| This article is about Louis de Pointe du Lac from the novel or film. You may be looking for Louis de Pointe du Lac from the AMC adaptation. |
The name "Louis" is French, and is pronounced with a silent "s," similar to the name "Louie."
Description
He is described as having white skin, the color of bleached bone, black hair curling at the collar, and brilliant green eyes. Louis is referred to as being both particularly physically attractive (though oblivious to this himself) and human looking by both Lestat and Armand, but is initially described as looking extremely alien and unnatural by the human Daniel. He was transformed into a vampire at the age of twenty five.
Louis is described as wearing a black suit and a cape during the initial interview in Interview with the Vampire, but in later books is described as not partially caring for his appearance, often wearing clothes with holes in them or being literally covered in dust. In the Prince Lestat trilogy, he often wears an emerald ring that matches the color of his eyes.
Personality
“Some of us are infinitely better at being miserable than happy,” he said gently. “We’re good at it, and proud of it, and we get better and better at it, and we simply don’t know what it means to be happy.” - Blood Communion
Louis has a reserved and mournful personality, and is haunted by his inability to reconcile his vampirism with his own morality. Among other vampires he tends to be quiet and introverted, preferring to spend the majority of his time reading. In The Tale of the Body Thief, Lestat notes that Louis has a particular love of movies, but refuses to buy his own television, instead using Lestat's.
Beneath his quiet exterior, Louis can be prone to resentment and anger. He often expresses regret about his decision to become a vampire, and declines opportunities to enhance his power by drinking the blood of more powerful vampires. He often comments on Lestat's love of "rank materialism," and initially believes he was made into a vampire because Lestat wanted his plantation house. Lestat claims this is due to obliviousness rather than stupidity. Louis and Lestat are prone to bickering, often about Lestat's impulsivity, though Louis is also shown to have genuine fondness for and to be entertained by Lestat's eccentricity.
Louis initially lacks many of the vampiric gifts natural to other vampires in the series, and only acquires many of them after the events of Merrick. This appears to be a combination of actual weakness and his own desire to remain as human as possible.
Biography
Mortal life
Louis de Pointe du Lac was born the 4th of October of 1766 to a Roman Catholic family in France that emigrated to America when he was very young. As of 1791, he is in charge of an indigo plantation called Pointe du Lac, following the death of his father, where he lives with his younger brother Paul, sister and mother. He describes his life as more luxurious than the one he might have had in France.
Louis is close to his brother, who is fervently religious. Paul starts seeing visions of the Virgin Mary and St. Dominic, and one day comes to Louis to tell him to sell the indigo plantation to allow him to move to France to work as a missionary. Louis dismisses Paul, not believing his visions are real. After the discussion, Paul leaves Louis and falls down the stairs, dying on impact. The slaves who saw him fall say "that he had looked up as if he had just seen something in the air. Then his entire body moved forward as if being swept by a wind." Louis blames himself for his brother's death, and believes his family does as well, having overheard the raised voices from the argument prior to Paul's fall. Louis moves his family to one of their properties in New Orleans and leases out management of the plantation to avoid seeing the place where his brother died, or potentially encountering his ghost.
Louis becomes a drunkard to try to escape reality and lives recklessly: going to taverns, getting into fights and walking dangerous alleys alone, hoping to die. One night he is attacked by Lestat de Lioncourt outside his house. Lestat drinks Louis's blood, almost draining him but leaving him alive. He is found hours later ill. Louis, not understanding what has happened, assumes that he has had a stroke caused by alcohol and refuses to eat, drink or talk to the doctor. Louis' mother calls for a priest and Louis confesses for the first time his brother's visions and how he reacted to them.
‘I know I didn’t kill him,’ I said to the priest finally. ‘It’s that I cannot live now that he’s dead. Not after the way I treated him.’ -Louis, Interview with the Vampire
The priest informs Louis that what his brother had seen were visions sent from the devil, and that Paul had been possessed. Louis is infuriated by this and attacks the priest, almost killing him. That night Lestat returns for Louis, and talks him through what he might become as a vampire, and Louis accepts the offer to become a vampire, enraptured by the possibilities of an immortal life.
