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The first season of Interview with the Vampire is in the books.
While every minute of the finale was a treat for Anne Rice fans, the very final moments of Season 1 has the internet buzzing.
Rashid, the meek and soft-spoken attendant to Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), is revealed to be the mighty vampire Armand. Over 500 years old, this being is so very powerful that even the sun (a mediocre star, he calls it) has no effect on him. In the final stretch of Interview with the Vampire Season 1, du Lac confesses:
"Daniel Molloy, I’d like you to meet the vampire Armand, the love of my life".
In an exclusive roundtable chat, SK POP had the opportunity to speak to Assad Zaman, who plays Rashid and Armand so very masterfully in the series. Read on to find out when Zaman discovered that his role in the series was far bigger than he had imagined!
Zaman was only familiar with Armand from the Interview with the Vampire film!
While Armand is a major character in Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe, Zaman only knew of the vampire from Antonio Banderas’ portrayal in the 1994 film. While speaking to SK POP, he recounted the moment he found out that he was Armand:
"The moment I started floating, I was like, what's going on here? What I’m Armand? What's going on? No, I found out halfway through the auditioning. I thought I was Rashid from my first few auditions. And I had like a very clear idea. Rashid has very clear and specific goals and I kind of thought I was fairly confident going into that."
But a meeting with Rolin Jones, the creator of Interview with The Vampire, changed everything:
"And then halfway through I had a meeting with Rolin. I was all the way through thinking why is he sitting down to have a meeting about Rashid when he should be thinking about Louis and Lestat and Claudia and Daniel? And then in that meeting, he was like, okay, so we want to do a few more rounds with you and and we wanted to test a few things out because Rashid is Armand, and all the way through this meeting, my hands are like clenching on the seat going, don't lose your sh*t."
The Interview with the Vampire star also did a deep dive into the fan-favorite character of Armand when he found out he’d bagged the iconic role:
"I was like, Okay, I've got to really like, delve into who this is and I wasn't familiar with Armand. I knew Interview with the Vampire through the film, but I wasn't hugely familiar with all the other books. So yeah, it was like a kind of very quick and deep and heavy kind of learning process just to find out before starting."
As of now, Zaman is unwilling to say more about his Interview with the Vampire character, for obvious reasons:
"And it was fascinating. And I think from that, I'm kind of hesitant to say too much more, because I'm in a unique position here. These guys have had a chance to sort of flower their characters and go then. I have been Rashid most of the time and I've only kind of been on for this tiny, one beat. And even though he has lived in Rashid in those other scenes in small ways, but it's going to be exciting for me as well, like really surprising to see. See where it goes. And I don't know. I really don't know. So, sorry."
The first season of Interview with the Vampire has wrapped up on a perfect, bloody note. Stay tuned to SK POP for all the information about season 2.
