Author: Winter Adair
Spoiler warning: This article discusses major plot details from the third-season finale of The Vampire Lestat.
When I found out I would be attending San Diego Comic-Con this year, there was one panel in particular that was at the top of my list: The Vampire Lestat. Originally titled Interview with the Vampire for its first two seasons, The Vampire Lestat serves as the original series’ third season and draws from Anne Rice’s 1985 novel of the same name, albeit with a massive tonal shift. The narrative moves from the perspective of Louis de Pointe du Lac to that of Lestat de Lioncourt. This season, we learn much about Lestat’s upbringing in Europe and his complicated and unorthodox relationship with his mother Gabriella, played by Jennifer Ehle, whom he later “fathered” into a vampire. The narrative jumps between the past and the present, with present-day Lestat starting a rock band and writing songs that express not only his frustration and pain from Louis’ tell-all interview, but his own past traumas that stretch back centuries. Originally allocated to Ballroom 20 in previous years, this franchise had never had a Hall H panel of its own before Friday, July 24, 2026, and it made the wait count.
Moderator Jacqueline Coley, of Rotten Tomatoes, opened the hour by explaining why the room’s biggest star wasn’t in it. Sam Reid, who plays Lestat, was onstage in Sydney in a Sydney Theatre Company production of Doubt: A Parable and couldn’t make the trip. In his place, Coley unveiled never-before-seen footage from The Vampire Lestat: One Night Only LIVE, a full concert performance Reid gave at New York City’s Beacon Theatre on June 2, ahead of the season’s June 7 premiere. AMC filmed the entire concert, featuring original songs by series composer Daniel Hart, and will release it exclusively on AMC+ on Sunday, August 23, 2026. Hall H received an early preview featuring full performances of several songs from the concert, including “Long Face,” “The Loneliness,” and “Butterscotch Bitch.”
With Reid represented by the footage, Coley brought out the people who could be there: executive producers Mark Johnson, Hannah Moscovitch, and Rolin Jones, and stars Jacob Anderson (Louis de Pointe du Lac), Assad Zaman (Armand), and Eric Bogosian (Daniel Molloy). Sheila Atim, who plays Akasha, the first vampire, made a surprise appearance alongside them.
The conversation centered on the final two episodes of the third season, which reunited Louis and Lestat before delivering one of the show’s most brutal twists: Armand and Daniel beheading both of them. Johnson joked that he genuinely hadn’t known how the season would land until it did. Moscovitch talked about the decision to bring Lestat’s mother, Gabriella, into the season, calling the character one of the most rewarding she’s written, and described wanting the finale’s reunion between Louis and Lestat to show their love clearly again before the season violently tore it apart, forcing Lestat to finally confront the abuse he’d buried for centuries.
Atim’s presence might have come as a surprise for fans who aren’t as familiar with the novels, but it made sense by the end of the hour. The panel closed with a teaser cut from her performance this season as Akasha, ending on the character screaming, “I am the answer!” as a title card resolved onscreen: Anne Rice’s Queen of the Damned.
Amid the enthusiastic cheers from the crowd, AMC confirmed a fourth season of the Interview with the Vampire anthology, adapting Rice’s Queen of the Damned, with Moscovitch stepping up from executive producer to showrunner. Jones, who has run the show since its first season, moves into an executive producer role alongside Johnson and Moscovitch.
Handing a woman-centered season to a woman showrunner isn’t a small thing, and it’s the right call. Akasha’s story is next. I can’t wait to see what Moscovitch does with it.
The complete third season of The Vampire Lestat is now streaming on AMC+.
For more from Hall H, read A New Era of Avatar Begins in Hall H.