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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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.

Stephen Moyer on how he pissed off all the 14 year olds on the planet

I must say, Stephen does a fantastic 14 year old impression. I love this!

True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You

Want to take a bite out of philosophy? Here's you chance with Alan Ball's hit show 'Trueblood'.

The book takes a looks at philosophical issues behind Charlaine Harris's New York Times bestsellers The Southern Vampire Mysteries and Alan Ball's adaption True Blood television series.

Teeming with complex, mythical characters in the shape of vampires, telepaths, shapeshifters, and the like, True Blood has a rich collection of themes to explore, from sex and romance to bigotry and violence to death and immortality. The goings-on in the mythical town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires satiate their blood lust and openly comunicate with ordinary humans, presents no shortages of juicy metaphysical morsels to sink your teeth into.

Now True Blood and Philosophy calls on the minds of some of history's greates thinkers to perform some philosophical bloodlettting on such topics as Sookie and the metaphysics of mindreading; Maryann and sacrificial religion; werewolves, shapeshifters and personal identity; vampire politics, evil, desire, and much more.

True Blood and Philosophy is the perfect companion to the start of the third season on HBO and the release of the second season on DVD. It is smart and entertaining, and provides food--or blood--for thought, and a fun, new way to look at the series.

For all of our Trubies out there, True Blood and Philosophy, will be out for purchase June 2010.

Take a bite out of that!!!

True Blood finally casted hellion Debbie Pelt

Actress Brit Morgan joins "True Blood"
REUTERS.COM >> Link to article

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The last major new role on the upcoming third season of HBO's "True Blood" has been filled.

After a long search, Brit Morgan of ABC Family's "The Middleman" has landed the part of Debbie Pelt on Alan Ball's vampire drama. Debbie is Alcide's (Joe Mangiello) ex-girlfriend who doesn't like Sookie (Anna Paquin) much.

Except for Denis O'Hare, Ball went with largely little-known actors for the new cast additions to "True Blood" this season.

Morgan joins fellow new cast members Manganiello, Theo Alexander, Grant Bowler, Lindsay Pulsipher and Cooper Huckabee, as well as J. Smith-Cameron and veteran Alfre Woodard.

True Blood Season 3 Casting (spoiler alert)

***SPOILER ALERT*** Cast descriptions may lead to series spoilers…

Creator Alan Ball has been busy casting new players in the upcoming season 3 of True Blood. Click Here to view the Season 3 Casting List

Fans of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series will be excited to see Alcide Herveaux’s character come to life by Joe Mangianello. Alcide is a Jackson, Mississippi werewolf who will definitely heat up your Sunday nights on HBO.

Other shifters include Sam Merlotte’s brother Tommy played by Marshall Allman, and werepanthers Calvin Norris (not casted yet), Felton Norris (not casted yet), and Crystal Norris played by Lindsay Pulsipher. Grant Bowler will play Coot, a werewolf biker and leader of the were-bikers.

Shifters aren’t the only new “sups” on the block, Denis O’Hare has been casted to play Russell Edgington, vampire King of Mississippi. Talbot, played by Theo Alexander, is Russell’s sexy vampire boyfriend. Vampire Franklin Mott, played by James Frain, comes on the scene as Tara’s new love interest.

Great news for Vampire Pam fans! Kristin Bauer has been upgraded to “regular” status meaning we should be seeing many more Pam scenes in our future.

We’ll also be seeing some minor cast members who will undoubtedly add some spice to the story. Janice Herveaux, played by Dawn Olivieri, is Alcide’s fun-loving sister. Shannon Lucio has been casted as Caroline Compton, Bill’s Civil War era wife during flash back scenes. We also get to meet sexy Yvette, played by Natasha Alam, Fangtasia’s newest dancer.

Lafayette will see some action with Jesus Valasquerz, played by Kevin Alejandro. Jesus is the caretaker of Ruby Jean Reynolds, Lafayette’s mother, played by Alfre Woodard.

Fans are anxiously awaiting the announcement of the actress casted as Debbie Pelt. She’s described as Alcide’s beloved ex-girlfriend who is addicted to V. She’s an enemy of Sookie and is sure to stir up a heap of trouble.

