When television viewers were introduced to Sookie Stackhouse, three years ago in real time but only a few weeks ago in the chronology of “True Blood,” she was a guileless Louisiana waitress with telepathic powers but without much knowledge of how the world worked, and – oh, right – she was a virgin.
How times have changed.
Over the first three seasons of “True Blood,” Sookie has grown into a take-charge heroine who can contend with shapeshifters, maenads, werewolves and – in Season 4 – witches, but no longer depends on her vampire paramour, Bill Compton, or his fanged rival, Eric Northman. During that time, Anna Paquin, the 28-year-old actress who plays Sookie, has evolved, too, into an increasingly central figure on this increasingly popular, explicit-in-all-kinds-of-ways HBO series, who has comfortably outgrown her former status as a precocious phenomenon (and is now married to co-star Stephen Moyer, who plays vampire Bill).
As anticipation builds for the June 26 season premiere of “True Blood,” Ms. Paquin spoke recently for this Arts & Leisure article about her maturation on the show. In these excerpts from that conversation, she talks about her time on “True Blood,” what Season 4 holds in store for Sookie, and the unusual gift she and Mr. Moyer gave to the crew.
Question: I noticed that you seem to have squeezed all the New Zealand out of your accent, whether or not you’re on camera.
Anna: Absolutely. It switches in and out a bit, depending who I’m talking to. It gets a little boring when you’re going about your daily life and you end up having multiple conversations with random people, when you’re just trying to run errands. They’re like, “Oh, my God! Where are you from?” I’m like, “Can I just buy my milk and go home?” Sometimes if I’m feeling a little more antagonistic, I’ll give people a bit of a hard time. Like, “Where are you from?” I’ll be like, “Here.” “You don’t sound like it.”
Question: You do have a sarcastic side.
Anna: I like to poke people. I do. But I like to hang out and play with people that will poke back. And our set has a lot of that. It’s a very, very loving environment, and the way most of us express our affection is by gentle-to-severe ribbing. It’s a bad sign if you’re not someone that anyone teases on set. It usually means that no one knows you that well.
Question: One of the words I most often heard your colleagues use to describe you was professional. Was there concern when the series started that, because of your youth, you might be somehow unprofessional?
Anna: I’ve always worked incredibly hard, and for me sometimes to a fault, my job comes first. I’ve never really been treated as if I was the kid that didn’t know better or didn’t know enough, or wasn’t good enough or working hard enough. But I was an incredibly hardworking kid. You just don’t want to be the flaky, weakling teenager. If I didn’t feel like I had anything to contribute I’d just keep my damn mouth shut, you know?
Question:Even so, does it ever get tedious to hear yourself described as being “wise beyond your years”?
Anna: That’s an easy way to describe somebody, but it’s more that I had a job that is traditionally an adult job, from a young age. It’s not like I actually knew more about the world in general or had a better handle on life than other people my age. Maybe when I was 16 or 17 and other kids were going out and doing dumb [things] on the weekends, if I had work the next day, or a junket, I’d be like, “I need to get to some sleep.” You grow up unevenly, so there was probably a lot of social stuff that I hadn’t done or experienced as much of, because I was busy doing very adult work. It all balances out in the end.
Question: Did it ever catch up to you with a vengeance?
Anna: I had a great time my year at college, don’t get me wrong. No parents, no job. School, as it turns out, is a lot easier when you’re not pulling a 12-hour day in the middle of trying to get your work done. Living on a college campus is possibly the best way to send teenagers into the world that you could come up with.
Question: When I spoke to Alan Ball, he said he was surprised that you were interested in being in the “True Blood” pilot.
Anna: I think that was mutual, though. I was surprised that anyone wanted to cast me as blond and perky, and he asked me several times, “So, you seriously want to do a TV show for seven years?” I was like, “Yes.”
Question: When the show came up, were you specifically looking to do something different from your previous roles, that might even change the way people perceive you?
Anna: There’s different and then there’s almost, like, multiple personality, full-on, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” who the hell is that person? Sookie is about as radically different from me and a lot of the work I’ve previously done as you could possibly come up with. It completely appealed to me. But I was like, “O.K., this is going to come down to, She’s just not blond enough as a person.” Which, by the way, apparently is a thing. Which I have heard before. That you’re just not a blond person. I don’t actually know what the hell that means.
Question: I think you do know what that means.
Anna: It’s not just about being dumb. We just don’t think it would work with you. Alan, to his credit, took a pretty big leap of faith there. But we researched hair colors pretty extensively before anyone came near my head with a bottle of bleach.
Question: Sookie’s innocence is a big part of her character when we first meet her. Did you feel you were able to bring that to the role?
Anna: Well, Sookie was a hell of a lot more naive than I think I’d been in quite some time. A lot of times I end up being asked about, “Did XYZ experience in your childhood make you nervous. Were you worried? Were you scared?” Well, I didn’t know I was supposed to be. So no, I wasn’t. And that’s how Sookie is. She doesn’t quite know just how big what she’s getting herself into is. And so she proceeds with full force, Sookie energy. And I think that’s something that she and I have in common – completely different circumstances. If I’d known what I was getting myself into, would I have charged full-steam ahead? Who knows. I love where I am now.
Question: Since this is an interview about “True Blood,” let’s get this over with: Did you have any concerns or second thoughts about the amount of nudity that the role calls for?
