Stuart Townsend or Tom Cruise!??

I saw both the movies and both Lestats.
First of all, Tom Cruise did catch my eye as Lestat, apart from all those overrated hollywood booms he did, Lestat seemed challenging and perfectly portayed...
But, Stuart Townsend possesses so much potential as a vampire, Tom Cruise simply goes way down...the way he looks, walks, talks, now that's what you'd call a vampire!
As a movie fan, I love Tom Cruise better than Stuart Townsend, not to mension many movies that Tom pulled off recently. But as a role for a vampire, Stuart Townsend is unreplacable.

Without any doubt Townsend. I like Tom Cruise but he just wasnt right for the part of Lestat. He should have played Louis instead.

Stuart Townsend. his acting is great even if the movie was lacking. no offense to anyone who liked it, it was good but it tryed to crammed too much in one movie.

Ok, so aside from the fact that way too many people on here are judging the Lestats by their looks...might I remind anyone who has actually read the books that the Lestats in IWTV and QOTV are supposed to be completely different? I mean, the books span out through at least one hundred years.

Both Townsend and Cruise played their Lestats well, but in different ways. This is partly due to the different directions of both movies, and the fact that QOTD was completely butchered in more ways than one. The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned (books) are an exploration of Lestat's early days as a vampire, at least one hundred years earlier than IWTV - he is meant to be more innocent and concious of his human emotions, and whether the lack of this was Townsend's fault or the director's...it still hurt the movie significantly. Townsend was excellent as Rock Star Lestat however, and had that personality down pretty well, while I don't think that Cruise would have performed as well.

People also mention Townsend's 'sexy accent', which might have been a nice touch but let us not forget that he is a French vampire and sounded more like a Transylvanian or even a Russian who was speaking English. Cruise's accent was no better - but seemed alot less forced and natural in the sense that he was not trying as hard as Townsend to sound evil through his movie. This is the director of QOTD's fault, however, as he seemed to make Lestat disgustingly one-dimensional and focused too much on making him seem overly evil and bad-assed. But giving credit where it is due, Townsend played this role excellently though it is not the way Lestat was written or described in the books. To, it was not the quality of his acting which was disapppointing, but rather the innacurate portrayal of Lestat.

Cruise's Lestat was fantastic and completely on par with the books, and certainly shouldn't be judged because he looked slightly too old or perhaps isn't as good-looking as Townsend. Way too many people on here commented on how Townsend "looked more like the part" - way too many people, who have clearly not read the books. Cruise had more than Lestat's hair... he had his clothing and carefulness to accessorize which undoubtedly made him look more the part...but that was mostly due to the movie's wardrobe crew. But that is all part of making a movie seem real, and QOTD's crew-work was far too Hollywood-ized to even seem slightly genuine.

Cruise's Lestat, although meant to be thoroughly more evil and concious-free, still possessed extreme passion and elegance, as well as very well-played subtle feelings of a lost human soul. Townsend's character was missing these things on the most part, as Cruise played Lestat with an unforgetable grace and evil which was so downplayed it seemed natural. Townsend's evil, to me, came off as over-acted and hardly genuine. His feline movements were excellent, however, and complimented his very sound sexual appeal - he is indeed very good looking, but I don't think that should be the judge of his portrayal of Lestat. That being said, I do hope someone makes a TVL movie all on its own, and sticks to the original plot of Magnus siring Lestat, not Marius. There is so much significance there, that it was a shame to have it changed.

No contest. Tom Cruise.

Alright, so yes, Cuise does posses more of Lestat's physical atributes, but he looked a little too old to be playing a young twenty-something. I think he was amazing as Lestat in Interview but that Townsend was great in Q.O.T.D. I don't think that either would have been able to pull off the other's role as well as the original actor. Can't we just agree that they were both good in their own interpratations of Lestat?

Well Tom Cruise certainly LOOKS better as Lestat but I think Stuart Townsend captures Lestat's character better.

It's difficult to say. Even though he differs physically from the canon!Lestat, I think Stuart just looked the part. He was drop dead gorgeous, incredibly sexy and alluring and he just had that rock star presence going on, blonde or not.

But Tom's Lestat is IMO more like canon!Lestat on the whole, Louis's POV or not. He's very charming and engaging and Brat Prince-ish, whereas Stuart's Lestat does little more than prowl around and give everyone smouldering stares. That's also a part of Lestat, but there's so much more to him than that.

Frankly, I think the script for QoTD was butchered so horribly that no actor could have saved it. Vincent Perez was a great Marius, but he looked the part even less than Stuart - ditto for Aaliyah and Armand. So many vital things were left out of the story and the Jesse was turned into some huge central character, ugh. QotD is only good because Stuart is so attractive and because the soundtrack rocks.