The next morning, Louis watches his last sunrise. Lestat makes the still-mortal Louis watch him kill the plantation's overseer and help him dispose of the body, and Louis is horrified and asks to be killed, now guilty of murder. Lestat drains him of blood on the same stairs where Louis's brother died, before allowing him to drink his own, giving him the Dark Gift, making him into a vampire.
Early Life as a Vampire
After Louis goes through the painful process of transformation, Lestat guides Louis through his first kill as a vampire, which Louis describes as being "bungled by his characteristic lack of common sense," and the two share a coffin during Louis' first day as a vampire. Louis struggles to kill humans, and discovers he can survive off of animals instead. He quickly becomes disenchanted with Lestat, believing he was only turned into a vampire to allow Lestat to live off his wealth. Louis moves back into the plantation house with Lestat and Lestat's blind, elderly father. He gives the role of the overseer and management of the plantation to the slaves, and otherwise asks for privacy, making excuses for his strange behavior and recovery from his illness. Louis becomes infatuated with his neighbor Babette after Lestat kills her brother, and encourages her to keep her plantation running, appearing to her from the shadows in what she believes is an apparition.
The slaves become increasingly suspicious of Louis and Lestat's, and Louis overhears a meeting where they and slaves from other plantations discuss their supernatural nature, and decide they must be destroyed. Louis and Lestat argue about leaving the plantation, and Lestat asks Louis to kill his father for him before they leave. Louis' refuses until Lestat forgives the old man for taking him away from the monastery where he wanted to study as a child. Louis kills Lestat's father and burns down the plantation house, and the two flee. They take shelter with Babette, who tries to trap them, thinking Louis is the devil, and then move on New Orleans.
Coven in New Orleans
In New Orleans, Louis, starved and distraught, feeds on a young girl and leaves her for dead. Lestat delights in Louis' return to killing humans, and argues with him that he should accept his killer nature. Lestat reveals that the child did not die, and gives her the Dark Gift, naming his new vampire fledgling Claudia. Claudia, Louis, and Lestat move in to a Spanish style town house in the French Quarter, and Claudia is raised a vampire, beloved of both of her fathers. Claudia realizes that she was once a human and demands answers about her nature from Lestat, who refuses to give her any. Claudia tells Louis that the two of them are trapped by Lestat, and speaks to him about leaving New Orleans to look for others of their kind.
Claudia tricks Lestat into drinking poisoned blood and kills him, and forces Louis to help her dispose of the body in a swamp. They start arranging their departure for Europe, but are attacked by the still alive Lestat and his new fledgling. In the battle, Louis lights the home on fire, and he and Claudia flee the city.
Travel in Europe and Paris
Louis and Claudia travel wherever there are rumours of vampiric behaviour and vampire folklore, but they only find mindless vampires who seem to have no purpose or reason for living. They continue their search and eventually end up in Paris. Louis encounters the first "real" vampires, similar to himself, when he encounters Santiago and Armand on the streets of Paris. He and Claudia are invited to the Theatre des Vampires.
Louis and Claudia at Théâtre des Vampires.
Louis is powerfully attracted to Armand, the leader, who tells him what he knows about their vampiric natures, but is threatened by the other members of the theater. Louis and Armand discuss philosophy at length, and the morality of killing in a world with no God or Devil. Claudia senses that Louis longs to leave her for Armand, and asks him to make a dollmaker, Madeleine into a vampire to serve as her companion. Initially refusing, Louis turns Madeleine into a vampire. Despite learning that Armand compelled him to transform her, Louis is overcome with guilt, and remains with Claudia and the now insane Madeleine.
Louis, Claudia, and Madeline are taken from their hotel by the theater troupe, and sentenced to death for the crime of attempting to kill another vampire: Lestat, who has survived and come to Paris. The vampires kill Claudia and Madeleine by leaving them in the sun, and imprison Louis in a coffin. Armand frees Louis, who discovers that Claudia is dead, and that Armand was unable to stop her execution. Louis warns Armand to stay away from the theater, and executes a plan to burn down the building and execute the vampires inside with a scythe.
Louis leaves Paris with Armand, and the two travel the world, eventually returning to New Orleans. Louis describes an encounter with Lestat, who is feeble and living in a ruined home feeding on rats, which Lestat later insists never happened. Louis declines Lestat's request that they become companions again. Armand confesses to Louis that he was responsible for Claudia's death, and Louis admits he already knew. Armand leaves Louis, realizing his pain from Claudia's death has numbed him to all passion.
