INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE The director talks about the negative reactions he faced after choosing Tom Cruise

One of the directors Neil Jordan’s biggest success in cinema was the 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice’s very popular book, Interview with the vampire.

The film remained a fan favorite, and although the cast featured the biggest stars of the time, as well as today, Jordan faced some backlash after the casting. Tom Cruise in the lead role of Lestat de Lioncourt.

Cruise had already made a name for himself in films like Risky business AND Top Gunas well as Cocktail, Rain Man, Young Weapons, Few good men, Far and away, The companyand his Oscar-nominated performance in Born on July 4th.

He was Hollywood’s leading man, but Jordan had first offered him the role Daniel Day Lewisand fans were stuck on that fact.

In an excerpt from his new memoir published in The Telegraph, director Jordan reflected on his decision to cast Cruise as an actor Brad Pitt and the outrage that followed.

“The problem was the casting of Lestat. Brad Pitt had agreed to play Louis and somehow assumed that Daniel Day-Lewis would play Lestat, an assumption shared by Anne. I offered it to Daniel, who read it and, as I expected, didn’t want to play the character.

“A few years earlier he had confined himself to a wheelchair to play Christy Brown in ‘My Left Foot.’ If she had followed the same practice, he would have had to sleep in a coffin for the entire production. So we moved on.”

After meeting Cruise twice at his home in Brentwood, Jordan realized that the actor actually had a lot in common with Lestat, something that made him confident in his decision.

“I finally understood. She had to live a life away from the gaze of others. He had made a contract with the hidden forces, whatever they were. He had to hide in the shadows, even in the Hollywood sun. He would be eternally young. He was a star. He could very well be Lestat.

Jordan noted that Cruise is “also a terrific actor,” but “that little fact was lost in the outrage that followed.”

“Half of America, it seemed, had read Anne Rice’s books and wanted to have a say in Lestat’s casting. Anne herself went on the air, saying it was like I cast Edward G. Robinson as Rhett Butler. But he was wrong and was later old enough to admit it.

Of course, Cruise’s performance was subsequently praised by critics and is one of the defining roles of his work. Jordan delved further into the topic in an interview with The Guardian, saying it “must have been very difficult” for Cruise amid the backlash.

“The whole world said, ‘You’re a shame.’ He’s a great actor. If he says he can do something, he will do it in a way that people will be shocked. Tom became the last remaining movie star. He’s a little strange.”

Pitt, who joined the film soon after Legends of Autumn, was exhausted from shooting at night and the nature of the character, Jordan said. “She just wore Him down. Brad is a very active guy, that was the direction he wanted to go. The character’s passivity brought him down.

Jordan’s next film will be The Well of San Nobodyadapted from the director’s acclaimed 2023 novel of the same name.

That of Jordan Amnesia: A Memoir will be published on June 20th.

via: Variety