Carrie Preston of True Blood Proves That Sometimes You Can Go Home Again

Carrie Preston, who plays Arlene Fowler the unlucky-in-love waitress in True Blood, went home last weekend to Macon, Georgia. While there she appeared at both the 4th Macon Film and Video Festival and in Atlanta for a Q &A at the Plaza Theatre for the local premier of her latest film "Ready, OK!" in which she not only appears as the mother but which she also produced through her company Daisy 3 Pictures. Her husband Michael Emerson, best known as Ben Linus in Lost, also appears in the movie as well as her brother John who appears as her characters mother in the film. If you couldn't make it to Georgia to watch the film you can catch it next month when "Ready, OK!" comes out on DVD. Born June 21st, 1967 in Macon, Carrie's mother was an art therapist and artist while her father was a geo-technical engineer. She has one brother and one sister. The organizers of the Macon Festival, or MaGa as it's known on the indie film circuit, felt it was a great success. "This was the best festival to date," she said. "It was definitely the largest. We had two vintage theaters to view the movies in. The filmmakers were very impressed with those two venues. ... We broke all festival records and also broke most of our financial goals. It was a big win on all fronts." And Carrie was one of the biggest draws with the showing of "Ready, OK!" being so close to a sell-out that the organizers were afraid they were going to have to turn people who had bought tickets already away. The bottom section of the Cox Capitol Theatre was filled an hour before the scheduled 8:45 start time. Carrie and the films gay writer/director, James Vasquez, who is also a partner in the production company, answered questions after the showing.

"We always say that we do gay films that you can bring your parents to," Preston says, describing the philosophy of her production company, Daisy 3 Pictures. "With 'Ready? OK!' it's not a story about a boy who's questioning himself. The boy knows who he is, and it's about the other characters' reaction to him."

While in Atlanta Carrie gave an interview to Starpulse Entertainment where they covered several True Blood questions about playing Arlene and Carrie's choice to wear a red wig for the role rather than dye her hair. Evidently, the difference between Carrie's naturally blonde hair and Arlene's red hair manages to confuse the cast and crew of True Blood, "Yesterday I went to the set", Carrie said,

"because we had a read through of the next script, and still to this day even though we are up to the 16th episode we're getting ready to shoot including the first season, and still people don't know who I am. People I work with! It still takes them a few beats, they'll look at me, 'Hello, what's your name?' I'm like, 'It's Carrie, guys,' and 'Oh, I forgot, I forgot you're blonde' it's very funny."

When asked what she'd like to see happen with Arlene this year Carrie replied,

"Well, I'd like to see her find love, of course. " Starpulse clarified, "More functional, not dysfunctional love." with which Carrie agreed, "Exactly, a functional love. I'd like to see Arlene get more involved in the supernatural side of things. I don't know if that's either against the vampires or maybe she joins them or maybe she accepts the vampires. That would be fun to see her mixed up in that. There's going to be a lot more supernatural stuff going on this season from what we've been told. There are more creatures that we're going to get to know."

Billsbabe ABNegative also managed to snag a few minutes of Preston's time at the festival for trueblood-online. One of the most exciting remarks made by Carrie was that

"... without giving away anything, I can say that season 2 really strays far away from the second book, hardly anything like it. It's just so far out there with more characters and going in different directions. Not much like the book at all."

This sounds very promising for the second season with True Blood taking on its own life evolving away from the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Carrie also confirmed that Stephen Moyer is 'wonderful' in person saying," "Yes, yes, he really is. Just such a nice person." Despite having parts in two Oscar nominated films ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Doubt") Ms. Preston did not make it to the ceremonies as she was flying back from Georgia at the time. "I forgot about it," she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Awards shows are kind of tedious." SOURCES: MOVIE MOJO: Many roads lead back to Georgia, actress discovers Macon Film & Video Festival is judged a success Male cheerleaders and firecrackers Carrie Preston Dishes About 'True Blood,' Giving Birth To Her Husband & More Carrie Preston Talks True Blood and the Macon Film Festival

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