Carrie Preston has made quite a name for herself amongst Our Kind of Viewers. She plays Arlene on True Blood, Grace Hendricks, Finch’s love interest, on Person of Interest, was Emily Linus on Lost and is Michael Emerson’s real-life wife. She currently also plays a seemingly distracted but actually brilliant attorney on The Good Wife. She was kind enough to take some time to speak with SciFiMafia.com about her work on True Blood and Person of Interest, and what may be in store for her characters in the future.
“I’m pretty fortunate that I get to play more characters than just a straight leading woman. I get to really flex my muscles in all different kinds of roles. It’s just very interesting in my career right now, that the three roles that are most visible are completely different. For a while it was a challenge because a lot of people in the industry didn’t realize I was the same person playing different parts. The red hair was something that really helped,” she laughed. She made the color change from her usual light brown for her role as Arlene, and eventually decided to stick with it outside of Bon Temps. Now it’s become her signature look.
As to what she looks for in a role, “I’m always drawn to whatever the best writing is. I will say that I do like being able to work in both comedy and drama, even both within a character, Arlene being an example. At first she was designed to be comedic and in some ways a representation of the narrow-minded south, and then as we’ve been going on for the last five years, the writers have given her some quite dramatic moments.”
Yes, speaking of Arlene… Anything at all on Season 6? “I have heard nothing, I’m not even sure when our start date is.” Ah well. She has been thrilled with the way the writers have dealt with Arlene’s path, and feels comfortable working with them, and completely confident going forward. “Whoever wrote the episode is with us all day long on the set. They are very approachable. All the writers in particular on True Blood are really great people and a lot of them have been there since Day 1 so they’re part of the family. I really trust the writers. If I have questions I’ll ask them. Not throwing around ideas, but I really trust them to take the stories where they need to go, because clearly they’re doing something right, we’ve been on for five years.”
I asked her if she had a preference for the direction that Arlene could take in future episodes, and in giving her answer she did mention what happens to Arlene in the True Blood books by Charlaine Harris. If you haven’t read the books and want to be surprised, or if you don’t want to know every possible thing that could happen to Arlene in the show, skip ahead to the next paragraph. The point is, however, that she just doesn’t know which direction Arlene will take, and whether or not the writers will follow the books. “I stopped reading the books after the fourth or fifth book… but I do know that [in the books] Arlene goes to a very dark place, tries to kill Sookie, joins the Fellowship of the Sun… I hope they don’t do that but at the same time it could be an interesting dynamic to add to the show.”
And what about Arlene’s interaction with the supernaturals that inhabit Bon Temps? “Arlene is very wary of things she doesn’t understand so there are a lot of interesting relationships that could come out of Arlene… with vampires or other supernaturals. Vampires are the only ones she knows about, but what if Sam came out to her as a shapeshifter? What would Arlene do with that? Because she has known him for so long, works for him and adores him, what would that do? So I think about things like that.”
With such a huge cast and so many different stories going on, they do still manage to all at least read through a draft of an entire episode’s script. “We do see the entire scripts, and we actually sit down and read through the scripts before we start shooting [each] episode. So there’s always one day that pretty much everyone is in the same room. Because from then on out for that episode you’re shooting 50 different storylines. Those readthroughs are I think important to maintain the camaraderie of the whole cast and writers and producers, and it’s also for the director and writers and producers to hear the script in case they want to do any rewrites.” So it’s a big table? She laughed, “It’s a very large table and it keeps getting bigger every episode, they cram everybody in this rather small conference room.”
She does watch the show once it’s complete; she’s a fan, too. “I love to see how it all comes together. I’m only in one little subplot of many, and I like to see how the actors and the director and the whole team did the other scenes and how it came together.”
I asked her if she’d like to be a regular on a network show with a longer, 22-episode season, or if she prefers True Blood‘s 12 episodes. “What’s wonderful about True Blood – we do 12 episodes but it does take us almost 7 months. Networks take around 9 months. It’s still a great chunk of time, but because the cast is so large, none of us work every day, so because I’m also a producer and a director [on other projects], it really has been a wonderful way for me to keep those careers very much in play while I’m still shooting the show, so I’ve been very grateful for that. I don’t know how much longer True Blood is going to last but I’ll take it for as long as I can get it because of that. It really is a wonderful opportunity to be the multi-hyphenate that I am.”