Interview and Aftermath
In 1973, Louis meets a boy, Daniel Molloy, in San Francisco, and agrees to tell him the story of his life. After the interview Daniel asks Louis to make him into a vampire. Louis, enraged by Daniel's misunderstanding of his story, drinks his blood and leaves him, not knowing whether or not he will survive.
After the publication of the book Interview with the Vampire, Louis lives in hiding from the rest of vampire kind, who he knows will seek to kill him for revealing their existence in the book, and for the deaths of the vampires in Paris. He hides in San Francisco on Divisadero Street, knowing that the actual location of the interview is the last place they expect him to be.
Louis seeks out Lestat at his hiding place the night before his concert in 1985, and asks him not to go through with it. Lestat dismisses Louis' concerns, and asks him to come with him to the concert. Lestat kisses Louis before going onstage, and afterwards Louis helps Lestat fight off attacking vampires as they leave the venue. When vampires in the crowd begin bursting into flames, Lestat’s mother, Gabrielle, appears in a getaway car, and they flee the pursuing vampires.
The car ends up crashing and bursting into flames with Louis inside, but he manages to escape the car unharmed. The three discuss the possible source of the fire that killed the attacking vampires. Louis and Gabrielle seek shelter from the sun and when they rise they find Lestat gone. Louis and Gabrielle go to join the vampires who survived the attacks, and hear Maharet's story of Akasha and how all vampires came into being. When Akasha arrives and argues with the assembled vampires about the fate of humanity, Louis argues that their say in the matter died with their humanity. Akasha calls Louis "most predatory of all the immortals here," as he kills without accounting for age, morality, or the will to live of his victims.
After Akasha is killed, Louis initially goes to Night Island with the remaining vampires. Louis hears the story from Jesse of how she saw Claudia's ghost in the old flat Lestat, Louis and Claudia used to share. Louis goes back to the old flat, and Lestat finds him there, and they visit Louis' grave. Lestat asks Louis if he loves him now, and Louis replies that he does. Lestat takes Louis with him as he flies to London and takes him to the Talamasca, where Lestat talks to David Talbot. Louis asks him to leave David alone, which Lestat laughs at.
Late 20th Century in New Orleans
As of 1990, Louis and Lestat have both moved back to New Orleans. Louis is living in a cottage behind a decaying Victorian mansion that he owns, and routinely coming to Lestat's apartment in the French Quarter to use his television.
Lestat visits Louis to tell him that he has been approached by a man who says it is possible for Lestat to switch bodies with him. Louis warns Lestat against switching bodies, as it would be dangerous for someone to have control over Lestat's body, and if anything were to go wrong, Lestat would be helpless. Shortly after, having ignored Louis' advice, Lestat in breaks into Louis' cottage in his new mortal body. Louis, not recognizing the intruder, attacks Lestat and his dog Mojo before realizing what Lestat has done. Lestat begs Louis to change him into a vampire to let him recover his stolen body, but Louis refuses, saying he is jealous of Lestat's opportunity to be mortal again. In retaliation, Lestat removes Louis' expensive paintings from his house before burning it down.
Once Lestat has recovered his vampire body, he and Louis move back in to their newly restored flat on the Rue Royale. Louis is visited by David Talbot, who tells him how he has been unwillingly made into a vampire by Lestat in the mortal body Lestat recently inhabited. David invites Lestat and Louis to go with him to Rio for Carnival, and the three become companions traveling in South America. They part ways with David about a year prior to Memnoch the Devil, and Lestat and Louis move back to to their flat in New Orleans. Louis takes to "wandering" more often, occasionally visiting Armand in Paris.
After Lestat returns from his journey to Heaven and Hell with Memnoch, Louis greets him at St. Elizabeth's in New Orleans, which he has staged for his return. Louis helps Maharet and David bind Lestat in chains, and later visits him and tells him he has been reading Roger's books. Louis tells Lestat that he will be waiting for Lestat's return to sanity at their old flat. Lestat remains lying prone, and Louis is among the group of vampires who guard him from younger vampires who come to see him. When Armand appears at the chapel after his apparent suicide, Louis is happy to see him alive, but warns him against trying to drink Lestat's blood. Louis offers Armand a napkin to wipe his face after he is thrown into the wall.
