Our bessie mate Robert Downey Jr. is reportedly in talks to play the vampire Lestat, according to the guys over at Bloody Disgusting. The sometime-Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes may add Lestat to his character gallery if he signs a deal to star in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles.

Vampires are, of course, so hot right now after Twilight and TV’s True Blood, and Downey Jr. would be a hot choice for a vampire. But what can we expect to see? Interview with the Vampire, with Tom Cruise in the Lestat role, covered the first book in the series, and Queen of the Damned, with Stuart Townsend taking the role, the third. The middle one is mostly prequel, explaining how Lestat came to be the vampire he became, and why he’s not such a bad fellow as he might have appeared in Interview.

Whether Downey will take the role remains to be seen: he would seem a little old for it, given that Lestat’s supposed to have become a vampire as a very young man, aged about 20 if memory serves, and of course shouldn’t have aged since.

And given that Downey’s already juggling Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes, and that he already had to drop Oobermind because of scheduling conflicts, does he have time to sign on to another franchise-in-waiting? Only time will tell.

Source, Bauer-Griffin