Click Here to view the Season 3 Casting List

Charlaine Harris needs your help! Ask Alan Ball a question about TRUE BLOOD for her Sookie Companion book

From CharlaineHarris.com

YOUR CHANCE TO ASK ALAN BALL A QUESTION

1/29/10 – 2/12/10

As part of the huge project The Sookie Companion has become, we’re offering a two-week time period in which you can send your questions to producer/director/writer Alan Ball, who will answer them in the Companion. My assistant, Paula, will collect all your questions and send them to the editor at TeknoBooks who’s responsible for coordinating all the elements going into the Companion, which we hope will be out next year. Paula and the editor will weed out redundant questions. Of course, these questions should focus on the TV series “True Blood,” and they should be sent to: askalanb@yahoo.com. This address is ONLY for this special project.

Charlaine Harris

True Blood Season 2 DVD and Blu-Ray Release Date Announced

@TrueBloodHBO announced today on Twitter it will be releasing Season 2 of True Blood on May 25, 2010. Fans have been waiting anxiously since the season finale last September.

The release will prelude True Blood's third season premiere on June 2010.

The DVD or Blu-Ray can be pre-ordered on Amazon.

Bad to the Bone: FRANKLIN, DEBBIE, RUSSELL

True Blood: Three Big Baddies and a Revenge Plot
Kris De Leon, BuddyTV.com >>LINK TO ARTICLE

With all the casting rounds these past couple of months, it's safe to assume that True Blood season 3 is going to be daring, bolder, and more kick-ass than ever before. Just think about it, season 3 will feature three big baddies just to dethrone last season's main villain, maenad Maryann.

"We have a triumvirate of evil this season," exec producer Alan Ball reveals to Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. "I'm talking about Franklin Mott, Russell Edgington, and Debbie Pelt. They are all bad to the bone. They're not just crazy, they're evil." For more information about these villains, check out our True Blood spoiler section.

Among the three antagonists, Alcide's psycho ex-girlfriend, Debbie Pelt, who is yet to be cast, will have a bigger role than what was originally planned by Ball. "We actually beefed up Debbie," he says. "She's going to be in more episodes, so maybe that will have an impact on [what actress] we can get for her, which is a big question right now."

Meanwhile, True Blood fans can look forward to another side plot going into the third season of the HBO vampire series. It turns out Eric has an ongoing vengeance plot that will gradually unfold.

"I'd say it's about revenge," said Alex Skarsgard, who plays Eric on True Blood. "He will continue to explore the whole Sookie thing and what that's all about. He's trying to figure out what's different about her. He's intrigued by that. And in addition to that, there's something that happened a thousand years ago that he's still carrying in his heart. All I'll say is he's trying to avenge someone."

Crystal Norris character in Season 3 of True Blood

From DreadCentral.com

True Blood Adds Yet Another Recurring Character for Season Three

And the powers-that-be behind HBO's popular series True Blood still aren't done filling out the character roster for Season Three. Today another new female was added, one named Crystal Norris, who shares an "electric connection" with Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten).

According to The Hollywood Reporter Crystal, a beautiful "barefoot, sundress-wearing woman", will be portrayed by Lindsay Pulsipher, whom genre buffs will likely recognize from the Masters of Horror episode "The Fair Haired Child". Most recently she's been in A&E's The Beast.

In the Charlaine Harris books on which True Blood is based, Crystal is a full-blooded werepanther who is first introduced in the fourth novel and reappears throughout the storyline up until the ninth book, Dead and Gone. We'll see how much showrunner Alan Ball deviates from that formula come June, 2010, when the third season premieres.

Podcast: How the Twilight Series Stacks Up to Stackhouse

Join Brandi, Luz and Dayna as we discuss the movie release of New Moon and then how the Twilight series compares to Southern Vampire Series.

Download NOW

Why Women Love Vampires

Why Young Women are Lapping up Vampire Stories

By Christopher Goodwin | The First Post

Are retroviral drugs the reason today's vampires are so sexy and ubiquitous? For much of the 1980s and 1990s, as the spectre of rampant and then untreatable Aids haunted the world, blood-sucking was a distinctly fatal and unappealing pursuit. A metaphor for "an act of love that kills", author Neil Gaiman called it.

Today's vampires are not about death, or even its cursed mirror, immortality, as True Blood, the red-hot new vampire series from HBO, illustrates. No. According to the show's creator Alan Ball: "Vampires are sex." Sex without the attendant fear of death.

