Star Left Out Of AMC’s ‘Interview With the Vampire’ S2 FYC Rollout

Fans of AMC’s Interview With the Vampire are up in arms over what appears to be a major slight of one of Season 2’s brightest stars for potential Golden Globes glory.

The network began its “For Your Consideration” campaign for next year’s ceremony on Wednesday, giving special mention to lead actors Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, and Delainey Hayles for their portrayals of immortal vampires Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and Claudia, respectively, on social media.

However, no mentions were seemingly made of actor Assad Zaman, who played the vampire Armand in Season 2, and was one of the main focuses of its storyline.

Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire kicked off moments after the events of Season 1, with actor Assad Zaman fully stepping into the shoes of an iconic character from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles novels.

In the episode’s opening scene, as recapped by Vulture, a stunned Daniel Malloy (Eric Bogosian) realizes that the servant who has been at Louis’ hip the entire time is not Rashid, but Armand, Louis’ current lover and a 514-year-old powerful vampire, played by Zaman.

Armand claims to have saved Daniel from a rageful Louis in 1973, when the cynical writer first attempted to interview the 100-year plus Louis in San Francisco.

Throughout Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire, the story mainly focuses on Armand’s courtship of Louis as the latter is still racked with guilt over seemingly killing Lestat, his former lover and the vampire who sired him, in the Season 1 finale.

We soon learn that Armand and Lestat have their own connection, and that Armand’s quiet jealousy, played to great effect by Zaman, is related to their past.

On Wednesday evening, the official social media accounts of AMC’s Interview With the Vampire began its For Your Consideration campaign for next year’s Golden Globes ceremony.

Actor Jacob Anderson was given the network’s top honor as a potential nominee for Best Performance by a Lead Actor In A Television Drama Series. Sam Reid followed with a Best Performance by A Male Actor In a Supporting Role mention, and Delainey Hayles received their vote for Best Performance by a Female Actor In A Supporting Role on Television.

The Interview With a Vampire series itself was presented a Best Television Series – Drama contender. Zaman, however, failed to receive such a credit for his work in Season 2.

Fans of the series and Zaman’s performance then rallied together to ask AMC how they could ignore the work the South Asian actor provided during the season.

X/Twitter user RODRICKSRULE stated, “Don’t get me wrong – these are all well-deserved,  but Assad played a major role this season, and should also be included without question.”

Fellow user _likeknives brought up the factor of Reid/Lestat barely appearing in Season 2, only coming into prominence toward the end of its run.

“Listen, I like Sam Reid just fine,” they explained, “but how do you nominate him instead of Assad [Zaman] for this category? Assad had a bigger role than Sam in [Season 2].”

Some, unsurprisingly, wondered if Zaman’s race played a factor in him failing to be offered consideration for a potential Golden Globes nomination.

“One day, we’ll have a very honest conversation about the way so many productions treat their South Asian actors,” X user bellalugosi shared.

Although he is featured in every episode of Interview With the Vampire’s second season, Episode 5 of the set is considered by many to be an exemplary show of Zaman’s talent.

(Spoilers ahead. Please avoid if necessary.)

In the episode, “Don’t Be Afraid, Just Start the Tape,” as also recapped by Vulture, the audience is taken back to 1973, and the day Daniel first attempted to interview Louis.

Through Season 2, we catch glimpses of Daniel’s memory of that fateful event slowly returning to him. In the episode, he discovers that his introduction to Armand in the season opener was not the first time the two actually met.

Following a heated argument between Louis and Armand over the latter’s part in the death of Claudia, Louis storms away and attempts to end his immortal life by standing in the sun. Armand saves him in the nick of time, but refuses to immediately help Louis heal from his near-fatal wounds.

Daniel, having bore witness to the argument and its aftermath, is then psychologically tortured by Armand and is almost killed due to his jealousy (he believes Daniel triggers memories of one of Louis’ past loves).

Before he can follow through on this final act, Louis, somewhat healed but not completely, stops Armand from carrying it out. Armand manages to alter Daniel’s memory of the prior evening before literally dumping him in a pile of garbage.

It is then learned that Armand has done the same to Daniel’s memory regarding that evening, and has been doing so for possibly decades.

Speaking to TV Insider back in August, Zaman shared how he knew Season 2, Episode 5 of Interview With the Vampire would change the game moving forward.

“When I read Episode 5, I was like, this is genius,” the actor shared. “For four episodes [in Season 2] and [all of] Season 1, we live in these eras that are romantic and that are full of culture and life. But then, suddenly we’re thrust into this bottleneck that is really quite claustrophobic because we don’t leave the apartment in San Francisco.”

“It’s such a different time [for these characters],” he went on to say. “It’s so fascinating.”

Zaman was further “blown away” by the shift in Armand’s character in the episode, as he told Entertainment Weekly. However, he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to pull the dark turn off.

“Oh my God, I was blown away, but then I thought, ‘I am never going to be able to do this. I can’t do it,'” he admitted. “[When it comes to] Armand, you see every facet of him, every desperate facet, and that was really fun to play. It was the first episode I shot, so that was scary, but I’m glad I did.”

Both seasons of Interview With the Vampire are now streaming on AMC+. The show was renewed for a third season just four days after the Season 2 premiere, which TVLine reported back in June.