The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

Article on NYMag.com by Emma Rosenblum

There’s a scene in the new season premiere of True Blood in which Bill, the brooding village vampire, beds Sookie, his mortal girlfriend, after they’ve had an argument. It’s steamy stuff—makeup sex is still makeup sex, even when one party isn’t technically living. Mid-act, Bill bites Sookie’s neck with his fangs in an orgasmic frenzy, then kisses her, smearing her own red blood down her cheeks and onto her lips. Stephen Moyer, the actor who plays Bill, has the difficult job of portraying both a savage bloodsucker and a likable romantic lead, and this interlude, at least, comes off as hot as it does scary.

“I had an e-mail from a lady after Bill bit Sookie for the first time saying, ‘It was all going so well—why did you have to bite her?’ ” says Moyer, when I ask him about handling those two aspects of the role. “I explained to her that it was actually a consummation of their relationship as opposed to a violation. He wouldn’t do that for just anyone.” True Blood, which starts season two this week, is fundamentally a love story between two outsiders. Sookie Stackhouse, played by Anna Paquin, is an otherworldly waitress who can read people’s thoughts (except for Bill’s), and Bill Compton is a 173-year-old Civil War veteran who also happens to be a vampire. “However weird our show is, it’s ultimately about relationships,” says Moyer, who’s on location in Louisiana, where True Blood is set. Created by Six Feet Under’s Alan Ball, who adapted it from Charlaine Harris’s books, True Blood in its first season introduced viewers to a world where vampires live openly but are treated like second-class citizens, even those who, like Bill, want to co-exist with humans. “I play this vampire hero who’s trying to be decent and do decent things,” says Moyer. “And he loves Sookie so much that sometimes he goes too far for her.” Ball notes that he “expertly walks the line between monstrous, noble, and vulnerable. He’s wildly romantic and appealing, and I am not at all surprised by the rabid intensity of Bill love from the fans.”

Moyer, a 37-year-old Brit who has toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company, peppers his speech with “darling” and “love,” and sounds nothing like Bill, whose Nawlins accent spawned the catchphrase “Sookie Stackhouse, you are maaahn!” (If you’re a fan of the show, you’ve tried to repeat it, unsuccessfully.) When I point this out, Moyer immediately switches into “Bill.” “When I’m in my voice and I say ‘Soo-kie,’ that’s just how it comes out,” he drawls creepily, pronouncing Sookie to rhyme with cookie (as opposed to kooky). “Everything moves slowly in Louisiana, including the way they talk,” he says. “The voice has really taken on a life of its own. There’s a parody of it on FunnyorDie.com called Vampire Bill’s Cooking Show, in which they make Bloody Marys.”

Adding to the show’s romantic fantasy is the fact that Moyer and Paquin have become an offscreen couple too, though with (presumably) less biting going on. “In the casting process, they read us together, so our chemistry’s not a coincidence,” says Paquin. “The two characters have to lock eyes and go, ‘Oooh, who are you?’ ” she says. Moyer insists that “we tried to stay professional for as long we could. But it was unstoppable.” The couple tried to keep their relationship out of the press until the first season aired, “because I didn’t want the publicity to be about us as a couple. But now it’s fantastic—not only do we live together, we see each other every day,” he says. That Bill and Sookie’s connection continues into real life seems a natural progression; the show hinges on the fact that these two are meant to be, in some cosmic way. “I hope people feel like it adds to the show instead of taking something away,” says Moyer. “Our relationship has grown in front of the crew, in front of everyone, really. To be honest, it’d be weird if I were with somebody else.”

We received a tip that Stephen Moyer will be a guest on The Early Show (CBS) on Thursday morning June 11. The show airs from 7 am till 9 am. We haven’t been able to confirm this yet, but set your DVR just in case. It has been confirmed, Stephen is listed as the first guest.

Stephen Moyer will be a guest on Regis & Kelly on Wednesday June 10 at 9 am on ABC (check local airing schedule).

