Ryan Kwanten on Playing Jason and Wrestling Sharks

With True Blood Season 3 now upon us (kind of like Jessica on that trucker) the publicity is coming out so thick and fast we can hardly keep up.  The True Blood cast has been super-busy with promotional duties and here is another interview with Ryan Kwanten who spoke with Emma Rosenblum of New York Magazine's Vulture about what's in store for Jason in Season 3 and wrestling sharks. Ryan tells Emma that he saw the first two episodes of Season 3 at the official premiere and thought it was the strongest start to a season so far.

"The first episode is pretty action heavy, and I thought the second one was slightly more emotional-driven. But I think just with the layers they've created in the first two seasons, they've wasted no time in getting back up to speed."

Ryan didn't know what was going to happen until the new episodes started filming, but that is fine by him, he explains, as he likes to be surprised. We left Jason last season just having killed Eggs (Tara's beau) in a mistaken attempt to save Andy and Season 3 picks up pretty much straight from there for Jason.  Ryan notes that it:

"was quite an interesting place to start a season, with the fact that I've just killed a man and then trying to deal with that. It's a pretty big thing, especially for someone with Jason's, er, capacity."

Speaking of "capacity", Jason's lack thereof was the springboard for a lot of hilarious comedy in Season 2, but Ryan is careful to play Jason straight, conscious that deliberately going for laughs would cross the line into parody.

"If I start believing in myself that it is funny, then it takes the scene in a different light. It can almost make it a caricature."

And what else is in store for Jason?  Even less sex than Season 2 (aww!), but he gets a girlfriend (obviously this will be an unusually chaste relationship for Jason). In the rest of this long interview Ryan talks about how he was originally cast for the show, how he approaches the often graphic sex scenes and what he did to perfect Jason's Louisiana accent. And what's this about wrestling sharks?  Well, OK, I was exaggerating, but Ryan has been shark-bit and has the scars to prove it.

"I was bitten by a shark when I was 13. I made the front page of our little local newspaper. But it was a type of shark with more gummy than razor-sharp teeth. My arm was fine, but I've still got scars on my hands from the shark."

Read the full interview at NYMagazine's Vulture (Photo credit: HBO Inc.)

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