Charlaine Interviewed At The 2009 BoucherCon Convention

Recently Charlaine Harris attended the Bouchercon 2009 World Mystery Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana that celebrates the mystery genre. It is the largest annual meeting in the world for mystery lovers and the convention program included panel discussions, lectures, and other presentations by mystery writers and experts on the genre, covering all aspects of mystery fiction, thrillers, detective stories, suspense novels, and more.  This year Charlaine was one of the panel members at the convention and was interviewed by Reel Deal to discuss the themes in her Sookie Stackhouse novels and about Alan Ball's True Blood.  Enjoy the video!

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums

Living with the Undead: From Dracula to True Blood

Abraham van Helsing and his intrepid band of vampire hunters may have disposed of Bram Stoker's creation Dracula more than a century ago, but these creatures of the night never really left us, preferring to stalk us in the shadows of our imagination, manifesting themselves in Gothic fiction, horror movies, and popular culture. Slowly but surely, they have emerged from their shadowy world and judging from responses to their most recent incarnations in Being Human, True Blood, The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Thirst, Let the Right One In and Twilight, for example, they have glamored audiences and readers alike. With Halloween round the corner, the vampire has even managed to enter the hallowed confines of the BBC. On 28th October 2009, BBC Radio 4, with Mark Lawson at the helm, hosted a special edition of Front Row. Mark Lawson was joined by Dacre Stoker, great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker; cultural historian, Dr. Helen Wheatley; Kevin Jackson, author of Bite: A Vampire Handbook and Toby Whithouse, creator of Being Human. Together, their discussion focused on the last 200 years of the vampire's various manifestations in Western culture, notably Gothic fiction, cinema, and contemporary TV. Dacre Stoker, who now lives in the US, discussed how he delved into his ancestor's handwritten notes on the original Dracula novel to pen his sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead, the original name of Dracula before an editor changed the title. The new book is the first Dracula story to be fully authorized by the Stoker family since the 1931 film starring Béla Lugosi. It has provoked a storm in the publishing world, selling for more than $1m (£575,000) to Dutton US, HarperCollins UK, and Penguin Canada. Dacre Stoker wrote the novel with the screenwriter Ian Holt, and a movie is also planned. In the new book, set in London in 1912, Quincey, the son of Stoker's hero, Jonathan Harker, has become involved in a troubled theatre production of Dracula, directed and produced by Bram Stoker himself. The play plunges Quincey into the world of his parents' terrible secrets. We all know Dracula, or think we do, but there are many Draculas and still more vampires who refuse to be Dracula or to play him. An alien nocturnal species, sleeping in coffins, drinking blood, living in shadows, fearing garlic, crosses and daylight, vampires are too easy to stereotype, but it is their variety that makes them survivors. They may look marginal, feeding on human history from some limbo of their own, but they have actually always been central. What vampires are in any given generation is a reflection of the society at that given time. From the beginning of the 19^th century to the present, vampires have been popular confederates of mortals. Since Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, the vampire has indeed traveled a long way, transforming himself from dreaded monster to our beloved albeit fanged anti-hero. Our fanged friend is now firmly part of our mainstream culture and popular imagination. The lion has truly decided to lie down with the lambs. Literary and film critics have long examined the attraction of the vampire, analyzing several common themes running through vampire literature and films, such as the role of women, taboos about sexuality, socio-political themes such as immigration and racial segregation. Undoubtedly, the vampire continues to serve as our mirror on which we project our fears, lusts and desires. It seems that every decade has had some form of vampire rage, or is it more appropriate to use the term vampire-induced lust? However, 2009 seems to be the Year of the Vampire. Vampires, a seemingly highly adaptable species, can now be anything and everything. From the highly sexual bon vivant of the night in the Southern Gothic universe of True Blood, to the guilt ridden vampire John Mitchell in Being Human to the chaste sparkly creatures in the Pacific Northwest world of Twilight, the modern vampire has adapted with the changing times. However, some things about the vampire remain constant, or it seems to. The modern vampire embodies youth, romance, lust, vitality and strength. Our modern vampire almost always embodies dangerous love and forbidden lust, which is probably why every new generation of men and women want a taste of the vampire. The vampire story is as classic as the western, and like the western, it's a genre whose pleasures lie in the minor variations. True Blood and its many imitations offer similar celebrations of love and lust with a pallid stranger. If we are to judge from Angel, Vampire Bill, Eric Northman, Lestat, and Edward Cullen, today's vampires are modern day variations of the tortured Romantic anti-hero, a protagonist rather than an antagonist. But was the vampire always this? Legends of the nocturnal predator dates back several centuries, going back to the ancient world; these creatures underwrite our nightmares in both Western and non-Western folklores. Peter Dendle, an associate professor of early medieval demonology and folklore at Penn State Mont Alto, indicates that:

