The Vampire Lestat's Eric Bogosian and Assad Zaman Have a Lot to Say About Daniel and Armand

[The following contains spoilers for The Vampire Lestat Episode 5, "New York."]

The Vampire Lestat may belong primarily to Sam Reid's titular more-or-less immortal rock star, but one of the juiciest storylines doesn't actually concern him at all. In Anne Rice's novel Queen of the Damned, a standalone chapter called "The Story of Daniel, the Devil's Minion, or the Boy from Interview with the Vampire" follows Daniel Molloy and Armand as they fall into a calamitous, decades-spanning game of cat and mouse. What begins as Armand relentlessly stalking Daniel wherever he goes gradually evolves into a genuine romantic affair. Thus, a passionate fan base for the two was born, one that Interview with the Vampire spent two seasons stoking as it danced around the seemingly unexplainable connection between Armand (Assad Zaman) and Daniel (played in the present by Eric Bogosian and as a young man in IWTV by Luke Brandon Field).

The series diverted significantly from the timeline established in Rice's novels in Interview with the Vampire's Season 2 finale, when it was revealed that, off screen, at some point after Daniel concluded his interview with Louis (Jacob Anderson), Armand turned Daniel into a vampire. (In the book, Armand spends years refusing to turn Daniel, only to eventually save him from the brink of death by, well, killing him.) Details of Daniel's turning and subsequent vampire infancy trickled in as the episodes ticked on: The deed was done on a private plane flying over Newark, Armand went no contact sometime after, and Daniel's been adrift in his new world ever since. 

The season's fourth episode finally reunited the two, as Armand pitifully reentered the scene in the hopes of making amends with Daniel and Lestat, neither of whom was all too interested in hearing him out. While Lestat obviously took the opportunity to publicly humiliate Armand at a concert, Daniel, ever the investigative journalist, had questions for his maker. His rejection of his "dad's" apology hasn't stopped what Armand refers to as their "vampiric bond," after all. What Daniel really wants to know is if everything that happened in Dubai, when Daniel broke Armand down until he got to the truth of what really went down in Paris, was just another act of typical Armand trickery. Was he really unable to use his powers or was he just faking weakness? "It was love," Armand confesses. And not for Louis, he clarifies.

In "New York," some specific questions are cleared up for a bewildered Daniel, as Armand reveals he's spent 52 years fascinated with Daniel and protecting him (in his way) during some of his darkest moments, from drug-fueled comedowns to brutal rejections from Daniel's daughters. "The force of Armand in Daniel's life is so huge," Bogosian told TV Guide. "It's almost like a person is living next to this mountain and can't see the mountain because it's there all the time, and all they can see is a couple of trees at the bottom of the mountain."

Daniel is visibly thrown by and conflicted over Armand's confession, but from Bogosian's view, to turn away his maker would be to dismiss part of himself. Bogosian likened their relationship to his own marriage: "I've been married 46 years, which is roughly the time that these guys have spent together, and there's a growing together where you can't pull the two apart," he said. "I can't even imagine my life without my wife. It turns out [Daniel] has had a wife, in a way, for 52 years, and didn't know it." Even if he was unaware of Armand's presence, it doesn't negate the fact that Daniel has spent more than half of his life with Armand by his side.

Zaman reads Armand's confession of love as genuine, though he's quick to note the many layers to it as well, in classic Armand fashion. "It's one of the few honest moments that Armand shares," he said. "But Armand, he's great at manipulating lies through truth." Being in love with Daniel doesn't erase his history as a seasoned liar. As is often the case on this show, multiple things can be true at once. "Really good liars use the truth around them to build the lie, and you hear the honesty and the vulnerability, but you miss the manipulation," Zaman mused.

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What's to come for the devil and his minion as the show moves into the final episodes of the season? The Vampire Lestat stops short of explicitly defining Daniel's feelings for Armand, though he is openly intrigued by the idea of learning to go out in the sunlight, which Armand floats as a teaching he could potentially bestow after offering to give Daniel "half his life back." Bogosian posited that all after those years circling each other, some kind of affection — whatever that means to these two, anyway — might just be blossoming. "It starts to create a kind of love, the most distorted, crazy love," he said. "It's not love by any ways that we normally define love."

"No one should be following this as a correct way to pursue a relationship," Zaman added.

"I'm his favorite stuffed animal that doesn't have an eye anymore, and he's been beating it to death for years," Bogosian said, summing it all up. "But he loves it too! He really loves that little stuffed animal."

The Vampire Lestat airs Sundays at 9/8c on AMC and streams Sundays on AMC+.