LOS ANGELES – For somebody whose debut performance was as a skunk in a school ballet, Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Anna Paquin has indeed come a long way.
The 27-year-old former child star of “The Piano” has moved on to prove that her Oscar Best Supporting Actress win was not a fluke. She chooses her roles very well, giving us memorable performances in a variety of genres, from films like “X-Men” and “The Squid and the Whale” to TV miniseries like the Emmy award-winning “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”
Now as Sookie Stackhouse, the mind-reading vampire’s girl in the hit HBO series “True Blood,” she has also won a Globe. (And early this month, she was reported to be engaged to “True Blood” co-star Stephen Moyer.)
Excerpts from our interview with Anna at the Four Seasons Hotel:
Before you took on the role of Sookie, how familiar were you with the vampire world?
I was not familiar with it. I crammed and researched so I could sound like I knew what I was talking about at my auditions and do better at work.
We read that you fought hard for this.
Yes, it has not been my experience that people will cast you [even] if you don’t look exactly like the description on the page which, in this case, was blonde, tanned and Southern. I was very much dying to do the role. But I was pale and dark- haired and from New Zealand (laughter). Credit goes to director Alan Ball and the people at HBO.
Why do you think vampires are sexy?
It’s always the biting that is a metaphor for sex and intimacy. There’s definitely a sexual longing that is at the center of that. As in a relationship, you give a part of yourself to the other person and you feed off each other. It can be painful and ecstatic at the same time.
What’s it like working with your on-and-off-screen partner?
You actually see him occasionally.
Are you conscious that the audience knows that you and your onscreen partner are really in a relationship off screen?
I always hope that people will watch the work for what it is, not [just for] the behind-the-scenes story.
You mentioned that you love being in Sookie’s world. Can you talk of the changes in Season Two?
Last season, she was very tough. She was ballsy but she hadn’t really experienced much outside of her very small town, the bar she works in, and her family. Then her whole life changes when her grandmother dies and she meets this vampire. Now she’s in a new world and exotic trouble (laughs). She’s much tougher, always motivated to do the right thing... She’s grown up a lot in the three weeks we met her.
Do you hit the gym a little bit more, with the required body exposure?
I’ve always been pretty active. It’s not like I’m going to go eat a cheesecake and then take my clothes off (laughs) and sit on the couch all weekend eating French fries.
What do you need to go through to do your sex scenes?
I don’t know. We do it so often on our show (laughter)... I was never particularly uptight on nudity to begin with... By the time the camera has seen me naked more often than any of my doctors, why flatter myself to think they really care anymore? It’s still an 18-hour day no matter if they’re looking at naked people or not.
Source: Inquier.net
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