Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette) Talks 'True Blood,' Gay Marriage, Tyler Perry

Part of True Blood’s appeal is that the cast portrays their characters so well that it’s hard to believe they aren’t real. Enter Lafayette, played by Nelsan Ellis. Lafayette is a gay man who is flamboyant and egregious but at the same time isn’t stereotypical. He’s masculine but also feminine and will knock any man out if he’s pushed that far.

However, the man behind the character is the opposite. Ellis is a Julliard trained, perfectly straight Alabama native who initially struggled with bringing Lafayette to life but now that he has it down, he’s hoping that other industry insiders will remember that the character he plays is fictional. In edition to True Blood, he recently rapped a feature film, has his own screenplay in the works and wouldn’t mind appearing in a Tyler Perry project. Here, he tells VIBE how he brought Lafayette to life, what the gay community thinks about the character and how he plans to transition beyond his True Blood role. ⎯Starrene Rhett

VIBE: Lafayette is dead in the book so how did you make the TV character your own?

Nelsan Ellis: I think by the second or third audition I got some bad notes from the casting director. They figured I was playing a stereotype or something like that so I got a friend of mine to come and work the audition with me and somehow I found the character inside of me versus putting on something that wasn’t real. Alan Ball wanted the character to be a myriad of things and at first I was skeptical but I somehow found it, maybe it was God helping me out.

So that stereotype you were playing must have been a Queenie type of gay guy, huh?

Yeah, at first because in the break down he was supposed to be almost drag queenish but I didn’t really play that right coming in, even when I got the job. I didn’t really find Lafayette until the third or fourth episode because I certainly didn’t have him in the pilot. There were takes where I was playing with who he was and takes that I was—they just happened to pick takes that were consistent with who Alan Ball thought the character should be.

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True Blood, Season 3, Episode 1: Beck Is Thicker Than Water

Episode 13.1: Bad Blood

Welcome back to Bon Temps, LA, where the men drink blood, the women hear your thoughts, and the children don't figure much into the R-rated happenings. When last we left True Blood, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) was rushing out of the bathroom of a very nice restaurant to tell Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) that indeed she would be his until her death did they part when he was suddenly abducted. We pick up the vamp-napping in progress as three hillbillies take turns using Bill like a wine cooler in the backseat in order to get high off his blood.

Blood figures in any vampire series. It's kind of a big deal. But the impression Gothtopia gets is that the concept of tainted blood will play a big part in this season. Are we as people, even undead or shape shifting people, fated to become like those whose blood gave us life in the first place? Certainly nurture battles nature. The children of rock stars become accountants. Last we heard, none of the children adopted from the Manson family, including Charlie's own biological children, have become hypnotic murderers. And yet, 500 years after the death of Vlad the Impaler (Who served as the inspiration of Bram Stoker's Dracula), one of his direct descendants owned and operated a Turkish blood bank. Is a blood link to a bloody past an indicator of an inescapable fate?

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* Log in Blood Work! “True Blood” vlog 3.03: Twist and Shout

Talk Blood Radio team members, Brian and Andy just posted their #.03 episode vlog
" PULLED A MICKENS ! HAHA"

Sh-Sh-Sh-Shake it up, Lorena!
Yes, Gay Pride in NYC just so haaaaaaappened to coincide with the most insanely effed-up True Blood moment of the season … so of course Andy and I did what any good horror-lovin’ homos do when faced with vampire-induced severe spinal trauma: We threw a dance party!
Seriously, lady – this week’s episode had it all, from Bud Dearborne’s anal overshare to Pam’s Estonian boxed lunch to the greatest WTF sex scene in the show’s already quite checkered history. Relive it all – minus the chiropractor Bill bill – above.
Bonus: A screencap of the scariest thing you’ll ever see before your morning martini coffee, after the jump!

