Eric Bogosian Talks Daniel Molloy’s Queerness in THE VAMPIRE LESTAT

⚡ Quick Take

• In the lead-up to The Vampire Lestat, we spoke to Eric Bogosian about Daniel Molloy’s queerness and how it manifests across the series.
• Daniel Molloy’s queerness has always been a fascinating aspect of his character, one that fans want to know more about.
• Eric Bogosian confirms that Daniel Molloy is queer across Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat and says he’ll “taste any flavor.”

One of my favorite parts about AMC’s Interview with the Vampire/The Vampire Lestat is that every character is queer. In fact, famously, showrunner Rolin Jones specifically asked actor Ben Daniels if it would be okay with him if his character wasn’t queer—a vision which ended up making no sense and getting cast aside for yet more glorious queerness. And it’s exactly this expansive representation of love and sexuality that allows the series, inspired by its source material, to explore what it means to be queer via many different lenses, presentations, and definitions. Characters can confidently assert they are queer and exactly how, be deliciously murky yet settled in their romantic/sexual/lifestyle visions, or find themselves on the path toward understanding exactly who they are and what they want with no boundaries on what that might mean. (All of which is a hell of a lot more interesting than just assuming heteronormativity with no further interrogation, if you ask me.) Which leads us to the queerness of Daniel Molloy, played to perfection across Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat by Eric Bogosian and Luke Brandon Field.

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Daniel Molloy’s queerness has been a fascinating aspect of the character so far in the Anne Rice Immortal Universe. On the one hand, we literally meet the ’70s version of Daniel Molloy at a gay bar, where he allows himself to be picked up by Louis de Pointe du Lac, lured by the promise of drugs. Young Daniel, played by Brandon Field, tells Louis before they leave together, “If something happens, I’m cool.” And notes that he’s “into counter-cultures.” After Louis provides a veritable buffet of substances to him, he immediately begins to strip, anticipating a reciprocation of sex for goods offered, calling it “fulfilling my side of the social contract.” Perhaps most telling, when begging Louis to turn him into a vampire and give him the dark gift, he invokes “marriage and cancer” in the same breath, calling it a part of “all this shit” that humans need to carry; something that absolutely makes us feel like young Daniel has no interest in a cookie-cutter life.

Of course, trading sex with men for drugs does not necessarily imply queerness of any kind, as much as it highlights a blend of addiction and desperation in Daniel. Indeed, Bogosian’s older Daniel tells Louis in Interview with the Vampire season one that he met Louis at a gay bar because it was “A good place to score. I did what I had to.” And yet, there’s a certain wistfulness to him when Louis confirms to him that the pair did not have sex with one another in season two, and he says, “I really thought we did.” Something almost shy appears to come over Daniel when Louis laughs and offers, “Do you want to now?” The expression the character wears in response feels meditative and somehow intense over the notion, and not remotely dismissive of it.

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As we continue to understand Daniel in Interview with the Vampire, the question of his queerness is continually complicated. On the one hand, we see that Daniel stumbled into attempts at a kind of “normative” life throughout his years. He marries twice, both times ostensibly to a woman, and has children, but, of course, spectacularly blows up all his romantic and familial relationships. In the end, Daniel always prioritizes his work as a journalist over a more conventional existence. Meanwhile, we also learn that during the beginning of the AIDs epidemic, Daniel published a running series of articles on Karposi Sarcoma, a cancer that afflicted AIDS patients. And in the ads for his online journalism courses, older Daniel shows images of ACT UP and other shots of the AIDs crisis while noting, “There are some stories out there that need to be told. There’s shit out there that’s just, you know, wrong.”

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Additionally, when Daniel Molloy speaks about queerness in Interview with the Vampire, he refers to the idea of being a “homophile.” The term “homophile” is one that was used by queer people in the ’50s and ’60s as they fought for their rights and societal acceptance, and served to emphasize the love and romance that exists in queer relationships (versus the more sexual emphasis in “homoesexual.”) Again, none of these aspects of Daniel confirm or deny his queerness, but are merely a whirlwind of interesting information about him, feeding our curiosity.

And so, with all this in mind, in the lead-up to The Vampire Lestat, Nerdist asked Eric Bogosian directly about Daniel Molloy’s queerness, and here’s what he had to say:

Well, I mean, Daniel and I have roughly the same timeline. So anything that has to do with queer stuff back in the ’70s has to be also rebellious if it has any sort of public aspect to it. Daniel wasn’t in the closet. He was hanging out in gay bars. He’s not strictly homosexual, he’s kind of like everything. And that is also of the Boomer ’70s. If it feels good, do it. That’s pretty much Daniel’s thing. So I think that is a part of Daniel. He’s against the status quo. The status quo is a straight, breeder world, and he’s always been ready to walk into any doorway and taste any flavor. And if it feels good, do it.