"Vampire-like creatures are present in the earliest recorded writings [...] In Greek literature, there isn't a Dracula or Twilight character, but the idea of a soul-sapping, life-drawing creature in human or animal form exists in these writings."

In the 19th century, Bram Stoker's Gothic novel Dracula used metaphors of sexuality in a century when it was difficult to write about it explicitly and through that process sexualized the vampire as a male predator stalking young maidens. Polidori's The Vampyr, a short story published in 1819, was one of the first to take the folkloric vampire and turn him into a suave killer who preyed on aristocrats. Although hardly a great work of literature, Varney the Vampire, or The Feast of Blood, a serialized Victorian 'penny dreadful', published anonymously between 1845 and 1847, is equally responsible for introducing many tropes popular in later vampire fiction, representing an important link to the development of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Two decades later, F.W. Murnau adapted Bram Stoker's story in his film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922). Better known to English-speaking audience as Nosferatu: a Symphony of Horror, Max Schreck's portrayal of the bat-like, creepy vampire is unlikely to strike terror to the hearts of modern audiences. However, it is undeniable that, in Schreck's performance, the vampire is decidedly gruesome and unglamorous, providing a stark contrast to the sexy, sensual vampires of today. We have only to pause for a moment here and contrast Schreck's vampire with True Blood's Vampire Bill or the Viking vampire, Eric Northman, to realize just how far our fanged companions have come in adapting themselves to modern society. At the same time, as both Kevin Jackson and Dacre Stoker explain, a lot of what we take as the gospel truth within vampire mythology actually dates back to F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu. For example, the myth that the vampire crumbles to dust or bursts into flames when it comes into contact with sunlight or daylight was invented in Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). In contrast, Bram Stoker's Dracula does not burst into flames. In fact, daylight and sunlight does not harm him; instead, Dracula is said to merely lose his powers in daylight and is unable to shape-shift. To respond to modern myths of the vampire, Dacre Stoker consequently had to revise Bram Stoker's original vision of the vampire mythology so that Dacre's Dracula is now affected by sunlight. At the same time, while certain aspects of the vampire mythology have been tweaked, an undercurrent remains where basic details of vampire lore remain unchanged. As Kevin Jackson and Helen Wheatley both clarify, the vampire has, in the last 200 years, become the repository of all our social fears, for example, fear of blood, sexuality, foreigners, and women, along with changing notions of masculinity. And one thing has remained constant with our fascination of the vampire. As Toby Whithouse indicates, one of the most enticing aspects of the vampire is that they are titillating, wild, untamed and ultimately un-tameable creatures:

"[Vampires are] uncensored creatures [...] creatures of pure appetite and impulse [...] It's a Romantic idea of the troubled isolated mysterious stranger."