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True Blood Music : Episode 3.03 – It Hurts Me Too

Episode 3.03 – It Hurts Me Too

“Classically Inclined” by Eduardo Ponsdomenech

“Same Old” by The Roadhawgs

“Coming Down” by Acumen Nation

“One of Them Days” by Jesse Dayton

“Dry Your Tears” by James Clarke
“Howlin’ for My Baby” by M. Ward

“Wild One” by Those Darlin’s

“Two Many Days” by Judy Fields

“Spoonful” by Howlin’ Wolf

“Ain’t No Invisible Man” by Jakob Dylan

“It Hurts Me Too” by Gaye Adegbalola

True Blood, Vampires, and Redheads with Carrie Preston

With True Blood now in its third season and picked up for a fourth by HBO, actress Carrie Preston and her True Blood character, Arlene Fowler, are still in the HBO mix after speculation the True Blood waitress may be leaving. With Preston and Arlene still waitressing at Merlotte's, season three keeps in line with The Southern Vampire Mysteries, Club Dead, as True Blood has quickly become a popular staple for HBO in the new era of bloodsuckers.
As True Blood enjoys its best ratings to date, with new mysteries surrounding Anna Paquin's Sookie and Stephen Moyer's Bill Compton, we tracked down Carrie Preston for a True Blood one-on-one to chat about the popularity of vampires, working with Alan Ball, the inner motivations of Arelene, and the true blood of redheads.
THE DEADBOLT: Congrats on getting season four.
CARRIE PRESTON: How about that? And only on the heels of getting a second viewing on season three. So that's a good sign.
THE DEADBOLT: How do you relate to Arlene?
PRESTON: Well, I relate to how confident she is. I relate to her work ethic. I know that sounds funny, but she takes her job extremely seriously, as do I. And she doesn't suffer from any fools and she really wants things to be done in the right way, and I appreciate that [laughs].
Also, I can relate to how strong she is and she's a survivor. She takes whatever comes her way. Even if it creates some kind of histrionics in her, she is somehow able to overcome it, pull herself together, and do what needs to be done. I can really admire that in her as well, plus she's funny.

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True Blood's vampire sex scene that will live on in infamy

Team Talk Blood Radio member, Meredith Woerner posted her excellent episode review today

True Blood's vampire sex scene that will live on in infamyWTF did we see last night on True Blood? And will we ever be the same for viewing it? Let us explain it to you Pro/Con style.

We've got a lot of material to cover Con/Pro wise, before we can get to the meat of last night episode. And by meat I mean terribly disturbing sex scene. So let's get on with it!

The next episode picks up right where it left off. Vampire versus wolf, versus Sookie and her pants pistol.

Con: This Matrix bullet opening scene. True Blood you don't have good enough special effects to be wasting money on this ridiculous thing. We know vampires move fast we don't need to see the bullet make little spirals of time and air in Sookie's house. We're good, vampires, they're fast, gotcha.

True Blood's vampire sex scene that will live on in infamy

Con: What are the noises that Eric is making after he inhaled that werewolf? Vampire hairball?

Pro: "I got your rug all wet," says Eric to Sookie with a marvelous shit-eating grin. And for some reason Sookie isn't having sex with him right there on top of the naked, dead, waxed werewolf. Something is wrong with her, beyond the light-fingers thing.

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True Blood Crossword: S3 Ep 1 " Pack of Wolves"

Pack of Wolves S3E1(2)

Thanks so much to our amazing Kristie!!!

True Blood Music Video of the Day: Shakin' all over

Thanks, bittersweetgirlelle

True Blood Author Charlaine Harris on the Current Vampire Epidemic

Dead in the Family is the latest bestselling vampire fantasy novel from Charlaine Harris, and the 10th book in the series that inspired the hit HBO show True Blood (now in its third season), starring Anna Pacquin as telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse.
In the books, Sookie is a blonde and buxom resident of the Louisiana town of Bon Temps, where she spends less time fighting vampires than getting busy with them. But will she end up with the courtly ex-Confederate Bill, or has she permanently hopped coffins to cozy up with Eric the bloodsucking Viking? In the mix are sundry tigers, werewolves, dogs, witches, house cats, maenads, goblins and fairies.

