All Hail the Queen: Sheila Atim on Becoming Akasha, That Epic Awakening, and What’s Next on The Vampire Lestat

The Queen of the Damned has arrived.

Akasha has haunted Lestat’s story since the moment we first met him, her presence lingering in the background in ways we’re only now beginning to understand.

The Vampire Lestat Season 1 Episode 5 finally unveils the Queen, and what a triumphant, mesmerizing introduction it is.

Not only does Queen Akasha make her debut, but we also meet Armand’s maker, Marius, who pulls Lestat from his deep slumber to watch over Akasha and Enkil, vampire royalty, and the first of their kind.

What follows is Lestat’s immersion in the role of Akasha’s protector until one fateful night changes the trajectory of his life forever.

Stepping into the iconic role, Sheila Atim delivers a magnetic performance that immediately establishes Akasha as a powerful force.

Commanding, luminous, and impossible to look away from, Atim captures both the character’s ancient power and the gravity of her awakening.

It’s a masterful performance.

We were lucky enough to speak with the talented Atim about her excitement at taking on the role of one of Anne Rice’s most beloved characters, filming THAT iconic moment, what she believes Akasha would think of today’s vampires, and more.

Last time we talked, we discussed how you immersed yourself in the role by reading the book and watching the series beforehand.

Did you feel any pressure stepping into such a popular and iconic role? Was it more excitement about being able to put a new spin on the character, or was it a combination of both?

Yeah, I think mostly excitement. I think I was quite conscious of reframing anything that could have manifested as pressure into something positive.

I mean, it also helps that it’s season three. So there’s already been some road in terms of this TV adaptation, and it’s great to know that people love it — fans love it.

People who are fans of the source material or previous depictions, like films and stuff, have been on board. So that often helps to calm one’s nerves.

But I think there’s just so much love for this character. And I chose to take that with me rather than framing it as pressure to do it right or to adhere to what had been done before. I’m also a huge Aaliyah fan, so I didn’t want that to get in my head more than anything.

I was like, I don’t want to psych myself out about the fact that I’m taking on a role that she’s already taken on. The two can exist and happily so.

So yeah, I was just excited. It’s also just a really cool role. It’s really badass. And as an actor, you don’t always get to play characters like this. 

So I thought, rather than spending all my time worrying about it, let me just get stuck in and have fun.

Akasha’s awakening scene is just crazy. You can’t take your eyes off the screen throughout the scene because of the way it’s shot and framed. How did the filming of that come together?

Yeah. We only had two days to do it, and it was right at the end of the shoot. So we were against the clock, and there’d been a lot of anticipation for when I was going to be able to get to Toronto to shoot it. And so there’d been a lot of work.

All the departments had been trying to have conversations about what this was going to look like, and a lot of crosstalk.

And then I kind of turned up in Toronto, and it was like, “Right, we’ve just got to do it.” Whatever we’ve been planning in our separate little silos, we have to bring it all together.

I felt a real responsibility, because I know what it’s like when you’re coming towards the end of a shoot as well, and everyone’s tired and you’ve already had to drop things and rewrite things to try and make up the time.

I said the main thing I can do is just come prepped, know my lines, not be messing about on set, going, “Oh, sorry, I forgot it.”

So yeah, obviously we shot pretty much everything that comes up to her waking up before. Luckily, we got to do it chronologically. And then we did the speech in two takes, just the camera here in front.

We got it in the first take, but we did it again just for safety, which I was really glad about because I think that even though it gets cut up in the final product, you really get the sense of the scale and the power of that piece if I’m, as an actor, able to perform it in one go.

So that’s the only way you can kind of reach that level of intensity at the end. Considering that it was a massive undertaking when it came to the actual shooting of it, it was pretty seamless as far as I can remember. We just all kind of turned up and did it.

The episode gives you a sense of Akasha’s presence throughout the hour. What aspect of her did you feel was most important to establish in this first appearance?

