Podcast: Faeries, Panthers, VooDoo, OH MY!

Brandi, Luz, and Dayna discuss the True Blood season and prepare for the upcoming finale!

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Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer got married!

Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer got married on Saturday, August 21, 2010 Us Weekly reports.

The 'True Blood' couple reportedly wed at a private residence in Malibu, exchanging vows under a tent near the beach.Guests including True Blood co-star Carrie Preston and Elijah Wood, Anna’s costar from their upcoming movie, The Romantics were in attendance.

This is the first marriage for Anna; Stephen has two children, Billy and Lilac, from previous relationships.

They announced their engagement last August, and have frequently spoken to the press about their onscreen vampire sex.

Paquin and Moyer recently posed nude with 'True Blood' costar Alexander Skarsgard for the cover of Rolling Stone.

True Blood Premiere Party from Charlaine Harris' point of view

From CharlaineHarris.com

I’ve been asked by more than one reader to give a better account of what actually happens at a premiere, so here goes.

The premiere for “True Blood” has been held every time at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. For those of you who don’t remember what Cinerama was, it was a new way of filming back in the sixties, and you could go to special theaters and view the action on a sort of curved semicircular screen. This Cinerama is the original one, but now the building has a regular flat screen, as far as I know. You can Google it if you’re interested. This theater seats 800.

The arrivals of the principal people are orchestrated. I was an early arrival, since I’m not that important in the “True Blood” scheme of things, and I have no problem with this. Premiere night is to celebrate the show and the people who work on it, particularly the actors. So us lesser fry (the woman who plays Ivetta, the young man who plays the lover of the King of Mississippi) get there earlier. Then come the more important people like Todd Lowe, Rutina Wesley, Kristin Bauer Van Straten. Then the even more important people come – Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Alexander Skarsgard. So the event always starts late. We had a start time of 7:30, and we finally all got seated at 8:15.

Anyway, to get back to drop-off time. There actually is a red carpet. When I scramble out of the limo, my family is ushered inside the theater and they’re checked off the list and given special bracelets to wear to verify that they’re invited guests. I’m assigned a handler from HBO who takes me along the red carpet where the press stands behind a waist-high barrier. Every reporter is backed up with a cameraman or two and usually one or two other people. They’re from all over, and represent very big organizations to very small ones. HBO itself, MTV, and on and one; some French, some Spanish, most American.

The handler very kindly explains who I am to the reporter, I step close to the barrier and answer four or five questions, we indicate we’re through with each other by saying “Thank you!” I step back, and my handler and I wait for the next free reporter.

So that’s how it works, and if I’ve described this before, I’m sorry. All the seating in the theater is assigned, too. The HBO executives are there, the actors and their plus ones are there, and I was able to bring my agent, my husband, and my three kids. I noticed that Alan got a whole row to invite – I was envious!

The after-party was held a few blocks away at a place that specializes in such things. The decorations were amazing; stuffed wolves, fountains, a huge projection of the poster on the wall, various food stations with “southern” food (much fancier than the real thing) and about a million waiters who picked up used glasses and plates, brought drinks, and generally kept very busy. I had a designated table there, again not in the Great People corral, but special enough. Some readers stopped by to have their pictures made with me, I got to have a nice conversation at the theater with Michael Emerson from “Lost,” and director Alexander Woo. Rutina was as warm and charming as she always is. I did get to speak to Anna and Stephen briefly at the after-party, and Alexander (Skarsgard) was sweet enough to let me get a picture of him with my daughter.

So, that’s how it works. We were glad to get into our car and go back to the hotel afterward, and I reflected that it’s oddly easy to get used to almost anything.

Charlaine Harris

Podcast: Lorena is one twisted sister! True Blood 3.02 & 3.03 RECAP

Blood Sorbet is on the menu, so who’s up for seconds? Brandi, Luz and Dayna catch up on True Blood season 3 episodes 2 & 3.

