‘Talamasca’ Team Explains Guy & Jasper’s Chemistry & ‘Vampire Lestat’ Crossovers (VIDEO)
What To Know
- Talamasca: The Secret Order, premiering October 26 on AMC, follows Guy Anatole as he is recruited into the secretive organization that monitors supernatural activity, introducing a new perspective to Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe.
- Guy and the vampire Jasper develop an unexpected, intense chemistry and alliance, with Jasper’s authenticity making him more trustworthy to Guy than other characters in the series.
- The show features crossovers with The Vampire Lestat, including cameos from Eric Bogosian and Justin Kirk, and teases deeper connections to the broader Vampire Chronicles lore.
It will take a couple of episodes to see them meet, but Talasmasca: The Secret Order viewers will sense an instant connection between Guy Anatole (Nicholas Denton) and the vampire Jasper (William Fichtner) when they finally do cross paths. In the New York Comic Con interview above, Denton and Fichtner tease the instant connection between their characters and why they’re unexpected allies in the third show in AMC’s Anne Rice Immortal Universe.
Talamasca: The Secret Order debuts with two episodes on Sunday, October 26, on AMC. It centers on the secretive agency that monitors and protects humanity from the supernatural world that we’ve seen in Interview With the Vampire (now called The Vampire Lestat in Season 3) and Mayfair Witches, but its newest recruit is the entry point into the story.
Helen (Downton Abbey‘s Elizabeth McGovern), head of the Talamasca’s New York Motherhouse (headquarters), recruits Guy into her organization and informs him of their careful monitoring of his life after one of their agents is killed. She needs his gift of mind-reading to help with an ongoing high-stakes investigation. Guy meets Jasper while on this unexpected journey, when he’s looking for someone, anyone he can trust. Oddly enough, Jasper is one of Talamasca‘s most honest characters, and Guy can sense his authenticity.
Fichtner’s Jasper is a “pissed off,” “middle-class vampire,” as executive producer, director, and writer John Lee Hancock describes above. Jasper’s pissed at the Talamasca for deeply personal reasons. “There are things that the character of Guy could really help him out with,” Fichtner tells us.
Actors are frequently asked how they establish chemistry with their costars. The answer is, it’s their job to create chemistry, whether or not it’s there with their scene partners. But Denton says that building chemistry with the Talamasca cast was easy, “Particularly with Jasper, who is a fierce, fierce character in the show,” Denton says with a knowing look to Fichtner.
“We established something quite nice because I think there’s a weird friendship, brotherly,” Denton describes of Jasper and Guy’s bond. “There’s a gnarly element to it that I find brings them together.”
“I think Jasper genuinely likes him,” Fichtner adds. “Until maybe he doesn’t.”
Speaking of vampires, Eric Bogosian reprises his Interview role as Daniel Molloy in the Talamasca series premiere, and Justin Kirk returns as Raglan James in Episode 4. How does Bogosian’s cameo impact the plot of The Vampire Lestat?
“Not at all,” executive producer Mark Johnson says. “He’s a significant character again in The Vampire Lestat, and we feel that he came straight from having published Interview With the Vampire into the first season, first episode of Talamasca.”
Denton teases Kirk’s appearance in Episode 4, which is much more than just one scene. “I describe him sometimes as the slipperiest fish I’ve ever got ahold of because he’s so elusive,” he shares. “That character is just a complete quagmire, such a mystery to me.”
David Gennard / AMC
“Justin is amazing, and I really love Raglan in a way where I think Guy has a very different opinion of him, and you’ll see that in the episode,” Denton continues. “But I just think he’s such an interesting character and such massive, bold choices that Justin makes with Raglan that I think [make him] so funny. It’s great to have that as a member of the Talamasca. It’s just so unique.”
Eagle-eyed Rice fans may have noticed that a page from Blood and Gold — the eighth book in The Vampire Chronicles series, which details Marius de Romanus’ immortal life — is seen burning in a Talamasca teaser released in September. It references Amadeo (another name for Interview With the Vampire‘s Armand) and Pandora (a major character in Marius’s life), and it looks like a centuries-old page in the teaser. Is this meant to mean that the Vampire Chronicles books, which read like autobiographies from the characters, are canon in this universe and exist in the Talamasca archives?
“We were burning them, and we were on set burning different things and looking through lots of stuff,” Hancock explains of that page’s inclusion. “We thought, what is the most kind of provocative and perhaps gives insight, and perhaps doesn’t, and what is the most mysterious? And we chose that.”
“It may have just been because it burned better,” he teases with a smile.
Talamasca also stars Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Celine Buckens, with guest star Jason Schwartzman. Learn more about the expanding Immortal Universe in the full video above.
Talamasca: The Secret Order, Series Premiere, Sunday, October 26, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+
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