Article on Newyork.timeout.com
Vampires do love the good girls—like in Dracula or Twilight—so it’s no wonder that 26-year-old Anna Paquin is up to her fingernails in fake blood. Still remembered for scoring an Academy Award at age 11 for The Piano, the New Zealand import has since managed to lie low, avoiding that telltale trail of scandal and paparazzi. These days, as telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse on HBO’s True Blood, Paquin runs from vampires (occasionally) and macks on them (about every five minutes).
So you slept through our original interview time. Out late last night, huh?
We shot nights for two consecutive weeks. We’re on vampire hours. I don’t party. I’m not that cool.
Never?
It’s not like I’ve never partied. As soon as you don’t need a fake ID, it kind of loses its appeal.
You had a fake ID?
Course I did. I look like I’m 12! Especially when I was in college. A couple of occasions I had a bouncer look at it and go, no, you’re not so-and-so. If I tried to say yes, I am, they’d go, “No, you’re not, you’re Anna Paquin!” Like, they’ll know because my movie is playing across the street. They’d be like, this is the worst fake ID I’ve ever seen, go away.
And now that you’re of age?
I look forward to sleeping on the weekends. I do occasionally get my nails done on the weekend, but usually because there’s some miscellaneous vampire-related crap that ended up under them.
Er, blood? Dirt?
Miscellaneous. Mysterious. The cuter the outfit, the more you’re about to get really messy in it on set. There’s eye blood, there’s mouth blood, there’s congealed blood, there’s liquid blood, there’s old blood, there’s crusty old blood.
What’s the hardest kind of blood to get out in the laundry?
There was a time last night that they dumped an entire pureed vampire—it was fake—on top of me. It does sort of stain your skin a bit. Fun fact, completely useless: The old-school shaving foam, like Barbasol, is the only thing that gets it out of your skin. It opens up the hair follicles, your pores. It does it for color or, well, debris—you take a nice shower in head-to-toe shaving foam. Aren’t you glad you know that? But that’s just fake blood. No promises for real blood.
On a scale from Twilight to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where does True Blood fall?
I haven’t really read Twilight. But it’s all about the temptation and not the follow-through, right? Our show is Sookie and Vampire Bill doing it in the graveyard. These are all grown-ups having consensual vampire relations. It’s grown-up kink.
There are all these metaphors for drugs and sexuality—what’s Sookie’s mind reading represent? Lack of personal boundaries?
She’s like the kid who’s, like, really good at something, so she isn’t the most popular person in the class.
You were really good at something as a kid, winning an Oscar at age 11.
Is this therapy? Should I go lay down on the couch? I think you have a better likelihood of getting me to snore than getting me to open up. [Laughs] There’s nothing as annoying as listening to an actor complain about how hard my life was because I was an actor. You gotta just keep your mouth shut.
What’s the trick to soul-shivering screams, like the one that ended last season when you discovered the dead body?
You just scream. Loud. Have older siblings. I’m the youngest, so you scream loud or no one will come and intervene. My older brother stuffed me inside a cello case once. Zipped it up.
No wonder you moved thousands of miles from New Zealand.
No, the cello-case-putter-inner lives in Los Angeles. With his cello case. I, uh, love him. [Laughs]
The second season of True Blood premieres Sun 14 at 9pm on HBO.
OK…she just won me over a bit more by saying that there’s nothing more annoying than listening to an actor complain about how hard their life is…and that “you gotta just keep your mouth shut”. It seems that even though she’s been at this since she was a kid, she has an appreciation of how lucky she is to be playing and making money doing it. Bonus points, Anna.
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i agree. and she gave me the vision of stephen and her having a barbasol shower. oh my. i’m such a voyeur haha.
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Thanks for posting the article. Anna Paquin is my favorite actress (so would I be a SookieGuy amongst the BillsBabes?), and I really liked how modest she is about acting. The story about the fake ID is something I haven’t heard before; I’d love to see that bouncer’s expression.
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Dorothea (LISMlvr) Reply:
June 11th, 2009 at 18:41
Drew, you’re one of the few regular male contributors. We have so little contact, online, with male fans of the show. What draws you to it? Just wondering…I mean, I know what our motivations are ; ).
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Drew Reply:
June 11th, 2009 at 19:18
To be honest, before True Blood I did not like horror/blood at all. The main reason I started watching it was the rating and nothing else eyecatching being on. The first part I saw was the very end of the first episode, and my first thought was, “That waitress (Sookie) is kind of hot.” I just stuck with the show, because I liked how fast paced the plot is, but I didn’t realize how much the show grew on me until it stopped.
At first, I thought it was the cheesiest thing I had seen in a long while (example: the Monroe Trio), and good for a laugh. But, then I hit the emotional parts in the middle (Gran’s funeral, the Bookie love scenes, Tara’s terrible family life), and the characters drew me in.
So, for a short answer I really like the fast plot, the colorful characters, and Sam’s knack for hot waitresses (Amy, Dawn, Sookie).
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“Is this therapy? Should I go lay down on the couch?”
LOL!
Cute little interview
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LOL! Love her! And poor little Anna, being stuffed inside a cello case! Aww.. You bet she had to learn to scream loudly, lol!
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