‘Interview with the Vampire’s Roxane Duran Explains Madeleine’s Fateful Choice

Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for Interview with the Vampire Season 2, Episode 7.

The Big Picture

• The latest episode of
  Interview with the Vampire
  Season 2 sees a dramatic trial unfold at the Théâtre des Vampires.
• Madeleine’s choice between the coven and Claudia reveals the depth of their connection and loyalty.
• Roxane Duran discusses her role, her chemistry with co-star Delainey Hayles, and the complexity of her character, Madeleine.

As tensions rise in both past and present on Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire Season 2, it feels like everything has been building to this week’s penultimate episode. In “I Could Not Prevent It,” directed by Emma Freeman and written by Kevin Hanna & Rolin Jones, the flashback narrative has crescendoed into a trial the likes of which very few will survive, as the Théâtre des Vampires, propelled by their new leader Santiago (Ben Daniels), has not only overthrown their former head Armand (Assad Zaman) but set Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Claudia (Delainey Hayles) up at the mercy of a ravenous human crowd. In the eyes of the Paris coven, Claudia has broken more than one vampiric law — not just by keeping her diaries, but by (according to them) manipulating Louis into giving the dark gift to her human companion Madeleine (Roxane Duran). And that’s not all — Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) has been lurking off-stage, ready to make his grand reappearance, alive and in the flesh. In present-day Dubai, Jacob and Armand seem more at odds than ever while recounting this part of the story to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), but what new revelations will emerge as Season 2 narrows in on its finale?

Ahead of the premiere of “I Could Not Prevent It,” Collider had the opportunity to speak with Duran about the fateful events leading up to the episode. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Duran recounts her journey to joining Interview with the Vampire, why she and Hayles had to hit the ground running when it came to finding their chemistry, and what she loves about playing a complex character like Madeleine. She also discusses how the scene where Madeleine discovers the truth about Claudia was filmed, why she likes the show’s changes made to Madeleine and Claudia’s relationship, why Madeleine’s final choice isn’t all that complicated, and more.

Roxane Duran Reveals Her Audition Scene for ‘Interview with the Vampire’ Season 2

COLLIDER: How did you first come to join the show, for starters?

ROXANE DURAN: It was very straightforward. I did a first audition that I had to deliver in a very short period of time, and I had a scene… it’s actually the scene of Madeleine and Armand, and I had to translate that one into French, so I had to deliver two tapes. Then I was called back. I had another audition round with [showrunner] Rolin [Jones], and after that, I met a bunch of producers and was able to talk through the scenes with Bailey [Bass]. After that, they were like, “Yeah, let’s go for it.” But they were very honest about the fact that it was going to be Season 2 of Interview with the Vampire.

When Delainey [Hayles] joined the show in Season 2, did you two connect and have any discussions about your characters and their relationship before filming?

DURAN: It’s always a challenge to step into someone’s shoes, [but] Delainey really managed to seize the role and give it another dimension, and she was exceptional. She’s a very instinctive and very interesting actress, and you just bounce off of her, whatever she gives you. She gives a lot of energy and a lot of joy and a lot of spice. We met very, very briefly when I was doing costumes in Prague, where we shot, and then it was basically us both on set doing it. I didn’t really mind it. I didn’t really feel like I needed to get to know her in order to nail the connection. It was really easygoing, and [director] Levan [Akin] just powered us through it. Levan was really good at clocking what he wanted Madeleine to be. When we seized it, then it was just a joy to be able to tweak and have the leisure of experiencing everything that we could with Delainey and with [director] Emma [Freeman], who’s been just so amazing and so supportive and so creative. It was just a blessing.

When we meet Madeleine, she’s been ostracized from the community and pushed to the outside. What was your understanding of what life has been like for her in this Paris that’s rebuilding itself after the war?

DURAN: It’s very interesting that you point that out, because it’s true. Paris was rebuilding itself. Paris was still wobbly and had a lot of problems. The men were just coming back from war, and Madeleine’s a woman who has had an adventure with a German soldier, and that was a total no-go. Automatically, touching a German would mean being ostracized. I think that her social skills before that weren’t really good, either. You’ve got to be very lonely in order to have a relationship with a German, whatever the relationship was. It’s not a love affair. She’s getting warmth from him. She’s also getting cigarettes, probably, and access to things that she couldn’t dare have if she wasn’t having sex with this person.

It’s very easy to say that it’s just giving and taking, and having a bargain, when, at the time, it wasn’t as easy as that. It was just more complicated. But what I love about Rolin is that he was specific about showing these moments and making Madeleine not only a character that is maybe more enigmatic than you would wish her to be but also not a black-or-white character. She’s intense. She’s got a lot of layers, and she’s not perfect. It’s always very, very thrilling for me as an actress to play someone that you don’t really know how to defend until you get all the key pieces to create.

