‘Interview with the Vampire’: ‘AMC has grand plans for the Anne Rice world’

The Business

KCRW

Tv & Film

4.6 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After AMC acquired the rights to Anne Rice’s major literary works in 2020, the network tasked producer Mark Johnson (“Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”) to oversee its ambitious new project of making shows out of the author’s 18 supernatural novels. First is “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” on AMC+, telling the love story of two vampires, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in early 20th century New Orleans. For the more sensual scenes, an intimacy coordinator was hired. “They make all of us feel just what they're supposed to do, get more comfortable,” Johnson says, “then it's up to wonderful actors who make it all seem ad lib, spontaneous.” For Anderson, who played Grey Worm on the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” having an intimacy director to guide his character’s more sizzling sequences has been an important asset. “[Johnson and I] were talking about demystifying the idea of storytelling as being just purely magic and in the moment and all about feeling, but I think when it comes to intimate scenes, you can't do that,” he says, “there’s things that can really get into your head if you don't prepare properly.” IWTV’s Executive Producer, Johnson, and actor, Anderson, discuss the making of the new AMC series with Kim Masters. But first, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav laid off about a quarter of the company’s television division staff this week. What does this mean for the company’s future? Matt Belloni discusses with Lucas Shaw.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Kim Masters, and this is the business.
0:05.7	AMC has tasked executive producer Mark Johnson with overseeing an ambitious supernatural
0:11.1	universe based on the novels of Anne Rice.
0:14.1	First out of the gate is interview with the vampire, and this week we talked to Johnson
0:18.3	and the vampire, Jacob Anderson, who played Greyworm on Game of Thrones.
0:24.0	Anderson never got to work with an intimacy coordinator on the HBO series, but he's glad he did as Louis de Pond de Lack.
0:31.1	We were actually just talking before this about demystifying the idea of storytelling as being just purely magic and in the moment and all about
0:38.0	feeling. But I think when it comes to intimate scenes, you can't do that. Things that can
0:42.3	really get into your head if you don't prepare properly. Jacob Anderson and Mark Johnson
0:46.8	talk all about their new series, AMC's Interview with a Vampire. But first, two buddies banter while
0:52.8	I'm out of town. Stick around. It's the business from
0:55.5	KCRW. I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, filling in for Kim Masters this week.
1:03.9	And my partner in banter is Lucas Shaw, Bloomberg News. Hi, Lucas. Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me.
1:10.4	So, Lucas, we've had some bloodletting going on at Warner Brothers Discovery.
1:15.7	It's been this kind of slow-moving train wreck for the past few months, where they are
1:20.7	systematically going division by division at this company, and reductions in force are
1:26.8	happening all over the place.
1:28.5	This week it was the TV division, Warner Brothers Television, and the cuts were more significant
1:34.9	than some of the other divisions, about a quarter of the staff was laid off by 82 positions,
1:41.3	and it begs the question of how much is this going to impact a company that has
1:48.7	been one of the more prolific television suppliers of the past three decades, really. I mean,
1:56.0	the Warner Brothers TV studio has been uniquely successful among all of the others in that they have sold many,
	...

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