In short, we can trace our modern day vampire back to the 19th century Romantic movement. In the hands of the 19^th century Romantics, the vampire is transformed into the persecuted individual, an angst ridden James Dean of his day. The vampire, no longer the evil enemy, is now transformed in Romantic Gothic fiction into a sympathetic individual who struggles with himself, his identity and who is tormented by guilt. In short, he is transformed into an existential anti-hero, becoming a Byronic poster-boy for men and women who similarly struggle with their identity and therefore identify with the vampire's search for identity. The Byronic Lord Ruthven in Polidori's story therefore shares several common traits with Lestat. Both are enchanting companions. In short, our modern vampire tales retain the basic features of the vampire mythology but as Helen Wheatley suggests:

"The most successful of vampires [...] are those that are exceptions to the mythology"

From Dracula to the True Blood vampires, it seems that vampires have shifted from evil antagonists to sympathetic creatures. As Anne Rice explains in an interview during the BBC discussion, the vampire:

"is the perfect metaphor of a lost soul, creatures of the night, wandering in the darkness constantly being drawn to life and yet having to destroy that life. [...] not being able to find any real redemptive possibilities in life."

Now, unlike their odious ancestors, instead of emerging from the grave with hunks of flesh falling off them, our modern vampires are simply hunks. But apparently, they also have a story to tell us, or so we're told. As was discussed during the Front Row debate, it could be argued that the metaphor in Twilight is bourgeois respectability and chastity: the hero and his middle-class family in Forks, Wash., have forsaken their inhuman appetites and only occasionally feast on small animals – the vampire equivalent of turning vegetarian. In Twilight, chastity is applauded, sexuality feared. In contrast, we can safely say that the True Blood vampires are anything but chaste. Licentiousness abounds in glorious technicolour; and the potency of sexuality in its various manifestations is embraced wholeheartedly. Emerging from the coffins, our True Blood vamps can safely feed on a synthetic blood and are now a minority demanding passage of a Vampire Rights Amendment and equal rights. No longer dining out on human's blood, they can stalk humans for other, shall we say, safer sources of entertainment. The BBC's Being Human, in contrast, offers the Dracula myth in a different chord: it's structured less as a love story than as a buddy film. Three young friends share a house in Bristol, England, as well as secrets. They also happen to be a vampire (Mitchell), a ghost (Annie), and a werewolf (George) who together forge a friendship that turns out to be thicker than blood. Being Human takes these predators' anguished remorse and their consequent search for redemption and humanity seriously. But it still manages to find the humor in their predicament as these monsters in human form struggle to blend into normal life that includes work, going out on dates and having the tedious neighbors over for drinks. As in HBO's True Blood, the vampires in Being Human have infiltrated every walk of society, even the police force. And similarly to Vampire Bill in True Blood, we also see how Mitchell, the dark-haired vampire in Being Human, struggles to tame his blood thirsty cravings in an effort to align himself with the human race.  As in True Blood, all three characters in Being Human are highly appealing, but the charm of this British show lies in the delicate balance of engrossing drama and disarming humor; it's witty in an offhand, understated British way. For example, in one scene, we see Mitchell, who has no trouble attracting women, encouraging George to find a girlfriend; but George is too full of self-doubts. When Mitchell asks, "Is that Jewish guilt, or werewolf guilt?" George glumly replies, "They're pretty much the same thing." True Blood also puts vampires in a modern setting for comic effect, and in Seasons 1 and 2, it also showcases a romantic hero torn between human love and his inhuman cohorts, but the feel of the HBO show is quite different. It gleefully combines the vampire genre with murder mystery, high camp, droll humor and romantic fantasy. Based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, the HBO television adaptation is steeped in Spanish moss, unbounded sexuality and steamy Louisiana exoticism. HBO's True Blood sees our eponymous heroine, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), the telepathic human barmaid and modern sleuth who lives in the fictional small town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, amid an ever-expanding cast of vampires, shifters and other exotic supernatural creatures. The formula of a small-town life regularly disrupted by the supernatural world, and some mind-blowing sex with vampires, has propelled HBO into its planned Third Season and Charlaine Harris through nine Sookie Stackhouse novels. In HBO's True Blood, part of the tension arises from the dynamic between the 'good vampire' versus the 'bad vampire'. We see an example of this in Season 1 episode 3 when Sookie visits Vampire Bill only to discover to her horror that there are vampires who refuse to mainstream, unlike Bill Compton to whom she finds herself increasingly attracted. Pale and lustful, the vampires of True Blood are not much more creepy than the small-town cranks, misfits and sexually deviant oddballs who gather at Merlotte's, a dive bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana. But, unlike Max Schreck's vampire, these Louisiana vamps are certainly more beautiful and charismatic. Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer), for example, has a courtly reserve to him, one he has kept up at least since the Civil War. Helen Wheatley explains the attraction of Vampire Bill who, to date, represents the 'good vampire':

"[Bill Compton] combines incredible strength with an old-fashioned courtliness. [He] is incredibly powerful and dangerous but this is contained in an old world charm."

