Alan Ball Interviewed by SX News

From Lafayette on True Blood to David Fisher on Six Feet Under, Alan Ball's work has been very inclusive in portraying gay characters. In an interview with SX News, Alan talked about how his sexuality has affected him in the entertainment business, and what it has been like adapting Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series into the television medium. Before moving to Hollywood, Alan was writing for theatre in New York, a community in which homosexuality is a non-issue:

"I came from New York, where almost everyone is gay and everyone is politically correct, so my first job in LA was working on a sitcom, and in a sitcom writers' room everyone is fair game. Everyone. Women, straight men, white people, gays. And those writers can be a little shocking! Words that we're not supposed to use get used... and I was briefly like, 'Oh my God, what am I going to do?' "

Since coming out, though, Alan says he doesn't even think about all that. He just does his work. And the gay community can find stories in his work to relate to, like with the True Blood character of Lafayette Reynolds. The cross-dressing Merlotte's cook by day and drug dealer/hooker by night was so colorful and funny that fans would have been truly saddened if he had succumbed to the fate written in Charlaine's books. Luckily, he survived season one and is still alive and well--granted, after dealing with wounds inflicted while imprisoned by Eric, a case of PTSD, and being possessed by Maryann's influence. Alan attributes his deviation from the books to actor Nelsan Ellis' valuable talent in the role of Lafayette:

"I knew the first day that we started shooting with Nelsan and he was improvising, I knew immediately this guy's gold and I can't kill him. He's such a great character that we've got to figure out a way for him not to die."

Lafayette is one of several peripheral characters on the show that have been fleshed out beyond their presence in the books. Rather than being simply from Sookie's point of view, the world around her and the people in her life had to be developed. Otherwise, Alan says, Anna Paquin would "end up in the hospital" because she would have an unbearable amount of work to do! By this point, with two seasons completed, fans have gotten used to the differences and can hopefully appreciate that the show and the book series have directions of their own. Alan wasn't willing to disclose much about True Blood's third season, which won't come to our television screens until Summer 2010. He and the writers have already worked through the arc for Season three and begun scripting the first four episodes. All that he would say is that the story will include a boyfriend for Lafayette, werewolves, and the gay vampire king of Mississippi. The wait is agonizing, but we have so much to look forward to! SOURCE: sxnews.e-p.net.au (Photo Credit: Metro Weekly)

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