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Tom Cruise may not have been Anne Rice’s dream choice for Lestat in Interview with the Vampire, but he sure ended up stealing the entire show and the box office. Back in the early days, though, that sharp-toothed role nearly had a very different smile behind it. In 1976, right when the ink was barely dry on her novel, Rice sold the rights. And for a while, John Travolta hovered near the top of the studio’s casting wishlist (via Eonline).
Things only got more chaotic from there. Mel Gibson and Richard Gere had their names tossed around. Then came Daniel Day-Lewis, who politely turned it down like a true shapeshifter. Studios were circling the idea for years but stayed on pause until Bram Stoker’s Dracula made bank in 1992. Rice wasn’t thrilled about their hesitation. In 1993, she didn’t hold back, calling Hollywood “idiots” and “stumblebums” for dragging their feet.
Anne Rice Doubted Tom Cruise As Lestat—Then He Won Her Over With A VHS Tape
The turning point was when Tom Cruise was cast, Rice thought the studio had lost the plot. In her own words, the casting was “so bizarre; it’s almost impossible to imagine how it’s going to work.” She recused herself entirely from the production, but Cruise proved her wrong. When she finally watched a VHS copy sent by a producer, she was floored. She wrote him a letter of apology and recorded a glowing two-minute video endorsement that ran ahead of mid-90s VHS rentals. From skeptic to stan, in two acts.
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