Anna: I’m not going to say that they wouldn’t have cast me if wasn’t up for it. But it certainly would be a bit of a buzzkill if Sookie never took her clothes off, considering how often she has sex on the show. Considering the books were about the sexual awakening of a 25-year-old who has 25 years’ worth of pent-up frustration and then is supposed to have lots of hot vampire sex. And also, it was not something that I was uncomfortable with. And I’d done some pretty off-color stuff in various other jobs I’d done, and at much younger ages, with a lot less life experience.
Question:But not to this extent!
Anna: Well, there’s a limit to how much you can show of a 15-year-old, but I played some pretty damaged, messed-up, promiscuous little street urchins, in film and on stage. All the wild fantasy vampire sex, at least it’s amongst consenting adults.
Question: Do you feel like Sookie underwent a transformation over those first three seasons, from a damsel in distress to a woman who can confidently kick both Bill and Eric out of her lives?
Anna: Dynamic material is never lacking for Sookie. [laughing] But it is nice when she gets to be a little more in control of her life. It doesn’t mean that life doesn’t smack her upside the head just as hard. But she doesn’t need as much as she needed the first couple of seasons. She’s able to go, “This is objectively really terrible and goodbye, both of you. I’m done, walking away now, with what’s left of my dignity.” I think the progression has been very real.
Question: I felt like the story line in Season 3 where Sookie went undercover in the werewolf bar was a turning point for you and for the character.
Anna: There’s certainly moments where you look around and you’re like, “I’m really glad that there’s also 150 members of the crew in this very crowded bar full of really rowdy boys who are all being encouraged to, you know, get into character.” [laughs] A lot of the stuff that we do on the show does feel as intense to shoot as it looks on the screen. Walking into that particular set, those particular background artists, dressed the way I was dressed. I was just like, “Hmmm. O.K. This is interesting.” Brit Morgan, who plays Debbie Pelt [ex-girlfriend of the werewolf Alcide], that was her first day, and she gets her clothes ripped from her body and crowd surfs wearing like a bra and a thong. She was incredibly brave about it. [laughing] I’m like, “Oh God. I’m so glad she’s a good sport.”
Question: Were you scared about going public about your engagement and your marriage to Stephen, that your professional and personal lives would be permanently connected after that?
Anna: Well, no. And also, there’s a big difference between confirming rumors and announcing things. [laughs] Which is generally how things tend to have happened. I don’t know how people find out information that you haven’t even had time to tell the key players in your life about it. Of course, I understand that there is a fascination about the lives of people who are on shows or in movies or in the public eye and people are curious. When it’s two public people, it exponentially increases the interest. And I’m sure there are people that have opinions about whether or not you should or shouldn’t date your co-worker, whatever. You find happiness where you find it. And if you’re too scared to take it with the potential downsides, I don’t think anyone gets into a relationship that doesn’t have potential difficulties. And if the worst one is that people are going to be staring a little bit more at us in the supermarket, well, it’s a high-class problem. And for the most part, people are incredibly lovely about it.
Question: Are you able to leave your work behind you at the end of the day? Do you have to have discussions about, say, a scene that calls for you to stand up to Steve, or to be romantic with another character?
Anna: My job’s been my whole life. I have, almost to a fault in the past, prioritized my job over everything. It’s appropriate when you’re younger and you don’t have other things in your life that require your attention as much. And Steve is equally dedicated to his job and to his craft. It just doesn’t factor into it. Not just he and myself, but there is a lot of closeness and legitimate love and friendship amongst our cast, and that allows us to go to a lot scarier places, emotionally and physically with each other.
Question:Is there a risk that as the show further explores Sookie’s supernatural background, the audience will lose its connection to the one human character it could trust and rely on?
Anna: I think that what we have maintained, no matter how deep into it she gets, is that she still has a very pragmatic reaction to new, weird information. There’s a line that is in one of the teasers where she finds out about witches, and she’s like, “Now I have to deal with witches?” Like, are you kidding me? Which is basically what the audience is going to say. We’ve maintained that she is that character that will say, “No no no no no, not my problem.” It gives them the audience to address whether or not they think it’s ridiculous. Laugh about it and then embrace it. Shapeshifters and werewolves and fairies and maenads, she’s not all romanticized about everything. She’s like, “This is going to be a massive problem.”
Question: Have you seen the video for Snoop Dogg’s “Oh Sookie”?
Anna: There are certain moments where you’re like, “We must be doing our jobs well when, dot dot dot.” One of them was the Snoop Dogg video and one of them was the p*rn parody. We have officially entered the zeitgeist when there’s like tribute videos and p*rn*gr*phy.
Question: I have to ask: did you watch that?
Anna: No, but Steve and I did give it out as a crew gift last year. [laughs] And I can honestly say I have not watched it. I, at some point, probably out of curiosity will watch it. It’s not on my Top 10 list of things I need to do in my quite limited free time.
Question: Rutina Wesley told me that you box?
Anna: I do everything. I take dance classes. I do Pilates. If it’s weird and slightly sadistic and very painful, then it’s right up my alley. I love to box.
Question: Have you ever done it competitively?
Anna: I feel like that would be frowned upon by the people who employ me. For better or worse, this is how the face is arranged, and I think they’d like to keep it that way. Like everyone, I’ve come to terms with my own appearance. But it needs to stay basically how it ended up.
Question: You’ve got a little over a year to your 30th birthday. Is that when your wunderkind status officially expires? Are you intimidated by that number?
Anna: No. I feel like my numeric age is starting to catch up with my life experience. For most of my life, I’ve worked and been around adults. I still feel like 30’s incredibly young.
