Sarah Afful on Bringing Merrick Mayfair & Claudia’s Ghost to ‘The Vampire Lestat’ [EXCLUSIVE]

Witches and vampires should be friends, yeah? The Mary Sue‘s Leah Marilla Thomas talked to Sarah Afful, who joins The Vampire Lestat as Merrick Mayfair, about working with Delainey Hayles to summon Claudia’s spirit, supernatural book clubs, and the possibilities for her future in the Anne Rice universe.

Merrick, or as Lestat (Sam Reid) has her contact saved in his iPhone “Mary Rick,” is a significant character in the source material. Rice’s book Merrick, published in 2000, is the seventh book in the Vampire Chronicles. It is, maybe obviously, also a crossover with Rice’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy. The seance that we see in The Vampire Lestat episode 6 “Montreal” is adapted from that text.

In the books, Merrick is a former Talamasca agent and a future vampire. She is canonically Louis de Pointe du Lac’s (Jacob Anderson) fledgling, actually. Both of those are intriguing avenues that the show could take. But given the way this series, and this season in particular, has dissected what it means to be a maker and what it means to be made the latter intrigues me more at the moment. This is a potential new member of the Immortal Family!

On The Vampire Lestat, Merrick flies to Montreal, sadly sans Global Entry, on Lestat’s request to summon Claudia’s spirit and hopefully give him and Louis some closure about her death. We learn that Lestat is friends with not only Merrick but her relative Cortland Mayfair–who is played by Harry Hamlin on AMC’s Mayfair Witches. They’re also friends with political consultant James Carville, randomly.

However, as Afful tells me, upon meeting Louis she connects with him as well. This makes sense. Merrick and Louis’ relationship is central to her book. On Interview with the Vampire, Louis and his brother Paul (Steven G. Norfleet) knew some members of the Mayfair family growing up in New Orleans. When Merrick introduces herself to Louis on the show, she gives him a message from her grandmother Ernestine Mayfair. It’s not really a nice message. Louis, who expressed discomfort about witches at the top of the episode, is not super receptive. It sets their dynamic off on an interesting foot for potential future encounters.

Via the seance that follows Claudia’s vampire parents do get closure, technically, though not at all in the way they hoped for. It’s brutal, worse even than the love that Lestat sings about in his song “Brutal Love.” How did all of that come to pass on the penultimate episode of The Vampire Lestat? Here’s our full conversation, below.

Leah Marilla Thomas (TMS): So, for a few moments during the seance in Episode 6, you are essentially playing Claudia or a version of Claudia. What conversations and preparations did you and Delainey and the director have about that hand-off and those aspects of the scene?

Sarah Afful: It was quite organic. The director Jane [Wu] said, do you want to meet with her, and then you two can figure out sort of maybe more about each other, and how you how you want to become each other, or how you want to find each other? And so we said yes, and Delainey and I ended up just meeting for lunch. We just met for lunch and chatted and we talked about everything besides acting, just our lives and got to know each other.

And the real stuff I think really happened [on set] because because we were comfortable with each other and we felt safe around each other. When we were filming, it was me, I guess, taking bits of what I’d witnessed from her and seeing her on TV, watching what she’d done and also, like, how she was moving. But really it happened in the moment, that trade-off. So it started… as Merrick is becoming Claudia, she’s still Merrick. There’s a part of Claudia coming through, but she hasn’t transformed physically. It’s the emotionality, it’s the the inner life of her, and then more and more. When it becomes Claudia, it actually is Claudia.

TMS: What research did you do about voodoo, a very specific type of magic?

Afful: Yeah, so yes, voodooism was what I delved into. Myself and Jane Wu wanted it to be as authentic as possible with the time frame we had, and you know, because usually it’d be like tons [of time]. Basically you’re getting your body ready to be open enough to let the spirits in, and that takes time, but we don’t have time. So I thought, how can I get there quickly? And I thought about breath, I thought about movement, and I thought about sensuality and sexuality as doors that open the body to other realms in certain aspects. Like, in certain circumstances breath, body movement, sensuality, lets us drop our guards and open up.

So I use that. I used, I used like movement and really, physically like opening my body and breathing and opening like my lower chakras to be able to, sort of call in like more space and, and call in a ghost. Because otherwise I would have been like, ‘OK, just wait here. Let’s give it half an hour.’ I would have been dancing and moving around the room and drinking rum. But [what I did] would be the closest to that end point that I would get to… would be like that ecstasy.

TMS: I’ve seen some folks online this week talking about how these vampires need therapy. Clearly using characters like Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), or even Regina (Hayles) to an extent, does not work. It’s interesting to me that this seance feels like yet another attempt. Do you think Merrick’s set of skills make her more or less equipped as a vampire therapist?

Afful: Oh my gosh, differently equipped, I’d say. Yeah, just differently. It’s like with all the different types of therapy out there, what therapy works for you? Is it cognitive therapy? Is it narrative therapy? Is it play therapy? What has worked for them has worked for a little bit and then stopped. So I think, yeah, what Louis’s looking for is that is that closure or to know that he’s… to let go of the guilt, to let go of the sadness, and so she facilitates that in giving him the opportunity to face [Claudia], but I don’t know if it’s the right thing. I don’t know. I think only Episode 7… only he will know if it’s the right thing.

TMS: Finally, in Anne Rice’s books Merrick does eventually ask to be turned into a vampire. After witnessing that level of family drama on The Vampire Lestat, however, what do you think it would take for your Merrick to want that life? 

Afful: Hmm, that’s a very good question. The love, I can say this, the love that she feels for Louis and that connection that she feels for him is what has drawn her to do this seance, even though it could potentially kill her. It could ruin her mortal life. But there’s something also that’s much deeper, and that that’s that childhood call from her ancestors to move into something else, into another realm. I think that takes, I think that goes over everything. Is that call. That’s purpose, right?

TMS: We also know that she’s read Interview with the Vampire. She was in Lestat’s book club!

Afful: I love that. I was like, what books did they read?

TMS: Yeah, what else did they read? That’s a really good question, actually.

Afful: Probably, yeah, maybe Brene Brown, I don’t know. That would be good.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity!

(featured image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Networks)

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