Merrick
Lestat briefly reawakens and all the vampires leave except for Louis and David. David and Louis continue to live in New Orleans in the flat together while Lestat remains half-catatonic. Louis encounters a witch in the streets of New Orleans who he mistakes for someone "looking for death" and who he later finds out is a member of the Talamasca who David once knew, Merrick Mayfair. Louis asks David to ask her if she has the ability to bring back the ghost of Claudia, as Louis has been haunted by the question of whether Claudia reached any type of an afterlife. David does this and returns to Louis to tell him Merrick's life story.
After hearing the story, Louis still wants to move forward with the ritual to summon Claudia,and upon meeting Merrick, he falls in love with her instantly. Louis hands over a photograph of Claudia he has kept all these years, and Claudia's diary, which contains an entry where Claudia details her plan to manipulate Louis after Lestat's death because, of the two, he was easier to manipulate. Merrick starts the spell, warning Louis of the danger that the spirit that they contact may not be Claudia, but may instead be something else. Merrick calls upon the spirit of Claudia, who becomes visible to Louis and David. The ghost mocks Louis, saying that she never loved him, and taunts him with the idea that he has trapped her in death outside of the gates of Heaven, lost forever in a void. Claudia's ghost fades as she beckons Louis to join her in the beyond, as he begs Merrick to keep her from being lost.
After the ritual, Louis is convinced that the ghost was Claudia, and David fears he may take his own life. Louis becomes passionately infatuated and obsessed with Merrick, and demands to see her alone, and David makes him promise not to do her any harm. Louis turns Merrick into a vampire, and immediately after taking her to her daily hiding place, arranges to sleep in an open topped coffin, killing himself with sunlight. Merrick and David find his charred remains, and Lestat, free of his torpor, appears and decides Louis would have wanted them to try to bring him back if they can. Lestat, David and Merrick all use their blood to return Louis to health, and Louis drinks heavily from Lestat to regain his strength. Merrick reveals that she used magic to make Louis fall in love with her, as part of her plan to get immortality. An angry letter arrives from the Talamasca demanding that Merrick and David be returned to them, enraging Lestat. Louis and David talk Lestat out of escalating the conflict, and the four vampires arrange to leave New Orleans.
Companion of Prince Lestat
Louis parts ways with Lestat at some point within the following three years, and some point prior to 2013, Louis moves in with Armand, Sybelle, and Benji at Trinity Gate in New York. Louis is present at the house for the gathering of vampires and Lestat's ascension to the role of Prince. At the end of the novel Prince Lestat, Louis has a brief point of view chapter, where he reflects on the moral dilemmas and turmoils of his life, how he has moved past them, and how he has accepted his place in the world, and concludes that he is ready to be with Lestat again.
A few months later, Louis meets with Lestat in New Orleans, and the two discuss their relationship. Louis decides to accompany Lestat to the Vampire Court in France, where he becomes his companion and advisor, sharing a suite of rooms decorated in a style similar to their Rue Royale home. Louis sits out the meeting with the Replimoids, but sees he is not affected by the harm that comes to the other vampires when Amel is distressed. Realizing he has become disconnected from Amel due to his heart stopping after his attempted suicide, Louis works with Dr. Fareed on the plan to disconnect all vampires from the Sacred Core, which is ultimately successful.
In Blood Communion, Louis continues to serve as one of Lestat's advisors. When Rhoshamandes captures Gabrielle and the Court goes into hiding, Louis hides in the crypts with Lestat, but is taken in Rhoshamandes' second attack and presumed dead. He is found alive and revived with the others captured. Louis dances with Lestat at the celebratory ball, and discusses Nicolas with Lestat for the first time. On the mural on the ceiling of the ballroom at the Chateau, he is painted between Fontayne, Pandora's fledgling, and Claudia.
In Adaptations
In the 1994 film Interview with the Vampire, Louis was portrayed by Brad Pitt. Louis was not included in the 2002 film Queen of the Damned. The character appears in the second act of the musical Lestat, and was played by Jim Stanek in both the San Francisco and Broadway productions. In the AMC Television adaptation Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, the role of Louis de Pointe du Lac is portrayed by Jacob Anderson.
Image Gallery
Appearances in Adaptations
