True Blood News at The Nest

Ben Whishaw

Alan Ball is a busy, busy man. In addition to appearing at Comic-Con and breaking Season 4 with the writing team, he continues to cast his new pilot for HBO, All Signs of Death. Based on a novel by Charlie Huston, the show focuses on a young man who cleans up crime scenes. Ben Whishaw (Bright Star, Brideshead Revisited) has been cast in the lead role, Webster Goodhue, and Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Clayne Crawford (24 and The Glades) has joined the project, playing his best friend who works in a tattoo parlour.

Clayne Crawford

In true Alan Ball style, he doesn’t actually give that much away. (I’m grateful for his restraint, as my self-control is limited, yet I really don’t want to know ahead of time.) But still, there are some intriguing morsels to ponder as True Blood begins the second half of the season. Do you want to know what he said…

TV Guide has an exclusive photo that’s a tad spoilerish… Read on if you want to see.

Read More »

Alan Ball

New York Magazine published that Alan Ball is working on a new pilot for HBO. Alan is both executive producing and directing the project, a dark comedy based on Charlie Huston’s 2009 crime noir novel, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.

“Obviously death is a theme I’m fascinated by,” Ball said. The show, titled All Signs of Death, will be about “a twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner … and the dirty underbelly of LA.”

If it’s anything like Six Feet Under and True Blood, I think we can anticipate wonderful entertainment.

Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, and Alan Ball

True Blood is done with Season 3, so Alan Ball and his writers were alone when they heard the news about True Blood‘s Emmy nod (the first drama nomination for a vampire show – quite the honor).

“We’re breaking Season 4, so I’m with the writers and we had a celebratory round of Starbucks,” Alan Ball said. “It’s such a great time for television right now. There are so many great, amazing television series on. To be considered part of that by your peers is really gratifying.”

Alan claimed he didn’t know the nominations were being announced, so he was blind-sided by all the good wishes.

“I have such tunnel-vision,” he said. “If I’m not working on the show, I’m home reading or walking my dogs in the canyon. I did not even know it was happening today, and it’s a good thing because I probably would have been all nervous. When I woke up and there were a gazillion messages, it was a fantastic surprise.”

Alan Ball also said that he hopes the recognition will “give [True Blood] a stamp that it’s more than just vampires and craziness. There’s actually some real drama going on, and it’s actually pretty good.”

For all its accolades, however, HBO was largely left out of the major acting categories for television series. The only series regular to receive a nomination was “Curb’s” Larry David. None of the cast members of “Big Love,” “Treme” or “True Blood” made the list.

“I think we have a lot of ensemble shows where they’re not built around one character,” Michael Lombardo, president of HBO’s programming group said. “What you see is Emmy choices often times are shows where one character really gets to shine the entirety of the show. We don’t have many of those.”

source source

Alan Ball, Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer - Getty Images

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the True Blood Writers’ room! It’s my dream come true. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for everyone else), Mr. Ball has not called to hire me. But we have the next best thing –  a behind the scenes look at what goes on. Alan Ball spoke with Fancast and explained the writing process:

Step 1: It All Begins With the Books:
“We always start with the books.  We have been sort of focusing on one of Charlaine’s books per season so we started with the third book, which is called Club Dead.  As always, our big challenge in translating books to the series is to open up the world outside of Sookie’s experience because Sookie [Anna Paquin] is the narrator of the books so the books are basically her story.  So we look at what the books have and figure out a way to give all of other major characters stories that will somehow fold into the main story, the Sookie/Bill story.  That’s what we did, just like we did the first two seasons.”

Deciding when to deviate from the Books:
“It’s a totally organic process.  A lot of times there are a lot of people pitching ideas.  A lot of times we’ll find if we totally stick to the books here, how is that going to affect later on because we’re breaking the story three of four episodes down the line.  It’s like well what if he wasn’t this but he was this instead? There’s not a formula. It’s pretty much gut instinct.”

Ausiello has the latest, from Alan Ball himself, about the season finale. Since we’re talking about Alan Ball, he doesn’t give too much away (it’s hardly worth the fancy spoiler-warning), but for those who are bravely attempting to remain spoiler-free, don’t read further.

Read More »

Alan Ball at the Season 3 Premiere

After last night’s fangtastic Season 3 premiere, a lot of fan(g)s are hoping the series will be immortal. Unfortunately, unlike vampires, HBO’s series are not know for their longevity, but Alan Ball thinks True Blood has the potential to break the HBO’s record: “I think ‘True Blood’ could run longer than ‘Six Feet Under’ because of the supernatural element.  There’s just so many areas to create stories that we didn’t have on ‘Six Feet Under’.  Literally by the fourth season we started to hit the wall.  It was like what about –oh no we did that in season two.  But because of the supernatural element in ‘True Blood’ I feel like it could continue much longer.”

Since each season of ‘True Blood’ has been based on one of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, according to Ball there is another decade’s worth of source material: ”I know Charlaine just published her tenth book, and she has plans for at least three more.  I think it could run as long as [the books] run.”

Ball pragmatically noted that the show might run out of gas before the books end, though HBO will surely want to keep it going as long as it remains popular.”It will be the same thing as ‘Six Feet Under’.  Once it feels like it’s the right time to end the show then we’ll end it.  Or I don’t know.  This one’s much more successful for HBO than ‘Six Feet Under’ was.  So maybe they’ll say, ‘Oh no. We’ll just get somebody else to run it.’”

Of course, there’s another key factor: the cast. Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and the rest of the gang from Bon Temps may not be willing to stay with the show indefinitely.  Most television dramas sign actors to initial five year contracts then renegotiate if the show lasts longer.

source

If you missed this after last night’s season three premiere ep, “Bad Blood,” here’s Alan Ball (and luscious Stephen Moyer) talking about the wolves.

Anna Paquin shrugs off the suggestion that she did anything remarkable when she came out as bisexual earlier this year in a PSA: ”I’m not someone who endlessly talks about her personal life for no reason, but obviously, as someone who identifies as bisexual, those are issues I really care about — and frankly, I don’t see why everyone doesn’t care about them,” Anna told Zap2It. “So when I was asked to participate in that PSA (for True Colors First, a gay rights organization), it was just an obvious, ‘Well, of course I will.’”

Anna’s announcement received so many hits that the site crashed the day it was released.

“It wasn’t like it was a big secret,” Anna continued. “It was just a cause I cared about and privately supported, but not one that I had ever had an opportunity to speak out about in a way that would be useful. Obviously I know that one person’s voice doesn’t necessarily do that much, but I just wanted to do my bit.”

Her announcement didn’t come as a surprise to her True Blood boss, Alan Ball, who is openly gay himself: ”I thought that was really brave, and I say ‘good for her,’” Ball says. “I like the fact that she doesn’t feel the need to keep that hidden, and she was sort of saying, ‘This is who I am and I am doing this because I want to make a stand for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, and equal rights for all’… But I don’t think it’s that big a deal, really. I was aware of this before, but when I heard that she had made that announcement, I just said, ‘Good for you.’”