Charlaine Harris will guest appeared
Though season two of HBO’s “True Blood” will further diverge from the Charlaine Harris series of books that inspired it, the author herself will be making a guest appearance in the season finale.
Series creator Alan Ball told reporters Wednesday that though he and Harris don’t talk much about the direction of the show, they keep in touch.
“She actually is going to come out and do a cameo probably in the last episode of the season,” said Ball. “But I do think it’s best to just respect that boundary. Maybe I’m just being chicken because I don’t want to hear that she hates this or she hates that.”
“True Blood,” returning June 14 at 9 p.m., stars Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in the small Southern town of Bon Temps, La., where vampires and humans are trying to co-exist. It also features Stephen Moyer as Sookie’s undead love interest, Bill Compton.
Vampires are a hot commodity in pop culture right now, thanks to the “Twilight” phenomenon, the CW’s recent addition of “Vampire Diaries” to its fall season and “True Blood.” And though Ball isn’t a “Twilight” fan, he doesn’t see a problem with a crowded market.
“I can’t really talk that much about ‘Twilight’ because I haven’t read any of the books or seen the movie, but I personally don’t really understand why you would have vampires in something that’s basically about abstinence,” said Ball.
“I guess it makes it safe for young girls to fantasize about vampires in a way that isn’t really threatening. … But as long as people love vampires and it helps bring them to our show, I’m happy.”
(For the uninitiated, “True Blood” is nothing like “Twilight,” most notably because Ball’s vampires are definitely not abstinent.)
Ball says that the second season of “True Blood” will explore “the power of cults.”
“Whether that’s a neo-Greco pagan cult,” he said, “or a church of organized religion.”
In addition to Harris, another guest star lined up for this season is Evan Rachel Wood, who will appear in the last two episodes as Sophie-Anne Leclerq, a powerful 500-year-old vampire.
Sophie-Anne’s character doesn’t show up in the books until much later. But when the “True Blood” writers decided to move up her introduction, Ball said he immediately thought of Wood for the part.
“I got a call from Evan’s manager during the first season saying that she loved the show and would love to be a part of it,” said Ball. “I was thrilled because I think she’s an amazing actress … but I don’t really create roles for actors.
“But when we decided to meet [the character] this season, I thought, ‘Wow, [Wood] would be really great for that - let’s see if we can make it work.’ And fortunately, it did.”
Article on Daily News by Cristina Kinon
Charlaine Harris
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