Director Neil Jordan’s 1994 Gothic horror film Interview With the Vampire is making headlines again.
The movie is based on Anne Rice’s 1976 novel of the same name, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
His decision to choose Cruise over Daniel Day-Lewis made many people unhappy at the time.
According to Variety, Director Jordan discussed his choice to cast Cruise alongside Brad Pitt and the backlash that followed in his memoir. He also recalled that he had initially offered the part to Day-Lewis.
“The problem was the casting of Lestat. Brad Pitt had agreed to play Louis and somehow assumed Daniel Day-Lewis would be playing 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,” Jordan wrote.
“A few years before, he had confined himself to a wheelchair to play Christy Brown in My Left Foot. He would have had to sleep in a coffin for the entirety of this production if he followed the same practice. So, we moved on,” he added.
Jordan was certain of his choice after meeting with Cruise twice at his Brentwood home and learning that the actor and Lestat truly had a lot of similarities.
“I finally got it,” Jordan wrote, adding, “He had to live a life removed from the gaze of others. He had made a contract with the hidden forces, whatever they turned out to be. He had to hide in the shadows, even in the Hollywood sunlight. He would be eternally young. He was a star. He could well be Lestat.”
Jordan said Cruise is “also a superb actor,” but “that small fact got lost in the outrage that followed.”
“Half of America, it seemed, had read Anne Rice’s books and wanted a say in the casting of Lestat,” he continued. “Anne herself took to the airwaves, saying that it was as if I had cast Edward G Robinson as Rhett Butler. But she was wrong and was later big enough to admit it,” he added.
However, later he admitted that Cruise’s performance was appreciated by the critics in an interview.