Did you spot the Chilltown actor in AMC's "Interview with the Vampire"?

Rachel Handler, who plays "Peg Leg Doris," talks working on the show and disability rep

Actor Rachel Handler as Doris in AMC's "Interview with the Vampire" series. In second picture, Handler is seen with Jacob Anderson, who plays Louie in the show. (Photos courtesy of Handler)

The accent and the gait are different, but when the early 1900s-era scenes in AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire” series began and Louie is sitting in his car when one of his employees (Louie inherited his father’s brothel) runs across a cobblestone street to let him know about a problem at said brothel, if “Peg Leg Doris” looks familiar, it may be because you’re someone in the Chilltown tri-state area who’s seen the actor behind Doris in local theatrical productions, or maybe you’ve seen her annual entries in the borderless Easterseals Disability Film Challenge.

Even then, you still may not have recognized JC resident Rachel Handler. Doris is very different from Handler as a person, but they do share that face that appears in the series’ first three episodes. And while the actor has a few lines, her character has a distinct arc in the latest screen incarnation of Anne Rice’s classic novel – with this version bringing issues of otherness to the forefront. Louis “Louie” de Pointe du Lac is a Black Creole man instead of a pale immigrant from France; and his relationship with Lestat is a romantic partnership limited by both societal restrictions due to his perceived race and ones placed by Lestat’s egomaniacal nature.

Like the character Handler plays, Handler is an amputee who utilizes a prosthesis leg. And that, Handler told Chilltown Blues, is what the show’s production team was looking for.