This past weekend gave us a second Anne Rice series, which continues what is being called the Immortal Universe, in the Alexandra Daddario-starring Mayfair Witches. The new show and Interview with the Vampire are mostly set in New Orleans, like the books that inspired them, and the author did create an expansive, connected world with her scary novels. If fans are wondering about other connections between both shows, though, it turns out that the vamps and witches have already been linked on screen.
How Has Alexandra Daddario’s Mayfair Witches Been Connected To Interview With The Vampire?
The time that many of Rice’s fans have been waiting decades for has finally arrived, as not only did early October see the debut of an AMC series based on her Interview with the Vampire (which takes the story in a different direction than the Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt film) debut to generally wonderful reviews and viewer reaction, but we now also have the newly released Mayfair Witches, which furthers the world the writer created for TV audiences. While there were no nods to IWTV in the premiere of the new supernatural series, the same cannot be said for the debut of the previous drama.
Episode 1 of Interview with the Vampire (which featured one of the vampire show’s most brutal kills) saw a still human Louis de Pointe du Lac speaking with his mother and siblings as they shared a family breakfast one day and discuss sister Grace’s impending wedding. Louis’ brother, Paul, sees fit to chastise Grace about deciding to partake in the African American tradition of “jumping the broom” during her ceremony, noting that there are “plenty of brooms down the street at the Mayfair sisters’ home.” To this, Grace cries to their mother, “He’s calling me a witch, Mamaw!”
While this was a small moment, and (from my recollection) I don’t believe there were any other nods to the infamous family of witches who lived near the de Pointe du Lac’s, it was a great way to tee up what was to come. It was in 2020 that AMC nabbed the rights to both Vampire and Witches, and began the process of working with the author and her son to adapt both sprawling stories, which each cover multiple books. The network has rights to 18 of Rice’s titles, and with some witchy characters having popped up in her Vampire Chronicles series, there was no reason to avoid at least one mention of the magical family in Louis and Lestat’s story.
We’ve already been given some spooky scenes in Mayfair Witches, and it’s gone a long way to explaining why Daddario’s Rowan Fielding will soon become embroiled in learning about her previously unknown magical history, the creepy spirit that influences her family, and her own unexplored powers. With the first episode already flashing back to the near past, it might not be long before we hear something of the vampires who also once lived in New Orleans.
Mayfair Witches airs Sundays on AMC, at 9 p.m. EST, and the first episode of Interview with the Vampire can be streamed without a login on the channel’s website.
