Seriously, picture an early-2000s, half-washed-up but still fame-hungry Lestat.
(Since after all, Anne did establish that he’s got a fucking Greatest Hits album, in defiance of all logic. Two can play at that game.)
He doesn’t tour any more, but clearly he’s still dropping albums every few years which are snapped up by his aging fanbase, now in their 40s and generally respectable. It’s a running gag on various forums to speculate regarding his plastic surgery and Botox bills, or whether the label just bumped the original Lestat off years ago and keeps replacing him with younger stand-ins.
So MTV wants to do an episode of Cribs with him, and of course he says yes because fuck it in this I’m just ignoring continuity and going with a post-QotD world.
It’s a fucking disaster.
His manager is a little weaselly guy in a full suit who obviously and loudly hates this entire idea. His lawyer, Christine, is semi-retired in the Bahamas and can’t be reached for assistance half the time.
This does not seem to have much of an effect on The Man In Question.
All the Cribs people want is to just film the episode, have some laughs. Everybody knows Lestat is a high-energy presence, lots of personality, and crazy ostentations, so it should be fun, but.
Buuuuut.
This motherfucker.
This fucking character asshole with his dedication to schtick.
Won’t meet them before dusk, or even answer phone calls during the day. Won’t let them even go into his Malibu mansion to film during the day, for B-Roll, because “The decor is designed to be viewed at night. Besides, I don’t want anyone unsupervised; it could be dangerous.”
Refuses to let them film his kitchen, which they can’t even figure out the location of based on the footprint of the building and the routes they take through it once they finally do go over after sundown on the appointed day.
Lestat’s in full makeup. Face painted white, fake fangs in, long nails, hair big and shiny as Hell–looks just like his stage persona and album covers in his goddamn home. He’s wearing ripped jeans and a horrifying all-leather frock coat and entirely too much jewelry. He shows them his collection of violins and guitars, and it’s exhausting because he never shuts off the persona. Has a story about the history of all of them.
His manager, or handler, or whatever, is there, still loathing every second of this with every fiber of his being. He straightens any object anyone touches seconds after it’s been filmed. It seems like a stressful job.
They tour down halls decorated in the most clashing mishmash of styles known to humankind–gold trim, Baroque mirrors, black lace, intricate carpets, 60s psychedelic prints, several original Nagels hung up in the movie room. (The movie room is actually rather cool, velvety-black with multiple screens and everything from Betamax to Laserdisc to DVD to an full-on projector. Enormous squashy couches, daybeds, and beanbag chairs are the order of the day.)
Every light in the place blazes all the time; someone asks about his electricity bills, and the manager takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose at the number Lestat responds with.
Finally Lestat is almost giggling as he lead the crew down a flight of thickly-carpeted stairs to a basement corridor painted a surprisingly soothing blue-grey. There are a number of doorways, each with a keypad instead of a normal lock.
He grins widely, showing off the dental work, and proudly swings wide the one at the end to reveal a room where a dark-haired man sits, reading, seemingly startled by the intrusion.
The crew is so distracted by the Surprise Boyfriend that at first they fail to notice what Lestat’s perched on, and when they do–panning down over the steel-blue casket with goldtone hardware and velvet upholstery–the signature line bursts out French-accented on a rush of laughter.
“You see–this is where the magic happens!”
(They end up running it on Halloween, with some altered graphics on the logo for the gimmick of MTV: Crypts.)
