Crush of the Week: Louis and Lestat from the OG Interview With the Vampire

polygon.com:

One of the best parts of the human experience is having a big ol’ crush — the pitter-patter of your heartbeat, the swell of euphoria when you see the object of your affections, the desire to just squeal with joy! At Polygon, though, we’re very flexible about how we interpret “crush.” Brief-yet-intense infatuations don’t necessarily have to be on real people (or even on people!), or even romantic. Since I have many many (many) crushes, I’ve decided to share the energy of writing their names over and over again in sparkly gel pen in a journal.

After seeing sexy gifset after sexy gifset of Interview With the Vampire on my Tumblr dashboard, I finally decided to check out the AMC series one Wednesday evening. Unfortunately, I started at 10:30 p.m., and about 15 minutes into the first episode, I was too swept up by Jacob Anderson’s hypnotic take on Louis, and the rich story he was spinning. I had to stop before Lestat appeared, because I knew once the moment he did, I would be fully intoxicated by their deliciously tumultuous relationship, and I’d stay up far too late for a weeknight. I had to resist the lure of toxic vampire yaoi if I wanted to keep my sleep schedule intact.

Interview With the Vampire eventually got me with its dark, splendid story, which has enough key changes from the version I’m familiar with to intrigue me even more. The updates make sense, and color the story through a new lens. But before I fully lose myself to this journey, I wanted to take a moment to really appreciate Neil Jordan’s 1994 movie adaptation of Anne Rice’s gothic vampire novel, technically titled Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles.

I first watched Jordan’s film at age 12, right as I was really getting into vampires. (Because of Twilight — sorry! I was the target audience back then.)Interview With the Vampire, starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise as Louis and Lestat respectively, left a deep mark on my psyche. It gave me a fondness for the Southern Gothic genre, and