# Queen of the Damned

Queen of the Damned is a 2002 American-Australian supernatural horror vampire fantasy film about the vampire Lestat who has become a London/Los Angeles-based glam rock band singer musician whose has woken up the equally beautiful and monstrous Ancient Egyptian queen of all vampires, Akasha. Based on the novels The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice.
    Written by Anne Rice (novels) and Scott Abbott (screenplay). Directed by Michael Rymer.

## Lestat

* [At start and voice over] There comes a time for every vampire when the idea of eternity becomes momentarily unbearable. Living in the shadows, feeding in the darkness with only your own company to keep, rots into a solitary, hollow existence. Immortality seems like a good idea, until you realize you're going to spend it alone. So I went to sleep, hoping that the sounds of the passing eras would fade out, and a sort of death might happen. But as I lay there, the world didn't sound like the place I had left, but something different. [Rock music starts] Better. It became worthwhile to rise again as new gods were born and worshipped. Night and day, they were never alone. I would become one of them. [Feeds on a pimp] Whether it was that first meal, or a hundred years of rest, I'm not sure. But suddenly I was feeling better than ever. My senses so high they led me straight to the instrument of my resurrection, playing in my old house.
* From that moment on, they were my friends, my children, my band. Giving the world a new god... me.
* Many times since then I've called for Marius, but there was no answer. Just the endless precession of days, months, years... My teacher left me to my darkest lesson, that in the end, we are alone, and there is nothing but the cold, dark wasteland of eternity.
* Boo back. [Proceeds to smiles]
* [In a TV interview cast worldwide, talking to all the vampires listening] Come out, come out, wherever you are.
* [To Jessie] Well, I can fix that.
* The question provoked an irresistible urge...I am the vampire Lestat. It just rolled out of my mouth. With one simple sentence I had betrayed everything about my kind. Betrayed our code of secrecy.
* Maybe I'm trying to resurrect a few old friends. Daring them to come out.
* I impressed my maker with my thirst for things. He set out to educate me in the unknown. Taught me all about the world, its hidden history... and about myself
* My senses run amok, like a newborn child. And as for my new powers, I was beside myself with the pleasure of it all...
* But why must we hide, Marius? We are the powerful, we are the immortal. We should walk fearless in the open!
* The faces of my victims haunted me, reminding me of my fate... For nights and nights I played, furious. Never again I would participate in the simple joys of life. I was meant for more than this.
* Come, let me show you what it means to live in the light.
* Such reverence for mortals! Then you should have left me as one!
* This may be painful for a mortal. You're still attached to your skin.
* Clever librarian.

## Akasha

* Join me or die!
* I know that you crave to have the world at your feet. And I have come to give it to you.
* I'd like for you to kill her. [To Lestat, regarding Jesse]
* See my children, remember your real family, or join hers.
* You kill me, you kill yourselves.
* Just the same, I'd like you to kill her.
* You still dare to challenge me, Maharet?
* My children... it warms my blood to see you all gathered, plotting against me.
* Come, my love. We have a score to settle.
* They believed in nothing, now they are nothing. But you and I will change all that. We will give the world something to believe in.
* We live everywhere and anywhere we choose. The world is our garden.

## Marius

* She takes pleasure in only one thing: destroying life.
* Appreciate your prey. [While teaching Lestat how to kill]

## Dialogue

    Lestat: But I never understood until I met you.
    Jessie: What do you mean?
    Lestat: You’re beautiful to me because you’re human. Your frailty, your short years, your heart; even as you think it’s breaking. All that seems suddenly more precious than anything I’ve ever known.
    Jessie: Not as precious as you think.
    Lestat: How did you manage to slip through the 50's in red velvet?
    Marius: I slept.
    Lestat: You didn't miss much.
    Marius: ...Elvis.
    Lestat: Elvis, yes.
    Jesse: Boo.
    Lestat: Boo back.
    Lifestyle Journalist: Do you have anything you want to say to the other vampires listening out there?
    Lestat: Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
    Lestat: I don't have time for this.
    Jessie: All a vampire has is time.
    Lestat: Not this one!
    Jessie: Thanks.
    Lestat: For what?
    Jessie: You saved me.
    Lestat: How presumptuous.
    Lestat: Well, that makes you a very clever librarian, Talamascan. I knew I left that journal somewhere. So, was it a good read?
    Jessie: It touched me.
    Lestat: Did it now? Don't worry, Jessie. Your kind never satisfied my thirst.
    Akasha: You're bold like your music. You lived your life in the open like I did, long ago, when I had a king.
    Lestat: Had a king?
    Akasha: He's no more. Now you are my consort.
    Lestat: A London goth. It's funny. I would have pegged you for a Talamascan.
    Jessie: Maybe in another lifetime.
    LA Groupie: I'm an a Episcopalian!
    Roger: And I'm a friggin Buddhist. Uh, Lestat...
    Lestat: Roger, would you take our little Episcopalian back to church?
    Lestat: So, you know Marius?
    Jessie: I know a lot of things.
    Lestat: Not how to stay alive, apparently.
    Jessie: O, I guess we have that in common, though I think I'm a little ahead of the race, here.
    Lestat: Well, I can fix that.
    Jessie: Your song "Redeemer" is about the girl with the violin?
    Lestat: Is it. And what else do you think you know?
    Jessie: You want...
    Lestat: What do I want?
    Jessie: You yearn...
    Lestat: What do I yearn... what do I yearn...
    Jessie: To walk with the living... out of the cold dark waste land of eternity.
    Lestat: Well, that makes you a very clever librarian Talamascan. I knew I left that journal somewhere.
    Lestat: Akasha!
    Akasha: Why so surprised, my love. You've called, I've come.
    Lestat: My love?
    Marius: In all those years I've kept them not once have they moved.
    Lestat: Until tonight, and she chose me. Marius: I chose you!
    Club Vampire: You like him do you?
    Akasha: He reminds me of someone.
    Club Vampire: Well all he's going to remind you of is a pile of bones. We're going to dismember him, bleed him dry.
    Akasha: Really? Is that what you're going to do?
    David Talbot: Can I ask...?
    Jessie: What's it like?
    David Talbot: Yes.
    Jessie: Do you want to find out?
    David Talbot: Me? No, no - I'm too old to live forever.
    [Maharet has just become a living statue]
    Armand: She drank Akasha's last drop. She took Akasha's death into herself.
    Marius: No, she's not dead. She sleeps.
    Journalist: Yes, but these other vampires, aren't they going to be pissed off at you giving away their secrets?
    Lestat: Hmm... I imagine they are... yes...!

## About Queen of the Damned

* It's definitely fun to explore that side of yourself and that side of yourself that you keep hidden in your everyday life because you know you're not supposed to go there unless it's absolutely necessary
    And yes, it's fun to just be that mean, evil and see how far you can really go.
    I think everybody has a bit of a fascination with the dark side and I myself have always loved the dark side as well.
   * Aaliyah
* I wanted to, like, grab her off the screen and sit her right down next to me but couldn't,
   * Rashad
* So I was never worried about comparisons or intimidated by Tom Cruise doing this because it's like the rock 'n' roll, tongue-in-cheek version.
   * Stuart Townsend

## Cast

* Aaliyah — Queen Akasha (film final role)
* Stuart Townsend — Lestat de Lioncourt
* Marguerite Moreau — Jessica 'Jesse' Reeves
* Vincent Perez — Marius de Romanus
* Paul McGann — David Talbot
* Lena Olin — Maharet
* Christian Manon — Mael
* Claudia Black — Pandora
* Bruce Spence — Khayman
* Matthew Newton — Armand
* Tiriel Mora — Roger

## External links

* Queen of the Damned quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Queen of the Damned at Rotten Tomatoes