Rutina Welsey was interviewed by Sara Bibel at Fancast.com, where she discusses going to her first Emmy show, and speculates on Tara’s character development.

‘True Blood’ will compete for the Best Drama Emmy this Sunday. What are your plans for the ceremony?
I’m still working on it but everything’s slowly coming together. It’s my first Emmys so I’m a tad nervous but I’m incredibly excited and I feel honored that our show is getting recognized. It doesn’t really matter if we win. It’s just really cool that we’ve been nominated.
In the most recent episode of ‘True Blood,’ Tara finally learned that Jason Stackhouse killed Eggs. Where does she go now?
That’s a good question. That was like a punch in the stomach for her. Honestly, it’s probably going to be hard for her to recover from that. But then, maybe not, because she’s been through so much lately that maybe she’ll be like, ‘Oh, whatever. I can’t take it anymore. This is something I can just roll off my shoulders.’ The hard thing for her is Jason has always been a hero for her. To have your hero, someone you’ve looked up to or even wanted to be with, kill a man that you love, it is just a huge betrayal. And the fact that he kept it from me. It’s going to be interesting to see how Tara handles the information. Hopefully she’ll handle it well and stay in her right mind.
Tara is now thoroughly anti-vampire. With battle lines being drawn, how far is she going to go into the anti-vampire movement?
I don’t know if she’ll go deep into it because she’s got her own troubles. I think we’re going to see Tara deal with herself for the next couple episodes and try to figure out where she fits in and who she is and what she wants to do with her life. We’re going to see Tara figure some stuff out. I think it’s pretty nice to see that change for her.
Tara endured a terrifying ordeal with Franklin. What was it like playing such intense scenes and working with James Frain?
James Frain is one of the most amazing actors that I’ve worked with. It was so much fun. He’s so professional. He’s so good. He’s funny. He’s charismatic. It was hard sometimes to keep a straight face in some of those scenes because he was so funny. One time we busted out laughing when he was doing the fast texting during a take. It was challenging as an actor to go to that inner turmoil that Tara was going through and then to try and take it all off and go home and be a wife… but it was a lot of fun.
What have been some of your favorite scenes from this season?
I definitely would say being tied to the bed and him texting on the phone and me sitting at the table trying not to eat those flowers and throwing plates at people’s heads. We had some serious scenes. Also, some of my favorite scenes have been when we’ve seen Tara with Sam. Seeing Sam comfort her is nice. As Rutina the actor, I love to see those two together because they make sense to me. They really get each other. I just don’t know if Tara will ever be stable enough to see him for who he is and see that he’s a good guy.
So you think Sam is the right man for Tara?
I think she and Sam could work.
What about Jason? She kissed him last week.
I think that was in the moment. She was very vulnerable and needed affection. Immediately after she said, ‘I am so messed up. What am I doing?’ Like, I need to be alone. I am not myself.
There are a lot of theories that vampires are allegories for various groups on ‘True Blood.’ What do you think vampires represent?
They can represent so many things: gay rights, human rights, civil rights, minorities. It’s in the eyes of the audience. I think it changes from show to show. It’s a combination of things. That’s what I love about it. I don’t think Alan [Ball] is putting one thing on it. He mixes it all together. They have a worldly representation of a lot of different minorities, ethnicities and movements.
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