“I Guess I Don’t Take Myself So Seriously Anymore”: Daniel Hart on How ‘The Vampire Lestat’ Surprised Him with “Your Biggest Fan” [EXCLUSIVE]

AMC’s The Vampire Lestat is keeping us on our toesies when it comes to how it adapts Anne Rice’s novel and Lestat’s (Sam Reid) personal history, whether that means nonlinear storytelling or distilling a traumatic event into a music video as a way for the storyteller to keep his emotional truth at arm’s length. The Mary Sue spoke to writer and composer Daniel Hart about “Your Biggest Fan,” a song about Lestat’s maker Magnus (Damien Atkins), on the series also known as season 3 of Interview with the Vampire.

“When I’m writing songs for myself,” Hart says to TMS’s Rachel Leishman, “I’m always take myself so seriously, and I’m trying to write lyrics that are earnest and introspective and on my own journey of self discovery through music. So to be given permission in this show to write lyrics that were petty and selfish and silly and diss tracks of other characters? What a gift.” 

The deceptively catchy song, which AMC released ahead of the season and Reid performed live at the New York City premiere, debuts in the third episode. Written by Anusree Roy and directed by Claudia Llosa, “Toronto” is about what happened to Lestat when he moved to Paris as a young adult, fell in love with his childhood acquaintance Nicolas de Lenfant (Joseph Potter), and became a vampire “courtesy” of Magnus. Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) initially labels Lestat’s maker as an abuser when he questions the lyrical approach to “Your Biggest Fan.” According to Louis (Jacob Anderson) in season 1 of Interview with the Vampire, Magnus kidnapped Lestat, assaulted him, and turned him against his will.

However, Lestat dismisses this. He claims that he understood his maker and therefore wrote a love song from his perspective in his honor. He cites three examples of similar pop songs: “Leaning on a Lamp-post” by Herman’s Hermits, “Every Breath You Take” by The Police, and “Stan” by Eminem. What do all of those songs have in common? What are they about? Say it with me, class. Stalkers!

Daniel Hart was as surprised as us by the Magnus music video.

The episode then treats us to a non-diegetic music video fantasy sequence that portrays Magnus as, basically, an awkward nerd with a crush on a popular kid. It’s Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” meets 80s glam. Watching the visuals come together behind the scenes, Hart says, was “incredibly satisfying.”

‘I had no hand in the construction of the music video for ‘Your Biggest Fan,'” Hart says. “That all came from, I think, Rolin and Hannah [Moscovitch]. And then other people who were involved in production, like stage design and lighting. That wasn’t my idea at all. That wasn’t my idea for the song. I never envisioned it going that way. And it feels so f*cking funny to me that that is the way it’s came out in the show. I can’t think of a possibly better way for it to have been portrayed. I’m so happy that that is the way it is in the show.  It is truly and honestly one of my favorite parts of this whole show.  I was like that is so funny.  It is so sad when you’re thinking of the context, but it is also very funny.”  

The Vampire Lestat unlocked a new level of macabre, dark humor with this music video. And while “Your Biggest Fan” is not a diss track in a traditional sense (stay tuned to Episode 4 to see what he meant) it does mock Magnus as much as it, in Lestat’s mind, glazes him.

At the end of the episode Lestat grabbles with what Magnus actually did to him. One of the things he says to the memory/ghost of his abuser is “you got your song.” Like, what more can he possibly want from him? As if he was trying to exorcise the demon by painting him in this ironic, favorable light.

Daniel Hart wasn’t just asked to mock the other characters.

Hart did not just compose the score and write the songs for The Vampire Lestat. He was also a card carrying member of the writer’s room. He has a screenwriting credit on a later episode and contributed to other scenes and material throughout. Part of that new job included making fun of his own work.

“As a scriptwriter,” he says, “one of the assignments that Rolin [Jones] kept giving me over and over again was to, like, analyze and criticize these songs from various perspectives. So, write a scene where Daniel Malloy is picking apart these songs, and then write a Pitchfork review for Lestat’s album that skewers it [and] compares Lestat to a hot dog embalmed in hair gel.”

He also wrote lines about how some characters think the songs suck and/or are derivative, etc. Brutal!  

“I guess I don’t take myself so seriously anymore,” he says. “I found it so much fun for me to make fun of myself, and then to see other people do it too.”

You can see the full chat here and tune in to The Vampire Lestat on AMC.

(featured image: AMC)

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