The Vampire Lestat's Eric Bogosian Digs Into Daniel's Role in That Shocking Season Finale

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the season finale of The Vampire Lestat, "The Failures."]

Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) returns to a familiar role in the first few episodes of The Vampire Lestat, remixing the show's interview framing device by filming a documentary about Lestat (Sam Reid).But after reuniting with his maker Armand (Assad Zaman), Daniel's arc takes an unexpected turn

Episode 5 sees Armand confess his love to Daniel, a sentiment that Assad Zaman believes is genuine. We don't know what happens during the four-month gap between this and Episode 6, but by their next appearance, they've joined forces to derail Lestat's farewell concert. After sabotaging Lestat's reputation with an incestuous sex tape, they end the penultimate episode of the season by decapitating both him and Louis (Jacob Anderson).

This alliance develops off screen, and in the season finale, Daniel seems more like an errand boy than a lover. Armand tasks him with guarding Lestat's semi-conscious severed head, which he carries around in a bowling bag, giving Daniel an opportunity to monologue about his many Lestat-related grievances. Then, in Daniel's final scene of the season, the Talamasca agent Raglan James (Justin Kirk) shows up to confiscate the head and reattach it to Lestat's body, allowing him to perform a concert that kickstarts a vampire apocalypse. So, where does this leave Daniel?

Speaking to TV Guide, Eric Bogosian said that Daniel is now "on the verge of a complete personality collapse." Digging into his final few scenes of the season, he shared his thoughts on Daniel's ambiguous relationship with Armand, his hunger for vengeance, and more.

ALSO READ: Rolin Jones wanted The Vampire Lestat to feel like rock 'n' roll

Something I found interesting in the last few episodes of the season is that Daniel's relationship with Armand develops a lot off screen. Between Episodes 5 and 6, several months have passed. He's formed this alliance with Armand to sabotage Lestat. How would you describe that relationship now?
Eric Bogosian: To be honest, I've had to look back at my own interviews about this, and I think I hit it right when I said that Daniel was mesmerized by Armand. There's a certain level of shock that hits him when he really starts to understand how deeply this man has been involved in his life for the last 50 years. That starts to shift the whole thing about identity, while he's at the same time going through transformational trauma. 

All of that leaves him very vulnerable. One thing to remember about Armand is that he's very powerful. He may be very messed up, but he's been around a long time, and his ability to get into my head is way stronger than I think I even understand, or Daniel understands. So I think at this point Daniel is pretty much under his thrall, and not necessarily voluntarily. Things are very confusing for Daniel at this point. For me, this is going to be a stepping-off point, should we get another season, into Daniel's choices of how he's going to react to all of that. 

We go completely off the rails as it is from the original Anne Rice writing, because Daniel is pretty wasted most of the time [in Rice's writing], and Armand keeps him that way, likes him to be that way. But that's not the Daniel that we now have. We have this sort of accomplished Daniel.

Daniel has this very enigmatic send-off in the finale. He bares his fangs to Raglan James after having this pretty cynical exchange. What do you think about that conclusion for him?
Bogosian: Well, by the time we get to that final beat, he's already basically running on pure anger, and he's allowing himself to really vent at Lestat, who's been his nemesis to a degree in this season. And then he gets stymied, so now he's even more angry. 

In my mind, we're shooting Daniel off into the future on just rocket fuel of anger. Where that may lead to… I would guess that he's going to try to increase his weaponry, so that he can return and deal out some punishment to some of these people who've been messing with him. Lestat is kind of not the issue anymore. Now it's Armand and also Raglan James, who's a real pain in the ass.

This has been a long, twisty road for me and for this character. When I say me, it's because I don't normally play all these complex emotions. I'm kind of known for angry. So now that I'm back at pure angry, I'm ready to see what purpose we can put this to. I think they do have plans of where this is all going to go. They don't tell me, by the way. I never know what's going to be happening. Just like the rest of the cast, we find out episode to episode.

I mean, that idea of Daniel's vulnerability and his transformational trauma… This season is structured around the idea of failure, and I was wondering if you thought about that in the context of Daniel. Because he kind of fails to make his documentary, and then Armand's plan fails. Was that something you were thinking about with your arc?
Bogosian: No. You know, everybody approaches roles differently. For me, I construct everything out of what's happening on the page in the scenes. I think Assad is with me on this, in which you don't really need to solve everything that's happening off screen, because there's all kinds of mystery there, just like there's mystery in being a human being. 

I rely on the mosaic that the writers are putting together. That these different pieces, they may not even really completely work with each other, but the audience puts it together and fills in all the interstitial stuff of why this is happening. 

For me, the character is in an intensely vulnerable situation, in which he doesn't really know what's going on. Suddenly he's found himself in the twilight zone, and he's trying to grab at anything he can to survive.

In the case of Daniel — and it may be true for a lot of the characters — it comes down to almost sanity. He's dealing with all these crazy people and difficult, neurotic, and dangerous people, who seem to be… the more evil they are, the more levelheaded they are. But if you're not levelheaded, like in the case of my character, or in the case of "Fraudia," the fake Claudia — she doesn't know what's going on, and she ends up in these really confusing places. When you deal with these people, they keep throwing curveballs, and it gets very, very confusing.

In other words, the rules of the normal world do not work in this supernatural world, especially as one of the actors pointed out — I think it was Jacob — that it's one thing to resolve your issues, but if you're still going to be living for another 400 years, that may not be enough. Now you've got to live with this resolution that isn't really a resolution. So I think Daniel's on the verge of a complete personality collapse. He's got to grab at whatever he's got. So he ends up grabbing at pure anger, and of course, what he thinks is murder. It doesn't turn out to be that. 

ALSO READ: Sam Reid unpacks the revelations in The Vampire Lestat's season finale

I saw a quote from Rolin Jones recently, talking about how you gave some pretty intense feedback on early drafts of his scripts. Is that something you're able to share?
Bogosian: Because I think Rolin's an amazing writer, I don't tend to say much about what he's actually doing here. Sometimes I'm confused and I need to ask questions, but I am the protector of my character, and I just felt that Daniel was not active enough when I saw the first [draft]. Given who Daniel had been in the first two seasons, sort of a Columbo figure with the vampires, solving these things. 

So I did say: Is there a way to activate him more? Obviously the season is about the vampire Lestat, but I need an agenda, and that's what I asked for. They went and cooked up all kinds of crazy stuff for me, which was very satisfactory. Then at the very end — this had no confrontation in it — I just wanted to layer in a little bit more when I'm talking to the bowling bag.

I mean, Sam has been so incredible in this character. He really sets off fireworks inside of me in terms of his patronizing. [Lestat] even says it in the car, you know, "We have to understand we're better than [Daniel]. He's really nothing." I wanted to dig into that a little bit. "What do you mean I'm nothing? I have two Pulitzers. What do you have, pal?" That was my contribution. Like, "Not so fast, I don't buy it. You can vaporize me if you want, but you're still not better than me."

It's very important for me, for my character, to understand what he is. I have never been a journalist, but I did a play on Broadway about war journalists, and met war journalists, and it's a very special kind of human being who can walk into the fray. The courage that is there. I believe that Daniel has that courage, that he was risking his life to get the story in the first place, and will continue to do that.

The Vampire Lestat is now streaming on AMC+.