AMC Interview with the vampire serves up plenty of Easter eggs for fans of The Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice. In the fifth episode of season two, “Don't Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape,” we have one that's pretty obscure even for some of the biggest fans of Rice's novels. In the series, the interview in question is actually a “second round”. Eric Bogosian plays Daniel Molloy, the reporter he interviews the titular vampire, Louis (Jacob Anderson). “The first round” of the interview took place in 1973, just like in the original novel. In episode five, we get a proper flashback to this interview, and the house it takes place in looks exactly like the house that inspired Rice over 50 years ago.
In Anne Rice's 1976 novel, the vampire Louis gives his interview to an unnamed boy reporter (played by Luke Brandon Field). The interview takes place in a house on Calle Divisadero in San Francisco. That's close to where Native New Orleans rice At the time she was living with her husband, the poet Stan Rice. Louis is said to look wistfully out the window at the traffic passing by on the busy street. A street to this day full of popular bars and shops of all kinds. Rice chose the 1888 Victorian house because he thought it reflected Louis himself. It was an ancient creation that stood between neon signs and modern life, an anachronism that blended into the background.
Anne Rice never gave an actual address for the house in the novel, only the street it was on. However, in The Vampire Companion: A Guide to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles by Katherine Ramsland, finally says where the house she imagined Louis did the interview was. It was a Victorian house with a stained glass window, on Divisadero not far from Haight Street. The vampire companion it shows an illustration of the house, but no photo or address. But it didn't take long for Rice fans to find out which house it really was. The vampire companion all but drew an “X” as to where it actually was.
The 1994 film version of Interview with the vampire still had Louis giving the interview in San Francisco. However, it was from an apartment on Market Street (which you can see above). The producers of the television series clearly knew the house on Carrer Divisadero that served as their inspiration. They either filmed there (unlikely) or created an exterior to match. Why is this address important? Given the importance of the Chronicles of vampires series to the LGBTQ community, it matters that Carrer Divisadero is where Carrer Castro ends. And Carrer Castro is one of America's original gay neighborhoods. So hats off to the house that inspired Anne Rice to imagine a vampire peering out the window? It was a very nice touch.
