“He has an energy that’s fun to hate,” the British actor said of his swaggering vampire character in AMC’s series-length Anne Rice adaptation.
This interview contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “Interview With the Vampire.”
Until his time in AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire” was cut short — along with his head — in the Season 2 finale, Santiago was the toast of the vampiric theater scene.
Played by the British actor Ben Daniels, himself an Olivier Award-winning veteran of the stage, Santiago was a dashing and devilish performer at the Théâtre des Vampires, in postwar Paris. Formerly known as Francis, a failed English actor, Santiago transformed himself into an underworld dandy after becoming a bloodsucker — and took a cooler-sounding name — rarely seen without a vampiress on each arm and a theatrically hateful twinkle in his eye.
“He’s so awful and delicious at the same time!” Daniels said in a video interview last week. “And it’s his relish of it as well, his glee. He just loves being a vampire.”
Daniels added: “He has an energy that’s fun to hate.”
Unfortunately for Santiago, the show’s title vampire was his hater-in-chief. Over the course of Season 2, which concluded on Sunday, Santiago seized control of the theater troupe, which turned out to be a coven of vampires in disguise. At the season’s climax, Santiago staged a mock trial that ended with the real execution-by-sunlight of Claudia (Delainey Hayles) and her companion, Madeleine (Roxane Duran). It was for this crime that Santiago lost his head to their father figure, the vampire Louis (Jacob Anderson), in the finale.
Based on the novels of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series, the AMC show, created and overseen by Rolin Jones, has already been renewed for a third season. But Daniels doesn’t feel too bad that his character won’t live to see Season 3. Santiago had it coming given his bad behavior — particularly by the end.
“If you didn’t want him dead before,” Daniels said, “you certainly do then.”
These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
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Source: Television - nytimes.com