But even that doesn't quite catch the phenomenon, or explain why the new strain of vampires who have overrun popular culture have particularly seduced impressionable young women. Truth is, women know that these sexed-up new vampires, like Bill Compton, the 173-year-old blood-sucker played by Stephen Moyer in True Blood, are really about the ultimate penetration - of the soul.

Yet True Blood had a shaky start when it premiered in the States last autumn. Critics were initially cold about the show, which is based on the best-selling Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris.

>>>Continue reading....

And the Emmy goes to... Bill Compton! er.. Stephen Moyer!

Zap2it.com: 'True Blood' wins 'Breakthrough' honor at the Emmys. Whazzat?

Zap2it.com | By Rick Porter

"True Blood" wasn't up for any awards at Sunday night's Primetime Emmy telecast, but it earned some accolades during the broadcast anyway.

The HBO series won something called the "Breakthrough Performance of the Year" that was announced near the end of Sunday's show, beating out Kris Allen's crowning moment on "American Idol" and Chuck kissing Blair on "Gossip Girl."

So what, exactly, is the Breakthrough Performance of the Year? It doesn't really have anything to do with the Emmys, for starters. It's a fan poll sponsored by TV.com (owned by CBS, which aired the awards this year) and Vaseline, which is hyping, no kidding, a "breakthrough in body lotion" and designed to recognize things that cut through the TV clutter and grabbed people's attention over the past season.

Fans decided that Bill (Stephen Moyer) meeting Sookie (Anna Paquin) for the first time on "True Blood" was the most breakthrough-y moment of the year. Oddly enough, after "So You Think You Can Dance" host Cat Deeley announced the winner, the tie-in ad that followed it congratulated "Bill Compton of 'True Blood'" on his win -- and not the actor who plays him. Memo to Vaseline: Vampires aren't real.

For the record, "True Blood" did win one Emmy this year, for outstanding casting for a drama series. It was also nominated for outstanding art direction for a single-camera series and outstanding main title design.

True Blood Season 2 comments and Season 3 peeks *spoiler alert*

Blood Bath: Televisionary Talks to "True Blood" Writer/Executive Producer Alan Ball
Written by Jace

Still have some burning questions about last night's True Blood season finale? Or anxious to gather some clues about just what creator/executive producer Alan Ball has in store for the residents of Bon Temps when True Blood returns next summer? You've come to the right place.

>>> CONTINUE READING ON TELEVISIONARY <<<<

New casting for True Blood season 3

Introducing the King of Mississippi:

Actor Denis O’Hare

A Tony winner for his role of Mason Marzac in “Take Me Out,” O’Hare’s acting credits also include the films “Duplicity,” “The Proposal,” “Milk” and “A Mighty Heart.”

His resume also includes appearances “CSI,” the “Law & Order” franchise and a recurring role on ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” as Travis March.

Season 3 of “True Blood” is slated to bow in Summer 2010.

EW Interview with True Blood's Kristen Bauer (Pam)

'True Blood''s Pam, Kristin Bauer, talks meeting her maker (and Alexander Skarsgard)

by Mandi Bierly, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

SPOILER ALERT! Pam will not get to avenge those great Betsey Johnson pumps she ruined tracking the creature that turned out to be meanad Maryann in Sunday night’s season finale of True Blood (HBO, 9 p.m. ET). Pam won’t even be in the episode because apparently, vampires don’t know how to close a bar for the night. It’s a wrong that can only be righted by Kristin Bauer, the scene-stealer who plays the loyal business partner, henchman, and hair stylist to Alexander Skarsgard’s Eric, receiving serious screen time in Season 3 — and, of course, doing a marathon interview with EW in which she answers most of the 96 questions our glamoured PopWatch readers recently submitted for her. Here, Bauer — who TV devotees might also remember as Man Hands on Seinfeld, the woman still nursing her 8-year-old at work on Desperate Housewives, the woman who sued her plastic surgeon for injecting his own ass fat into her lips on Boston Legal, Ray’s first kiss on Everybody Loves Raymond, and Jack’s ex-wife Allie on Just Shoot Me! — shares the stories of how Pam met Eric, how she met Skarsgard, and much, much more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It’s not fair that we won’t see Pam in the finale!
KRISTIN BAUER: It’s not fair! I’ve been asking fans to tell me what happens in the next books because I’ve been holding off on reading them ’cause I’m a fan of the show, too, and it’s more exciting if the scripts come and I don’t know what happens. I keep asking them, “What does Pam do next year?” I have no idea what Alan Ball is gonna do. None of us do. I talked to Alexander this week: “Do you have any idea about Season 3?” He said, “Nothing.”

