Barely five minutes into the panel that spread the key “True Blood” actors across the stage in Ballroom 20, Anna Paquin was asked if her character Sookie had a split personality. She granted that part of Sookie was rather sedate, but “part of her has really dirty vampire sex on a regular basis — with possibly multiple vampires.”
What to say to that but the exclamation that came from one excited attendee — “You go, girl!”
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Show creator Alan Ball quickly caught the spirit of the room and found a way to toss an insult toward a public figure who represents the opposite of the libidinous, transgressive, “crazy messed-up weirdness” (his phrase) the show represents.
Asked if the bloodsucker factions would see strife in the coming episodes, Ball said the entire group, harried by the ordinary locals, need to stand together against a common enemy — “and that enemy is Michelle Bachman.”
Possibly taking a cue from the shrieks that poured out of the audience each time Paquin got frisky with the show’s men in the opening sizzle reel, he promised plenty more to come.
To one questioner who opined that there was more for the female fans to look at than for the men (Paquin did a mock-insulted hello? gesture at that), Ball noted, “She takes her clothes off all the time.” And he promised, “There will be a moment when Eric [Alexander Skarsgard, object of much female adoration during the session] and Sookie get together in a shower.”
Mind you, he also said when asked for his favorite moment, “I personally enjoyed the ritualistic gang rape” of Jason Stackhouse, which caused actor Ryan Kwanten no problem: “It was a bizarre sort of therapy for me,” he said.
Similarly, Nelsan Ellis, as the forthrightly gay Lafayette Reynolds, said he’d be faithful to fictional boyfriend Jesus (fellow panelist Kevin Alejandro) and granted one audience member’s request to call her a hooker, although her real name was Brittany.
There was much talk of the show’s upcoming Season Five, but almost no specifics. Ball said he’d love to keep the show running until people start asking why the vampires are aging, and said they could always refresh the series by bring new girls to town to work in the local diner, whose food he defended: “Merlotte’s is fine cuisine…I do think being a waitress there is the most dangerous job in the world.”
An actress who’s had a cameo on the show came to the mic to ask, in the nicest way, if they weren’t afraid they were all going to hell. “We’ll have plenty of company there,” said Ball, “because I think everybody in this room will follow us right there.”
He got no argument from the crowd.