As we reported earlier this year, Alan Ball, who has been the True Blood showrunner since it began, stepped down at the end of Season 5 this summer to pursue other projects, and was replaced by co-executive producer Mark Hadis, who had been in the show’s writers room since Season 4. “I really like Mark a lot. He was our newest writer but he fit right in and I think he’s gonna be wonderful. I’m really curious to see how it impacts the show if at all, or if the show had enough of a momentum that he will just continue to steer it in the same direction that Alan took it.” So are we.
As mentioned above, Preston has done some directing in recent years, so I asked her if she has considered directing an episode of True Blood. “I would love to shadow a director and see how that show gets put together from the minute that the director gets a script to the final cut being turned in, I would love to see how that goes. I at that point would probably know better whether or not I’m the right person to direct the show. It does take a very specific skill set to do that show because obviously it’s so huge and you’re doing so much in such a short amount of time, and the movies that I have directed and produced are a much smaller scale. So I would love to learn more and then if I feel up to the challenge I would love to see if they would consider it.”
How about directing an episode of Person of Interest? “Same thing. That show, they’re out in New York City, they’re doing so much, I would probably be more comfortable directing a Good Wife if you’re going to pick anything that I’m working on. I also at the same time really like to keep my acting work separate. It is no small thing to be able to create and do those roles in a way that is good and strong and meaningful. I haven’t gotten to the point where I could direct myself. Yet. Either I’m wearing the hat of the actor or I’m wearing the hat of the director/producer, you know? Although Stephen Moyer did it beautifully and seamlessly last season. It was phenomenal, he did a great job. He was inspiring.”
Moving on to her work on Person of Interest, I first had to ask her about the paintings we saw her working on in her recent appearance. Knowing that she has an art background and that her husband, Person of Interest star Michael Emerson, had been a professional artist, any chance that we were seeing original Preston or Emerson work onscreen? She replied that she was happy that they were done by production. “That was me sketching but thankfully they didn’t show it. It’s been a while, my mother is a painter and my siblings and I grew up doing art all the time and I love it, it’s just been a while since I’ve done anything. And you know, Michael was a professional artist/illustrator, but it’s been a while for him too.”
She’ll be in three episodes of Person of Interest: “I’ve already shot two episodes, the third hasn’t been shot yet. In theory we’re gonna learn a lot more about her and Finch,” but she doesn’t know the full story herself. “I don’t even think Michael knows the whole story. We’re in good hands there, those guys are very good writers and are very much in control of the whole arc of the thing.” She’s clearly a fan of the series. “I love what they’re doing, they’re creating episodes that can stand alone but they’re also writing this wonderful arc, the mythology of the show, which I think makes it more intriguing than a basic procedural. It’s a fine balance but it’s working because people are watching and enjoying the show.”
We spoke shortly after her second episode had aired, which revealed the background of how Grace and Finch first met. “It was so wonderful that the computer was the matchmaker – I love that. The machine was like, ‘hey, hey, there she is again, check her out!'” she laughed. “I love being surprised by the show, and I love in particular the backstory of Finch and how he made the machine and what propelled him and why he had to go into hiding and how he got the limp. I’m hoping they’ll get to all those things.” So are we.
Finally, I asked her about any fan convention experiences. “HBO doesn’t invite me to Comic-Con. I don’t why they don’t invite Arlene and Terry, they tend to favor the supe characters. I sat at a friend’s table at New York Comic Con. I did Dragon Con in Atlanta in September and that was a big ol’ dose of what the conventions are, and I had a great time, to be honest. It was really fun, I got to hang out with cast members that I don’t usually get to see. It was just four of us, it was me, Sam (Trammel), Nelsan (Ellis) and Joe (Manganiello). I really hadn’t spent any time with Joe before and we had a great time and it was fun to get to know him. And the fans were just so kind and so enthusiastic about the show, it was just nice to get a glimpse into that because I don’t get to see it as much as the other cast does. I don’t know how many more conventions I’m going to want to do, but maybe, if I have time!”
It was an absolute treat to speak with Carrie Preston about her work, and SciFi Mafia thanks her again for her time and graciousness, and for her work on two of our favorite shows.
Featurette: Person of Interest – Behind the Scenes with Michael Emerson and Carrie Preston
[youtube]http://youtu.be/kwFKN6CKwvo[/youtube]
Clip: True Blood Season 5 – Episode 1: Arlene, Terry and Patrick
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vwCfFzku6o[/youtube]
Person of Interest airs Thursdays at 9/8c on CBS.
True Blood Season 6 will premiere in 2013 on HBO.
