Interview With the Vampire: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst Share BTS SECRETS (Flashback)

It's a sexy thing, being a vampire. I mean, it's a sexy idea, it was a sexy movie. Just the concept of it, it was so unique. And certainly the character. And I think all of the characters are extraordinary, not just the stat. And I mean, I just couldn't pass it by. What if I could give it back to you? Pluck out the pain and give you another life. You obviously don't interview vampires to get ready for this role. Is that right? No, I actually had some good conversations with some vampires. They filled me in. How nice. I was set. Yellow pages? Yeah, exactly. Okay, interview, yeah. I'm flesh and blood, but not human. I haven't been human for 200 years. He's very talented and I felt he did an extraordinary job. I think he brought such dignity to this character. I've trained you to the point of death. If I leave you here, you die. Or you can be young always. And he went into that thing with a lot of people after. Which you can understand, you understand the loyalty for the book. Because it hit some spots, this book. It hit some buttons. But listen, he just worked all the harder. And I watched this guy and he was fire. He was just fire. He took his stuff and he took it to another level. He took it another direction. I think that's fantastic. Is that a great thing to be working with in terms of lifting up your own work? Well, it's inspiring, yes. Absolutely. But then at the same time, we have my characters constantly being held down by Lestat. You see, Louis was going to leave us. He was going to go away. But now he's not. Now he's going to stay and make you happy. I kind of dreamed of myself being a vampire sometimes. I knew a lot about a vampire. So I dreamed once that I'd be a vampire. Did you ever watch those old vampire movies? No, I didn't really. I saw Dracula. I saw parts of Dracula. And I saw Bucky the Vampire Slayer. But yeah, that's about it for vampires. And I knew about it because Halloween and all that stuff. So you knew the rules, sleeping in the coffin, all that stuff. Yeah. Tell me about your co-stars. This little girl, this Kirsten is... Tears it up, doesn't she? She's unbelievable. Yes, she really is. There's a huge intelligence factor there. Listen, that was a big concern I remember discussing with Neil, because how do you put a little child through some of these subject matters, right? And in comes this little woman, you know, who ran circles around most of the adults on the set. She tore it up and she knew the line. So it worked out great. Amazing. And she's created that character. And working with her is like working with, you know, it's just an actress. And when she got on the set that we were ready to shoot, because, you know, there's a lot of heavy stuff to go through. And you don't want her to have to experience that for too long. But I'm telling you, she was very, even beyond professional, just incredibly talented. Yet you could do it to me. Snatching me from my mother's hands like two monsters in a fairy tale. And now you weep, having tears enough for what you've done to me. You give her to me, Louis! So then you heard you're going to be working with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Yeah. What did you think about that? I thought, well, it was a great honor to meet them both. And I really like them. They're great guys. You know, I know everyone feels very protective of her because she's so talented. And I mean, I can't wait to see, you know. And I told her, I said, you know, I mean, I can't wait to see what she does. And just as an audience, I'm looking forward to it. She's very bright. She is very bright. And you see that. And I mean, sometimes, I mean, not sometimes, I'd go to rushes and I'd look at what she's created with the scene. She really communicated this 50-year-old woman in a child's body. Did you do anything to try to comfort her? I didn't have to. She had to comfort me. What are you talking about? What would she do? I don't know. She was just nice to sit and talk with, actually. She did say the hardest part was kissing you. I hate it. It's so much. Listen, it was no easy road for me, either. I mean, my dad's got to watch this movie. And he said he didn't feel too good about it, either. I bet he didn't. I mean, he had to kiss a little girl. But it was worse for me because I had to bend down and kiss him. And you also got to sleep in his coffin. You had your own coffin, though, too. Yeah, I had my own coffin. But I don't know. It was just like, you know, like when you have a little child sometimes, you know, how I always crawled in my mom's and dad's bed and slept with them. And Louie's kind of the mother. I don't know. He was more of a sensitive type. So I think that's why she called him to his bed. It's just like what little kids do. Yeah, well, that's how I read it. That's like the mother and Tom's the nasty dad. And you're kind of a dysfunctional vampire family, is what you are. A very funny one, too. Yeah, I didn't expect it to be kind of funny in some scenes. But yeah, Tom's like the abusive father and Brad's like the sensitive, sweet father. Claudia! What have you done? What you told me to do! You leave a corpse here to rot? I wanted her! I wanted to be her! She's not! So when you get the script and you read that you're going to be biting necks and drinking blood and stuff, how did you feel about that? Well, I knew that it was all fake stuff, especially the blood. It was this syrup stuff with like red food coloring and like this dye and everything. It's really sick. And actually, it was kind of gross because like the people would be sweating and then they'd have these fake little plastic bite marks and then I'd have to... There'd be this tube and they'd pump up blood when they'd start to bite it. It was just disgusting. It was the worst thing I've ever tasted in my life. Was the makeup a pretty arduous process? Some of it was. Some of it was very arduous. That's a pain in the ass. Is it really? There's no way around it. There's no prettier way to coat it. It's a pain in the ass. Tom got it down to an hour and a half. I was still up to two hours. I like to have a cigarette break, have a coffee. Did you ever go out in public with it? With what? The makeup? With the makeup on? I'm kidding. I couldn't wait to get her off. We worked for five months prior to shooting to get, you know, because these vampires, it was all of our goal to make them look as real as possible. You know, in the book it says they walk around in New Orleans and unnoticed, and so it was very important for the characters to have that. I mean, I know now you look at it and it looks easy, but it was a real challenge. It was a real challenge on every level. Now, how did they do your teeth? They made like a mold and then they molded around it and made little teeth. It was really gross. You couldn't eat or drink with them because they'd break and everything. I broke like three pairs. So you're freshening up. They're constantly freshening up, you know. Getting my nose powdered, my teeth sharpened. How do you do that, Neil? How do you do those teeth? I'll never tell. You know, if I told you, then I would, I'd have to kill you. Don't be afraid. I'm going to give you the choice I never had. When you're playing a character like that, you just, you have to build an emotional foundation. And I was very interested in how finding the humor to this guy because he was, you know, I mean, a guy who's lived forever and a hundred years, you know, who has the possibility of living forever as a vampire and reading what he's read and being able to, you know, as astute and erudite as he is in so many different areas. You know, he's, you know, he's got to have a wonderful wit and a wonderful sense of humor. Oh, Louis, Louis. Still whining, Louis. Have you heard enough? I've had to listen to that for centuries.