The newest member of the “True Blood” cast, Chris Meloni, confessed on Saturday that he loved the experience of driving a stake through a vampire's heart – a big change since leaving behind his life on “Law and Order: SVU.”
At a Comic-Con panel for the entire cast of “True Blood,” Meloni admitted that he loved “staking” a 10-year-old "guardian" vampire for the shock value in one of the episodes and had been counting on getting to do the deed when he took the role.
“It’s pretty much the one thing I wanted to do,” he said. “If I was gonna be a vampire, I thought, ‘You’ve got to let me stake somebody.’”
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When he drove a stake into the child-guardian, it was “really awesome,” he said. “It’s intricate, technical. There are different camera angles.” He added, “The kid didn’t actually explode.”
Meloni, for years the tough detective on “Law and Order: SVU,” plays an equally tough-talking head of the vampire religion in the latest season of “True Blood.” As the chief guardian, Meloni is intent on flushing out traitors who don’t believe that vampires should coexist with humans.
Asked about the switch in character, Meloni quipped, “figuring out what is a sex crime on this show is very difficult.
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“It’s a really interesting world to inhabit as an actor. I never heard of a werepanther. As soon as you accept a werepanther in your line of vision, everything is open.”
The full cast included a very pregnant Anna Paquin, who plays the series lead Sookie Stackhouse and is married in real life to her former vampire-boyfriend, Stephen Moyer (who plays Bill).
They were joined by Moyer, Ryan Kwanten, Joe Manganiello, Deborah Ann Wolf, Alexander Skarsgard, Rutina Wesley and Kristin Bauer von Straten. Alan Ball, who created the series but will step back from producing it starting next season, also attended and gave each cast member a heartfelt hug at the end.
The panel revealed little about the rest of this season or the one upcoming but promised a shocking ending.