It seems that our fanged friend, the vampire, has truly been generous in allowing himself to be the never-ending source of stories, myths and drama down the centuries. Mutating from odious monster, misshapen hunchback to a modern 21^st century heartthrob, our beloved vampire has remain with us through thick and thin down the centuries. In Louisiana, we see our current incarnation of our fanged friend in all his titillating power. Just witness True Blood fans' heated responses to the Viking vampire Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard) and we can say without a doubt that our fanged friend has succeeded in glamoring us. Again. But lest we forget, it is also the women of Bon Temps whose metabolisms run rapid with an equally insatiable appetite. In True Blood, we seem to have come full circle and returned to the heady stories of those vampires of yore, whose insatiable carnal appetites are such that it cannot be refused. True Blood doesn't give a hoot about bourgeoisie respectability or chastity. Judging from the last episodes of Season 2, it only cares whether we really are who we sleep with. The sex is served up in such lurid, technicolor voluptuousness that viewer satiation is guaranteed. With sexually permissive humans and vampires, True Blood certainly doesn't feel like anything we have seen on television to date. SOURCE: BBC Radio 4 Front Row Photo credit: HBO Inc., moviemaker.com

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums

Charlaine Harris Talks About her Sookie Stackhouse Series

Take one look at Charlaine Harris with her three teenagers, her three dogs, and her duck and you would never think that she was the creator of a series of novels about a dark, sexy, and mysterious world of vampires and humans. Yet Charlaine Harris is that woman. She is one of the leaders in a new genre that has taken the world by storm. Over her career Charlaine has written over 30 novels and numerous short stories. She is currently working on the tenth book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, "Dead in the Family". Now that Alan Ball has taken the spirit of Charlaine's books and turned it into the phenomenon we all know as True Blood, Charlaine has really hit the big time. Recently Charlaine did an online interview talking about her Sookie Stackhouse series. Charlaine was asked if she ever felt like her characters took over her writing and took her to places she didn't expect. Charlaine answered saying:

"The writer should always be in control. Those sudden moments when everything falls into place are the best reasons to be a writer. Of course it's not the characters taking control; it's another part of your brain, a part that knows the characters so well it's suggested a plot twist."

Charlaine was then asked if she consciously writes without taking into consideration current events. Charlaine said:

"Yes, because I didn't want to pin the series down in time. However, with Hurricane Katrina, I simply couldn't ignore its devastation out of respect to the people of the Gulf Coast, so I did incorporate it into the books."

Charlaine was asked if she keeps track of plot arcs and character details for her novels in a database. Charlaine explained that a database had been created but as of yet was not finished. Charlaine doesn't see herself as much of a plotter or outliner but admits that there are three main threads in each book. Charlaine was asked if she dresses up and works at it as a strict job or if she wears 3 day old pajamas while trying to make a deadline.

"Both. There's a lot more to the business of writing than actually writing. Interviews, for example! I work at the job with regular hours, unless I have to do publicity stuff, which takes a huge amount of time. I never work in pajamas. I wear nightgowns."

Charlaine was then asked what she thought of the television series inspired by her books, True Blood. Charlaine answered saying:

"It's all good with me. I'm delighted with the show, and the time I've spent with the actors has been very interesting."

