in this contemporary world we live in that's shaped by devotion to entertain probably the stars?
01:31I mean, is the world shaped by devotion to entertainment stars? I'm not sure.
01:37I think perhaps it's more about that entertainment stars might think that the world is shaped around their devotion towards
01:45them,
01:46but actually most people, and particularly now, are actually interested in different things
01:52and able to follow their own personal niche interests.
01:56And I think for a start it's a bit confronting to realise that he thinks he's going to put his
02:01music out into the world
02:02and become this big thing and actually it's a bit more of a fizzle.
02:05And so he's left to deal with his ego and what that does is make him more introspective
02:11and his work and his music makes it more about a, for want of a better word, like a therapy
02:16session for him to understand himself better,
02:20as opposed to how he interacts with kind of like this, you know, horde of devoted fans.
02:26Today a song can go viral within hours and be forgotten almost as quickly.
02:32Your character comes from a different scale of time, of centuries of memories and desire.
02:38How do you think your character, an immortal being, relates to fame that is so immediate and so volatil?
02:46I mean, I suppose it's similar to what I was saying before is that, you know, he has seen the
02:53breadth of time.
02:54He carries the breadth of time with him, so he has an understanding of society in a way that none
03:00of us could ever imagine
03:01because he's seen the ebbs and flows and peaks and troughs of humanity.
03:06And I think if you were being like that and you were to put out music or art into the
03:12world, you'd think that you'd be able to transcend that.
03:15But he is just a victim of society like everybody else.
03:17And so, yeah, he can go viral for a second, but people will completely forget.
03:21I mean, I think that's the kind of line that Rowan totes, which is, you know, vampires are real, we're
03:27here.
03:28It's a bit like aliens are real, like, you know, we've seen the proof now, and everyone went, huh.
03:33It's like, everyone gives a collective huh and moves on.
03:37And what that does to you as a supernatural being, where your whole power is like, I'm a supernatural being,
03:43people don't really care.
03:44It's kind of confronting for him, so it makes him, makes him confront himself, I suppose.
03:50The show speaks about fame, desire, memory, they need to be loved, turning a wound into a spectacle, into art.
03:57What question or reflection would you like the bodies to have after seeing this new episode of The Stat?
04:07You know, I think somebody gave me a very lovely book recently, a fan gave me a very lovely book,
04:18you know, which I appreciate.
04:21But on the front of it was a little sticker that had a picture of Lestat, and it said, I
04:26hope I get this right, but it said something like,
04:28the horrors keep coming, but so do I.
04:33And I think there's a lovely sentiment that you can glean from Lestat, which is, you know, you can be
04:40faced with so much adversity and horrific experiences,
04:43but, you know, we do have to just keep going.
04:47You can't just wallow in the difficultness of your circumstances, you kind of do have to get up and keep
04:53making the most of something.
04:55I mean, he's not perfect, he's really chaotic and, you know, borderline psychotic.
05:02Well, maybe not even borderline, but at least there is an aspirational quality to him there, which is sort of
05:09like, you know,
05:10just get back up, keep going, keep going, you know, try and make the best out of a situation.
05:16But, the world is the same.
05:16Yeah, let's see if this is an exaggeration.
