True Blood in Rolling Stone Magazine: Sex, Love, and Vampires
August 20, 2010 by Janie Logan
Earlier this week, we previewed the shocking magazine cover seen ’round the world, of Alexander Skarsgard, Anna Paquin, and Stephen Moyer, naked and dripping with blood. Once we picked our jaws up off the floor, we looked inside the latest issue of Rolling Stone to find an accompanying feature about the hottest show on television. As you’d expect, there is plenty of talk of nudity and sex, but also insights into the actors themselves, the vampire genre, and the big picture of HBO‘s True Blood.
Anna Paquin on fighting to play Sookie Stackhouse
Anna proved her natural acting ability at a young age with her Oscar-winning role in The Piano. Within a few years, she really wanted to pursue acting, but for a long time, she found herself being pushed towards the same types of characters. She went after the role of Sookie Stackhouse because she wanted something new that would be both fun and challenging:
“Sookie is sweet, good-natured and can kick your ass while wearing high-heeled pumps and a sundress. That’s not how people saw me. See, the girl with dark hair is supposed to be serious. But it only takes one person with a little bit of imagination to go, ‘You know, pale-skin girls with brown hair can also be blond girls with a fake tan,’ and presto change-o, makeover.”
Anna comes across as someone who’s tough and doesn’t tolerate a lot of nonsense. Her straightforward manner is refreshing, whether she’s talking about coming out as a bisexual in the PSA supporting gay rights,
“I’m not sure what the reaction was, but I’m glad I did it. There’s such an impulse to turn it into a sensational thing, when what I was really hoping to say is that it’s normal and not interesting.”
Or the nonchalant way she addresses all the nudity required of her on True Blood:
“I rock the patch, even though I don’t pretend to think that on the 18th hour of shooting anyone on set gives two flying whatevers that I have my tits out.”
Why vampires are so hot right now
The vampire myth was transformed almost 200 years ago from a grotesque monster into a creature that was both predator and Romantic seducer. The Twilight books have diluted both of those characteristics to some extent, making the romance between Edward and Bella one of repression and chaste longing. Charlaine Harris has certainly not tried to keep sex out of her Sookie Stackhouse books, but neither is she wholly enthralled by vampires as some people are. She acknowledges that her main character will never become a vampire because she herself (and Sookie, by extension) sees more value in human life:
“I’d rather be a human, that’s just my personal preference. I know how I want things to go at the end of my life. Immortality is a real burden. I like knowing that I’ve only got this lifetime to make myself what I can be.”
Alan Ball stays true to that notion as when he’s running the show on True Blood. His vampires are complicated–they can be vicious and deadly, or vulnerable and emotional, and everything in between. And he doesn’t try to play down their sexual nature:
“To me, vampires are sex. I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.”
Of course, True Blood has humans and other supernatural beings besides vampires, and they all get to participate in the abundant sex on the show (you know, for the sake of balance). The vampires, however, seem to take sex to another level. Stephen Moyer would know. Playing Sookie’s boyfriend, Bill Compton, has given him plenty of time and experience to think about what makes vampire sex so alluring. As he describes,
“If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn’t one before. It’s a de-virginization–breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there’s something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that’s pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive.”
Alexander Skarsgard’s vision of Eric Northman
Given what he knows of his character’s backstory, a 1,000-year old vampire from the Viking ages, actor Alexander Skarsgard has studied a bit of animal behavior to help in his portrayal:
“I like to think about Eric like he’s a male lion. He looks so relaxed, his heartbeat is probably 15 beats a minute, but you don’t know if he’s going to pounce, or attack, or yawn.”
Alex is happy to talk about aspects of playing his character, but he shies away from getting too personal:
“I don’t want people to know too much about me. It’s easier for people to suspend disbelief that way. There’s a risk when people see you in a part and they’re watching Alexander Skarsgard. Also, I learned from my father to keep your integrity and protect your family–there are certain things that you can talk about and certain things you shouldn’t talk about.”
True Blood, in a nutshell
From the sex to the violence, this show, and culture at large, seem to be “bathing in blood,” says Denis O’Hare (Russell Edgington). It’s the combination of all these outrageous elements, plus incredibly engaging characters and great writing, that make True Blood so addictive. Alan doesn’t see the show as conforming to any one metaphor or genre, but in a large sense,
“It’s about self-fulfillment, about wriggling out of the clutches of repression, about letting go of the things that define you–whether vampire or human–to find the real person underneath.”
As he has said many times, the most important thing in storytelling is the emotions. That, and True Blood is just a lot of fun.
To read the full in-depth article get you copy of Rolling Stone Magazine available on newsstands now.
SOURCE: Rolling Stone Magazine
(Photo credit: Matthew Ralston / Rolling Stone)