Charlaine then discussed the fact that certain elements of True Blood differ from the storyline of her series and how she felt about that. "It's more of an amplification of my story. In the books, we know Jason is promiscuous. On the screen, we see that, and it's a very different experience. But of course a lot of plot developments were necessary to balance the screen time of the actors. Anna couldn't carry the whole story." Well we all know that both Charlaine and Alan have done an amazing job with this series. At the heart True Blood would not be what it is without the inspirational series that Charlaine has so beautifully written. SOURCE:  A Writer Goes on a Journey Photo Credit:  Charlaine Harris

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums

Television's Three Best Shows

HOLLYWOOD —With so many shows on TV, fans are always wondering what should we watch. Choosing the top three shows was a tough one, but I tried to be as fair and unbiased as possible. The three top shows are "True Blood," the HBO vampire series that breaks all the rules more than any other television show on air today; CBS's "The Bold and the Beautiful," for award winning acting and writing, which showcases some of television's best actors like Susan Flannery, Jack Wagner, Ashley Jones and Kyle Lowder just to name a few; finally I am simply amazed by the acting and writing of Showtime's "The Tudors," which is the true story of King Henry VIII and his six wives. Two of which were doomed in reality and on the series to beheading for adultery and other alleged crimes by a King who was frankly uncontrollable even for the Catholic Church, which in the sixteenth century would have been considered the most powerful entity on the planet. Sookie and Bill, True Blood, Courtesy: HBO "True Blood" is one of those series that delves into the assimilation of vampires into mainstream society. The setting is Bon Temps, a sleepy town on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. with the regular stereotypes which did exist and in many ways still do. Vampires are essentially the minority population in the south on this series, they battle discrimination and bigotry. One thing however is different from the real story of this part of the country. Vampires are unstoppable forces when they need to be, while other minorities decades ago had no superpower strengths to get them the respect they fought and died for many times in our nation's history.

Courtesy: Showtime From vampires to shape shifters and mind readers, the show is a supernatural story of love between breakout actor Stephen Moyer as  vampire Bill Compton and his heroine, Academy Award winning actress Anna Paquin's character Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie is the heart of the show, she is the protagonist which struggles to protect those she loves and even herself against often demonic forces like an ancient maenad, which was portrayed by Michelle Foster as Maryann. The one theme in the series is Sookie is our heroine. We want her to remain safe and happy, yet thanks to the genius of director and creator Alan Ball, we know that such a boring scenario is not possible.

Kyle Lowder Courtesy: Gillse Toucas, Bell Phillip TV Prod "The Bold and the Beautiful" has something going for it that no soap created in the past 20 years can brag about. It is not only the most successful soap in television history but every soap brought on during this show's two decade long history has failed and been canceled. From "Passions" to "Sunset Beach," none of these soaps has captured the audience's attention like Bradley Bell's charge. Bell just two months ago accepted the coveted daytime Emmy award for Best Daytime Drama. No award has ever been so deserved. The series focuses on the Forrester clan headed by John McCook's Eric and Susan Flannery's Stephanie. With Flannery on the series, there is no stopping the success of this show. Ms. Flannery is perhaps an act of nature as a performer She is surprising, powerful and beautiful, all of the attributes one thinks of when describing a natural act in nature. Bell's writing is sharp, entertaining and at times over the top. In only the best ways, that is. An over the top soap is what fans desire today, which is why the show is the most watched TV show on the planet. Actors like Kyle Lowder, Jack Wagner, Katherine Kelly Lang and many others round out the perfect ensemble when Bell puts his pen to paper and uses his brilliant imagination to tease and entertain viewers. Finally, "The Tudors" is one of television's best and brightest. Being a student and lover of history, there has never been a monarch in European history with such a disastrous and yet epic life as King Henry Tudor the VIII of England. Whether it was falling in or out of love with his current wife, being delusional and paranoid about his friends and allies or battling the Pope from across the continent, King Henry was never boring. The actors who portray the major roles such as, King Henry, Jane Seymour, Anne Boelyn and Thomas Cromwell are perfectly cast in their roles. "The Tudors" is groundbreaking in that instead of showcasing actors who would look identical to the their real life counterparts, they use what is considered the "Melrose Place" standard looking actors who are sexy, beautiful, exciting and leave fans wanting to see more of them. The actor Jonathan Rhys Meyer is King Henry, VIII and is perhaps the epitome of what a television leading man should be. Showtime's superb drama is addictive. All three of these shows are equally as delicious. "True Blood" airs on HBO, "The Bold and the Beautiful" on CBS and "The Tudors" on Showtime. (Photo credits: HBO, Showtime and Kyle Lowder Courtesy: Gillse Toucas, Bell Phillip TV Prod)