A very popular question: Do you have any input in what Pam wears?
I haven’t had to give input because [costume designer] Audrey Fisher is so amazing. She sends me pictures of the zebra outfit or the red sequined jumpsuit, and I’m like, “YES!” It’s like having the best character consultant you’ve ever had. She puts so much thought into each scene. She’s responsible for Pam. She creates Pam.

I imagine that Pam and Eric are two of her favorites to dress.
Yeah, I think she told me that Pam is one of her favorites. I met the costumer who did the pilot and left to do another project at a party and he said, “This is my biggest regret, that I can’t dress Pam.” She’s such a diva. The red sequins, to us, was very ’80s. The first episode she was in last season was very Victorian, with the leather corset. One episode she was in J. Crew. That’s extremely fun for me, that you can show in somebody’s clothing so much about the person and how long they’ve been around.

That brings us to another burning question: What’s the history between Pam and Eric? I know you’ve recorded a special feature for the season 2 Blu-ray that dives into that.
It was 34 pages of writing, straight Pam. It gives you Pam’s viewpoint on everything that happens in the vampire world in season 2. It also fills in everything I’ve been wondering about Pam, Alexander was wondering about Pam….We kept asking producers what their relationship was.

Why had they never told you before?
Every time we’d ask, it was some night shoot, 2 a.m., we’re all giddy, and we would just start laughing and joking almost immediately, so we never got any details. When I saw the writers for the Blu-ray, I said, “This was wonderful. Thank you. It was really fun to find out about Pam,” and they said, “Us, too!” It feels like we’re all creating it as we go. Pam was turned about 100 years ago. It seems from this writing, Pam sought Eric out. She was living a very wealthy, upper-crust life and these little men were lining up to court her and she’d be married off to one of these people, and she’s a real feminist: She looked at what her life would be and said, “No.” She met Eric and he split her world apart and she never looked back. So she really went after him.

And their relationship started off romantic?
Yeah, it was. Alexander and I would always joke during the season, “Were they a couple?” “Well yeah, the first 100 years were very passionate but it’s sorta cooled.” [Laughs] I just decided to play it that way. She is extremely enamored and impressed and loyal to Eric. In the Blu-ray, she just thinks that being a maker is an incredible position to be in and that Eric is the best maker you could ever have. She was released by Eric — she is with him and at his side because she believes that this guy is one of a kind.

One reader asked, if there’d been a scene written for Pam and Eric after Godric’s death, how would she have handled him?
She comments on that in the Blu-ray. She says something along the line of she’s not at all surprised how Eric is reacting and how she wouldn’t have been able to keep it together as well as Eric did if something had happened to him. It was nice to see this side of Pam, she’s almost sentimental. If something happened to Eric, she’d be destroyed.

We would all love to see their beginning in a flashback. How would you feel about filming it?
It’d be great. I will play Pam anywhere, anytime, anyplace, and would love to be made, killing….I was so jealous of Alexander in this year’s season opener, when he’s ripping that body apart. I’m like, “Yeah! You lucky bastard!” I got to meet Charlaine Harris and have lunch with her, and she says in her latest book, she sends Pam on a real killing spree. I was drooling! Isn’t that terrible?

I’m assuming that enthusiasm for carnage is part of the reason you were cast. How did you get the role?
The casting people who are nominated for an Emmy, Junie Lowry-Johnson and Libby Goldstein, are responsible for half my career. They called me in to read for Alan Ball. There are some characters that you feel are just in you — you can play this person, and you can play this person better than most. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna get it. Then I went to the Philippines to shoot this movie, Subject: I Love You, and the producer said, “You know, you’re starting on this other show the day after you fly back from here.” I said, “What other show? Where are my agents? I didn’t hear about this? Do they have my phone number?”And she said, “Let me look….True Blood.” And I was like, “What audition was that?” My protective mechanism is that I go in, I read, and then I try to forget about it because it’s too sad when you don’t get something. She said, “It’s the vampire role.” And I went, “Oh, thank you, Lord!” I get so many messages from actor friends that I haven’t heard from in 10 years saying, “I’m so jealous.” I don’t know what it is that we’re witnessing with vampires and their popularity, but actors as well really yearn to play these immortal dead killers. [Laughs]

I bet it’s because you can play evil and get away with it. The audience won’t turn against you — they want you to be bad.
That’s it. I love the line from True Lies were Schwarzenegger says he only kills bad people. I think that with Pam, if people are killing the right people…You know John Wayne — you’re rootin’ for him. Even the mafia, we don’t want the Sopranos to go to jail. The Godfather, you’re hoping they get away with it.

