Interview with the new vampire: Stuart Townsend, star of Queen of the Damned, talks about baring his fangs--and his abs--as Anne Rice's vampire Lestat. (film).

"MY first time in a nightclub with a gay friend, I walked into a room full of men kissing each other, and I was shocked by the energy of the place--the muscles! I had never been in that environment before, and I freaked a little. The homophobia barrier closed in around me--I was scared. But I've grown up a bit since then," laughs actor Stuart Townsend.

The grown-up actor's next gay rite of passage is his star role as Lestat in the film version of Anne Rice's hugely popular novel Queen of the Damned, picking up the fake fangs originally worn by Tom Cruise in Interview With the Vampire. This time out, Townsend transforms the character, formerly an omnisexual 18th-century fop, into a ghoulish glam/goth rock star, one who inspires his fans to hoist homemade Total Request Live-like signs that read "Suck Me, Lestat!" He's a vampire rocker gleefully perverse enough to make both David Bowie and Marilyn Manson proud.

A veteran of independent cinema--having starred in the comedy About Adam, with Kate Hudson, as well as director Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland and the flat-out strange Judaic ghost story Simon Magus--the 29-year-old Irish actor was ready for this step into the Hollywood mainstream. What he was not prepared for was its accompanying off-screen tragedy, as Townsend's Queen of the Damned costar, pop singer Aaliyah, died in a plane crash during postproduction.

"I have no catchphrase to say about her, there's no escaping it or redeeming it," he says quietly. "You can say someone was wonderful after they die, and people will say, `Yeah, you're just saying that because she's dead.' But the thing about her is that it's all true. She was a genuinely joyful person, gentle and respectful of everyone. I'm honored to have known her."

Paired with Aaliyah's regal, murderous queen, Townsend's Lestat rules over his fans by cutting the rock star swagger with an equal amount of androgyny. "I never thought of this character as male or female, gay or nongay, just as a seducer and as someone who craves to be known, to be famous," explains Townsend. "I prepared by reading the Anne Rice novels and watching lots of vampire movies, but also by watching lots of rock performances and learning how they moved, especially Bowie."

This late-model Lestat, one who awakens in the modern world and decides the time is right to exit the vampire closet, is also a cheekier ghoul than the one who came before. In one scene, Lestat even taunts other vampires, via MTV, to "come out, come out, wherever you are." As coded messages go, it may not pack the punch of watching Tom Cruise linger over Brad Pitt's neck, but it's something.

And the subtext suits him fine. "I'd say there's sexual tension between my character and Vincent Perez's [who plays Marius], but there's nothing explicit." Yet Townsend also feels that the very nature of vampire lore, not to mention the glare rock and goth subcultures and their defiant "difference," offer plenty of queer spirit for lesbian and gay audiences to feed on. Queen doesn't show and tell like The Hunger, Townsend's favorite vampire movie, "but if you're looking for it," he says, "it's there."

Will that be enough for audiences looking for less metaphoric representation? "Well, there was no one there saying, `Stuart, could you be little more homosexual here?' But I promise, he's no macho vampire. I mean, look, they shaved my chest and put me in a velvet skirt," he laughs. "What more do you want?"

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                   FEYNESS                HAIR SCARE

INTERVIEW   Discovering that Brad Pitt   Cruise's blond
            has torched the mansion,     ringlets look
            Tom Cruise sarcastically     lifted from Kylie
            snaps "Perfect!" for an      Minogue.
            All About Eve moment.
QUEEN       Stuart Townsend, in a fit    Townsend's straggly
            of diva worship, gets down   heroin chic mop
            on his knees and sucks       is strictly mid '90s.
            Aaliyah's wrist.
WINNER      Tom. You can just imagine    Neither. That award goes
            him adding, "We can't have   to Sharon Tate in Fearless
            nice things in this house!   "Vampire Killers.

                   DIALECTS                   SEXY BEASTS

INTERVIEW   Antonio Banderas, as the        Tom loves Brad at
            vampire Armand, thinks          first bite, but then
            he's still in an Almodovar      Brad turns around
            movie. Needs subtitles.         and plays house
                                            with Kirsten Dunst.
Queen       Aaliyah busts out an            Townsend's Lestat may dig
            ancient Egyptian accent-like    chewing on Aaliyah, but his
            anyone's going to call          first love is with his own
            you on that.                    MTV-saturated self.
WINNER      Aaliyah. It may be fakery,      Townsend. He takes off
            but at least you know what      his shirt more than Cruise
            she's talking about.            in All the Right Moves.

              KINSEY SCALE

INTERVIEW   4.5--the outfits
            made everyone
            in that movie
            look gay.
QUEEN       A perfectly androgynous,
            leather-pantsed,
            nipple-ringed 3.

White writes about film for E! Online.