Flesh and Blood in a Town of Vampires

November 2, 2008

Flesh and Blood in a Town of Vampires
nyt
By MARGY ROCHLIN
IN her first scene in HBO's new vampire series, "True Blood," Tara Thornton
(Rutina Wesley) starts out reading while slumped on a patio chair at the
Super Save-a-Bunch store, where she works, and then proceeds to dress down a
petulant customer, slap her boss and warn him that her baby daddy would kick
his teeth in once he got out of jail. "I'm not serious, you pathetic
racist," she says when naked terror floods her boss's doughy face. "I know
y'all are stupid. But do you have to be that stupid?" Then she makes her
exit.
It isn't a moment that cries out for subtlety. But Ms. Wesley manages to
infuse it with some.
"I saw through the darkness, I guess," said Ms. Wesley, who won her part
through an audition in which she navigated that tricky introductory scene.
"For me, I have this tough exterior and these Angela Bassett arms, and
people think, 'Oh, my God, Rutina's tough.' But I'm just a little Juliet on
the inside."
Created by Alan Ball, "True Blood" is based on Charlaine Harris's
best-selling mystery novels. Of all the elements in the books, Tara is the
one that Mr. Ball changed the most. She is still the best friend of a
telepathic barmaid, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who was raised by an
abusive, booze-sodden mother. But Ms. Harris's Tara is white. ("It's in
Louisiana — it couldn't be all about the Caucasians," Mr. Ball explained.)
And Ms. Harris's Tara is not the truth-teller that Mr. Ball's is.
When Mr. Ball was casting the part, he used Tara-loses-her-job as an
audition scene because it acted as a tricky two-fer, meant to establish her
as the smartest citizen of the fictional backwater town of Bon Temps, La.,
but also as a hot-tempered, curse-happy person who doesn't suffer fools.
"Other actresses played it for laughs, like something on the CW," Mr. Ball
said. "But Rutina was the first person who showed her vulnerable side."
As fun as it is to watch Ms. Wesley furiously storm around, some of her most
memorable "True Blood" moments involve her brushes with Jason Stackhouse
(Ryan Kwanten), Sookie's womanizing nitwit brother, whom Tara idolizes. "I
think she really in her heart believes that one day they'll be together,
married, with, like, five kids — that's where the starry-eyed thing comes
from," said Ms. Wesley, who seems to have created an entire vocabulary of
micro-reactions — moony, crestfallen, no-you-didn't! — just for the scenes
in which Jason disappointingly treats her like a pal.
If Ms. Wesley's reedy voice and crackling energy don't quite ring a bell,
it's because her credits are few. She's a recent Juilliard graduate in her
20s who appeared on Broadway in David Hare's "Vertical Hour" and portrayed a
brainy, impoverished dancer in the feature film "How She Move" (2007), but
she has never worked in television.
Still, judging from her own biography, show business is encoded in her DNA.
She grew up just 10 minutes from the Strip in Las Vegas; her mother,
Cassandra Wesley, was a feather-bedecked showgirl, and her father, Ivery
Wheeler, is a professional tap dancer. After graduating from the Las Vegas
Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts high school,
Ms. Wesley received a full scholarship to University of Evansville in
Indiana. "Huge culture shock" was how she described her freshman year, where
she felt that everything from her race — she was the only black female in
the theater performance department — to her hometown set her apart.
"It was like Get to Know the Girl From Vegas Week," said Ms. Wesley, who is
now married to the actor Jacob Fishel and splits her time between Los
Angeles and Astoria, Queens. "People would say: 'Is Vegas a real place? Do
you live in a hotel?' "
Being considered alien for coming from Vegas is one thing, but on "True
Blood," vampirism is another sort of prejudice. It's not lost on Ms. Wesley
that the theme of outsiders is taken up in "True Blood," which makes clear
that most of the folks in Bon Temps, Tara included, are unapologetically
vocal about their distrust of vampires.
"Not everyone is as open-minded as you," Tara tells Sookie in a recent
episode as the two sprawl like teenagers across a bed. There's something
about the way Ms. Wesley quietly gazes at Ms. Paquin that makes her prickly
character appear to be the only one in town who really understands
compassion and friendship.
"I get to create this girl and make her not the stereotypical — for lack of
a better phrase — black woman with an attitude," Ms. Wesley said of moments
like these. "We see a lot of that. But with Tara we're also going to see a
woman who has been through a lot of things."