Prague production on AMC’s Interview with the Vampire has officially concluded. After a ten-week interruption due to the actor’s strike, production on the series resumed in early October for a total of 33 shooting days, which culminated at the end of last week.
It’s good timing for production on the series to wrap, as the winter season’s first snowfall blankets the Czech capital early this week.
Interview with the Vampire is based on the 1976 Anne Rice novel that tells the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac and his relationship with vampire Lestat de Lioncourt and young child-vampire Claudia. The novel was previously turned into a 1994 adaptation directed by Neil Jordan starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Kirsten Dunst in the primary roles.
The AMC series stars Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones) as Louis and Sam Reid as Lestat; Bailey Bass starred as Claudia in the series’ first season, but she was replaced by Delainey Hayles for season two. Eric Bogosian, Assad Zaman, and Ben Daniels feature among Interview with the Vampire‘s supporting cast.
The first season of the series covered the first half of the novel, and was filmed (and largely set) in New Orleans. The second season, covering the last half of the novel, largely takes place in WWII-era Paris, with Prague filling in for the French capital and other locales.
Production of Interview with the Vampire in Prague largely took place at Barrandov Studio, with some key location shooting around the center of the Czech capital by Old Town Square, Prague Castle, Vyšehrad complex, Malá Strana, and the Estates Theatre. Filming also took place on location in Paris earlier this month.
Czech production of Interview with the Vampire began at the beginning of April, but was interrupted by the recently-resolved SAG-AFTRA strike at the end of July with about six weeks of shooting remaining. AMC subsequently negotiated a special waiver with the actor’s guild to continue shooting the series amid the strike, with cast and crew returning to Prague in October.
The actors’ strike also disrupted filming on the third season of Foundation, which is now expected to resume its Prague shoot in early 2024. The third season of The Wheel of Time continued to film in Prague despite the strike, and also wrapped production earlier this month.
These three TV project represent the largest productions filming in Prague this year, following some controversial changes to the Czech Republic’s film incentives program.
The changes cap Czech rebates at around at 150 million crowns (about $6 million) per project, which would seem to dissuade larger productions from shooting in the country. Each of these TV series, however, filed multiple line items with the Czech Film Fund, enabling them to exceed the cap without issue. Interview with the Vampire shot under the titles of Memory is the Monster and The Parisian Coven.
Lead photo: Jacob Anderson and Delainey Hayles courtesy AMC / Larry Horricks
One Response
Can’t wait for May! This looks incredible and the locations are amazing!