Roxane Duran Reflects on Madeleine and Claudia’s Complex Relationship in ‘Interview with the Vampire’

Madeleine and Claudia meet by chance at first, and then their paths keep crossing until the night that Claudia saves Madeleine’s life. What’s going through Madeleine’s head, after the initial shock, when she’s confronted by Claudia’s true nature in a pretty violent way?

DURAN: First of all, [Madeleine] had it coming. She knew that she was going to — she got shaved, she got shunned, she got pushed out of society. The moment when someone was gonna snap was going to happen to her. I think there’s a real relief and a rush of anxiety of, “How far are they gonna take this?” She’s in bed with a man on top of her, the other one is getting comfortable, so to speak, and all of a sudden the weight of the body vanishes, and she realizes that both men are already on the floor with blood gushing out of them. She’s just thinking, “I’m next, I’m next, I’m next.”

What [director] Emma Freeman and Earle Dresner, who is the DP, were thinking was to live it through Madeleine’s point of view. You just follow her, and the shock just kind of builds up and up, and then you see this woman with scissors in her neck, gagging and spitting blood, and there’s nothing more horrendous than that. The woman that has been spitting on you three seconds earlier is just dead, and you’re next, and all of a sudden, recognizing a person that you like, that you felt comfortable around for their true nature — there’s something really beautiful in the sense that this person has just saved you. At the same time, they reveal themselves, and it’s a choice that you make. You accept the person for all of their facets and all of their layers, or you don’t, and Madeleine instantly accepts Claudia.

In the book, Madeleine and Claudia feel like more of a mother-daughter situation. Here, these two women are soulmates in a way. What were the conversations like about adjusting that love story for the show?

DURAN: It made me quite uncomfortable, reading the book and also watching the movie, this very tiny girl with these older men, I’m really sorry to say. That was just probably because of things that you go through in life, as well as things that happen to people that are close to you. Things just trigger me differently. I love the intake and the input that Rolin gave to this role — not only setting it in a dressmaking shop, but [for] these two women who stand on the same level, which was really important, and who just connect and are extremely honest with each other and to each other, and really showing who they are. It takes a lot of trust to do such things. I love the fact that it’s not just Madeleine being a dressmaker; she turns [Claudia] into the woman that she loves and dreams of being. It’s a combination of both of them that they are made for each other, because they also accept each other how they are, truly and deeply, and they also make each other better. I think yes, essentially, it is romantic, and it is sisterly, at times. If we would have had more time, of course, it could have turned into something very different. But it’s two women figuring out that they want to live their lives together, so you can make your own conclusions about them.

The turning scene is a moment when Louis gets to see the full extent of how Madeleine perceives Claudia. From an acting perspective, it feels like it’s a very transcendent moment for Madeleine too. Do you remember reading any notes in the script about how to play that, or anything that you really wanted to make sure came through?

DURAN: What we talked about with Emma was that these flashbacks just happen as though you’re dying. You lose a lot of blood at the same time, you’re trying to fight it, and your life kind of races in front of us. The flashbacks were these moments that Rolin so beautifully wrote, and I’m really, really grateful for them because they pave out a lot for you as the audience to discover, but also to make an opinion about that person. It’s the same shared vulnerability as when you open a diary, but you don’t really choose which sections you show. I think it’s the most amazing way that Rolin wrote it, in the sense that it’s Louis telling us how he discovered how Madeleine sees Claudia. As the third person watching from the outside, with the complicated love relationships that he has and has experienced, all of a sudden he sees the dimension that these two could bring to one another, and the care and the fondness and the real love that they have for one another.

At the trial, it does become apparent that everyone’s fates have already been sealed, but Madeleine gets a choice — the coven or Claudia. At one point, it looks like Claudia is wordlessly telling her to choose to live, but then Madeleine says, “My coven is Claudia.” From your perspective, do you feel like there’s no choice for her other than Claudia in that moment?

DURAN: When you find someone, and you’re at home with them, and it’s always been a bit dim and dark and tragic and all of a sudden someone lights up your world, you’d be ridiculous to choose a life that’s been so boring and dull for eternity. She found the love of her life, and she found the light at the end of the tunnel; even if that light didn’t burn for a very long time, at least she had it and she really experienced it. To go back to something that was less wasn’t an option for her. The second when she said, “I’m turning into a vampire,” it was her dedication to Claudia and to herself. It was always a team. There’s no selfishness about any choice. It’s always, always been about Claudia.

That’s also what’s so important to Claudia is that she was number one. She was the chosen, and for Madeleine, in return, also, to be that little white lady that she met by happenstance. [Laughs] There’s something so beautiful about the writing that, on every level, there’s a different significance for every character, and they all mingle, and you can pick and choose and see it. In this episode, it’s beautiful because you see how much love but also how much pain there is between Louis and Lestat. That has always been the essence of it until you take a step back, and you see it.

Interview with the Vampire Season 2 is available to stream on AMC+ in the U.S.

Watch on AMC+