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums

Charlaine Harris and Her Dogs

Shapeshifter Sam Merlotte usually transforms into a collie because people like dogs, so it should be no surprise that Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse series, is a dog lover. In an interview with the blog, "Coffee with a Canine," Charlaine shares stories about her dogs, Rocky, Scrunch, and Oscar. All three are adopted. Rocky is an 8-year old boxer-spaniel mix who came from some lady's car trunk. Scrunch, a 3-year old terrier, was kicked by a horse, crushing her hip. Charlaine adopted her when the former owner didn't seem to want to deal with all the surgeries Scrunch needed. Oscar is a dachshund from a local animal shelter. Charlaine isn't sure how old he is but says he's "a grumpy old man." One time, her kids tried to dress Oscar in a sweater and he wouldn't take a step, just falling to the ground--"Passive resistance at its finest." Charlaine is very close to her dogs, and they are very loyal, always following her around at home:

"Every day is Take Your Dog to Work Day at my house. They're my constant companions in my office, and the dogs and a cup of coffee are the way I start my day."

She says that they influence her writing by being a "constant interruption." On an ordinary day, they do the usual dog things, plus barking at the enemies that threaten Charlaine's home, like the UPS guy and her goose. When asked what are the best qualities in her dogs, she responds:

"They can't talk, and they love us. Oscar sticks close to home, Scrunch is very loving, and Rocky has a very soft coat."

That's all you could really want in your furry, four-legged friends. SOURCE: coffeecanine.blogspot.com (Photo credit:  coffeecanine.blogspot.com)

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums

True Blood Season 3 Spoilers from Alan Ball And The Writers From Paley Center

Alan Ball and his creative writing team attended the Paley Center for Media panel discussion last night where True Blood fans were treated to lots of laughs and lots of information about Season 3 to keep us all hungering for more. Right off the bat, we can assure you that Snoop Dog is not going to get his wish for a cameo on the show. Alan Ball feels that celebrity casting takes you out of the fictional world that they're trying to create and distracts the audience. It made more sense for some celebrity casting on his hit series, Six Feet Under, but on True Blood, it's not very likely. Alan can't imagine a role that Snoop would be appropriate for. Alan is having tons of fun working on the show, saying, "It feels odd that I get paid for it."  Alan says that with Episode 5 of Season 1, the show really hit its stride. Bill Compton has his Civil War flashback during that episode, and Alan feels that by the time they got to that episode, the set up for the series was finished, the audience knew the characters by then, and the writers could start to relax and have fun. Female heavy writing staff came about because Alan just hires based on skill. He reads people's original work and gets a feel for their own voice, then uses his instincts during the meeting to know whether he will want to work with them eight hours a day or not. "The show has really strong female characters at the center of the story, so of course you're going to hire women." Being on adult cable TV means that there's almost nothing they can't do. Fluidity between serious moments and comedy keeps the audience on it's toes. Alan says vampires are a metaphor for sex, so it would be strange if they didn't include that element in the show, but:

I can't imagine a version of the show anywhere except HBO....I will admit to sitting in the room and saying "Can we get his shirt off? Come on! It's Louisiana! It's really hot!"

However, they did tone down the 1920s scene with Bill and Lorena. The original draft included a rape scene, as suggested by Stephen Moyer, but Alan decided that was not going to play well for the audience, so it was scrapped. The vampire/Human marriage rights certainly mirrors the gay marriage controversy in contemporary society, but Alan does not want that to be a main focus. He says:

It's some fun window dressing, and it's only a symbol for the gay and lesbian community because that's what's going on right now. If we go back fifty years ago, it could have been African Americans. A hundred years ago, it would have been women and their struggle for equality and the right to vote.

