True Blood News at The Nest

Very nice (and short) interview with Mr. Moyer in this month’s issue of GT Magazine. Thanks to our Twilighter friend Jessica from Gossip Dance for the scans! (click on the image to enlarge).

He’s the vampire with morals in the hit horror show of 2009, True Blood. We catch up with the mortal incarnation of Bill Compton, British actor Stephen Moyer.

You’re quite well known for an extensive theatre and movie career. How exactly do you prepare for playing someone who’s been undead for hundreds of years?
Well. you try and find some 173-year-old from the American civil war to interview obviously, and once you’ve exhausted that possibility you do research… One of the wonders of the internet is that you can literally Google recordings made in 1920 of people from Shreveport, Louisiana who survived the war. You got to hear how people spoke, you read about the war. And l was very interested in the fact that Bill is quite a tortured soul. He loses his children and his wife. He’s made a vampire reluctantty and therefore he’s at war with what he thinks vampires are supposed to be. And when he first turns up he meets this girl who he is trying to impress. So look, this is an Alan Ball script. There’s so much in there that’s already constructed in your character that you could explore and explore. It’s a joy.

Were you worried about becoming the new Angel from Buffy?
When my manager rang and said there’s this amazing script evryone wants it, and it’s about vampires – I said. “You’ve lost me at vampires.” I just wasn’t interested. Then she said “It’s Alan Ball.” so I had to read it and then I was amazed by it. Like any other well-written super-natural show, True Blood is not about vampires. Its about human relationships and how people interact: how they act when obstacles are put in their way and what they do to overcome those obstacles. That’s great drama.

What’s it like working with your real life fiancee (Anna Paquin. who plays Sookie Stackhouse)?
Well. Anna and I met each other at the audition. It was me and Anna sitting next to each other on a sofa in Alan Ball’s Office. She’d come off doing five years on Broadway and we were throwing things at each other going – how about if we did this of that? What if I did this? You could do that… It was like, “Oh My God. If get this job there’s somebody I could fire against. It doesn’t hurt that you kind of fancy that person as well. Then that really grew to the point where it was ‘Oh my God. I’m working with you 18 hours a day and I want to see you even more.’ That’s a good sign I think.”

The show also seems to have a political subtext – the Outsider in the Deep South. The questions of sexual Identity?
I think it does if you’re bright enough to see it.

Cheers!

No at all. But you can equally watch our show and it can be a frothy camp romp. If you want to look beneath that there’s a lot going on. There’s a newspaper headline in it ‘Angelina adopts vampire baby’. It’s a funny line but a comment on celebrity. So there’s two ways of looking at it. The religious right is attacked and we are going to lose some viewers because of that. But do we want to comment on the power that the religious right has over American society? Yeah. Please… So it’s brilliant that these things are in there. But it’s like any good drama or any great script – its good for everybody. And I think that’s why our demographic is 18 to 80. Its amazing – and its a sexy show. But people love it.

Talking of sexy, most of you spend quite lot of time with very few clothes on…
Yes, sometimes I get into my trailer and I open the wardrobe and go… no costume? Oh, no, this little thing…
But sex is part of our lives and our culture. In Sweden the spas are men and women go into the same room together. If you go to one in England they’re separated. For goodness sake, It’s 2009. Why can’t we see people making love in a romantic way like Sookie and Bill do, and then they fuck, and then there’s lust… why are we even talking about it? We all do it. And yet Jack Bauer can kill 200 people at seven o’clock and no one raises an eyebrow.

But do the nude scenes mean you have to work out?
Listen you’ve seen Ryan Kwanten who plays Sookie’s brother. He’s the fittest, most ridiculously ripped guy I’ve ever met which is just a nightmare for us because when i’m watching the DVDs, do I want to see my love handles? I’m never going to look like Ryan, I just don’t have enough time in the day but, yes, I have to do a little bit of work. We all do. it’s part of the job.

Posted in Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, Publications, Stephen Moyer