Stephen will be a busy boy that day, because after Regis & Kelly he will be heading over to The View for the 11 am show on ABC and later that day he will appear on the “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” show on at 12:35PM ET/11:35PM CT on NBC.

source: The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

Article on LA Times by Jessica Gelt

The bomb that shattered the living room left carnage in its wake. The floor is slick with blood, tattered bodies litter the room, entrails dangle from the ceiling and an unrecognizable mass of goo stuck to the wall erratically spurts jets of mauve blood.

“I’m gonna ask everyone to clear the set who is not actually dying on it,” yells Scottie Gissel, a first assistant director for HBO’s hit vampire series “True Blood,” which launches into its second season of sensational Gothic gore and lusty, undead romance next Sunday. (Viewers will see the scene of explosive destruction that Gissel is stage-managing late in the season.)

On this sunny afternoon, the cast and crew work in overdrive on a gloomy, fog-soaked soundstage at the Lot on Santa Monica and Formosa. They labor with the assuredness of a project vindicated. After getting off to a rocky start critically last fall, “True Blood,” based on the books by Charlaine Harris and created by Alan Ball, who created “Six Feet Under” and wrote “American Beauty,” steadily built its audience to emerge as HBO’s most popular show in recent years, with an average of 7.8 million viewers watching each episode by the end of Season 1.

With a fervent fan base, including nearly half a dozen fan-run websites that HBO — in a forward-thinking approach to managing public opinion — actively fosters, “True Blood” is hoping to prove with its sophomore season that even in the “Twilight” age of vampire overkill, it can maintain its success.

Unrest hits undead

“True Blood” takes place in a world where vampires have come out of the coffin , so to speak, aided by the invention of a synthetic blood substitute called Tru Blood that helps keep their primal appetites at bay. Still, prejudice against the undead abounds, with many of the show’s human characters motivated by a hate and fear that is as gruesomely destructive as that of even the most unrepentant bloodsucker.

Season 1 established the main action: “True Blood” is set in the fictional backwater town of Bon Temps, La., where a telepathic good girl named Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) works as a waitress in a raucous bar called Merlotte’s. When a mysterious vampire named Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) comes to town, Sookie falls in love with him. A high body count and muddy graveside sex ensue.

Ball initially read “Dead Until Dark,” the first in Harris’ “Southern Vampire” series, five years ago. By the time “Six Feet Under” was filming its final season he was interested in doing something with the books on television. Sitting on a couch in his bungalow office on the Lot, Ball says the cultural clout of his broodingly dark funeral-parlor drama left critics and the public unsure of what to think of the zany, Saturday matinee movie serial that is “True Blood.”

“When people approach me about ‘Six Feet Under’ they say, ‘Oh my God, that show meant so much to me, I lost my mother last year,’ ” says Ball, putting one shorts-clad knee up on the couch. “With ‘True Blood,’ it’s more like, ‘Dude, I love your show. It rocks!’ ”

Ball tries to ignore the prattle of the Web. (He used to Google himself before realizing, “I could just be enjoying life and I’m trolling the Internet to see what strangers think of me.”) But he says he’s learning more about, and coming to appreciate, the fevered devotion and lively debate among genre fans.

Ladies choice

“One of my assistant directors is from Texas, and during hiatus she was there with some of her girlfriends. One of their husbands came up and said, ‘Thank you for that show, because every Sunday night we all have the best sex we’ve had in years,’ ” Ball says, laughing. “I feel like, although the show appeals to all kinds of people, the real die-hard fans are not teenage boy sci-fi geeks, they’re women.”

Tosha Shelton, Kasandra Rose and Ollie Chong, the women behind the fan site truebloodnet.com (which HBO helps secure interviews for — Rose was even taken on a guided tour of the show’s set), agree, saying they rarely interact with male fans. The trio, who all have master’s degrees and a healthy awareness of the enterprise’s goofiness, met online through an HBO forum but have never met in person; they live, respectively, in Georgia, Michigan and Ontario, Canada. When asked what attracted them most to the show, they giggled over thousands of miles of phone lines.