He notes that the issue is in Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books, which the show was based on, and says that it makes the story more contemporary, so it will certainly continue to be included in the story, but it's not at the heart of the show. It's simply there as part of the fabric of the storyline and provides context. The theme of the outsider starts with Sookie ,who from the first thinks of her telepathy as a disability, and the outsider is part of the vampire myth as well, so it's just one more part of that idea. The enthusiasm level of genre fans is very high, and Alan's very happy about that because it shows that people are passionate about the show, which is tremendously gratifying to him. The other writers love the people who come to conventions and public appearances in costumes, and they all love that people hold the show so dear. When asked if he had a favorite character on True Blood, Alan says:

I will preface this by saying I love every character equally. I love all of them and I want all of them to get what they want and they need in their fictional lives, but I really enjoy writing Jason and Lafayette.

When one of the other writers mentioned their love of writing for Alexander Skarsgård and how unexpectedly funny he is as Eric Northman, Alan says Alex has expressed a "willingness to go there" when it comes to being naked in Season 3, and in fact he will appear without most of his clothes in the very first episode, an announcement which was met with great applause by the audience. When asked if there was any character that they regretted killing, the writers said they hated to let go of Gran but it's such a big part of the book, they had to. They kept Lafayette even though he was killed in the books, but Gran had to die because it was important for Sookie in order to force her to realize that she is alone in the world. The characters, in general, since the writers know going into the season who's going to die, are not missed as much as the actual actors whom they will no longer be able to see anymore. Alan says that we will find out what happened to Bill in Episode 1 of Season 3, an announcement which made the audience very pleased. When told that among fans Evan Rachel Wood is a controversial choice to portray Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Alan wanted to know why people hate her so much. The audience gave a few reasons, but all responded that they are still going to watch the show and buy the DVDs, regardless. Alan assures us that she will be back next season, as will the Newlins. There are also a "boatload" of new characters who will be introduced. Maryann, however, is really dead and will not be back. Alan says that there will be more conjecture of what Sookie really is in Season 3, and she will get closer to the answer. We will also get closer to an answer for why Sookie is something other than human while her brother Jason isn't. During Season 3, the main theme will be that of identity--Who am I? What am I? What do I want to be? Alan also made it known that Stephen Moyer will not be marginalized. Bill and Sookie may go through some rough patches that will last perhaps longer than Bill fans might like, but in the TV world, they have a connection that will never die, despite the fact that Charlaine had to be talked out of killing Bill off in the last book in the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery series. The writers don't feel that much pressure to stick to what happens in the books because they spread the story out among other characters, not just focusing purely on Sookie's story. That gives the writers much more freedom. They stay true to the spirit of the books, but they are not going to be bound by the novels. They want viewers who've read the books to still be surprised. No weddings will happen in Season 3.  Someone will want one very badly, but that wedding will likely not take place, and the character who wants it to happen is not who we think it's going to be. Season 4 will include Eric getting amnesia, but there will be surprises all the same, and the writers don't really have that much mapped out about the rest of the action in future seasons beyond a basic skeleton. The story can evolve as it's being told, for example, keeping Lafayette on the show despite the fact that it was contrary to the novel's plotline. The writers also acknowledge that Eric's story wants to be told, so we will get to see that evolve. We will not see Bubba on the show, because there is no way to have Elvis appear on the show without having it look fake, and Alan wants to make sure that the characters are believable. We will learn more about Nan Flanagan. He loves the contrast between the public face she shows as the spokesperson for vampire rights and the person she truly is when she appears in a more private setting. The "blood bond" idea from the novels, which happens between a vampire and a human when that human drinks a vampire's blood, will be featured in the show, and there will be more of Pam in Season 3. Alan ended up working on True Blood because he couldn't put Charlaine's books down and so he pitched the show to HBO. He was completely unaware of Twilight at the time, and it was not a conscious decision to get on some kind of vampire bandwagon. He says that vampires have always been there in our culture. If it's more than coincidence that so many vampire genre ideas are all popping up at the same time, he has no idea why that is. The writers all love that Alan does not give them a set expectation for what will happen in each episode, but allows them freedom to be creative and take risks. Once the drafts have been revised and finalized, the person who wrote the script works as a producer during the shooting to be sure that the scenes play the way they intended. Generally, Alan says that he does not like improvisation of the actors because the writers choose every word on the page for a reason, but Nelsan Ellis as Lafayette really surprised him in the first scene of the pilot, and that scene is the reason he could not kill him off. Sometimes he has to keep him on script, but he loves allowing him more freedom. The AIDS burger scene also really stands out as an amazing moment which caused the crew to burst into spontaneous applause after the first take. Allan Hyde as Godric is a fan favorite. The end scene with his death was shot partly with green screen, partly on a rooftop as the sun came up and they could only do three takes before they ran out of time to shoot. More than likely, we will see him again in flashback scenes with Eric. Please be sure to check out the full 55 minute audio of this extraordinary panel discussion.  Click the link, and then scroll down to the audio recording which appears halfway down on right-hand side of the page. Many thanks to @KitchenBitch on Twitter who graciously provided a link to an audio recording of the event. SOURCE: TrueBloodTwitter.com (Photo credit: Kevin Parry / Paley Center for Media)

