Australia’s Showcase channel will be premiering Alan Ball’s hit HBO TV series “True Blood’ on February 10, 2009 and Couriermail.com.au is giving its readers a sneak peek at what this successful series is about and profiles Stephen Moyer who plays Bill Compton the 173 year old vampire in the series.

“True Blood” is Alan Ball’s adaptation of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels which is base on the premise that vampires do truly exist and have made their presence known as the result of the invention of synthetic blood by Japanese scientists. As a result vampires no longer need to hunt humans to feed their hunger and now want to live in society as equals with humans even though they are looked upon with distrust and are discriminated. The show is a mix of sex, blood and humour all wrapped into one, set in the near future in a small Louisiana town called Bon Temps. Anna Paquin won a Golden Globe for her performance on the show as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress who is immediately attracted to Stephen Moyer’s character, Bill Compton. Stephen Moyer describes the show and his character in the following:

“You can’t say it too many times that Alan is a clever man,” Moyer says of the Oscar-winning writer and director. “You’ve got this classic love story, which he gives a modern twist to . . . you’ve got the funny, you’ve got the sexy, you’ve got the downright dirty, but you’ve also got the drama of it. Alan creates this outsider who comes into the town and is immediately looked at with suspicion,” Moyer says of his character. “So he’s kind of a metaphor for any minority group you can think of, whether it be the idea of blacks in the South or homosexuality or any outsider group, really. That’s the sort of deeper level that I find very interesting. I couldn’t believe it when I read it. I was just blown away by the idea of him.”

Stephen Moyer’s southern accent is so convincing that is it is hard to believe that it is fake and that he speak naturally with a British accent. New Zealander Anna Paquin and Australian Ryan Kwanten‘s (who plays Sookie Stackhouse over sex-driven brother, Jason Stackhouse) southern accents are so well executed that it is hard to believe that they are not American. When asked why there is such an international cast playing the roles of southerners Mr. Moyer explains that:

“I truly don’t believe that actors in America don’t exist to have been able to play these parts,” he says. “Alan just sees things in people and he’ll wait until he finds what he wants. “Anna, obviously, we all know, is a pale brunette and she’s playing this tanned blonde girl, but she had to go through the whole audition process. It wasn’t offered to her. She ended up reading with five blonde actresses, with her still dark and pale, and Alan just believed that she could do it.”

When Mr. Moyer is asked about his future he states that “it’s nice to have finally found a place in the sun career-wise”. He states that several offers have come his way but has not taken them because since his kids live in England he didn’t want to leave them unless something really great came along. Mr. Moyer states “I’ve been in a very nice position for the first time in my life to say, ‘You know what? I don’t need to do that at the moment’.” However, one of the main drawbacks of playing a vampire is trying to avoid getting a suntan in Los Angeles.

“I wasn’t allowed to go into the sun because my character’s white. After a while I was like, ‘Come on, guys. I’m in LA! I live by the beach. Let me play’. Then of course I started getting the LA permatan and got in big trouble.”

Australia’s Showcase channel will be airing “True Blood” on Tuesdays at 7:30pm.

SOURCE: True Blood grabs audiences by the jugular

(Photo credit: HBO Inc.)