Sookie and Alcide
USA Today is all about the Blood, type Oh! Positive, if you please. In an extensive and diverse article, they really sink their teeth in and offer a full bite of Season 3:
“There’s no way you can ever get bored on a show like this” Anna Paquin said. “When you think you’ve seen it all and done it all, something weirder and wilder comes out of the woodwork… The material is endlessly entertaining. It’s about as much fun as you could expect to have and still technically call it a job.”
“This is classic, escapist fun,” added Stephen Moyer. “You can read it on so many levels. It can be an hour of escapist drama. You also can watch it for comedy, suspense, as a thriller, as a horror. It’s an audacious show.”
Alan Ball is having a ball too. “It is so much fun. If you had told me I would be doing a vampire show with werewolves and would be having more fun than I’d had in my life, I would have said, ‘You’re high.’”
Well, there aren’t many places where actors can test drive their own coffins, as Kristin Bauer does while preparing for a scene. “If I’m not out in 30 minutes, start looking for a key,” says Bauer as she crawls into the sleek, white pod in the office just off of the Fangtasia bar. She doesn’t need a key; the futuristic container comes with an internal escape button. “I like the phone call that starts with: ‘We need you to come in for your coffin fitting.’ Isn’t that something?”
What is the appeal of all that bloody and weird and wild and audacity for the rabid True Blood fan? Alan Ball claims part of that is because the show is character-based (a show that happens to have supernatural creatures, rather than a supernatural show): ”We might as well have a sign in the writers’ room that says, ‘It’s the emotions, stupid,’” Alan Ball said. “We try to make sure the characters’ emotional lives are what’s driving the story. Otherwise, it’s set pieces and special effects. We have such good actors that they can play the romance, the yearning, the weaknesses, the upsets, the disappointments and the triumphs… Each character is coming to terms [in Season 3] with who or what they are. We’re finding out what makes them tick and what they’re willing to do and not willing to do, and what they’re willing to fight for and not willing to fight for,” he says.
Stephen Moyer enjoys the writing, too, and claims it keeps the characters off balance: “We’re having to react to what’s happening around us, rather than us seeking out the drama. The drama is happening to all of our characters. It feels very visceral and strong and muscular because of it.”
But there are many well-acted and well-written shows, and True Blood fans are… addicted. How does that happen? Ball thinks he has the answer: “Part of us yearns for the muck of the primal,” he explained. “We still have part of us that feels in awe of nature and all of the stuff that is bigger and scarier than us. … I think True Blood has evolved into a show that can feed that desire, that incorporates fear, terror, sex and transcendent behavior in a way that’s really entertaining and funny at the same time.”
Alexander Skarsgard has his own theory: “It’s about vampires, and they represent immortality. I think people are attracted to that. Their age and knowledge and level of experience is very attractive, and you’re drawn to that. But they’re also animals, and they can turn on you like that and kill you in a second.”
While on the subject of animals, the actors were delighted with real wolves on the set. “They’re extraordinary creatures,” says Moyer, sporting vampiric pallor. “They never stop moving. They’re enormous and powerful. That’s been the highlight so far — of the things I’m allowed to talk about.”
And the cast offers even more Season 3 teases (they’re killing me!)
“[Bill's disappearance] is not really the way every romantic dream proposal goes,” Anna said. “The girl bursts into tears, runs to the bathroom, comes back to say yes, and the dude is gone. That’s going to be a pretty major plotline for Sookie.”
“Eric hates [werewolves],” says Alexander Skarsgard, covered with white makeup and accents of blood red during a break on the show’s L.A. set. “In his opinion, werewolves are very primitive, stupid, disgusting, not sophisticated. After a while, you’ll find out there’s a deeper reason he hates them.”
Another main story will be Sam’s search for his biological family. The shape-shifter may get more than he wishes for. “They’re an itinerant, very poor and sketchy family. He finds out who these people are and why they’ve given him up. … It’s sort of like a Pandora’s box, that he thinks he can go and meet them and then leave. But he can’t put the top back on the box,” says Trammell.
And as if all the casting calls and interviews haven’t pointed out the obvious, True Blood is growing: “It’s bigger, or at least it feels that way,” says Deborah Ann Woll, who plays the coming-of-age vampire Jessica. “Half the faces around the table reads (of scripts) are new people. I don’t know what (their story lines) look like, what their sets look like or what their costumes look like. It feels like five TV shows are going on at the same time.”
