Interview With the Vampire director Neil Jordan is looking back on the outrage that ensued after he cast Tom Cruise in the lead role opposite Brad Pitt.
Cruise, 61, led the 1994 fantasy horror – based on Anne Rice’s 1976 novel – as Lestat, a vampire who befriends and persuades suicidal vampire Louis (Pitt) to choose immortality over death.
While Cruise had starred in popular hits Risky Business (1983) and Top Gun (1986) already, his casting was criticized by fans of Rice’s book, who questioned if he could do the character justice.
In an op-ed published in The Telegraph, Jordan recalled the difficulty of casting Lesate, revealing that he had initially offered the part to Daniel 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,” the Irish director 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.”
Jordan explained that it was after he met Cruise twice at his Brentwood house that he realized the actor had a lot in common with Lestat, affirming his decision.
“I finally got it,” Jordan continued. “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.”
Noting that Cruise is “also a superb actor,” he added that “that small fact got lost in the outrage that followed.”
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“Half of America, it seemed, had read Anne Rice’s books and wanted a say in the casting of Lestat,” he said. “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.”
Jordan additionally touched on the subject in a new interview with The Guardian, saying that “it must have been very difficult” for Cruise amid fan fury.
Critics eventually came to appreciate Cruise’s performance, and it is now considered one of his defining roles.
“He’s a great actor,” Jordan said. “If he says he can do something, he will do it in a way that people will be shocked by. Tom has become the last remaining film star. It’s kind of strange.”