Whilst in Interview with the Vampire, Daniel’s queerness felt a bit like it had a question mark next to it. Without spoiling too much, I will say The Vampire Lestat goes out of its way to confirm that Daniel’s trysts with men were not born out of the press of addiction or desperation, but came from his own desires, as Bogosian suggests here. And that, throughout his life, his sexuality has been an evolving, complex thing, but he has NOT been straight. (And no, this doesn’t have anything specifically to do with any Armand revelations, SORRY!) While fans might be like, “Duh!” I feel this was an important path to walk for the series.

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And that’s basically what we get from Eric Bogosian’s discussion of Daniel as well, a firm confirmation of Daniel Molloy’s ever-present queerness in The Vampire Lestat and Interview with the Vampire. And we kind of love the idea that Daniel doesn’t have a defined label for his queerness, but that he is, in fact, diffusely queer and prepared to be queer in whichever way suits him best. Too often, even within queer circles, there’s a strong emphasis on how one’s queerness should manifest. It makes perfect sense for Daniel to be totally unconcerned with that and still totally queer. We also like his allusion to being a Boomer in the ’70s. As my writer Eric Diaz notes, “not an insignificant amount of Boomers were pioneers when it came to sexual expression.” And it’s an important fact to remember.

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Of course, in real life, no person would ever have to overtly confirm whether or not they are queer to be queer. But in a TV series, that knowledge is important and impactful. In our mainstream properties, meaningful queer representation of any kind still struggles to bloom, and anything beyond the most normative vision of queerness struggles that much more. When it comes to queer representation, Daniel
Molloy, as played by Eric Bogosian, offers what I’ve previously called a seminal opportunity for, in colloquial terms, “elder queer representation” on our screens. Or, in more serious terms, Bogosian’s Molloy offers a chance for a generation of queer men who aren’t only missing from our screens but tragically missing from our realities to step into the limelight of a fictional work. And we’re glad the series is working to deliver on the possibility.

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In the past, Bogosian shared of Daniel Molloy’s journey and queerness:

I was transfixed by episode five, what Luke [Brandon Field] did as the young Daniel, and what was going on in that. And strangely, it paralleled my own life, which is also weird. I mean, Daniel is not an old guy in the books, and yet here we have this guy who’s kind of grumpy and old, and he’s been celebrated, but now nothing is really going on for him other than a masterclass. And that was sort of where I was at as we begin to work on the show. But if you go all the way back to the mid-seventies, I’m there too. That’s what’s weird about it, is that there wasn’t a door I didn’t walk through. There was nothing that scared me. I was fascinated by whatever was going on. My gay experiences were very limited, but it wasn’t like I wouldn’t do something… So, Luke, studied me to play this part, which was crazy, without me knowing it. And those scenes start to bring up all these questions.

And there’s also this thing when they go fishing in my mind, and I propose to my wife in Paris, and I get turned down. What about those? There are so many scenes. Then there’s the present-day relationship with Armand. There’s also this amazing moment, it kind of goes by pretty quickly, of Armand’s backstory, which is so deep. And so if you’ve read the books, there’s a lot to think about with what that represents, and then what you just brought up, which frankly I haven’t even thought of, the AIDS crisis in the story. But what would that do? What would that be?”

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Definitely a slew of questions that we hope to see answered in time. And, so far, in The Vampire Lestat, the queerness of Daniel Molloy feels like it has risen to the surface. Daniel and Lestat certainly have some tension. Fans also quickly grew fond of the idea of trysts between Daniel and Dee Pharma, played by Amaka Umeh, who is definitely queer, after Daniel drank from her and she called him “Papi.” (Daniel also showers in the middle of Lestat’s tour bus in some scenes, which isn’t necessarily a queer thing to do, but is a nice nod to the idea that people of any age can be sexy.) But on a more emotional level, Daniel recently spoke about the vampiric bond he shares with his wayward maker, Armand, in quite romantic terms. Armand, of course, is Daniel’s great love in the books, and a love between the pair of them is something that fans of the series immensely hope will develop this season.

Where all this will go, we don’t yet know. But we do know that Daniel Molloy is queer and not in the closet in The Vampire Lestat. And we couldn’t feel happier to hear it.

The Vampire Lestat (or season three of Interview with the Vampire) is currently streaming on AMC and AMC+. New episodes arrive Sundays at 9 pm PT/ET on AMC and at midnight on AMC+.

Rotem Rusak is the Editor-in-Chief of Nerdist. She is ready for Devil’s Minion to become canon so one of her ships can finally sail.

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Source: Kiat Media