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums

Ryan Kwanten On Jason Stackhouse and Dating

During the hiatus from True Blood, Ryan Kwanten has been filming the movie Red Hill and spending time with family. Soon he will be back in L.A. to begin work on Season three of True Blood. In the meantime, though, he helped promote the show's first season as it airs on Channel 4 in the UK by doing an interview with OK! Magazine. When Ryan has to get naked for one of his sex scenes as the womanizing Jason, his first concern is making the actress feel comfortable:

"I've always been comfortable with my body and I think Australians have a fairly liberal and open-minded point of view when it comes to sex and nudity. More often than not, the girl is going to be far more nervous than me, so I'll approach the girls beforehand and say: 'Any questions, qualms, concerns that you have, just come to me.' The more comfortable they are, the more comfortable I am and the scene will work better."

As for what he thinks about the vampire obsession, Ryan offers an insightful reflection:

"Albert Einstein said the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious, and for many people vampires represent the absolute epitome of mystery. They have these other worldly qualities like a sixth sense--and they're apparently fantastic in bed, they have years and years of experience."

Clearly, the thoughtful and down-to-earth Ryan is drastically different from the character he portrays, but that doesn't mean he hasn't found qualities in Jason that he can use in his own life:

"I tend to be far too cerebral and totally over-analyze things. But he is the polar opposite in that there's no will power of thought, he jumps off the cliff without thinking, he dives into any situation with no recourse whatsoever. So I've learnt to loosen up my mentality and go with the flow a little bit."

Still, Ryan admits to being a quiet, observant person as opposed to a highly extroverted actor. He prefers interacting with others one-on-one, but says that he's "pretty terrible when it comes to women." He's not really dating at this point in his life:

"That concept has always eluded me, that whole dating thing. What I'm amazed at more than anything is marriage, the lack of thought that goes into marriage. Maybe it's just like going to buy a sandwich: 'How about we just get married?' And then the next week they break up, like it was nothing."

That's an interesting comparison to make… Perhaps one day the woman will come along who changes his mind. For now, though, Ryan appears to be wholly invested in acting, saying that work is his number one priority. He never intended to move to Los Angeles, but now that's where he belongs:

"The passion for the business and the craft is cemented in my veins."

This is evident to us True Blood fans who have seen how talented Ryan is an actor! He manages to play a frequently dumb character like Jason and make him endearing to us. I am looking forward to seeing more of Ryan, in future projects and on True Blood! SOURCE: ok.co.uk (Photo credit: Cory Sorensen / Muscle & Body)

http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums