The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

With Season 2 premiering tonight in the UK, we’ve been seeing lots of information related to Season 2.  Here’s an interview with Alan Ball and, while he admits its difficult to discuss S2 these days since he is deep into Season 3, he shares some interesting insights about Season 2 and how the show had impacted the British viewers.

We’re about to start season two of True Blood here in the UK. Can you tell us what to expect?

I’m totally in season three now so I’ll have to go back. What can we expect? Just… more. We’re definitely going to meet some new kinds of supernatural creatures, we’re going to meet some new vampires. We’ll meet the oldest vampire we’ve ever met. Sookie and Bill are together now, a couple, so let’s see how difficult it is to have a vampire-human relationship. We’re going to see what it’s like to be a brand new vampire through the eyes of Jessica. I love her.

How have you found the transition from Six Feet Under (which Ball also created), which was successful, to something like True Blood, which is a real phenomenon?

I don’t pay that much attention to that side of it, but this show is so much fun because it’s really like making a living basically just playing. I don’t wanna say working on Six Feet Under was depressing, but we were really ready to move on after season three, because it was like, we’ve done that, we’ve done that…

True Blood is very pacey and I like that it moves from one episode to the next without any time lapsing.

You know, I bought the first book in the series by Charlaine Harris, totally on impulse, as I was wasting time in a Barnes & Noble before a dentist appointment. Charlaine does that a lot. She’ll end a chapter with, like, “Then somebody opened a door and Gran was dead.” And you’re like, what? It was reminiscent of old-fashioned movie serials, and also it’s the way people watch TV a lot now, in the DVD boxset. You watch an episode and you gotta watch the next one. And there’s something kind of fun and dare I say addictive about that. I think it’s all great for the show.

Can we talk about themes? I’ve noticed a lot more religion in series two.

We definitely get into the nature of religion and the nature of dogma and how that affects people, and why religion exists. With the Fellowship of the Sun, it was fun to create a false organisation that targets one particular group and uses religion as a tool of fear and power, because we know that happens on a daily basis. Certainly you can’t turn on TV or go on a computer in America and not see somebody go on about how America is a Christian country and other bullshit. Originally when I started working on the series, I wanted to explore the twin polarities, in the south, of Sunday morning revival church meetings, and Saturday night at the bar where you go and get so drunk that you give yourself permission to do the things you wanna do. Because they’re opposite sides of the same desire, which is the desire for transcendence.

The sexuality of vampires is a big part of the show. Is it important to put it out there so plainly?

I think it is important, because there’s definitely an erotic basis for why vampires are such powerful symbols in our psyches. You know, the fact of hard fangs penetrating skin…

Which you make very explicit.

Yeah! And vampires are sex. That was definitely a part of Charlaine’s books. They’re this great amalgamation of satire and horror and humour and romance novel. And romance novel is kind of like porn. Lady porn! And the romance and the thrill of surrendering to a vampire is such an inherent part of it, I thought, I’m not going to shy away from that, that’s the fun part.

You’re on HBO, a subscriber channel. Does that make a big difference to what you can show?

Absolutely. And it’s not just the issues of broadcast standards, in terms of what we can depict and what language characters can use. It’s the fact that the show exists without advertising. I am so spoiled. I cannot watch a show where it gets interrupted for ads. I have to TiVo it and skip through the ads, because the culture of advertising is so false and phoney that I just… ugh, you know?

Here it’s shown on two channels, and both have advertising

Hmmm. I don’t write breaks, so somebody’s making some arbitrary choices about where the breaks should be.

Have you seen it like that?

I haven’t and honestly it would be upsetting to me. I’d be like, what’s that doing there? [laughs] I couldn’t work at a broadcast network now. I’m too spoiled. The executives at HBO don’t want things to be easy and overly explained and pre-digested. They want things to be complicated. If this show was on a network then Bill and Sookie’s relationship would be perfect and he’d never do anything horrible and it wouldn’t be messy and you’d never see them have sex and him actually bite her. But that’s the point.

And it’s shocking, the first time you see it

Yeah! It’s shocking but it’s also like, OK, that’s what this relationship is. That’s why the idea of having a vampire lover is one that so many people fantasise about. It supports this entire cottage industry of vampire romance fiction/TV shows. Whether it’s for preteen girls who are afraid of sex or whether it’s for horny housewives whose real life with their husbands isn’t exciting. I actually had one of our assistant directors went home to visit her friends in Texas, and one of her friend’s husbands came up to her and said, “We just want to say thank you for that show because we’re having better sex than we’ve had in years on Sunday nights.” Hello, vampires are about sex.

There was some controversy over here when series one aired, because a journalist assumed the show was aimed at teenagers

But it’s never been for young teenagers. I’ve always thought it was a show for adults. And by the way, if people think teenagers aren’t having sex, they’re out of their minds! I mean teenagers are like vampires. They basically are sex!

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Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media has been awarded to Slumdog Millionaire according to Grammy.com.

This is the Award to the Artist(s) and/or Producer(s) of a majority of the tracks on the album, or to the individual(s) actively responsible for the concept and musical direction and for the selection of artists, songs and producers, as applicable.

The True Blood soundtrack album was up against some really tough competition with the other nominees. We still think that True Blood has the best music of all TV shows and want to send our thanks to Alan Ball, Gary Calamar and Kevin Weaver for producing such a great album.

The nominations were:

Slumdog Millionaire
Cadillac Records
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds
True Blood
Twilight

Source – To find this category at the Grammy site, scroll way down or just do a search for True Blood.

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True Blood fans may ask Alan Ball questions to be included in the Sookie Companion by sending them to the email address below between January 29, 2010 and Februaray 12, 2010.

Charlaine Harris writes:

As part of the huge project The Sookie Companion has become, we’re offering a two-week time period in which you can send your questions to producer/director/writer Alan Ball, who will answer them in the Companion. My assistant, Paula, will collect all your questions and send them to the editor at TeknoBooks who’s responsible for coordinating all the elements going into the Companion, which we hope will be out next year. Paula and the editor will weed out redundant questions. Of course, these questions should focus on the TV series “True Blood,” and they should be sent to: askalanb@yahoo.com. This address is ONLY for this special project.

The Sookie Companion will contain an original novella, a character list, a map, some recipes, synapses of all the books and possibly some pieces from HBO.  The point is to show how pervasive the genre is/has always been in society.

So send in your questions now if you wish them to be included in the Sookie Companion.

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Spoiler alert

In season 3 it will take three villains to replace the last season’s crazy maenad. “We have a triumvirate of evil this season,” reveals Alan Ball. “I’m talking about Franklin Mott, Russell Edgington, and Debbie Pelt. They are all bad to the bone. They’re not just crazy, they’re evil.”

Speaking of the yet-to-be-cast Debbie Pelt, Ball tells that the Alcide’s psycho ex will actually have a bigger role than first thought. “We actually beefed up Debbie,” he says. “She’s going to be in more episodes, so maybe that will have an impact on [what actress] we can get for her, which is a big question right now.”

On the red carpet of the Golden Globes Alexander Skarsgård revealed a bit about his storyline for the coming season. “I’d say it’s about revenge,” he said. “He will continue to explore the whole Sookie thing and what that’s all about. He’s trying to figure out what’s different about her. He’s intrigued by that. And in addition to that, there’s something that happened a thousand years ago that he’s still carrying in his heart. All I’ll say is he’s trying to avenge someone.”

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SPOILER ALERT!

Finally, it looks like Alan Ball is going to cast Alcide’s ex-girlfriend Debbie Pelt and there are some additional hints at Sam and Ryan’s new love interests in Season 3.  We wonder who the “familiar face” might be that Sam encounters in the Arkansas motel room?  Could Daphne make a return in Season 3?  What love interests are in store for Sam and Jason? We sure don’t know, but it’s fun to speculate.

True Blood creator Alan Ball describes Debbie Pelt as “a badass bitch you do not want to get on the wrong side of. She is not going to like Sookie.” Debbie will appear in the third episode of Season 3, and since we know they are now working on episode 2, we should hear who gets the part fairly soon.

It also sounds like they’ll be plenty of sex in the season premiere, with Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) ended up in a backwoods Arkansas motel room with a familiar face. “It should be curious and confusing to viewers,” teases Trammell. But Ryan Kwanten says his character, Jason Stackhouse, ups Sam by one. “My character wakes up in the first episode with two women beside him,” Ryan boasts. The actor’s also looking forward to seeing Jason enjoy a more meaningful romance. “He will find love in the werewolf world, and love is a pretty unknown concept for him.”

Alfre Woodard joins the series as Ruby Jean Reynolds, mother to Lafayette and aunt to Tara. Alfre describes her character as “nuts. She’s not going to be a person that the audience loves. She’s not very accepting of Lafayette, which is fun to play.”

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The HBO’s Post Golden Globe Awards Party held at Circa 55 Restaurant at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 17 was attended by many members of the True Blood cast. Show creator Alan Ball was joined by Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Todd Lowe, Nelsan Ellis, Michelle Forbes, Deborah Ann Woll, Sam Trammell, Rutina Wesley, Ryan Kwanten, Mariana Klaveno, Anna Camp and Allan Hyde.

More photos in the Photo Gallery

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According to True Blood creator Alan Ball, whether you’re a fan of Bill and Sookie or Sookie and Eric, season 3 of the HBO hit is sure to make you very unhappy. And, oddly, very happy, too. “Take a look at Joe [Manganiello],” he teases of the hunk he cast as the psychic’s new love interest, the werewolf Alcide. “Do you think [they] have reason to be worried?”

 “We were looking for a guy who was big, sexy, decent and heroic, with some darkness,” he says. “And [Manganiello] showed us all of that in the audition.”

In fact, the One Tree Hill alum so impressed the boss that he wasn’t asked to take a chemistry test with leading lady Anna Paquin. “We do that when we have four or five options,” Ball explains, “and in this instance, I felt like Joe was the only one who came close to what the character needed to be.”

Though Alcide isn’t introduced as a potential suitor for Sookie — “As in the book, he’s helping her find [her kidnapped boyfriend] Bill,” Ball notes, “and he has a business reason for owing Eric a favor” — one (bad) thing leads to an (incredibly sexy) other. “He’s there with her during a very painful time in her life — and his life, actually. And they’re thrown into some pretty intense situations together.

“And hello, he’s hot!” he adds with a laugh. “And hello, so is she. Two hot people in some intense situations and, for whatever reasons, their significant others are not there… they’re human.”

Image Credit: True Blood: John P. Johnson/HBO; Joe Manganiello

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As you know, Alan Ball created True Blood based on Charlaine Harris’ books, and it would be fair to call the results a phenomenon. The HBO cable network is so pleased with Ball and company that, Ball relates, “I just closed a deal to show-run [True Blood] for two more seasons, so I would assume that [the series is at minimum] going through Season Four.”

What does Ball feel is important to preserve from Harris’ books? “The main story is the same. We diverge mostly in the secondary characters. The books are sort of Sookie’s story, what happens to her. The other characters disappear if they’re not in a scene with her. And so we have diverged, certainly in the storylines for Tara [played by Rutina Wesley] and Lafayette [played by Nelsan Ellis], but we’ve tried to remain very true to the spirit of the world.”

The treatment of the supernatural elements in True Blood is fairly naturalistic. Ball explains his thinking on this subject. “Certainly the supernatural element of the show is a character in the show. We didn’t want to make it seem like something that is outside of nature, we wanted to make it seem like it was something that was a more primal aspect of nature. Maybe we’ve just lost a little bit of our perception to see it. It’s right under our noses, but we just don’t know it. [In] the books, but vampires are just the tip of the iceberg. I also like the fact that as writers on the show, it really opens the door for a lot of that in the way that we can create situations that the characters really have to [deal with] who they are and their emotional strength. So I really enjoy that aspect of it and it is something that I’ve never done before.”

The character Lafayette is killed off in Harris’ second book, but as of the end of True Blood’s Season Two, he’s alive and kicking onscreen. “Lafayette is very small in the book,” Ball relates. “Nelsan Ellis, the actor we cast, channeled something from somewhere that is kind of amazing. I definitely knew Jason had to be a great character actor [Ryan Kwanten plays the role]. I think all the major characters I knew were going to be really, really strong and really, really compelling, but I think Nelsan is the one [who was most surprising] – I had no idea that that would happen.”

Have any other characters surprised Ball? “I think the Newlins [the couple who run the anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun, played by Michael McMillian and Anna Camp] are fantastic. I love Eggs [Tara's Season Two love interest, played by Mehcad Brooks]. I love Lorena [played by Mariana Klaveno], I think she’s pretty wild, too. For me, they all pop. I love them all.”

True Blood the series has startled some of Harris’ [book] fans by being more overtly sexual and violent than the books are. Even in the relatively tender romance between Paquin’s Sookie and Moyer’s vampire Bill Compton, Ball says, “Certainly, the first time that they get together, we made it pretty bloody.” The episodes are indeed harder-edged than Harris’ prose, Ball adds. “It’s a little more violent. The books are violent, but I think it’s one thing to hear about it and another to see it.” So far, he adds, HBO has not objected to what has been depicted on the show. “I have never had a situation where they’ve said, ‘You can’t show that.’ Obviously, there’s a lot of sex in this show, but it’s never going to be pornographic. I’ve never had a situation where [the network has complained]. But I’m sure if I did something graphically pornographic, they would say, ‘Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?’”

Although his work as a director and producer has brought Ball in contact with special effects before, True Blood presented him with new experiences in that arena. He wants the effects to have impact, but not to steal the scenes. “I don’t want it ever to become a show about effects. We don’t have the time or the money to do a show about effects, and I’m getting tired of stuff where it’s all about the CGI and the characters are secondary. I always wanted the effects to be minimal, just enough to suggest. I think a lot of times it’s a little scarier to leave the effects to your imagination. But it is a little bit of a challenge, I just have to really depend on my visual effects people [the team at Todd Masters FX], asking them, ‘What can we do? How can we do it? Show me how it works on the storyboards.’ I said at the very beginning, ‘I don’t want any of that blue light from the Underworld movies, and I’m not going to give the vampires weird contact lenses or have the shape of their heads change when their fangs come out.’ In the future, when we get to other creatures that might appear, I don’t want to do that same old stuff. What’s important is the characters. The effects are just the shorthand to get us from one stage to another. But we will never be about the effects. I mean, it’s less interesting to me how [Bill's] face might change or what exactly are the mechanics of the fangs coming down – although we have really thought about that – than the fact that he’s been alive for a hundred and seventy years, most of them as a vampire, and his wife and children, who he loved deeply, he outlived them. He’s outlived everybody. He’s in a changing world and he’s given up on the idea of having any sort of love in his life until he meets this girl. That to me is way more interesting than what [growing fangs] looks like.”

Although Bon Temps is in Louisiana, most of True Blood is shot in and around Los Angeles, although there are occasional road trips, Ball relates. “We go to Louisiana maybe four times a year. Certainly, we can find places in L.A. that can pass for Louisiana, especially if it’s night, but you can’t have big palm trees and smog in the air. We have to [make it look hot], so we have makeup people who just have water bottles so they can spray the actors so they look sweaty, [although] not the vamps.”

As True Blood continues, Ball says, “I think we’re always going to use the books as sort of a foundation, but I just don’t see how, as time goes on, you can’t diverge from them a little bit more each season. I don’t know, though. We’re starting to work on Season Three and we actually are really, really sticking to the books, at the beginning at least.”

Anything you can tell us about where Season Three is going? “Season Three is a big Eric [the vampire played by Alexander Skarsgard] season and Season Four is really big for Eric’s character, according to the books.”

The fan response to True Blood, Ball says, is “Very enthusiastic, which is fantastic. It’s really good. I wasn’t really expecting it, but I’ve got to say, it feels fantastic. It feels great for people to respond to the show as much as they do. It’s really, really exciting.” At Comic-Con, he adds, “It was like we were rock stars. I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience like that, and I’ve got to say, it was very, very fun.”

Is there anything you would like to say in conclusion about True Blood? “That it’s really fun!”

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True Blood creator Alan Ball praises his actor Ryan Kwanten who plays Jason Stackhouse in the series.  We certainly agree with Mr. Ball since we thought Ryan was wonderful, especially in Season 2.

For True Blood all the actors have to leave their inhibitions behind, especially Kwanten who seems to get his clothes off in most episodes.

The series is set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, where humans co-exist with vampires, and stars Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and Kwanten.

“One of the things I really appreciated about Ryan is his willingness to look foolish,” Ball says.

“Jason is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and a lot of actors might need to wink at the camera to let the audience know that ‘I’m not really this stupid’.

“Ryan is smart and talented and skilled and he makes it (Jason) look effortless, but he’s really nothing like Jason in real life.”

Ball makes no apologies for the high level of nudity and sexual content in True Blood.

“All the sex is in the books,” he says. “When you think about vampires they kind of are sex. Part of the whole appeal of the vampire is the eroticism of it – of being bitten and the penetration of flesh by the fang.”

For Ball, though, True Blood is so much more than sex and horror. The series, which is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, digs deep emotionally too.

“There is some nice stuff in there about loneliness and the vulnerabilities of intimacy and how we as a society tend to demonise whatever group is conveniently ‘other’ at the time,” he says.

“Yet it’s all done in this light-hearted amusement-park kind of way so it never feels heavy-handed.

“The books walk this fine line between horror and adventure and romance and social satire.

“I got addicted somewhere around the third or fourth book. I thought, ‘this stuff holds up and it will be a really fun TV show’.“

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The writers of True Blood sit down with fans at the Los Angeles Paley Center to answer questions.

True Blood Writers Alan Ball, Nancy Oliver, Raelle Tucker, Alexander Woo, and Brian Buckner talked about how to write for a series in live discussion at the Paley Center in Los Angeles.

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