Does Eric confide in Pam? Does she know the reason he has Lafayette selling V, or why he wants Sookie so badly?
No. She does not know. She’s just going with it because of her loyalty.

Fans of the books are always talking about how Pam and Sookie end up forming some kind of “friendship.” Is that something you’re hoping happens on the show?
Anna [Paquin] is just an absolute riot and couldn’t be more talented, so it would be so much fun. [SPOILER ALERT!] I’ve heard about that, too, from fans, that Eric loses his memory and gets really soft and sensitive, and they form a friendship and help him. It’s really fun to see Alexander get to play Eric in ways that we don’t expect, like when he tries to be human. It’s really entertaining. He’s so funny.

There’s been so much buzz about Alexander in the last month. What’s your take on that?
I think it makes perfect sense. He’s new to us, our country, and he’s big and beautiful, and the character is big and beautiful. It’s the perfect storm.

Is there anything negative you can say about him to help subdue our crushes while we wait for season 3?
Like when a guy breaks up with you, you look for something really bad to focus on? Yeah, good luck finding that with Alexander. There’s nothin’ bad about the guy. Sorry. [Laughs] You’re all just gonna have to pine. He has an amazing sense of humor. After every Swedish take, I look at him, and he sort of nods. Once, he went and saw the footage. I said, “How was I? Was my Swedish good?” He said, “No. You sound like a Russian prostitute.” Of course, the comeback line was, “How would you know?” but I thought of it months later. In fact, I think someone else thought of it. But after every take, I go, “Russian prostitute? Or am I near the border of Sweden?”

So you hadn’t spoken any Swedish before the show?
No. And I still don’t. Alexander records what sounds to me like gibberish, and I play this jibberish over and over until I can regurgitate the jibberish, and I just hope that I’m sounding somewhat Swedish. That’s definitely nerve-wracking. My husband [Abri van Straten, lead singer of the South African band The Lemmings] is of Swedish descent as well, so he learns it with me. I just repeat it to him 100 times a day. It’s seared into my frontal cortex because I can still remember all my Swedish lines — not my English lines — from the whole season.

And Alexander is good about translating? He doesn’t trick you into saying dirty words?
He’s very good about that — as far as I know. That’s a trick my husband pulls. He’s teaching me phrases in Afrikaans, and he just keeps telling me not to say them around his mother. I have no idea what I’m saying, but he laaaaughs.

Did you read with Alexander for your audition?
No. We were cast separately. I didn’t meet him until I was on the set, in the leather corset, and in another time zone because I started on True Blood17 hours after arriving back from the Philipines. I remember Alexander was speaking Swedish, and I said, “Is that Cambodian?” I was just so out of it. I couldn’t breathe, my feet hurt, and I thought for some reason he was Cambodian. But I remember thinking he was very crushworthy.

How many of your friends have asked to be set up with him?
They haven’t, because they’re all married. But they all secretly tell me behind their husbands’ backs, “I have the biggest crush on vampire Eric.” After a while, I thought, Am I chopped liver? Do people just call me to tell me how wonderful Alexander is?

Well, we had a reader say “Your lips are heaven-sent” and ask about your heritage.
[Excitedly] Oh! I’m all German.

More burning questions: Does Pam really want Lafayette turned into a vampire?
That’s also commented on in the Blu-ray: She’s like, “Why not?! I think he’d make a great vampire!” But she says Eric always has his reasons, and he’s never wrong.

If there was one character you could have more scenes with, who would it be?
Terry Bellefleur [Tad Lowe], the shell-shocked guy who’s in the relationship with the waitress Arlene this season. It’d be like, have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse? They just take a really long time to kill it because they’re sort of bored and entertained by it.

That’s the reason I’m hoping Eric and Jason (Ryan Kwanten) have more scenes together. I think Eric would be amused by his childlike stupidity and appreciate his Rambo sensibility.
Well, that’s exactly how Pam feels in the Blu-ray, so I imagine that’s how Eric would feel, too. Pam’s fairly impressed with him, and seems to be a bit turned on by him with his new Brad Pitt/Rambo thing.

