A. People are complex. We all exploit other people, but we yearn for goodness. In presenting Lestat or Louis or Armand, I was presenting the killer with a heart of gold.
Q. It has a sexual component, obviously, but also a spiritual one. It’s like they’re intertwined.
A. Part of the mystery of being a human being is that mixture of the spiritual and the animalian. We have the capacity to murder, but also the capacity to love and respond and be tender to those you need. It is complicated, which is why I have such mixed feelings about “Twilight.” It’s so sanitized. It’s based on a really silly premise: that immortals would go to high school. It’s a failure of imagination, but at the same time, that silly premise has provided Stephenie Meyer with huge success. It’s almost like a stroke of genius to put vampires in high school. They just graduate over and over again.
Q. It seems those books are sanitized whereas in the rest of pop culture, you’ll see very young girls dressed in an overtly sexual manner. The vampires are wholesome compared with the rest of what’s out there.
A. I don’t think vampires are very wholesome. They’re fantasy characters, and we have to keep reminding ourselves of this. They don’t exist. I get e-mails from people who are outraged that I watch “True Blood.” They say, “How can you condone the evil of ‘True Blood.’” I say, “Are you kidding? Vampires aren’t real. Keep that in mind.”
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