AMC’s The Vampire Lestat just handed its title character the mic. In the third and rebranded season of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, and for once, Lestat (Sam Reid) gets to tell his own story instead of getting filtered through Louis’s (Jacob Anderson) grudge. But Lestat’s no more trustworthy than Louis was. Three centuries of trauma, ego, and selective memory will do that to a narrator. The show leans into it. It’s visually chaotic, structurally loose, and somehow I can’t stop watching every Sunday night.
While the truth behind Lestat’s motivations for becoming a famous rock star who accidentally awakens the first vampire is muddled by his own avoidance of the past, he is an unreliable narrator who seeks to tell his version of the truth as an act of revenge against Louis. Here’s how that storytelling device works, and how you can write an unreliable narrator yourself.
What Is an Unreliable Narrator Actually?
A storyteller you can’t fully trust. They lie, they forget, they spin. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes because memory just doesn’t work that cleanly. You don’t need your narrator to be honest. You need the story to hold together: thematically, emotionally, and logically. The audience will follow a voice that bends the truth, as long as it bends with intention.
An unreliable narrator isn’t just someone with bad information. They misread events. They skip the parts that don’t flatter them. They lie outright, then slip you a true detail later just to keep you hooked. Every omission is a choice, and the audience can feel the difference between sloppy writing and a deliberate gap.
How The Vampire Lestat Uses This Storytelling Device
1. Mirror real bias instead of the objective truth.
Don’t write a narrator who’s simply wrong. Write one who’s wrong in a way that matches who they are. Lestat doesn’t misremember randomly. He misremembers or avoids answering questions to protect his own ego, his own hurt, his own need to be loved. The bias has a shape. The narrative has direction.
2. Build suspense by forcing re-interpretation.
Drop a detail late that recolors something the audience already accepted. Season one planted this early: Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) fact-checks Louis on the spot, catching him in inconsistencies. That single scene tells you, three seasons in advance, that nothing here is gospel. By the time Lestat starts narrating, you’ve already been trained to expect the rug-pull.
3. Deepen character through the self-versus-others gap.
For two seasons, Lestat was pompous, vengeful, and self-indulgent. That’s Lestat through Louis’s eyes. Hand him the narration, and you get a different person: someone chasing adoration because he’s never trusted that anyone loves him without performance. Same guy. Two readings. The gap between them is where the character actually lives.
4. Make the audience do the work.
Don’t resolve every contradiction for the viewer. Let them sit with two versions of an event and decide which one (or which piece of each) feels true. That tension creates engagement that keeps an audience glued to the screen.
5. Reward the re-watch without making anyone feel cheated.
This is the line you have to walk carefully. Plant clues that pay off on a second viewing, sure. But don’t withhold information just to spring a twist with no groundwork. While Lestat hasn’t revealed anything damning at the time of writing, his motivations remain consistent throughout, with the delivery changing. He’s the Lestat we remember, but the visuals around his existence lend more to his state of mind compared to Louis’s perception of the world. This change, paired with consistency of character, is what keeps a rewatch from feeling like a bait-and-switch.
6. Keep emotional truth steady even when facts wobble.
This is the one writers skip, and it’s the one that matters most. The audience will forgive a narrator who lies about events. They won’t forgive a narrator whose feelings don’t add up. Lestat’s facts shift constantly. His desire to be adored never does. That’s the anchor.
How to Write an Unreliable Narrator
Pick a narrator with a clear, specific bias. There’s a clear difference between abstract and intentional. Plant a small, early proof that our narrator can’t be fully trusted, the way Daniel catches Louis in season one. Let the facts shift, but anchor the motivation so it never does. And if you can, give your audience a surrogate inside the story who’s doing the doubting for them.
Get those four right and the device stops looking like a twist gimmick. It starts looking like the only way this particular story could’ve been told.