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Charlaine Harris talks Vampires with Vanity Fair

True Blood Author Charlaine Harris on the Current Vampire Epidemic
by Maria Ricapito, Vanity Fair

Dead in the Family is the latest bestselling vampire fantasy novel from Charlaine Harris, and the 10th book in the series that inspired the hit HBO show True Blood (now in its third season), starring Anna Pacquin as telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse.

In the books, Sookie is a blonde and buxom resident of the Louisiana town of Bon Temps, where she spends less time fighting vampires than getting busy with them. But will she end up with the courtly ex-Confederate Bill, or has she permanently hopped coffins to cozy up with Eric the bloodsucking Viking? In the mix are sundry tigers, werewolves, dogs, witches, house cats, maenads, goblins and fairies.

Harris set her series in Northern Louisiana, which is less swampy and gothic but just as creepy as the southern bayous and French Quarter streets where Anne Rice’s vampire novels take place. “My thinking was that Anne Rice had done such a great job with Southern Louisiana, that I would take the part [of Louisiana] no one wanted,” Harris says. “Her works were groundbreaking and very innovative and I thought it would be fun to kind of rappel off of them.”

“I didn’t want to write about being a vampire,” she continues. “I wanted to write about people who were interacting with vampires. I thought it would be fun to write about a woman dating a vampire, so I imagined what kind of woman would do such a stupid thing. It’d have to be a woman who couldn’t date humans for another reason.” In Sookie’s case, the reason is that her telepathy doesn’t work on the undead, which give her a rest from hearing the despicable thoughts of her neighbors in the town her family has inhabited for generations.

Harris wanted to bring the vamps in her fictional world down to earth. “They’re just like everyone else,” Harris says. “Some of them are good; some are bad.” She adds, “I wanted to kind of anchor them in reality and make them unromantic, since I just thought that would be funny.” Those are not exactly the words you’d pick to sell any of the other bloodsucker-centric books, TV shows, or movies that are currently engorging our pop culture. The Twilight books and movies, CW’s The Vampire Diaries, ABC’s The Gates, and even True Blood revolve around the uncanny beauty and superhuman sex appeal of the vampire.

Asexual vampires are strictly kid stuff, according to Harris, who points out that her books predated those of Twilight author Stephenie Meyer by several years. “My books are just aimed at adults. There’s not the fairy-tale aspect in my books that there is in hers,” says Harris. “Her books are very Romeo and Juliet; I think mine definitely aren’t.” She adds, “How are they different? Bill turns out to be betraying Sookie the whole time. Sookie finds that out and it’s devastating to her. But this leaves her to look in many different directions for love.” Well… and sex: Sookie’s carnal forays into the supernatural lead to some pretty explicit bodice-ripping. In Harris’s pages, when heaving, virginal bosoms are pressed against cold, marble-like chests, things don’t stop there. Few details are omitted, and sometimes it gets downright gymnastic. Contrast this with Twilight’s Edward and Bella, who ends up preggers when they finally consummate, a zillion pages into the series. Harris declined to elaborate on other differences: “You can talk to Stephenie Meyer about her books. I’m not her critic. I’m glad she’s been successful.”

Harris is unreservedly enthusiastic about showrunner Alan Ball, whom she picked to translate her books to TV. “I knew that he got the mixture of humor and horror that the books are. I knew he would do them justice,” she says. “He wouldn’t gloss over painful parts and make everything shiny.” She says she was a fan of his previous series, Six Feet Under, although “sometimes it was too painful to watch. There were some really intense truths. It got very close to the bone.”

