The Vault – TrueBlood-Online.com

The Vault already reported it yesterday that Charlaine Harris will do a cameo in True Blood’s Season 2 finale.

Article on Daily News by Cristina Kinon

Though season two of HBO’s “True Blood” will further diverge from the Charlaine Harris series of books that inspired it, the author herself will be making a guest appearance in the season finale.

Series creator Alan Ball told reporters Wednesday that though he and Harris don’t talk much about the direction of the show, they keep in touch.

“She actually is going to come out and do a cameo probably in the last episode of the season,” said Ball. “But I do think it’s best to just respect that boundary. Maybe I’m just being chicken because I don’t want to hear that she hates this or she hates that.”

“True Blood,” returning June 14 at 9 p.m., stars Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in the small Southern town of Bon Temps, La., where vampires and humans are trying to co-exist. It also features Stephen Moyer as Sookie’s undead love interest, Bill Compton.

Vampires are a hot commodity in pop culture right now, thanks to the “Twilight” phenomenon, the CW’s recent addition of “Vampire Diaries” to its fall season and “True Blood.” And though Ball isn’t a “Twilight” fan, he doesn’t see a problem with a crowded market.

“I can’t really talk that much about ‘Twilight’ because I haven’t read any of the books or seen the movie, but I personally don’t really understand why you would have vampires in something that’s basically about abstinence,” said Ball.

“I guess it makes it safe for young girls to fantasize about vampires in a way that isn’t really threatening. … But as long as people love vampires and it helps bring them to our show, I’m happy.”

(For the uninitiated, “True Blood” is nothing like “Twilight,” most notably because Ball’s vampires are definitely not abstinent.)

Ball says that the second season of “True Blood” will explore “the power of cults.”

“Whether that’s a neo-Greco pagan cult,” he said, “or a church of organized religion.”

In addition to Harris, another guest star lined up for this season is Evan Rachel Wood, who will appear in the last two episodes as Sophie-Anne Leclerq, a powerful 500-year-old vampire.

Sophie-Anne’s character doesn’t show up in the books until much later. But when the “True Blood” writers decided to move up her introduction, Ball said he immediately thought of Wood for the part.

“I got a call from Evan’s manager during the first season saying that she loved the show and would love to be a part of it,” said Ball. “I was thrilled because I think she’s an amazing actress … but I don’t really create roles for actors.

“But when we decided to meet [the character] this season, I thought, ‘Wow, [Wood] would be really great for that – let’s see if we can make it work.’ And fortunately, it did.”

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Article on THR.com

Mary McDonnell, left, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Sigourney Weaver, Regina King and Anna Paquin (Photo by Dan Busta)

Broadcast or cable, primetime or anytime (thanks to DVRs), television is now the best place for actresses. The Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Richmond and Matthew Belloni invited a diverse panel — Rose Byrne (FX’s “Damages”), January Jones (AMC’s “Mad Men”), Regina King (NBC’s “Southland”), Mary McDonnell (Sci Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Gallactica”), Anna Paquin (HBO’s “True Blood”) and Sigourney Weaver (Lifetime’s “Prayers for Bobby”) — to discuss the challenge of shooting a scene in three takes and the strangest things they’ve read about themselves in tabloids.

The Hollywood Reporter: You’ve all worked in both film and television. What’s the biggest difference?

Anna Paquin: For HBO, we shoot single camera, so it doesn’t feel any different to shooting a (movie). The place that I have experienced the difference is you’re always with new material that you haven’t had for more than a few days, and you’re right at the edge of creating the character. In that sense, it’s a different entry into the creative moment. There’s not as much prep.

January Jones: We get the material literally a day or two before we shoot it. So, it’s very spontaneous. It works, but — unlike a film, where you have the script and you have the beginning and end and hopefully an arc — you don’t know where the character is going.

Rose Byrne: Sometimes we get (the script) on the day (of shooting). I go a bit mental, but you have to let it go.

Sigourney Weaver: (With) “Prayers for Bobby,” I did have the script for a month. One thing I said was, “You know, I’d love to work chronologically,” and they said “Absolutely.” That was the first thing to go! By the last week, the schedule was like, my son was dead, my son was alive, my son was dead, my son was alive. (Thanks to reading it well in advance), I kind of knew where I was.

Byrne: I had to do a whole scene opposite someone in a chair, and I had a gun and I was taunting them — and I didn’t know who was in the chair when we filmed it! But actually it was quite fun because it ended up being like an acting exercise.

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Article on PioneerLocal by Jennifer Thomas

Last September, TV got a little more interesting when “True Blood” premiered on HBO. It’s been a long seven months since it went off the air, and I think I’m not alone in finding something endlessly fascinating about the campy, silly, engrossing, over-the-top, dark dramedy. Season 2 premieres in less than two weeks (June 14) and after watching the first few episodes, it’s bloody good. Last season was partly spent setting up the quirky (and hazardous to its residents’ health) world of Bon Temps, while Season 2 literally dives right into the action. Tara and Sookie’s screams — after finding the body in Andy Bellefleur’s car — are still fresh when the second season begins. (Some minor spoilers ahead.)

Where we last left off, Lafayette had been attacked by something supernatural; Tara was living with the suspicious social worker Maryann — a fan of the vibrating shimmer and pigs; Sookie was recovering after killing Rene, the slayer of vamp-lovers; Bill was recovering from getting a tad too much sun and dealing with his whiny, newly minted vamp, Jessica; and Jason, who never met a lesson he could learn, was being courted by the Fellowship of the Sun Church.

Since things literally pick up where they left off, all those events are fresh in the minds of the main characters. It’s nice that we didn’t “miss anything” while “True Blood” was off the air, but it’s also a little jarring to hear Sookie say that it’s only been three weeks since Gran died.

But back to the body in the car. That dark-skinned leg with the pink-painted toenail leg spilling out…Is it Lafayette, the fan-favorite, was definitely great for his one-liners and his way of cutting through a whole lot of crazy on the part of the other characters? Is he dead? The answers come pretty quickly.

The Stackhouses, Sookie and Jason, have never met a flashing red “Danger” sign they didn’t like, and as usual, they end up in trouble. Jason gets in cozy with the Fellowship of the Sun members, who have an affinity for silver “honesty” rings and singing their own version of Kumbaya. Jason signs up to attend the church’s leadership conference where he gets in good with the young Rev. Steve Newlin (Michael McMillian) and his perky blond wife, Sarah (Anna Camp). Here’s where it looks like things are going — maybe an illicit affair between Jason and Sarah, who gets a little glint in her eye whenever recovered bad-boy Jason is around. It also doesn’t take Jason long to inadvertently make a rival out of Luke, (Wes Brown) who thought he’d be the golden child of the Fellowship of the Sun leadership camp. Either way, the camp is a hilarious setting and you’ve got to wonder what would happen if any of the cheerful, but frightening, members ever ran into a real vampire.

Jason’s also going through some Terry-like post-traumatic stress, dealing with the deaths of Gran, Amy and Eddie the vampire.

Sookie isn’t happy about the revelation of Jessica, but eventually decides to take pity on her, which ends up being the exact wrong thing to do. Bill is also finding it hard to play daddy-dearest to a teenage girl.

Tara’s living the high life at Maryann’s (Michelle Forbes) house, and getting cushy with fellow housemate, Eggs (Mehcad Brooks), but her natural cynical side is wondering if a life where there’s an endless availability of passion fruit, might be too good to be true.

The connection between Maryann and Sam — one that goes back to when Sam was a teenager — is revealed in greater depth. Sam’s also starting to get cranky (or crankier) about Sookie’s treatment of him. “I’m tired of charring my ass on your back burner.”

A new waitress, Daphne (Ashley Jones), comes to work at Merlotte’s, and she’s mighty clumsy. (Seriously, why would anyone waitress at Merlotte’s anymore? They might as well give you life insurance instead of health insurance.)

Eric hasn’t forgotten Sookie’s promise to help him when he requires it, and he’s looking for her to find the missing vampire sheriff of Dallas. Which makes Bill a little ticked off in a scene in a woman’s clothing store. Seeing Eric in a track suit alone is worth it.

The usual regulars — the ones that survived anyway — are back with Arlene, Terry, Andy Bellefleur, Tara’s mother and Eric’s vamp sidekicks, Pam and Chow.

The premiere ends with one of the most violent human deaths yet. We’ve seen a lot of bloody vampire demises — Longshadow exploded all over Sookie and Eddie erupted in a geyser of gore in Jason’s basement — but this time it’s a human who goes really grisly.

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All the solo promos have been added to the HBO True Blood website.

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Televisionary just finished up their in interview with Alan Ball and they tweet that Charlaine Harris will provide a cameo in the Seaon 2 Finale!

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Carrie Preston is the multi talented actress who portrays the no-nonsense waitress Arlene on True Blood. Besides acting she owns a production company “Daisy 3 Productions”, writes scripts and has directed two movies. And on top of that she has been happily married for many years to actor Michael Emerson who portrays my favorite LOST character Ben Linus.

I spoke with Carrie on the phone, she is a very easy person to talk with and a few times I forgot to stick to my questions and started telling her things. She even asked me a couple of question about The Vault and the fans.

Carrie Preston

Last time The Vault interviewed Carrie was back in February at the Macon Film Festival where she was promoting her production company’s latest endeavor Ready? OK! The movie is out on DVD now.

It is going very well. We are getting a lot of sales and rentals and people are very excited about it. We are the third top selling DVD for our distributor, which is Wolf Video. So we are doing quite well and we’re just happy in this climate day and age to have sold a movie and to have it out available for people to see, because so many film makers aren’t able to make sales at this point in time because of the economy.

I heard you went to Paris with your husband Michael Emerson to attend the premiere of the fifth season of LOST in France. Had you ever been there before?

No, I had never been and neither had Michael and we were so taken with the city, of course it is so historical and to be able to actually see all those buildings and all that art work in person was really stunning. And the French people were so kind and very, very welcoming. There is a huge LOST contingency there who are really big fans, so they were going crazy for Michael and it was real fun to see that.

Michael plays a very important role on Lost and I am sure he gets recognized on the street all the time.

He does. Unlike me who looks so different from my character on True Blood because I wear a wig and I definitely don’t look anything like Arlene. It is very interesting to see because it is very hard for him to disguise himself but it is very easy for me.
People are always very surprised, they recognize me from other things and then they ask me “What are you doing now?” And when I say that I am on True Blood, they say “No, you are not.” Yes, I am Arlene! Everybody is always a little surprised so that is kind of fun. I like to see their faces when they realize that it is me.

When I wrote articles about you on my website and I always mentioned that you play Arlene, otherwise I received questions from readers asking who you were and which part you played.

Oh, that is so funny. Even the fans. Like I said people would recognize me from other things but not from True Blood. But people are starting to catch on and people in the know who are real true fans, if they see Michael and see me with him they put two and two together. “Oh oh that’s the girl from True Blood”. But it is definitely not something the general public is quite aware of yet. But it is just fine with me.

You and Michael: Both husband and wife on two of the most successful shows on television today.

Yes, we are very aware of that because of course there have been times when neither one of us had been working so it’s really nice to have both of us on successful shows and to be working. It is logistically kind of complicated because he shoots in Hawaii and I shoot in LA and we actually live in New York, so we’re a little bit all over the map, but these are good problems to have.

Life must be very busy in the Emerson-Preston household?

It can be, yes. We never know exactly what the schedule is from one week to the next, but we make it work. We try to see each other every couple of weeks. Although now that he is on hiatus this summer we are spending a lot more time together.

Last month you and the other cast members were part of the True Blood Panel at the Paley Fest. Fans flew in from all over the United States, they came from as far as New York to meet the True Blood cast. How did you experience that evening? Was it a special event for you as well?

It was, it was a really special event. First of all as a cast we haven’t done very many things like that. I think Anna and Stephen have done things, but to have eight of us all going to an event like that together was special and to experience the energy from the fans together was really great, we spoke about it a lot afterwards just how amazing it was to see that in person. Especially for me, because just like I said, I don’t get approached very much by the fans out in the world because they don’t know it’s me. So to have them there and to have them put two and two together and see what I really look like and what I really am like compared to Arlene, it was fun for me, it felt like a coming-out party or something. The questions were very smart from the moderator as well as the fans and it was just a great night to hear that cheering and the excitement when they showed the clips and when they showed the preview for season 2, which none of us had seen either. That was exciting, it was just a great night all around, really fun.

The visitors on The Vault come from over 100 different countries. How would you explain that True Blood appeals to such a wide range of people of all ages and backgrounds?

Well, it seems to me there is a little something for everybody in the show because you got the romance and the supernatural, violence and humor and you got great music and a really interesting, very good cast, so you can pick your favorite and stick with them. There is so many different storylines, different flavors that it would have made sense that it would appeal to so many different people. I didn’t think it was going to be that wide of a demographic, but I was really pleased to see that. The numbers are great. The audience was growing the first season from one episode to the next, word of mouth was bringing people to the show and that was very exciting to see.

At the Paley Fest you all looked like a group of friends who just happen to be working together. What is it the atmosphere like on the set?

We have an amazing crew who achieve the impossible every day, consider they are doing an hour’s worth of television in ten shooting days. That’s pretty extraordinary considering how complicated it all is I mean because we all have the INL and Special Effects and all that stuff and the crew is tired, but they seem to be tireless, they are constantly there and shooting really long days, but they are very supportive. The actors, we have really strong directors, we go in there and everybody is prepared, that is not always the case on television shows. Sometimes they kind of coast or they don’t really put in their homework. We have a cast that is extremely prepared at all times and that goes for the crew too. So when we get in there to do the work it does make it come a little easier. We never feel pressured to get it perfect or anything like that, it feels like there is always time even though there is not really time. Which says something about the directors and the crew. And also the actors we all get along really well. We trust each other. We are always prepared and that is saying something after two seasons already. Sometimes things lack of a little bit having been on the show for a little while, but that is not happening with us.

It must be hard because there are a lot of night shoots.

There are a lot of night shoots and those are really hard to do. Your sleep gets really messed up. I’ve had some night shoots, but not nearly as much as the vampires of course. The scenes in Merlotte’s are shot on a soundstage and for the most part we shoot that during the day and into the evening, but not all night long. But the exteriors we do on a lot of night shoots.

What about all those different accents that are spoken on the set? Southern, English, Australian, Swedish. Have you ever worked with such an international cast before?

No, I really haven’t. I always say it is like the united colors of Benetton on our set, because there are so many people from so many different places and different races. It is great and I think that is part of the appeal of the show. We are from all these different places but we are trying to create a world that is very specific. It is fun to rally together and make that happen. Some of us are from the south. I am from the south and Nelsan is from the south and Sam is from Texas and that is good to have it grounded in some real Southern flavor but then everybody else seem to have really been able to appoint themselves and get themselves there. Although it is the south, it is still fictitious. It is a world where there are supernatural characters and there is the element of the hyper-real about it and that is very forgiving when you are trying to do southern accents, it is not like we are trying to be 100% truthful to the south.

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Article on IESB.net by Christina Radish

Returning for a highly anticipated second season, the critically acclaimed HBO television series True Blood promises twists and turns that will shock and surprise.

Ryan Kwanten as Jason

On the fan favorite show, from creator Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and based on the Southern Vampire books by Charlaine Harris, Academy Award winner Anna Paquin plays Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps. When she meets 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), Sookie is intrigued by the fact that she can’t hear a single one of his thoughts. Australian actor Ryan Kwanten plays her misguided ladies’ man brother, Jason, whose sex-crazed ways get him into trouble more often than not.

This season, Jason gets involved with anti-vampire sect Fellowship of the Sun, which he later discovers has a really dark side. In this exclusive interview, Ryan Kwanten spoke about his character’s new storyline, along with his role as an animated character in Zack Snyder’s(Watchmen) upcoming film, Guardians of Ga’Hoole.

IESB: Without giving anything away, what can viewers expect from Season 2 of True Blood?

Ryan: The tone will still be True Blood, in its essence, but the series has expanded enormously. If we opened the door in the first season, we’ve kicked it down this year. There are more characters and more worlds. This show has moved into Dallas, so it’s cutting back and forth between Dallas and Bon Temps. And, the madness will and does ensue.

IESB: Is Season 2 a more emotional, vulnerable, soul-searching season for Jason Stackhouse?

Ryan: Absolutely! You couldn’t have put it better, actually. He’s looking for a real sense of who he is, of belonging and his purpose in the world. In Season 2, he thinks he’s found it, until cracks start appearing. But, he’s definitely trying to mend his wayward ways. Anything that he does is always out of a sense of innocence. When he hit Sookie in the first season, and a bunch of other things that he did that would not be considered right or good, just because of his innocence and his childlike nature, he can be forgiven. There’s redeeming qualities in there.

IESB: Are there as many twists and turns in Season 2, as there were in Season 1? Will there be things thrown in that deviate from the books?

Ryan: We definitely continue to do that because we have to keep it entertaining for a TV savvy audience, as opposed to a book-reading audience. And, it’s leaving it in the hands of Alan Ball. The guy is just a genius. He never wants to put Charlaine Harris’ work into disrepute, but he also has to be aware that it’s a TV show and not a book.

IESB: Were you at all surprised by the huge acclaim that the show has received, and the devoted fan following that it has now?

Ryan: I definitely knew that the quality of the script was there, and I loved the ensemble cast that they put together. We knew we were part of something special, but you never quite know how the public is going to react to a show, no matter how good you feel about it. We really wanted people to like it ‘cause I love playing this character so much. But, no, we weren’t prepared for just how much it would be. And then, week after week, the ratings and the viewership grew exponentially. It was a really nice thing to see people jumping on the True Blood train.

IESB: You make Jason very likeable, even though he does things that are unlikeable. Were you ever surprised at how much viewers like him and forgive him for what he does?

Ryan: That’s really nice to hear. There’s definitely things that I try to put into the performance that layer who he is and, hopefully, give him a subtext, so he’s not just this redneck horndog, going around town doing silly things. He’s a man trying to find himself.

IESB: Was it difficult to find that balance, so that you could make him accessible to viewers?

Ryan: Yes, it was. From the get-go, Alan always said, “More than anything, I want you to remember that it’s fun to be Jason.” So, even in the ridiculous, and sometimes life-and-death, situations that he found himself in, I still had to play it with a sense of childlike big eyes.

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Article on Scifiwire by Kathie Huddelston

Alan Ball

If you didn’t see the first season of HBO’s True Blood, you’d better pay attention if you want be able to follow the show’s second season, said creator and executive producer Alan Ball in an exclusive interview with SCI FI Wire.

“Everything gets deeper,” Ball said. “Everything gets more intense. It’s a lot scarier. It’s sexier. It’s just really, really fun. I feel like each season is a novel, and the episodes are just chapters. Especially the way our show is. The episodes are not self-contained. You know, you gotta be involved in the story, and you gotta know what’s going on.”

True Blood’s second season begins June 14 in its Sunday 9 p.m. ET/PT timeslot. The season is based loosely on the second book in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse Series, Living Dead in Dallas, Ball said.

“Sookie [Anna Paquin] and Bill [Stephen Moyer] will go to Dallas to help find a missing vampire who is the sheriff of the Dallas area,” Ball said. “And Jason [Ryan Kwanten] is going to become involved in the Fellowship of the Sun Church in a way that is really surprising. … There’s a very interesting relationship in the show between Rev. Steve Newland of the Fellowship of the Sun Church and his wife, Sarah [Anna Camp], and Jason, that just took on its own life as we were shooting, and it’s hilarious. I can’t get enough of the Newlands and Jason together.”

And Sookie’s hometown of Bon Temps will have some drama as well when Maryann Forrester, played by Michelle Forbes, “begins stirring up all kinds of trouble,” Ball said. Last season Maryann appeared to offer Tara (Rutina Wesley) some goodwill and a place to stay. But “she’s got an agenda, and it’s not a good one,” Ball said.

According to Ball, the vampire series will continue to explore the “terrors of intimacy, in that when you really, really open up and let another person into your life and your psyche, it can be terrifying—especially when that person is a vampire. … And then there’s just the whole exploration of the dark side of human nature,” he said.

While Ball plans on incorporating many elements from the book, he admits he’s taken liberties. He’s expanded several of the characters’ stories and added more of an African-American presence. And one thing you won’t see in True Blood is Elvis, a character who ends up helping Sookie out in many of her adventures in the books. In the novel series, the real Elvis gets turned into a vampire; however, the process leaves him different. Elvis becomes Bubba, a slightly touched vampire whom the vampire community takes care of.

“We are not going to meet him,” Ball said. “I just couldn’t figure out a way to do it that would not be cheesy. I mean, not that it is in the books. It’s great, because you can imagine that it’s him. … But the only way to do it [on screen] is to have some Elvis impersonator, and it just wouldn’t [be] the same.”

Ball added: “The challenges for me are to remain very true to the spirit of Charlaine’s books and the world and the characters. To not just go, like, ‘Oh, it’s supernatural, so we can do this. Wouldn’t it be fun?’ without keeping it rooted in the characters’ emotional lives. You know, I’m a big fan. I’ve read a lot of speculative fiction, and the ones that really work for me are the ones in which, no matter how outlandish or otherworldly the story is, the characters, I really care about them. I’m really invested, and I understand why they behave the way they do. I’m rooting for them, and so that’s the challenge for this show as well. And in that sense it’s not that different from Six Feet Under [Ball's first HBO series]. People did a lot of outlandish things on that show, but you had to remain invested in them. And this is pretty much the same thing. I do have to say that I’ve never worked in any genre-type format where you can really just open so many doors. There’s a lot of ways to tell stories that are really fresh and exciting for me as a storyteller.”

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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.

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Article on IGN by Matthew Fowler & Jim Vejvoda

IGN chatted with True Blood star Anna Paquin this morning, during which time we had the chance to ask her about the possibility of returning to the X-Men franchise. The Oscar-winning actress played Rogue in the first three X-Men films.

When it was announced that Josh Schwartz was writing X-Men: First Class, Variety said that the movie would likely “enlist such characters as Iceman, Rogue, Angel, Colossus, Jubilee and Shadowcat.”

So would Paquin be up for playing Rogue again? “Absolutely. Yeah,” she told us. “I would hope I could do a little bit more action next time, though. I kind of find it ironic that I did three big action films and did, actually, no action whatsoever. I mean I got some really amazing emotional story moments, but I didn’t really get to do the physical stuff.”

She continued, “You know, as much as I loved doing those films I was kind of like, ‘OK, so when do I get to beat someone up? When do I get to steal some powers?’ You know Sookie [Paquin's True Blood character] gets to do more action than Rogue ever did. So I’m just putting that out there. More action please, for next time.”

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