That’s a good point.

One of the things that was really important in terms of the decisions I made for myself was her accent.

I’d had conversations with Rolin about it, and he just said, “You got an accent?” And I tried a few in the audition, and I thought, “Yeah, I think I’m going to do a kind of East African, Middle Eastern hybrid thing.”

I am East African, although I pushed it a little bit further east, and I’m not Middle Eastern, but I’m aware of Akasha’s background and story. And I think that to me, that does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to telling us who she is in what is quite a limited frame.

It’s like she’s still part stone; she’s still stuck on this slab, and she’s saying this kind of four-page monologue to no one in particular other than the ether and herself, and there are other things going on on top of it.

In terms of getting a clarity of story in terms of who she is and where she’s coming from, you get the sense that she’s from that part of the world, and you get the sense that she’s ancient as well.

There was also a choice around her hairstyle, as well. That’s taken from some Egyptian references and East African references.

I think those little things are like, they’re small choices, but they kind of anchor us. They’re clues that anchor us into bigger clues about who she is and where she’s coming from and what she’s about.

And I think, I hope, that they kind of help give that speech and her waking up like a power and a gravitas and a feeling of like, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I feel like it’s major. I don’t need to know all the details, but I feel like we’re in for some pretty heavy stuff.

So it was that, just seeding in some clues, and there will hopefully be more opportunities to do that as time goes on and as we see her in the present day, but it’s really important to me that she feels like an ancient vampire.

It sounds like you got to collaborate on that, which is really nice as well.

Yeah.

Speaking of potentially seeing her moving forward, which layers of Akasha would you be most excited to uncover, especially, as you said, given what she would think of modern vampires and the way things are going?

I’m really intrigued to see her learning, because her waking up is such a …

There’s so much defiance in her, at least to the point that she reaches at the end of the speech. There’s so much defiance there in her conclusion about what must happen and that she is the answer. 

But I almost see that as her reaching the endpoint, then having to reverse-engineer how she’s going to get there.

So, she’s woken up, “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s going on? What’s been happening in the world? Why is it so terrible? When will it stop, and who will stop it?” is something she says. 

“Okay, I’m the answer, I’m going to figure it out.” And now what does that mean? You’ve got to learn the world you’re in now. She’s been sensing it from her kind of crypt, but she hasn’t seen it or interacted with it yet.

I’m really looking forward to seeing her navigate that because, through that, more nuance about her will come out.

It’s very easy to wake up and have a very singular point of focus and then just go and execute it. And I don’t think that’s necessarily that interesting to watch.

I think it’s more interesting to see her learn about these people and learn about the modern day, and maybe have to challenge herself at some points in terms of her thinking or not.

I don’t know. I think that’s going to be her journey, and that’s all to play for. And I can’t wait for her to meet the others, to meet her children.

Music is obviously such a central part of The Vampire Lestat, and it’s also central to Akasha because it helps her awaken. What do you think would be Akasha’s theme song?

Someone asked me this before, and then I couldn’t think of an answer, and I thought, “Do you know what? I’m going to think of something in case someone asks me again.” But I haven’t thought of anything!

I can’t think of a specific song, but I think it would be something by Alice Coltrane, just because Alice Coltrane wasn’t necessarily on this wave that Akasha’s on, but there is something really deep and hypnotic about her music and about the place she was operating from. 

She was a deeply spiritual woman. She was a virtuoso. It’s kind of an incredible story.

But also, I think we often talk about John Coltrane, and then we’re just like, “Oh yeah, and Alice is his wife.” And I’m like, “Hold on. Alice is her own entity and her own force to be reckoned with.”

And I think a lot of the Eastern influences that she weaves into her music, as well, would really sit well in Akasha’s ancient world.

So yeah, some kind of Alice Coltrane deep 10-minute, 15-minute jazz journey, I think, is what I’ve got.

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You can watch The Vampire Lestat on Sundays at 9/8c on AMC and AMC+.