Cutting close to the bone happens to be a specialty of Harris’s as well. She lives with her husband, her college-age daughter (she has two other, grown-up kids), various dogs, and a duck in Arkansas, just over the Louisiana border. Harris’s bestseller count stands at 10 (9 of which appeared simultaneously on the list last year) and the body count in her books is incalculable. She’s branching out— Dynamite Entertainment (publisher of Kevin Smith’s Green Hornet and Red Sonja) will bring out a comic based on the first book of her series about corpse sleuth Harper Connelly. Indeed, all the TV attention to Sookie and co. has drawn readers to her other series—including the one featuring Lily Bard, a rape victim who’s trying to hide from her past. “They’re selling more than when they were first published,” she says. “I don’t know what happened with those books. I know I was really discouraged when they were released. I really thought at the time, That’s the best I can do and if this isn’t successful I just don’t know what I could do that would be as good. Well, luckily for me, I did come up with something.” Harris is currently writing Sookie book number eleven.

The recent feeding frenzy around novelist Justin Cronin’s vampire trilogy (the first book, The Passage, came out from Random House on June 8th, and producer Scott Rudin reportedly splurged on the movie rights) is a sign that readers don’t have bloodsucker burnout quite yet. “Maybe there’ll be a few less writers in the genre if the public’s fancy passes on,” Harris says. “I think that’s just a thing that will happen because there are always people who write what’s current. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; there’s nothing wrong with being commercial.” Harris credits the ubiquity of vampires to “our youth-obsessed, perfection-obsessed culture.” When asked if all the other vampire writers muddy the pond, she responds crisply.

“Not my pond.”

Read More http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/06/true-blood-author-charlaine-harris-on-the-current-vampire-epidemic.html#ixzz0sEp0ThSU

Podcast: True Blood Season 3 Premiere Recap

Andy declares a conscience NO, dick YES battle cry, and Arlene’s smelling preggers. It’s a whole lotta crazy during the first episode of True Blood Season 3. Brandi and Dayna talk vamps, shifters and smelly truckers — oh my!

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True Blood Season Premiere Recap!

From Kelly Lynch, SOCIALITELIFE.com View full article

About a month ago I was charged with recapping new episodes of True Blood. Initially I hesitated, because I believe there are two vampire camps: Twilight and True Blood. I subscribed to the clean, doe-eyed tale Twilight told. But I accepted the challenge and committed to watching the first two seasons on HBO. After watching season one, I was hooked. Sure, the series is nauseating at times and a little (read: a lot) vulgar, but it's good. Insanely good. And no offense to my confederate friendifers, but True Blood sure does capture the redneck allure of the deep south. And as a reminder, the North won.

Take it away!

So here we have Bill in a hostage/kidnapping situation, while Sookie wonders who took her beloved (after she made him wait for an answer to the question. Now Bill is in a car with awful men who taketh his blood for the sake of getting high off V).

"I'm in no mood for lesbian weirdness tonight, Pam." Zing!

I'm so glad True Blood stuck to their promise of more nudity. I see Eric's behind, and I'm alright with it. Skarsgard sounds sewwwwww much like his father, Stellan.

Lafayette is in first place for best character in the series. The boy defends the honor of his friends, all while wearing feathers and rhinestones. I like him. He's good people. And I'm quite certain I just heard Lafayette say "Sorry Snook," to Sookie.

Sam just had an, um, "intimate" dream about Bill. Is it because he has Bill's blood?

Where oh where does Lafayette gets such clothin' as bedazzled smedium jerseys? And a feather in his fedora? Boyfriend don't need no trip to the big city. He's the queen of Bon Temp.

I don't like Hoyt's haircut. He looks even more like a child than last season. But I suppose we should applaud his effort to cut the cord and move out of mama's house.

Eric and Sophie-Anne are dealing V illegally and running from the law. What will become of the Louisiana vamps if Fangtasia goes out of business because the queen is hiding from the IRS?

Who is Sam's daddy and what does he do? How does one inherit shape-shifting?

Even after Maryanne's death, everyone in Bon Temp is so messed up. Tara can't recover from Eggs' death and Jason can't stop envisioning the bullet he put in Eggs' head on the girls he's trying to get biblical with. The devil went down to Louisiana, and he ain't never left.

Oh snap, now we're Twilight? Werewolves? For reals? At least we're not dragging out the "Bill's been captured" storyline.