People would love to see Pam have a love interest on the show. Which character do you think she could have the most fun with in that way?
Well, my sick mind looks for something that we haven’t seen before. Apparently in the books, she’s bisexual. So I thought we haven’t seen a vampire with a vampire in a love way, and we haven’t seen two women together, so what about her and Jessica? [EW gasps] Right?!

If Jessica and Hoyt (Jim Parrack) are really over, she could be reeling and Pam could come in with the tough love —
And teach her how to really kill. [Laughs] Take her under her wing.

I was gonna say, but slowly fall for her, but you always have to take it to death.
What’s wrong with me? In my life, I’m saving the whales [as a face of IFAW's Tails for Whales campaign, which asks people to show their support for U.S. leadership in global whale conservation by submitting a photo], and then they say “Action!,” and I’m like, “Kill ‘em all!” Maybe Pam wants to save the whales, though.

That would be hilarious, if Pam got Save the Whales literature in the mail at Fangtasia.
I saw my doctor off hours, and he was wearing a Save the Ferret T-shirt, and I thought interesting. My doctor is a ferret activist. I wish I didn’t know that. I’m thinking it would be really odd to see Pam wearing a Save the Whales T-shirt, but she was there for that movement, too…

Where did Pam’s eye roll and sneer come from? Was that in the script or something you brought to her?
It might be just Kristin Bauer. [Laughs] The longer I play Pam, I’m like, I’m heartless, aren’t I? I’m completely intolerant of my fellow man. I think my sense of humor is kind of sarcastic, and I have a friend who says I have rubber face. I just make all these expressions. Once I did it onscreen they seemed to like it, and they encouraged me to do it. In the next script I’d see, “Pam rolls her eyes.”

You also consider the way you pursued your husband very Pam-like. Tell us that story, because as a single woman in her early 30s, I find it inspirational, and yet, as someone who’s slightly excitable, I’m curious… I mean, it wasn’t stalking, but…
[Laughs] “I don’t wanna say you’re a stalker!”

Well, you could have been if you weren’t gorgeous and on a hit show. But how did you know it wasn’t a crush, you would actually connect with him?
I didn’t. My husband says, “When I heard your voice on the phone, I knew.” I say, “Yeah, I did not know. I knew you were hot, and I knew it had been a long time. I did not know that you were my soul mate.” I was just in this fed-up place with so many first dates over four years, and being the only single adult at Christmas with my family in Wisconsin every year. I was headed into the Christmas vacation [last year], and I really announced to the universe, in my house, “I’ve had it! Is this thing on? I mean, is anybody paying attention? Is there anyone on duty when I’m talking?” I was just pissed off. I’m like, that’s it. I’m taking it into my own hands. I had tried everything — The Secret method, sacrificed the chicken, followed the full moon, lit the love candle and pictured what I wanted, wrote down everything I wanted then got mad and burned it because it didn’t work. And for some reason, on the day I say this, I go to the nutritionist, and there’s his CD sitting on the only chair open. I’m like, “He’s cute. I’m callin’ it…I’m goin’ a freakin’ date!” The woman I was talking to backed out of the room slowly, like you do when you’re afraid for your life. I went online, and wrote an email: “Hey, is this dude in LA? Because I want to have coffee.” I wanted him to be excited to get this email and not like [weary groan] so I wrote, “I’m Kristin Bauer. I’m on True Blood, and here’s my website” shamelessly. I was embarrassed about it, but I had to get the job done. He doesn’t check email, so three weeks later, I wrote again: “I haven’t heard back. Still thirsty! Still need caffeine!” Someone wrote back saying he doesn’t do email. I said, “Well, then send a pigeon with my phone number.” [Laughs] I had HAD IT. I was passed being embarrassed or having some normal sense of decorum. We met and just talked and talked and talked and talked. For three weeks, we just talked all day. Within a few months, we were engaged, and within about six and a half months, married. I joked for years, “Where is he? Uganda? Where is my guy?” And the answer was, yes, close. South freakin’ Africa. And he didn’t even want to be in LA. He didn’t want to come to America to tour, he was perfectly happy to tour South Africa, but his record label and band forced him. So maybe all the séances and chicken sacrifices worked, there’s just a delay in this universe.

