Finding the coven in Paris should have been a positive experience for Claudia, who'd longed to find others like her in a world of mortals.
But Parisian coven life was far from rainbows and butterflies.
Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Episode 4 saw her slowly disillusioned with her new role at the theater, pushing her further away from them and toward a mortal with whom she found a connection.
It's been a fascinating and overwhelming sad affair thus far for Claudia, played this season by Delainey Hayles, who's a revelation as the intelligent and deliciously complex vampire.
Hayles brings warmth and passion to Claudia, who slowly feels excluded from the coven and her place in it as the performances pile up and the infantilization reaches new heights.
It was a pleasure chatting with Hayles, who was gracious and kind in her responses.
We discussed not only this past hour but the season as a whole and her appreciation of the dedicated Immortals Universe fanbase. Enjoy!
Claudia started to bond with Madeleine in this hour. What is it about her that you think drew Claudia in?
Because it seems like it might come from a place of loneliness and feeling not as accepted in the coven.
I think it is exactly that. I think they have a mutual understanding.
They see something in each other that is loneliness in a way, but they're both being ostracized by their community, and they see that there's pain in each other's eyes, and they flock to each other.
There's a mutual understanding of loneliness and pain and seeing that they've been through something, and they don't really need to talk about what it is. They understand it.
Going back to Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Episode 3 and into episode four, what do you think Claudia felt when she got that baby doll dress, and do you think at the time she foresaw how things would play out?
Or was she so enraptured in the coven at that point that she was just willing to do anything to ingratiate herself?
Claudia is very intelligent, but I think she does get wrapped up in the coven life a lot.
She's desperate for people to put her first, and this group of people seems like they're doing that, and that's all she's wanted. So, she's going in guns blazing. But yeah, I feel like it's something that she is sitting with.
She knows the treatment is not the best but thinks, "If I just push a little further, then I'll be where I want to be with this coven. If I just keep going, they'll accept me. If I just keep, just keep, just keep." But yeah, it doesn't maybe go that way.
But when she receives the dress, in the beginning, when I was reading the script, I thought it was devastation, but it's actually pure horror.
It's genuine horror for her. And she has a moment of suffocation in it. And it's not like sadness; it's devastation, but it's more horror.
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Does her desire to find other vampires and to be around people like her make her a little bit naive in a way?
It's funny because I hate giving her that label.
I know.
I think as humans or as vampires, we flock to people who are like us. It's just nature.
And in doing so, we don't lose a part of ourselves, but we discover a part of ourselves that is longing to belong. So, I don't want to say she's naive, but she does get wrapped up in the coven life.
She's the extremely intelligent vampire we still know her to be, but she thinks she's fitting in somewhere.
The confrontation between Louis and Claudia is, first of all, it's so good. You are amazing in that scene.
Could you walk me through Claudia's feelings there? Does she start to feel like she's almost re-living the same life she had with Louis and Lestat, but just in a different font?
How does she feel like she's going to deal with this divide with Louis and always feeling like she's second to somebody else?
In that argument, we played it many different ways when filming, but it's not a shock for her. It's not a shock that he's done this, but it's still heartbreaking.
She thought it would be different this time. And I think she was clinging onto the last bit of hope. We're in a different country, Louis.
We have each other. But then he picks Armand over her. Again, she knows Louis better than he knows himself. So I wouldn't say it's a shock that he picked Armand, but it is heartbreaking because they were on this journey together.
Does she feel like this is different, or it could be different?
I think she thinks it's a repeat. She's living the same emotions again, like, "We did this, Louis; why are we doing it again?"
How was it learning the languages needed for Claudia this season?
I had a lot of fun with the languages. I really did.
Our dialect coach, Marina, was also our language coach. She made it so easy for me and I rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed the languages.
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In my little apartment, I had little pieces of paper everywhere. So before I left, I would recite the language that it was.
I find French very hard, harder than the Romanian, the Russian, and the German.
I was with Roxane [Duran], so she was trying to help me, but I didn't know my mouth doesn't move that way.
I had a lot of fun learning the languages, and I contemplated picking up German a bit because I did a bit in school. So that's why it came to me quicker. But I'm probably also just very lazy.
In Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Episode 2, Claudia asks Louis, "Who are you, Louis?" How do you think that Claudia would answer that same question about herself?
Oh, that's such a good question. I think she would give you a surface-level answer because I think she thinks she knows who she is, but I don't think she does. And because she's so multifaceted, I don't think she's just one thing. She's not just one thing.
It's hard to figure her out because she's also trying to find where she lies in life.
But she would tell you a surface-level answer.
She'd say she's very strong-headed. She would say that she's open-minded as well. But I think that's a very difficult question for her to answer.
Do you see any similarities between yourself and Claudia?
I think in the beginning, I was like, "No." But then, playing her, she was like therapy in a way. I've not carried that level of anger around me in my life. And it turns out I maybe do have a bit of that inside. I just never have been able to explore it in that way.
And Claudia gave me that opening, but at the same time, that's a lot to have on a person.
Her circumstances make living so difficult for her. And I found myself being in anger a lot, which is sad because I think she's a very happy vampire at her core, but living is hard for her.
I went to social media to ask fans if they had any questions that they would love to ask you.
The number one thing I got back was people wanting you to know how brilliant you are in the role, how much they adore you, and how much they love your portrayal of Claudia.
So, in keeping with that, how have you found the reception to the role and being a part of the Immortals Universe?
It's been lovely. I only take in so much because I get scared and don't know how to work Instagram properly.
But I see the messages that get sent to me, and they're all very nice.
I've been welcomed very, very nicely, and I can't lie. In the beginning, I thought it was going to be the opposite, but it hasn't. It's been lovely.
***This interview has been edited for length and clarity.***
You can watch Interview with the Vampire on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC.