UK Debut Of True Blood

Actor(s), Alan Ball, Casting News, Interviews, Photography, Pop Culture, Television, True Blood Add comments

Oct 272009

For the late 2009 UK debut of True Blood Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse) & Stephen Moyer (Vampire Bill Compton)

“Stephen Moyer was the kind of face you recognized, but couldn’t put a name to. Born in Brentwood, Essex, he started acting in his teens, and for years was a jobbing thesp in the likes of Casualty and even acted in films with Kate Winslet (in Quills) and Al Pacino (in 88 Minutes) – steady work, but nothing to put him on our radar.

Then, in 2008, the 40-year-old was catapulted up the fame ladder into the A-list – and it all happened overnight.

‘One minute I was sitting in London reading a fantastic script for True Blood and two days later I was in Los Angeles and being told I’d got the part,’ he recalls. ‘It was incredible. And yes it has changed my life completely.’

It is great that a British company bought rights to Season One of True Blood and is now broadcasting it in the U.K. on Wednesdays, C4, 10pm. Pretty much a guaranteed first and second season, IMO .

Click through to the full Mirror interview with native son Stephen Moyer (link just below). It is fun to hear from Mr. Anna Paquin any time as he is quite engaging and seems very aware of how lucky he is. Moyer is adept at answering questions about all the finer aspects of Vampire Bill with acute observations and tremendous insight into the character.

In these small interview excerpts/ long quotes from http://mirror.co.uk , Moyer describes exactly what he and Anna chose as the best way to first present the characters of Bill and Sookie. He also gushes about how wonderful Anna Paquin is to work with. It’s quite lovely.

True Blood Season One DVD and Soundtrack Giftset

How did True Blood come about?

I’d got(ten) an… amazing gig at Fox… Then the show didn’t happen and it was all a bit of a mess. I … said to myself, ‘I’m not doing that again.’ It was just so upsetting and frustrating and that had happened … before, and I actually said to my manager, ‘I’m not coming back.’ … I just thought I’d go back to the UK and be with my kids. Then my agent called and said, ‘Look, even though the Fox job didn’t happen, your casting tape from that audition has been doing the rounds… I’m getting scripts right, left and centre.’ Eventually she said, ‘..Please, just read this one.’ And I read it. The script was by Alan Ball for True Blood. And it was absolutely fantastic. I couldn’t believe it, it was amazing.

So you went back?

Well, at first I put myself on tape for it….Alan saw it that afternoon and… called back and said that he wanted to meet me. I flew that night and I was sitting in front of Alan 14 hours later with Anna (Paquin) reading the part of Bill. The next morning I went to the HBO office and read it for some of the guys there and that was it, I was cast. Two days!

Whats’ it like playing the 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton?

I love him. He’s amazing. I love his back story. I knew from the character break-down he had kids and he’d been forced to leave them and it gives you a sense of this man who has to feed on blood, but it’s the last thing he wants to do. Also he is profoundly moral, so he has no qualms about killing if it’s for the right reason. You’ve got this romantic, old-fashioned gentleman who also happens to be a vampire…

About the look of Vampire Bill Compton:

When you first see him he looks like your classic vampire – he’s dark, he’s moody, and he’s brooding. But in episode 2 (of the first series) we tried to show that he smartened himself up a bit – he changed his hair, the way he dresses – because he’s trying to make Sookie and her family feel more at ease with him. Actually, one of the reasons I love this job so much is because we are playing with so many ideas. Like his costumes – the costume designer will come to me and say, ‘How about we try this?’ And it will be a little thing like having his collars turned up on a certain jacket that gives a hint of the Confederate soldier, just a little echo of part of his past.

The chemistry between you and Anna Paquin is clearly important.

Anna Paquin & Stephen Moyer (True Blood) - 2009

Yes it is. And she’s amazing. From the first moment I met her, the moment we sat together on the sofa doing a scene for Alan, I knew we’d get along brilliantly. I used to teach kids drama and I used to say, ‘There’s no failure, it doesn’t exist. You can do whatever you want and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t matter because you’ll be able to use something from it.’ And with Anna we both sat there and said, ‘Let’s play with this.’ So on the first day we met each other we were walking around working the scenes together. ‘What if I do this? Or how about this?’ It’s an absolute dream to work with someone like that.

In the U.K. True Blood Season 1 is released on DVD tomorrow. True Blood is on Wednesdays, C4, 10pm

True Blood: The Complete First Season Blu-ray DVD