True Blood Season 1 To Premiere in the Philippines

True Blood Season 1 will be premiering on HBO Asia's new channel, Max on Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 9 p.m. True Blood is the HBO hit TV series produced by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under, American Beauty) and is based upon New York Times bestseller, Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series. The main premise of the show is the revelation of the existence of vampires who have "come out of the coffin" to "live" as equals in society. The show stars Anna Paquin who recently won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in Television Series-Drama for her portrayal of Sookie Stackhouse, a perky, telepathic waitress who develops as irresistible attraction to a vampire named Bill Compton, played by the talented Stephen Moyer.

"This is a dream role for me," says Paquin who plays Sookie Stockhouse. "She's fragile but very intuitive; she's had a really hard life, but she's still innocent. She believes in love, and believes that it's actually possible, even in circumstances that seem completely impossible. She's brave, she doesn't mind being the odd one out… Life's kicked her pretty hard, but she hasn't become bitter and she hasn't become a totally damaged person. I think it's an amazing quality to be able to roll with the punches and not be totally ruined as a person because life's been rough for you. That's a really admirable way to go through your life," Anna says of her character.

The show stars various international actors who have starred recently in various network programs or films: The Starter Wife's Stephen Moyer as  173 years old vampire Bill Compton; Summerland's Ryan Kwanten as Sookie's womanizing brother Jason Stackhouse; Rutina Wesley as the outspoken Tara Thornton; Judging Amy's Sam Trammell as Sookie's good-hearted boss Sam Merlotte, Nelsan Ellis (The Inside) as the iconic cook Lafayette Reynolds; and Alexander Skarsgård (HBO's Generation Kill) as Eric Northman, a 1000 year old Nordic vampire. The first season of True Book is based upon Charlaine Harris' first Sookie Stackhouse novel entitled, "Dead Until Dark".

"I loved the way it was funny and scary and sexy and romantic, and it had a lot of interesting things to say about what it's like to be other than mainstream. And it's not just the vampires: Sookie is a telepath, and there are other non-human characters in the story," says Ball on what made him want to turn Harris' book into a sequence. "One of the things I love about Charlaine's books is the way she treats the supernatural world so matter-of-factly. We're trying to do the same thing in our production design and the way we shoot everything. We want to keep the supernatural rooted in nature, so that it's just more nature than we're used to in everyday life," says Ball, adding that he has been trying to avoid all the vampire clichés.

Alan Ball stated that he did not want to make True Blood into "another vampire show" with the fake contact lenses, opera music and the blue light. He wanted to create the illusion that it could possibly happen by focusing on the characters and developing them versus the world that that they live in. In addition to Mr. Ball, True Blood has also gathered directors from some of today's big hits to work on the show: John Dahl (Rounders), Nick Gomez (The Shield), Anthony Hemingway (HBO's The Wire), Michael Lehmann (HBO's Big Love), Daniel Minahan (Grey's Anatomy), Nancy Oliver (writer, Lars and the Real Girl), Marcos Siega (Veronica Mars), and Scott Winant (Hidden Palms). True Blood has sex, action, mystery, violence, suspense, rock and roll and is a radical option for those who feel Twilight is too teeny-bopper. Even before the series' local premiere, it has already created a following among Filipinos. Some have even recorded the series' opening song and made it their ringtone! True Blood is already so popular in the Philippines that in conjunction with its Asian premiere, HBO Asia has also launched an online game, Fang Fighter, available at www.cinemaxasia.com/trueblood. Players of the game will take on the character of a vampire who has to defeat various opponents standing in his way. The network Max, which will hold True Blood's Asian premiere, is re-branding itself from the original Cinemax network. The network is geared to target a generally male market through genre-driven action, sci-fi and suspense programs presented with a bold, direct, and unapologetic attitude.

"True Blood has a much lighter tone. It's more of an adventure. It's a story you've never seen before and a world you've never seen before. It's fun. It's a show I would watch," says Ball on why people ought to sink their teeth into True Blood, no pun intended.

SOURCE: The Manila Standard Today (Photo credit: HBO Inc.)

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