True Blood's Anna Paquin is 'Queen of the Night'

from out.com

Bleeding into a highly anticipated second season, True Blood, Alan Ball’s dark and drawling Southern vamp drama returns, riddled with thinly veiled metaphors for LGBT rights. On and off-screen the show’s lead vampire lover, Sookie Stackhouse, played by X-Men’s Anna Paquin, aches for the bite of her vampire lover, solves mysteries telepathically…and waits tables.

The Canadian-born, New Zealand raised Oscar winner (she won Best Supporting Actress at the ripe age of 11 for The Piano), recently chatted with Out about the new season, her uncanny ability to play metaphorically gay roles, her off-screen romance with co-star Stephen Moyer, and sweet Sookie’s newfound love of S&M.

Out: How did you get involved with True Blood?
Anna Paquin: Well, I read the pilot script and completely fell in love with it and then pursued it incredibly hard, auditioned 100 times -- I mean four or five times -- until they said yes.

Sookie initially comes across as a innocent and incredibly virtuous girl. What drew you to the role: was it that sweet nature or was it her darker moments?
Well, it’s the fact that she’s all of it [rolled into] one, because I feel like that’s real. You can be someone who’s gone through a lot of crap in your life and who has survived a lot of ups and downs and whatevers and still be someone with a positive outlook. You can be sweet and kind and treat people the way you want to be treated even if that’s not the way you’ve been treated. She’s not a victim. I love that about her, and she’s really tough -- mostly she just kicks ass.

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