So I need to go buy chickens?
Try it all! I don’t know what one thing works. And it’s really amazing because we’re coming up on Christmas with my family, and last Christmas, I was sitting there with nieces, ages 13 to 20, at the computer watching this video he has for the song “Rain.” We all fell in love with the song, and we’re watching the video over and over, so at that point, I certainly was your classic stalker because I’m now imagining who this person is and imagining that he wants to meet me. If I weren’t on a TV show, it would be crazy! But people do Math.com and eHarmony, and it’s no different. I was looking at his profile. And then I sent a notice: I would like to open communication with you. And now a year later, I’m gonna be sitting at that same computer, checking my email with my husband next to me. My nieces were my bridesmaids.

Such a great story.
I went to college for writing and painting, and the script I’m writing now is the fictionalized version of how Abri and I met. Just a simple, beautiful love story, which I love. It’s fun because his parents are both very well-known South African writers — his dad was a playwright, and his mom a novelist — and he went to school for music and writing. So it’s lovely to show him my pages at the end of the day and to have the songs he’s recording now for his solo album inspiring the direction the story goes. [She's also in the studio painting still life flowers feverishly for a Sept. 26 artists showcase in San Marino, Calif.]

Last question: You just filmed an episode of Private Practice. Shonda Rhimes is also notoriously tight-lipped, so she told you not to say anything?
She is, but she didn’t tell me, so screw it! [Laughs] I play a mom of a 13-year-old girl who gets pregnant and disappears. I find her again and she’s not doing well. The mom and daughter have to fight and cry and scream and try find a way to reconcile and save the life of her baby. I can tell you it’s harder to play a human. At the end of the week, I said to my husband, “So when is True Blood coming back? Where are my pumps and my teeth?”

Vamp Diaries fits nicely

CW's 'Vampire Diaries' lands in space between 'Twilight' and 'True Blood'

Read more: NYDailyNews.com
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, Thursday night, CW

In its unending quest for new ways to dramatize the thrills and dangers of teen romance, the CW tonight poses this question: What happens if the really hot new guy in school turns out to be a vampire?

It's a situation where a simple "OMG!" might not seem sufficient.

For the network, though, the larger question may be whether young women, the target audience for the new "Vampire Diaries," like their romantic drama sprinkled with bloody corpses and near-corpses.

While the producers hope the female audience for the "Twilight" films suggests that's the case, tonight's opening "Vampire Diaries" feels more graphic and menacing than "Twilight."

It's not as graphic and menacing as HBO's "True Blood," a similar work, but the tension here is lethal, not just romantic.

It also would be a shame if the neck-biting part proves too discomforting because the core teen couple is a winner.

Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) hasn't been looking forward to the new school year in Mystic Falls, Va. Her parents were killed in a car crash in May, leaving her and her brother in the care of a largely clueless aunt. Despite the pleas of her best friend, Bonnie (Katerina Graham), Elena really isn't ready to face the world again.

On the first day back, though, Bonnie spots that hot new guy, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). He has the dark, brooding, mysterious fascination that's been quickening teenage girls' pulses since Elvis Presley and James Dean, and he has eyes for Elena.

For reasons only he and the viewers know.

Seems that when he was 16, in 1864, he was bitten by, and thus turned into, a vampire. At that time, there was a girl named Kathleen who looked exactly like Elena. Now, Stefan is ready to get back in the game.

That's okay up front, since Stefan is a good vampire who means no harm. But he has a brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), who does, and since Damon has followed Stefan to Mystic Falls, Stefan's quest for love will create complications for some folks there.

In overall tone, "Diaries" tilts more toward menace than humor - which could create either fascinating romantic tension or the bad feeling that someone's neck is always about to get tapped like a maple tree in syrup season.

By staking turf between "True Blood" and "Twilight," "Vampire Diaries" hopes it has found the promised land. The danger is it could also be no man's land.

dhinckley@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009/09/10/2009-09-10_cws_vampire_diaries_lands_in_space_between_twilight_and_true_blood.html#ixzz0QnjkgZG2

Women hold the power

Women hold the power on ‘True Blood,’ ‘Hung’

By Matthew Gilbert Boston Globe Staff / Article Link

Summer TV has been quite the trip, largely thanks to a particular maenad and her shivery, incantatory fits. Featured in the second season of HBO’s “True Blood,’’ Maryann Forrester has brought all kinds of wicked primal energy to the screen. Her name may put you in mind of “Gilligan’s Island’’ and a pair of pigtails, but she is more of a maniacal Mary Poppins, dropped into the town of Bon Temps to make life a very jolly holiday indeed.