Crazy!
With all this excitement going on, would Paquin be interested in a season for each of Harris’ 10 novels? “I’d do it until they pull the plug,” she says. “I don’t know how long everyone’s going to want to watch us running around biting each other and having all the sex and blood, but I think we’ll do this until they tell us we have to stop. It’s a dream job.”
This show is full of hot people, isn’t it?
How is a woman suppose to be sane around this guys!!!!
Joe holy sexiness UNF
That was great! Thanks laftban! Love the actor’s little quips and Stephen makes it sound so exciting – he uses great words to describe the show! Kristen with her ‘coffin fitting’! Deborah saying it its like 5 separate shows being filmed all at once! Anna loving the show! Stephen loving the wolves! How exciting!! Not long to wait!
Oops … you left out the preamble to Alexanders comment in the article latbfan.
Skarsgard has his own theory on Blood’s appeal. (The hunky Scandinavian actor is part of the fever: John Folden, who operates the true-blood.tv fan site, says one of every four messages posted there relates to Skarsgard.)
TB Lvr, it honestly wasn’t intended as a slight to either AS, Eric’s popularity (I adore him as Eric), or other TB news/fan sites. I was simply rearranging/shortening the original for the Nest. I cut out other lead-ins too… That’s why there’s usually a link to the source, so people can get every last drop. Thanks for being such a closer reader!
Sorry, but I think cutting out any actor in the show’s comments from an article is not a good thing to do. I don’t mean to offend and I do enjoy this site, but this already known in the cyber world as a proBill site.
No one cut out Skarsgard’s comments. They cut out an intro sentence because it wasn’t relevant. Sheesh.
There were bits from Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin too not included. We try not to copy and paste and thats why we put the SOURCE so you can read the whole thing. Each poster includes what she thinks it’s relevant. Suggesting that we are excluding the AS bit because some kind of obscure complot seems silly to me. AND yes, this is site is run by Bill ladies, if anyone thinks we manipulate the information and we are not being good at our job, I understand you can delete us from your bookmarks. Or just try to make your own website.
This is a typical over reaction and once again Eric fans are told “if you don’t like it leave”.
This place tout’s its self as a TRUE BLOOD site NOT a Bill Moyer site and it is UNFAIR to continually tell Eric fans to piss off, not to mention totally unprofessional.
Seriously? This is a news story where latbfan took excerpts of comments from each actor. We take the most compelling information, provide our commentary about it and then link source so you can read it for yourself. Her post in no way said that these are the entire quotes verbatim from the article – because no one was quoted in full.
This here is the internets and y’all are welcome to come and go as you please, but to tell us how we should or should not report is really presumptuous. Now I’ve seen it all.
oh no problem at all, Of all the people here YOU are the most fair and unbiased … BY FAR and the only reason I occasionally stop by. Long ago we once knew each other at another site and I always respected your fair analysis … I still do.
Sorry … this message was for Latbfan
LuvEric, you must be from the Boards… Was that your name over there?
In all honesty, I am Team True Blood. I want what’s going to be best for the show. In terms of Sookie’s suitors, I’m Team Vampwich. Yes, I like Bill. Yes, I have something of a 13-year old girl crush on SM. But it’s certainly not to the exclusion of AS and Eric.
And while I’m certainly not a spokesperson for the Nest, simply one of the contributors, I know that the ladies who run this site work really really hard to compile the most up-to-date information that’s available. It’s done out of love for the show.
Well, more power to him and to you all!
for me, its all about Bill , oh, and of course Sookie
Hmmm… so Kristin gets a white pod eh? Weren’t they referred to travel coffins – I mean the pod shaped ones? Pam gets to go to Mississippi maybe?
The pod is interesting, it says it’s in an office in Fangtasia. Maybe for when she sleeps there? Interesting if she does travel though.
luveric, I never told an Eric Fan to leave. That’s stupid, since this is a place for True Blood everyone is welcome. But suggesting that we are biased because we left out a line in an intro while we are not pasting the whole text but doing our own version, is disrespectful for the people that work so hard every day to bring you news. If we had pasted the whole thing literally and then left out that bit, you could tell we were being manipulative but this is not the case. I just tell anyone that feels that we are not giving good stuff, to stop visiting us because this site is done to have fun, not to get obscure accusations that dont bring anything positive to The Nest.