Viking vampire sheriff Eric Northman plays a major role in the fourth season of HBO’s hit series “True Blood,” which kicks off Sunday — after losing his memory at the hands of a coven of witches, he has to turn to telepathic barmaid/fairy Sookie Stackhouse for help. Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard has gained a fervent following for his portrayal of the icy, sexy vamp, and he recently sat down for an interview with Hero Complex contributor Gina McIntyre to talk about what’s ahead for Eric and the character’s relationships with Anna Paquin‘s Sookie and Kristin Bauer van Straten‘s sardonic Pam.
GM: Were you excited about Eric’s story line heading into this season?
AS: I was excited. It was quite different from what we’ve seen before. It’s been difficult because he doesn’t … it was difficult finding the right tone. He doesn’t know who he is, so all that baggage is gone, 1,000 years of resentment and bitterness, the whole, like, loathing humanity kind of stuff is gone. But there has to be an element of danger there still. I didn’t want him to become too much of a little puppy. It was about finding that balance, because he has to be extremely vulnerable now. [It] is great to see Eric, who’s usually the alpha male, pretty vulnerable — to find that while maintaining the element of danger there. I don’t think it would be fun to watch him for very long if he was completely emasculated.
GM: You actually get the opportunity to try some comedy in the first three episodes.
AS: I had fun with it. It was just important to make it real. The humor had to come out of the situations more than him trying to be funny. It’s that culture clash, someone who doesn’t really know who he is — Are you my progeny? Who are you to me? — trying to figure things out. Obviously there’s an opportunity to create some funny situations with that.
GM: And obviously his relationship with Sookie is undergoing a bit of a change.
AS: She’s seeing this different side of Eric now, but it can’t be like she hated the old Eric, and now it’s the new guy and she likes the new guy and then he goes back to the old guy and she hates him. It has to be more complicated, more of a gray zone than that. It was just important for us to realize that it’s not like a completely different Eric. It is a different side of the same guy. She knows that, and that creates a platform for some drama, I think, because she knows who he is and she knows that he’s dangerous and what he’s done in the past, but then she’s seeing this vulnerability and there’s goodness in there. I think she already saw that in Season 3, a little glimmer of hope there, and now she’s exploring it more. But I think it’s important to remember that that was already inside Eric, but he had this big wall built up around himself to protect himself.
Read the rest of the interview Here
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