The True Blood casting deluge continues, but at least this time it’s not another new character. Sookie’s cousin Claude was played by Neil Hopkins (Charlie’s brother in Lost) in the season 4 opener last year. He was in fact the fairy who saved Sookie and her grandfather by telling them how to escape from that creepy fairyland place.

Word is that Claude is the twin of Claudine, who was Sookie’s fairy godmother, and that, at least in the books, the twins were the niece and nephew of Sookie’s half-human/half-fairy grandfather, Fintan, and cousins to Sookie’s father. Got that?

EW reports that Claude will be played in season 5 by relative newcomer Giles Matthey (The Good Wife). No word if he will also be wearing funky contacts and pointy ears like Neil Hopkins did in fairyland in episode 401, shown right, but it’ll be pretty hard for him to blend in to Bon Temps looking like that. Since fairies mostly like to keep their fairy-ness a secret, due to the fact that their blood is a vampire delicacy, we’re pretty sure that in vampire-filled Bon Temps, he’ll be looking more like he does in the photo above, than like Neil Hopkins in 401.

True Blood season 5, starring Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, and Alexander Skarsgard, is expected to premiere in summer 2012 on HBO.