Interview with the Vampire Award Snubs: The Walking Dead History Repeating Itself

When it comes to awards, evidently dragons are fine, but zombies and vampires aren’t. That’s what it certainly looks like given that House of the Dragon took home Best Drama TV Series at the 2023 Golden Globes after HBO’s flagship Game of Thrones dominated awards shows during its eight-season run. How is it that Interview with the Vampire didn’t earn any nominations at the Golden Globes or Critics Choice Awards? I daresay history seems to be repeating itself. 

As a longtime fan of AMC’s The Walking Dead, I can tell you that it was a great show that rivales—if not surpassed—Game of Thrones. When I put my entertainment journalist hat on, I can tell you that The Walking Dead had some of the grittiest, visceral and poignant moments in the history of television. We’re talking gut-wrenching scenes of human suffering coupled with characters being forced to make impossible decisions to save lives; for a show about zombies, the real drama in the TWD Universe has always come at the hands of other people, and it’s here where you’ll see some of the best performances in TV history. 

However, despite these amazing performances, TWD was shut out of major awards shows. While it earned a number of Primetime Emmy nominations for technical things like makeup, visual effects, sound and stunt coordination (and won for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie or a Special in 2011 and 2012), the series was never recognized by major awards shows. 

Juxtapose that with Game of Thrones, which took home a whopping 59 Primetime Emmy Awards alone, including wins for most of the technical categories as well as Best Drama and several acting categories as well. 

It was always puzzling that The Walking Dead was consistently rebuffed and Game of Thrones celebrated. It’s for that reason that I’m concerned about the lack of awards for Interview with the Vampire.

Interview with the Vampire vs House of the Dragon

If you’ve ever listened to an awards after show interview with someone who didn’t win, you’ll often hear them say it was an honor to be nominated. For the most part, that’s absolutely true. Once nominated, you can add “Golden Globe Nominee” or “Emmy Nominated” to your name, show title or movie title and it gives you even more gravitas. 

If you’re not nominated, you don’t get to do that. 

It’s not clear why The Walking Dead was consistently snubbed by the Emmys and Golden Globes (and all of the other major and mid-major awards, for that matter). If Game of Thrones could win, then surely The Walking Dead could, too; if a show set in a fantasy universe could win, then a show about life in the zombie apocalypse could win, too. 

By that metric, then, a show about vampires should also be able to win. 

For the sake of the argument, though, let’s strip away the vampire aspect. Let’s just look at the incredible performances from Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Eric Bogosian and Bailey Bass. 

Anderson and Reid should have been nominated for lead performances. Take away Louis as a vampire and you have a homosexual Black businessman struggling to find his place in a world where he doesn’t fit. Lestat is a man so desperate for love and affection that he puts up a brave front and enters into toxic relationships to satisfy his needs. 

Bogosian should absolutely have a supporting actor nomination as an older man looking back on the folly of his youth in the face of a debilitating disease and in the company of people who will never die. 

And Bailey Bass, well, she deserves more than a supporting actor nod but Claudia wasn’t around enough to get a lead nomination, but by God her performance was amazing. She aged before our very eyes, going from a 14-year-old teen to a grown woman trapped in a child’s body, with only her changing wardrobe, her tone and her womanly inflection hinting at a maturity hiding behind a child’s face. 

In short, all four of these performances should have been nominated for a Golden Globe or Critics Choice Award. And the writers, set design, costume design and music department need nominations, too. 

I’m not just saying this as a fan, either. I’m saying this as someone who writes about television and movies for a living. Interview with the Vampire deserved to be nominated. Not only was it a ratings success for AMC, it was also critically acclaimed and selected as one of the best new shows of 2022. 

There’s still plenty of time for AMC to campaign for Interview with the Vampire to be nominated for a 2023 Primetime Emmy. Nominations will be announced July 12, 2023, with the ceremony scheduled for September. 

Incidentally, the 2023 Emmy nomination period covers everything that aired from June 1, 2022, through May 31, 2023, which means that Interview with the Vampire could actually go head to head with Mayfair Witches. That would be interesting.

The House of the Dragon win at the Golden Globes really came out of nowhere, but with that win it puts everyone on notice that the Game of Thrones spinoff is capable of following in big sister’s footsteps so expect to see the new series at other awards shows throughout the season.

For now, though, all we can do is hope that the Emmys will see that the IWTV cast deserves to at least be nominated for their spectacular performances and that history doesn’t repeat itself.