Played with awesome hauteur by Michelle Forbes, who deserves lots of awards love for this role, Maryann is the queen of every scene she’s in. Whether she’s feeding heart pot pie to her minions or casually shrugging off the death of her manservant, she is creepy, campy, forceful, and irresistible. Alongside the Michigan women of “Hung,’’ who have found liberation with a male escort named Ray, Maryann has helped create a group portrait of women accessing power by shredding inhibition. It’s HBO Animus.

As “True Blood’’ and “Hung’’ wrap for the season on Sunday night, at 9 and 10, respectively, they provide a provocative yin to the sexist yang that is “Entourage.’’

“Hung’’ has been only partially satisfying in its first season, losing direction and originality every time the writers veer into Ray’s family life. But the comedy-drama does consistently come alive with Tanya, a neurotic cosmic trooper played by Jane Adams. “Hung’’ is less far less effective dealing with Ray and his sexual endowment than it is with the women who use him. If you thought you were going to get an homage to male potency with this show, you were pushing your cart up the wrong aisle. As Ray’s pimp, Tanya is evolving beautifully into a poet warrior, gradually triumphing over maternal oppression, writer’s block, and professional stasis. Her development is the most coherent element of the series.

“True Blood,’’ on the other hand, has been thoroughly satisfying this season, and not only because Maryann has inspired ecstatic raves (in Bon Temps and from viewers). While “Hung’’ wandered among nonstarter plots - do we care about Ray’s kids’ romantic lives? - “True Blood’’ has expertly kept a number of rich, directed plotlines going at once. Even while a few different supernatural powers have come into play, including shape-shifting and brainwashing, the show has not succumbed to the glut of paranormal cross-purposes that helped make “Heroes’’ unwatchable.

Indeed, this season of “True Blood’’ has been a model of TV storytelling. As the volume on one theme lowered, with Sookie, Jason, and Bill escaping the clutches of the nefarious Fellowship of the Sun, it rose on another playing in the background: How to stop Maryann and save the town from devolving into pure, empty-eyed id? And like a backbeat, the Bill-Eric-Sookie triangle played throughout, with Sookie remaining one of TV’s most self-directed young heroines.

“True Blood’’ creator Alan Ball is taking full advantage of what has become a cable convention: season-long arcs. Because of cable’s shorter seasons and committed viewers, shows such as “Dexter’’ and “The Wire’’ have been able to give each batch of 12-or-so episodes a beginning and an end. While most network shows must plow endlessly forward, to fill 22 episodes per year for an indefinite number of years, the cable pace encourages more sculpted narratives. Each season can ultimately fold into a nice DVD set. The first season of “True Blood’’ revolved around Rene and his crimes; this season belongs primarily to Maryann. (No, I know nothing about what will happen Sunday night; Maryann may well survive to throw another wild party).

Within his tight structure this summer, Ball has given us countless small moments of grace, humor, and horror. The death of Godric on the roof at dawn was one of TV’s most dramatically evocative sequences of the year, with Sookie shedding tears for Godric, his ancient soul, and her own losses. The submissiveness of Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) toward the youthful-looking Godric, too, was powerful for being so unexpected. Anything having to do with the love affair between virgins Jessica and Hoyt was sweet; and anything having to do with Jason was funny.

“True Blood’’ is part of the vampire trend of late, with the “Twilight’’ movies and books, and with “The Vampire Diaries’’ on the CW. Why, there’s even a vampire pictorial in the new issue of Playboy. But, more than those other products, the HBO show has pushed vampire symbolism forward into new territory. I love the way “True Blood’’ portrays the unbreakable bond between a vampire and the one who made him or her, and the way the struggle for vampire rights raises internal conflicts in the vampire community. Those are the kinds of fresh twists that manage to keep the age-old vampire formula young.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit www.boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.

Podcast: True Blood season 2 episode 11 - Frenzy

Tara and Eggs laid an egg and Bill’s faux sun bathing with the queen. YAHTZEE! Brandi and Luz catch up on episode 11 and anticipate the season finale.

Podcast feed: download

iTunes: download