Armand (The Vampire Chronicles)

Armand
The Vampire Chronicles character
Antonio Banderas as Armand (1994)
First appearance	Interview with the Vampire (1976)
Portrayed by	Antonio Banderas (1994)
Information
Nickname(s)	Andrei Amadeo
Aliases	The "vagabond angel child of Satan"
Species	Vampire
Gender	Male
Occupation	Coven Leader
Title	All Father
Family	Ivan (father)
Significant other(s)	Marius de Romanus (maker/lover) Bianca Solderini (lover) Sybelle and Benji Louis de Pointe du Lac (lover) Daniel Molloy (fledgling/lover)
Religion	Orthodox (as a human) Catholic
Nationality	Russian

Armand is a fictional character in The Vampire Chronicles novels written by Anne Rice. At the end of the series, he is approximately 500 years of age. His outward appearance is that of a beautiful adolescent boy, small, with reddish-brown locks, soft brown eyes and slender fingers. His features are at times compared figuratively to those of Cupid or a Botticelli angel.

Armand is born in 1481 in the former Kiev Rus to the acclaimed hunter Ivan. Armand's original name is Andrei.

As a child he has the ability to paint vivid pictures of Jesus Christ, Madonna, and the Eastern Orthodox Saints. His astonished parents eventually reveal his gift to the monks in the Monastery of the Caves, who live an ascetic life buried beneath earth, sustained only by water and small amounts of food. Both the monks and Andrei believe he is destined to live such a life, while his father is appalled by the idea. When their ruler, Prince Michael, orders Andrei to paint an icon and bring it to the castle of his brother, the supposedly dead Prince Feodor, Andrei is captured by Tartars and brought as a slave to Constantinople and subsequently sold to a Venetian brothel. There, he is subjected to horrific sexual abuse and develops amnesia.

Marius, a 1500-year-old vampire then living as a painter in Venice, rescues Andrei, giving him an education and a luxurious life. Marius renames him Amadeo. Marius is in love with a courtesan named Bianca Solderini, yet cannot bring himself to turn her into a vampire. Instead, he chooses Amadeo for his beauty, youth and painting skills (apparently lost, along with his memories) to educate 'in the way of the blood', so as to eventually make him a vampire. Amadeo loves Marius single-mindedly and is eager to become a vampire. He does not understand Marius' hesitation to turn him, and in an act of rebellion and anger he seduces an English Lord, whom he eventually abandons after a few nights. However, the English Lord becomes obsessed with Amadeo and enraged by his betrayal, wounds him with a poisoned blade. In doing this, he forces Marius to turn Amadeo into a vampire to save his life. Amadeo is 17 years old at the time of his transformation.