Seventeen days and counting till the season three premiere of HBO’s “True Blood”. What does the new season have in store for us? Showrunner Alan Ball spills the beans on the main themes of this summer’s new episodes and how these compare to the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse novels the show is based on.
Who Took Bill? (Don’t miss the new extended trailer for season three at the bottom of this article!)
Alan Ball: “For people who read the book, they’ll be surprised who kidnapped Bill (Stephen Moyer)…We find out very quickly who took Bill and where they took him. He won’t get back to Bon Temps until around the middle of the season.”
Why the departure from the books?
AB: “Part of our challenge is that the books are basically Sookie’s (Anna Paquin) story, and they’re not anyone else’s story outside of how they interact with Sookie. We’re always looking for a way to create stories for the other characters and at the same time unify everything that keeps all the characters involved with each other as much as we can.
Dogs to the Left, Weres to the Right!
AB: “[Shapeshifters and weres] are two different kinds of creatures with a lot of similarities. There are a handful of werewolves, the main ones being Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello), his ex-girlfriend Debbie Pelt (Brit Morgan), [and] a couple of werewolves named Coot and Gus, who are Grant Bowler and Don Swayze. Sam Merlotte [Sam Trammell] is going to meet his biological family. He is going to go on a journey to find his birth family [including Marshall Allman as Sam’s brother Tommy Mickens] and is going to be successful in that regard.”
[More after the jump]
[New Poster for “True Blood” promises more shifters]
How Fans Cast the Role of Alcide
AB: “Alcide was hard to cast, and interestingly enough, there was a lot of fan in interest in Joe. There were a lot of people on his message boards on IMDB saying this guy should play Alcide. It’s always difficult to find somebody who is going to fit into the world of the show, because the show is kind of crazy and over the top, but the acting is really grounded. We have a cast of really, really good actors, so you can’t just bring someone in who is pretty or charismatic and they’ll be able to hold their own. We lucked out with Joe, because he’s trained and also physically appropriate for the role. Joe just brought the whole package.”
Season Three’s Big Bads And Their Dysfunctional Relationships
AB: “[The Vampire King of Mississippi (Denis O’Hare) and his boyfriend of seven hundred years have] moments of stability. I wouldn’t say it’s a model relationship, but then again I wouldn’t point to any relationship in the show and say that’s a model relationship.”
AB: “I wouldn’t say it’s a happy relationship [between vampire Franklin Mott (James Frain) and Tara (Rutina Wesley)]. I would say it’s definitely not a functional relationship, and I’ll leave it at that. Franklin’s from the books. He’s played by the really good British actor James Frain. Really, really fantastic.”
LaFayette’s Love Is More Than Human
AB: “[Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) is] the first person who has made a serious pitch for Lafayette’s (Nelsan Ellis) heart, which is quite a struggle, as you might imagine, ’cause Lafayette’s got a lot of walls around himself.”
Bloodsuckers In Politics
AB: “We’re going to definitely see more of [vampire politics] this year. We’re focusing more on the Vampire Rights Amendment to the Constitution and the struggle to get that passed and the heated feeling both pro and con.”
What’s in Hotshot?
AB: “We definitely do go to Hotshot. … We meet Hotshot, we meet the people in Hotshot, we meet Crystal (Lindsay Pulsipher) [the love interest for Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten)] and her father, Calvin (Gregory Sporleder). I think our take on Calvin is a little different than the one in the book.”
Extended “True Blood” Season Three Trailer
“True Blood” premieres with season three on June 13th on HBO.
