Summary

• Interview with the Vampire almost had a female-led cast, with Cher as Louis and Anjelica Huston as Lestat.
• Changing Louis to a female character would have provided a different layer of tragedy and dynamic to the story.
• Cher's musical contribution to Interview with the Vampire was scrapped, but released as a dance-pop version in 2013.

Brad Pitt isn’t known for horror movies, but in 1994, he starred in Interview with the Vampire, though he almost didn’t, as it was originally going to be a female story with a surprising cast. Vampires are some of the most popular monsters in literature and film, and in 1994, one of the most famous vampire novels was brought to the big screen: Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, published in 1976. Directed by Neil Jordan, Interview with the Vampire starred two of the biggest stars of the 1990s as vampires Louis and Lestat: Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

Interview with the Vampire follows Louis (Pitt), who, after the death of his wife and unborn child, is targeted by vampire Lestat (Cruise) and turned into a vampire and his companion. Struggling to adapt to immortality and killing to feed, Louis feeds on a little girl named Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), who Lestat turns into Louis’ companion. As Claudia and Louis’ bond grows stronger, she begins to question their relationship with Lestat. Interview with the Vampire was a critical and commercial success, but it was almost very different as, at one point, it was a female-led story.

Interview With The Vampire Almost Starred Cher & Anjelica Huston As Louis & Lestat

Interview With The Vampire Would Have Gender-Bent At Least One Of Its Main Characters

Rice explained she wrote the script for Interview with the Vampire with Cher in mind to play Louis, and the idea was that Louis would be a transvestite woman.

When Interview with the Vampire was in development, Rice was concerned about homophobia in Hollywood, so she decided to change Louis and write him as a woman (via Monsters in the closet: homosexuality and the horror film). Through this, Rice would have heterosexualized Louis’ relationship with Lestat, and she had an interesting casting idea for female Louis. Speaking to MovieLine in 1994, Rice explained she wrote the script for Interview with the Vampire with Cher in mind to play Louis, and the idea was that Louis would be a transvestite woman.

Rice's editor wanted Anjelica Huston to play Lestat, though it’s unclear if that would have been a version where Lestat was a woman and Louis a man or both would have been changed to female.

Rice explained that, at the time Interview with the Vampire is set, the only way someone could own a plantation and run things was if they were a man, so Cher’s Louis would have dressed as a man to get her own land. Rice added that Louis as a woman was the only thing different, as the rest of the movie would have been the same. Rice also mentioned that her editor wanted Anjelica Huston to play Lestat, though it’s unclear if that would have been a version where Lestat was a woman and Louis a man or both would have been changed to female.

Cher even wrote a song, titled “Lovers Forever”, for Interview with the Vampire, but when the plans for the movie changed and Brad Pitt was cast as Louis, the song was scrapped. Luckily, a dance-pop version of it was released in 2013, so even though there was no vampire Cher in Interview with the Vampire, at least her musical contribution to the film eventually saw the light.

How A Female-Led Interview With The Vampire Would Have Changed The Movie

Interview With The Vampire Faced A Couple Of Obstacles

Changing Louis into a female character would have dodged the homophobia problems Rice was concerned about.

In the source novel, there are many queer elements, particularly in the relationship between Louis and Lestat, which the TV series has gotten right. Although the attraction between Louis and Lestat was evident in the 1994 movie, it didn’t go beyond the surface level, which makes sense as Rice was concerned about homophobia in Hollywood. Changing Louis into a female character would have dodged those problems Rice was concerned about, but the dynamic and connection between two male vampires is a lot more intriguing than that between a female and male vampire.

If the rest of Interview with the Vampire would have stayed the same, a female Louis would have given a deeper meaning to her relationship with Claudia, building a mother/daughter bond after the death of Claudia's mother, which would have made Claudia's death a lot more heartbreaking.

At the time Interview with the Vampire was in pre-production, Cher had already starred in different movies, winning an Oscar for Best Actress in 1988 for her performance in Moonstruck. Cher has enough star power to have attracted a wide audience had she played Louis in Interview with the Vampire, and she would have given the character a different layer of tragedy. As for Anjelica Huston as Lestat, it would have further established her as a horror icon after her roles in movies like The Witches and The Addams Family.

Sources: Monsters in the closet: homosexuality and the horror film, MovieLine.