“OK, should we all say our favorite character together ladies?” asked Rose. Then Chong started counting, “One, two, three,” before the women yelled in unison, “BILL COMPTON!”

Bill: handsome, manly gait, antebellum-era manners and age and a self-tormenting appetite for human blood. As played by Moyer, a charismatic British actor, Bill is an honorable man imbued with an untouchable darkness.

Given that at its very core the vampire genre is about forbidden romance and the thrill and appeal of the unknown, it is little wonder that misunderstood Bill has come to dominate the hearts of fans with, as Moyer blithely puts it, “a healthy feminine side.”

Billsbabe t-shirt

Real chemistry

As he leads an on-set tour of Bill’s cryptic, mossy mansion, Moyer says that he and Paquin were in England when Season 1 first aired, so they never got the chance to watch it.

In the real world, the pair are dating and live together. They kept their romance a secret for 10 months before coming out with it on set; its inception was aided by the fact that during filming for the pilot “HBO very stupidly put us in the same hotel,” says Moyer, adding that he knew “True Blood” was building a fan base but didn’t realize the scope of it until someone sent Paquin a shirt emblazoned with the words, “Bill’s Babes.” *

“She was like, ‘I’m the original Bill’s babe,’ and she would occasionally wear the shirt around the house,” says Moyer.

Clans of character-obsessed viewers aren’t the only windows into the restless soul of eternal vampire love. Chat rooms, forums, podcasts, Twitter feeds created by fanatics masquerading as personalities from the show, Facebook pages, show recaps, detailed factoids and general, shared-interest camaraderie are all part of the parallel universe that breathes life into “True Blood” itself.

Within the world of the show there is plenty to latch onto. “The show is really heavy-duty,” says Rose. “It’s good and evil and confusing the two, and then looking at the important topics of today, like the gay issue, and women being promiscuous or not. It looks at everyday things, but through a very dark lens.”

Riding the zeitgeist

“True Blood” premiered just two months before Barack Obama was elected president and Proposition 8 passed in California, effectively banning gay marriage in the state. Since the show contains plenty of references to outsider groups kept down, it is easy to conclude that it represents one of those moments in history when a piece of pop-culture ephemera taps into something greater than itself.

Maybe, Ball says, adding that some fans were likely drawn to the series as the country was coming out of the Bush era because it was a time that was “about institutionalized demonization of all kinds of groups.” But really, he says, although those deeper topics are definitely present, the show, its fans and its creator are primarily concerned with campy glee.

“I needed fun,” he says. ” ‘Six Feet Under’ was a really gratifying emotional and artistic experience, but it’s hard to spend five years peering into that existential abyss. This one is just fun. It’s so much fun.”

Paquin thinks so too. Walking around the set in a dirt-and-blood-stained white coat and high heels, her shiny blond hair matted and fake glass sticking out of her slender calves, Paquin asks the crew and visitors for hugs and jokes about how fabulous she looks.

“People fear what they don’t understand, and are quick to judge what’s not like themselves,” she says, relaxing between takes as tiny bits of fake ash from the explosion settle on her clothes. “But I don’t think there’s ever been a time when tolerance and acceptance hasn’t been relevant.”

What fans are responding to, says Paquin, is the fact that “True Blood” is an “exciting, big-concept, plot-driven, really high-class soap opera.”

And like in any good soap opera, Moyer knows that no matter how you chew on the show’s politics, it all really comes back to sex. Biting, specifically. His dark eyes glittering with mischief, he says: “There wasn’t a hole there before and there’s a hole there now. It’s sexy. There’s no getting away from it. If you want to scrape away at it, scrape away, but it’s really sexy stuff.”

* The Billsbabe t-shirts and other merchandise are sold in our online shop, The Billsbabe’s Shoppe (www.cafepress.com/billsbabe), a non-profit fan shop with the aim to raise money for the Brentwood Theatre in Essex, UK, of which Stephen Moyer is patron.

Stephen Moyer will be a guest on ABC’s The View on Wednesday June 10, the show will air live from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon.

That same day Stephen will also be on the “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” show on  at 12:35PM ET/11:35PM CT on NBC.

Interview with Stephen Moyer by Kristin on EOnline

Is it possible that Twilight is only the second-most-romantic vampire saga of the moment?

Being on premium cable as they are, True Blood’s Sookie and Bill certainly give virginal Edward and Bella a run for their money when it comes to blood-hot sex, but what about love?

We just spoke exclusively with True Blood‘s leading man, Stephen Moyer, aka Bill Compton himself, to find out what’s in store for the vampires of the dirty, dirty South in season two. He told us that while there will be just as many near-pornographic sex scenes, his character is still primarily driven by an overiding morality and an abiding passion for Sookie Stackhouse.

Read on to find out what he told us about sex scenes, his “hideous” vampire daughter and falling in love with Anna Paquin, onscreen and off…

Is True Blood going to stay as explicitly sexual this season or will you dial that back a bit?

The show is ridiculously f–king sexy…I think Alan Ball and the writers do very well in pushing the envelope. I think one of the things that drives me nuts about society is that you can watch hours about terrorists but you can’t look at a human nipple. What the f–k is that about? Sex is part of our lives. It’s part of our existence. So I kind of embrace the fact that we hit it full on the head.

What you think of Bill as a person, are you more interested in him as a vampire or as a personality?
There’s no getting away from the fact that Bill is a vampire. He can’t wish to be anything else, because he’s a vampire, but he’s a vampire who wants to live a human life. Actually, in fact, he wishes not for a human life, but for a moral life. It’s not that he doesn’t want to feed on blood, it’s that he doesn’t want it to involve killing—but in his first season he kills as many people as the murderer. That was something that was very present in our minds. He has that blood lust, he has that very strong sense of right and wrong. If somebody f–s him off, he’s going to take them out. He’s torn. He’s not going to do it just for the sake of it. But if somebody hurts him or hurts his family or hurts his loved one…they’re history. [Chuckles]. I like that.

What kind of arc can we expect for Bill and Sookie this season?
I think that they love each other more than they have loved anything ever. Speaking from Bill’s point of view, she’s given him reason to live again.

Does your relationship with Anna [Paquin] make it more or less difficult to do emotionally awkward scenes between Sookie and Bill, like when she and Sam got together last season and Bill walked in on them?
Anna and I met on this show. We met doing the job. And so the crew has seen us grow together. They have seen our relationship grow by watching us on set. Now you know, we kept it from them to begin with. You know, it was very…we wanted to keep it private. We didn’t want people to think we were f–king with their lives with something fickle. But honestly, there’s no one I’d rather work with. I really mean it. I love working with her, and that’s how it all started, by falling in love on camera…So, last year, Sam had his stuff coming up with Anna and at that point nobody knew we were a couple. So Sam’s a close friend, and I had to go to Sam and say, ‘Look. I need to tell you something. I need you to know. I don’t want you to find out later and feel like a heel.’ So I told him, that was the first time I told him about me and Anna. And he couldn’t believe it! It’s about trust, you know. And that trust is a very important part of a relationship.

From your perspective as an actor, how would you characterize Bill and Eric’s relationship—are they friends, enemies, coworkers or what?
Bill just knows that’s how Eric is, and that he’s not going to be changing him anytime soon. Certainly in this season there is a moral hierarchy. And you understand that in the vampire world there’s a very strong sense of right and wrong. There are things you do and things you don’t and if you do something within the vampire world that is f–ked up and against your fellow vamp, you are going to suffer for that. I kind of like that idea, that you know, anything goes, but if you cross a line, you’re going to suffer for it. Whether Eric is adhering to those vampire morals is important.

What about your vampire daughter, Jessica—does that continue to be a fractured fairy tale?
If Bill imagined a daughter, he imagined a beautiful little well-mannered Victorian beauty. And Jessica comes along, and she is this hideous, sex-and-blood hungry 17-year-old. And we don’t think she’s going to be that. We think she’s going to be this homeschooled innocent, and that’s not where she is at all. The actress, Deborah Ann Woll, who plays Jessica, she’s f–king brilliant. And I love her. She goes about creating her part through a very pure, you know, method way. And I don’t mean she’s a Method actress, I just mean she really, she really goes at it with incredible, incredible industry. She’s fantastic to work with!

What can you tell us about season two?
I think the second season is beyond amazing…more than anybody imagined. Honestly, I came out of the screening the other day with my jaw on the floor. And I’ve read it, you know.

True Blood season two premieres June 14 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

The little spark between Arlene and Terry will develop in some well deserved romance for the two unlucky Merlotte’s employees. But there is another unexpected hook up in the works. EOline’s Kristin reveals that queen Sophie Ann will share a little lesbian romance with Sookie’s cousin Hadley.

Kristin spoke to Stephen Moyer about Lafayette.

We just chatted up True Blood star Stephen Moyer and asked him about the future of Nelsan Ellis‘ brilliant Lafayette, and Moyer said, “Lafayette, I can’t talk about. Nelsan is an amazing dude, and, uh, I hope he does come back…but I, you know…who knows.” There’s no decisive statement in there, but “I hope he does come back” seems to suggest that Lafayette’s gone somewhere, and for that matter, Nelsan’s Lafayette also does not appear in any of the season two promo photos, the press releases or the books after Dead Until Dark. Long story short, we’re starting to feel pretty naive for having believed/hoped the show was just toying with us and would find a way to keep Lafayette around for season two and beyond. We are going to need a lot of naked vampires to make up for this disaster.

source

Article on DaemonTV

A few days ago, I got to interview the brilliant STEPHEN MOYER who plays Bill on True Blood.

In addition to being my favorite show on TV right now, True Blood also has a great cast, which of course includes Stephen Moyer, one of the Emmy hopefuls this year. I think we can agree when I say that I hope he gets some recognition this year, along with the show, for the amazing performance he has given us as Bill in the show’s first season.

Stephen Moyer was almost as excited as I am about season 2 of True Blood (which premieres on June 14 on HBO), and in addition to sharing his love for the show, he also talked about his process for creating Bill, as well as their highly anticipated return to Comic Con this year (which I teased about), and much more.

So even though the second season of True Blood might still be a few days away, you can at least enjoy his interview now.

Had you heard of the books before starring in the show?

Stephen Moyer: I had not ever heard of them. The closest I had ever gotten to the whole vampire genre was really Anne Rice. Once I had read the pilot I went and read the first couple of books very, very quickly. I loved Charlaine’s [Harris] world. I loved the world that Charlaine has created and I think it’s brilliant. She’s very clever. It’s funny, it’s dark, and it’s odd. It’s really sexy. If you think about funny, dark, and sexy that’s exactly what Alan Ball kind of created.

Have you read all of them now?

Stephen Moyer: No, no. I sort of made the decision not to, but I probably will read book three before we start season three. Sometimes she’ll say something that Bill does or gesture, or physical something that I find very interesting, and I hadn’t thought of. Occasionally I will slip back in and have a look at those things.

Where did you draw your inspiration to create Bill?

Stephen Moyer: I went back and looked at the Civil War and that’s something, as an Englishman, that’s not part of our history. I hadn’t really read much about the American Civil War. It was very interesting to me to do that. Then I thought about the men in that period of history. My granddad, my papa died when I was seven. And I loved him, he was a big hero of mine. When something like the iPhone comes out or mp3, I’ve often thought ‘What would my granddad think of the world we live in now?’ I try to do that with Bill. Obviously, he’s been around the whole time, so he’s seen the development, but it’s quite interesting sometimes to think of life like that, and it must be so perplexing to see all the new stuff that’s around and about. So that’s one idea. Another thing I did, it’s kind of in the script, but I really wanted to make him different from everybody else, I wanted to make him sound different, and I wanted his manners to be different. I like that fact that he hasn’t got a heart, so he hasn’t got a heartbeat, and so he has no ticks. He has no extraneous movement. He has no need for little scratches on his face because that just wouldn’t happen to him. That stuff comes from having a heart, from pumping blood around. That’s not how he exists. I wanted to make him very still. When he does need to move incredibly fast he really can. We tried to make him sound very different from everybody else, in terms of certain speech patterns. Instead of for instance “war” how it would be said in the South now, no he says “war”, and “more” [Editor's note: Think of how Bill would pronounce "war" and "more," that's how Stephen Moyer did it]. It’s not a great example but it’s like ‘Gone with the Wind’ or something. Anything he doesn’t say which they would have said is “vampire,” [Editor's note: He uses a Southern accent] he doesn’t say “vampire”, he says “vampire [Editor's note: Again imagine Bill in True Blood saying "vampire"]. Which is the one thing that my character says the same as everybody else because Alan [Ball] wanted continuity on that one word.

I have to ask about the accent. How hard is it, does it get easier?

Stephen Moyer: It’s never been a struggle. Does it sound like it’s a struggle?

Not at all.

Stephen Moyer: To be honest with you I’ve always felt very, very comfortable with it. I love the accent, I think it’s a beautiful accent, it’s really fun to do. It’s one of those things where when we went to Louisiana last year I went ‘Oh God, yeah this is it. This is the South.’ As soon as you get there and see everybody just moving really slowly, once you are around that pace, and you see the South for what it’s for. With the heat, you sort of understand why people move so slowly. You see why there is no extraneous movement. That goes back to what I was saying earlier, which, is really interesting for playing that part. I really enjoy it, I get to work, and I get my voice on. I just feel like Bill straight away. It’s quite a beautiful voice to do, I have to say.

What’s coming up on season two? Is it based a lot on the books?

Stephen Moyer: We follow the skeleton of the books. We follow the same patterns and ideas of the book. But there’s a new character, Jessica. There are new things in the story. Yes, we follow the skeleton of the book, but Alan and this team of writers are taking it to a place that I certainly didn’t know existed. It is insane. I can’t describe it but I don’t think there has ever been anything like it before on television. I’m very proud of it.

More insane than season one? That’s going to be tough.

Stephen Moyer: You are in for a ride. We’ve seen up to episode three and I came out thoroughly moved by it, and shocked at how brilliant it is. It seems like every episode is getting better, better, and better. I really do think this season is going to be a very difficult one to beat.

What about Bill and Sookie?

Stephen Moyer: Well, I know what happens in book three. There is in book three and at the end of book two a triangle developing between Bill, Sookie, and Eric. That is definitely present on our show, and rightly so, because you can’t watch two people be incredibly happy for 12 episodes. You might as well be making a sitcom. That is not our show. There has to be conflict. I think the show works, Alan puts characters in conflict. He puts little obstacles in their way and sees how they deal with them, and their loved ones, to see how their partners react when they are given those. I think that is really interesting to watch as an audience.

I think Alan Ball mentioned at Comic Con last year that werewolves would or might appear in season two. Is that the case?

Stephen Moyer: I don’t think, I mean I haven’t seen the last couple of episodes but I don’t think that it’s going to happen this season. But I honestly can’t say for sure. You have to wait and find out.

Are you guys going to be at Comic Con this year?

Stephen Moyer: I believe we are, yes.

When did you realize that this show would become such a phenomenon?

Stephen Moyer: When you read something you know it has the ability to run as a series. You read it and you have to make a decision. Is this something that could become a series? Is this something that is going to be intriguing to the public? When I read that first episode I thought ‘Oh my fucking God. Where on earth? This could go anywhere. Alan could do anything with this.’ I just thought ‘This is something that I would love to be a part of.’ That’s what I thought. It was something intriguing and fascinating. This could be a huge hit. It’s like one of those diagrams that you do in mathematics when you’re a kid. Those circular diagrams where somebody is a right-wing and somebody is a left-wing, but they all like porridge. The thing that they all like is the thing that connects them. The thing that I thought about this show is that it had the opportunity to be lots of different things to lots of different people. People who like vampires will like it. People who like Alan Ball will like it. People who like really great drama will like it. People who subscribe to HBO will hopefully like it. There are also other aspects, the Sci-Fi element. It’s a love story. I think that a lot of people think try to find the romance in it and how that aspect of it. I think that a lot of people were very taken by the love story by Bill and Sookie. And then you have these crazed Eric fans. What I’m saying is that there an awful lot of people that are affected by it. I just think it’s going to grow and grow. I’m really pleased that it has become successful. But ultimately I was kind of not surprised that people were watching it. If I weren’t in it I would be watching it. That’s a dream. Sometimes we talk about this at work. We are just like ‘Oh my God. This is so great.’ [laughs] When the episodes turn up and I see something that happens to Rutina [Wesley], you know Tara’s character or something, and we all go to Rutina and go ‘Oh my fucking God. I can’t believe you’re going to do that.’ It’s genuinely exciting and thrilling. There is a lot of love in our group. And I think what this season does, which I think is just amazing and I don’t know how the writers have managed to do it, is every single character has fantastic stuff to do. Everybody has life changing, odd, funny moments. We have sexy shit to do. Really interesting oddball stuff. Every single character has some amazing shit to do. And that is hard work, as a writer, to keep that consistency up for everybody. There were a couple of moments last year where I didn’t think that was the case. But this year the consistency is just extraordinary. I’m very excited by it as you can probably tell.

What originally drew you to acting?

Stephen Moyer: I used to sing in a church choir when I was seven or eight. I used to really love singing. I still love getting together with a bunch of people. I’ve always been somebody who loved rehearsal. I always loved rehearsal kind of more than the week of the performance, in terms of plays and theatre. I loved getting together with a group of people and creating something. And that’s kind of extended really. When I go on set I’m fascinated by everybody else. I love watching the crew, I love watching the camera department, and I love watching other actors come up with stuff in their own way. I think it’s fascinating and I love it all. That’s actually grown and hasn’t diminished at all. If anything it’s gotten bigger and bigger. I’m sort of quite child-like in that way. I look forward to going to work, I’m excited by it, and I love what it is that we do. I consider myself very lucky to be able to be doing it. It still amazes me sometimes that I’m doing what I love.

I bet a lot of actors wish they were doing what you are doing.

Stephen Moyer: I do realize that and sometimes one forgets. When life gets difficult and there are things to be doing. Then sometimes you have to kind of sit back and pinch yourself and go ‘My God, look at what I’m doing. This is fantastic.’

Stephen Moyer will be a guest on the “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” show on Wednesday June 10 at 12:35PM ET/11:35PM CT on NBC.

Check the Jimmy Fallon website for the airing schedule.

Article on Courier-Journal.com by Tamara Ikenberg

If and when I meet Stephen Moyer, the gorgeous British actor who plays lead vampire Bill Compton on HBO’s “True Blood,” I shall be wearing a pink “Sired by Bill” T-shirt and will offer him a teddy bear clad in a tiny “Glamoured by Bill” T-shirt.

I predict his fangs will retract, and he’ll run away screaming.

The super-sweet and cheesy “True Blood” merch available at Billsbabe’s Shoppe on cafepress.com celebrates the show’s sexy leading men, and sharply contrasts with the show’s trademark gore and guts. But buying the crazy stuff helps a good artistic cause, the Brentwood Theatre in Essex, United Kingdom.

Visit the shoppe at www.cafepress.com/billsbabe.