Ryan Kwanten talks True Blood : A new-fangled take on blood suckers

VAMPIRES may not like the sun, but they certainly have no aversion to the limelight. The cultural phenomenon that stretches back to Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula has resurfaced in umpteen guises since. Lately, teens who like their vamps glitter-skinned and their heroines breathless have turned to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels and film. Those looking for something meatier, however, can sink their teeth into Alan Ball's new series, True Blood.

Yes, it has a vampire romance but this is no Mills & Boon with fangs: the violence is brutal, the sex sweaty, the dialogue salty and the humour dry. As with Twilight, it has its origins in a series of novels. Ball (Six Feet Under) stumbled across one of Charlaine Harris' books and became hooked on the sultry supernatural world set in the Louisiana bayous.

The first book focuses on telepath Sookie Stackhouse (played by Anna Paquin, who won a Golden Globe for her performance), her romance with a vampire, Bill Compton, and a serial-killer mystery. But after the first two episodes, Ball began developing new storylines for other members of the ensemble.

"I think Alan's very clever like that," says Stephen Moyer, who plays Bill. "He knows that it can't just be (a romance). I think that it ultimately is a love story, but it doesn't mean it can't be 20 other things as well. When I read the script, I couldn't believe how much he'd packed into it."

One beneficiary of Ball's approach is Australian actor Ryan Kwanten, who plays Sookie's brother, Jason. Once a Home & Away regular, Kwanten now lives in Los Angeles and was sought out by Ball.

"He'd seen a film of mine and saw characteristics of Jason Stackhouse in the character I was playing," Kwanten says. "Next thing you know, I was hired."

Ball expanded the character of Jason, giving him his own storyline and an hilarious episode involving a severe case of priapism. Kwanten, 32, has the task of making the self-centred, womanising Jason not seem like a lost cause.

"I threw away the textbook on everything I thought I knew about acting and just flew by the seat of my pants, because that's exactly how this guy operates," he says. "It's really liberating to play a character like that, because a lot of characters tend to be very brooding."

The brooding territory in True Blood is pretty much covered by Civil War vampire Bill, whom Moyer describes as "completely angst-ridden … your classic tortured hero".

From the Age Australia

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