Why Louis From Interview With The Vampire Looks So Familiar

In 1994, director Neil Jordan worked with "The Vampire Chronicles" scribe Anne Rice to bring her series of gothic horror novels to the big screen. The result was "Interview with the Vampire," a star-studded affair starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and a plucky up-and-coming actress named Kirsten Dunst, who was never the same after playing Claudia.

Since the 1994 film, there have been efforts to successfully franchise Rice's source material, including the critically maligned 2002 movie "Queen of the Damned," starring Aaliyah. Now, AMC is taking another stab at Rice's work with an "Interview with the Vampire" series. The network is so confident in its gambit that it has already renewed the series for a second season ahead of the Season 1 premiere on October 2.

Despite the vote of confidence from AMC, the cast still has intimidatingly big shoes to fill. Sam Reid will play the malevolent vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and Bailey Bass will play Claudia. Here's why the actor set to play Louis de Pointe du Lac looks so familiar.

Jacob Anderson will portray Louis de Pointe du Lac on "Interview with a Vampire," and he's had his share of notable roles dating back more than a decade. Born in Bristol, England, Anderson's earliest roles were on British series and TV movies, including single-episode appearances in the Birmingham-set medical series "Doctors," the police drama "The Bill," and the supernatural "Primeval." He collaborated twice with director Noel Clarke, appearing in his 2008 film "Adulthood" and the 2010 follow-up "4.3.2.1" alongside Emma Roberts. In the former project, Anderson — who is a musician as well as an actor — was also featured on the soundtrack (via IMDb).

In 2011, Anderson secured his first recurring role in the miniseries "Injustice." The five-part drama stars James Purefoy as Will Travers, a criminal defense lawyer living in the Suffolk countryside after having left London — and the mental and emotional scars of a murder case — a year prior. For three episodes, Anderson appears as Simon, a loud-mouthed juvenile delinquent at the Young Offenders' Center at which Will's wife, Jane (Dervla Kirwan), is a counselor.

Jacob Anderson would continue to rack up television roles following his performance in "Injustice," including a rite of passage for any young Briton with acting aspirations: a single-episode appearance in the soapy teen series "Skins."

Anderson flexed his actorly muscles by appearing in a show within a show on "Episodes." When a married comedy-writing duo hopes to remake their British series in the United States, the network casts Matt LeBlanc (playing a fictional version of himself) as their leading man. They also rename the series — called "Lyman's Boys" in the UK — to "Pucks!" In Season 2, Anderson plays an actor named Kevin Garillo who portrays a boarding school hockey player on the fictional "Pucks!" Garillo, along with his youthful co-stars, threatens LeBlanc when they become the show's most popular actors.

Anderson nabbed another recurring role on the crime drama series "Broadchurch" in 2013 (via IMDb). He appears in six episodes of Season 1 as Dean Thomas, a farmhand and boyfriend to Chloe Latimer (Charlotte Beaumont).

Jacob Anderson took on two new roles in 2013. One is a ten-episode turn as Steven on the Channel 4 series "The Mimic." The other, for which Anderson is perhaps best known, is "Game of Thrones." The actor joined the famed HBO series in Season 3 and would play the role of Grey Worm, one of Daenerys Targaryen's (Emilia Clarke) most trusted advisors, until Season 8 in 2019 (via IMDb).

For Anderson, "Game of Thrones" introduced him to a legion of established, eccentric fans. In an interview with Absolute Radio, he delved into his most surreal fan interaction. "I was in New York, and a guy shouted at me on the subway," the actor said. "He said something to the effect of, 'F yeah, Grey Worm!' He shouted it across the tube, and then said nothing after that. It was a completely isolated incident, and then he went back to his business. That was pretty surreal."

For his next big outing, Jacob Anderson kept things fantastical with "Doctor Who." He joined the beloved sci-fi series ahead of Season 13 as a recurring character named Vinder. The role reunited Anderson with "Doctor Who" showrunner Chris Chibnall, who also created "Broadchurch." For Anderson, joining the Whoniverse fulfilled a lifelong dream. "The Doctor has been a part of my life forever, from watching and rewatching the serials on VHS as a kid and being terrified, to unexpectedly finding my eyes watering when the Tenth Doctor said 'I don't want to go," aid Anderson (via RadioTimes).

Anderson said that acting in "Game of Thrones" prepared him for the more fantastical elements of "Doctor Who" — at least when it came to on-set antics. "People will always be like, well, 'Game of Thrones' is tens of millions of dollars, whatever, per episode," Anderson told EW. "But there were days on 'Game of Thrones' when one of the assistant directors was dressed up like in a green suit trotting around pretending to be a horse. It's really hard to take it seriously ... So I think I was prepared in that way." Surely those principles will guide him on "Interview with the Vampire" as well.