Is anyone paying attention to me over the last few weeks? Are you talking about three of us? It is a pleasure to welcome you! I have been obsessed with AMC's new show, Interview With the Vampire. You would be right if you said that it wasn't that kind of movie in the 90's. You would be incorrect. The new Interview is an incredibly decadent prestige drama that focuses on race, queerness, and morality through the lens of vampire culture. It's about Daniel Molloy as well. If you don't give a bit more background on the actor, it's unfair to talk about Molloy. He has been acting for more than 40 years, first on stage and then on screen, before becoming more and more in demand. He is a playwright and has written a book. There is no one else out there who could have been cast as Daniel Molloy, the investigative reporter who swims along the edges of Louis.
Anthony Bourdain had an aggressive, direct interrogation within his show. Although he doesn't get a lot of screen time, his moments wandering the Dubai apartment, attempting to uncover the truth from underneath the veneer of defensibility, are absolutely unmissable. Daniel Molloy is an essential part of the story because of his energy, that of a world-weary recovering addicts with a fuck-it-all attitude.
The main character of the story is Molloy, who is the interviewer of the vampire. Through his lens, the audience is constantly pushed to think about the story, to question it, to engage with it on a critical level, and without him, the show would simply fall apart. It's true that Louis, Lestat, andClaudia are necessary characters, but considering the options for writing Molloy into the new series, which could have ranged from a frame narrator bookending each episode to a shocking mid-season reveal.
The vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac refers to Molloy as a boy. He doesn't really question the authenticity of the accounting. He was confronted by Lestat on his drive home after he begged for the bite at the end of the novel. A messy first date is what it is. In the updated series, there is an interview between a young Daniel and Louis that took place in the 70s. He had a successful career and now he is interviewing the person that got away. With the audience who will understand the update, the writers have created a character that is not just important, but essential to the story.
He has a framework that is narratively impactful. He is an angry old man who takes no shit and is clearly experiencing a crisis of his sexuality while being continuously challenged to correct the most professional failure of his life. Everything about Daniel Molloy is perfect, and he is close to death.
One of the best parts of having Molloy being such an active interrogator in this show is the fact that he won't allow Louis to tell the story through rose colored glasses. He doesn't fall for the seduction, he demands truth at the expense of emotional comfort, and he is willing to risk himself to get to the parts of the story that are the most painful. His character wants us to question what we are being told. By constantly reminding the audience of the subjectivity of the show, Molloy endears himself to the audience, and creates an incredible narrative tension between our own desires to see Louis and Lestat through Louis' eyes.
I would just applaud the writers for their cleverness and move on. This is an interview with a vampire. There is a book, a film, and a musical to contend with. Fans are being challenged to let go of their preconceptions about what Interview With the Vampire could be, or what it has been in the past. To directly confront the meta-text of the previous editions of this story is a bold move that has solidified Daniel Molloy as my favorite character.
I adore him because he is a mean old man. I wouldn't trade him for the world. There is something compelling about a contrarian, even though Lestat and Louis are incredible. Molloy looked at all the bullshit and said to Louis, "bullshit." This story requires that. The story needs to be called bullshit.
There is one final reason that I adore Daniel. The chemistry that Bogosian has with Anderson is crazy. They dart around each other, trying to get their nails in each other's skin. I can't explain why this tension is so sexy. The fact that the repartee can compete with Louis and Lestat is amazing. It's amazing. It's the power that Molloy has. There is a charisma in this role. The two werematched. The fact that I am rooting for a septuagenarian to get railed when Louis is involved in a deeply erotic love affair with a very hot blond twink should tell you everything you need to know about how great the scenes are between Louis and Daniel.
Daniel Molloy is important to the show's existence and its main character. He isn't there to blow smoke up Louis' ass as he tells the story and he isn't there to justify the existence of story. A kind of Interview that challenges the characters and the audience is created by his engagement, questioning, and aged understanding of the story. This would be a fucked up vampire fuck fest without Molloy. Interview With the Vampire is a brutal interrogation of the text that won't let anyone stay comfortable for long.
Do you want to know more about io9. What's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, when to see the latest superhero movies, and what to know about James Cameron's "The Way of Water" are just some of the things you can check out.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