Read More http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/06/true-blood-author-charlaine-harris-on-the-current-vampire-epidemic.html#ixzz0sBJzttkQ

Denis O'Hare: It’s hard to be sexually inventive after 700 years

Last week fans were introduced to Russell Edgington, the vampire King of Mississippi. Now, I'd like you to meet Denis O'Hare, the remarkable actor who brings this "True Blood" baddie to life. Or death ... immortality is confusing.
And exactly how long his character has been alive was quite a coup for Denis, a self-proclaimed history nerd. It gave him the opportunity to create three millennia worth of backstory. From the bed of the Danube to the coast of Europe, Denis mentally charted a course his character probably trekked.
A journey that brought him and his life partner, Talbot, to Mississippi and into our living rooms. And while my interview with Denis had me reaching for the nearest Atlas, it was also an enlightening conversation where I learned about his process as an actor, his feeling on playing "True Blood's" first gay couple and the recurring nightmare this bloody show has left him with.
PopWrap: You were a fan of the show before joining, so let's start with one thing you love about working on "True Blood" that fans may not know.
Denis O'Hare: The teeth are fun – they’re tough to talk in, so we have soft fangs and hard fangs. Soft fangs are for biting people, so you don’t hurt the other people, and the hard fangs are for speaking, because they stay in better and are easier to articulate with. But either way, my favorite thing to say with the fangs is Sookie Stackhouse [lisps out her name]. It’s like a vampire retainer.

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NeckingTrue Blood reinvents vampire sex.

Sleeping with a vampire is basically necrophilia and can even suggest incest (you're sleeping with your "maker"), and since you are dealing with an immortal, the age differences between partners can be positively vast. But the most troublingly taboo aspect of the sex lives of vampires concerns the question of consent. Rape is as dominant a subtext in vampire stories as mindless conformity is in zombie stories. No less an authority than Stephen King has said that the re-enactment of the primal rape scene is part of the vampire's enduring success.

Stephen Moyer, whose Vampire Bill is the romantic center of True Blood, took some criticism last year for suggesting in a magazine interview that one plot twist was built on a rape fantasy, but the allure of forbidden sex has long been a part of the vampire story since Bram Stoker's Dracula.

True Blood is such supremely dirty fun because it doesn't just tap into the dark sexual kinks of the vampire myth. It refines and experiments on them, giving old taboos a fresh spin. For one thing, the traditional vampire is a man preying on women; here, women are the predators just as often. Rape has become something of a vampire cliché. The sick genius of Episode 3, which returns the series strongly

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It Hurts Me, Too – Postmortem and Inside the Episode

Ep. 27: Inside the Episode

Ep. 27: Postmortem - Alcide's Introduction

Baby Vamp Jessica posted a vlog entry

Jessica's Blog: Where is Bill F**king Compton?

True Blood: Elmore James, Vampire Grudge Sex Hurt Us Too

Team Talk Blood member, Jefwithonef weighs in with his muisc review of Ep 3

Season 3, Episode 3: "It Hurts Me Too"

Being able to follow the Season 3 of True Blood from the beginning has given Gothtopia a chance to really flow along with Alan Ball's thought processes and dissect in a constructive and insightful way all the nuances both of the current storyline, and how his choices in soundtracking illustrate and enhance those nuances.
This week's report will not be one of those kinds of critiques.
Blues fans should have no trouble recognizing the song that gives the third episode, "It Hurts Me Too," its name. It's one of the most recognizable blues standards out there, first recorded by Tampa Red back in 1940. Since then it's been sung by everyone from the Rolling Stones to Eric Clapton, but the most influential recording of the song, and the one used in the episode, is the one done by Elmore James.

James was one of those blues artists that was such an archetype he might as well have been the subject of a blues song himself, with his appetite for homemade moonshine, fast driving and guns contributing to his death via heart attack No. 3 at age 45 in 1963. His interpretation of his friend Tampa Red's classic song has proven so definitive that other artist's covers rarely venture far from it.

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LA Times: 'True Blood': 500 storylines and nothing on

 I realize I'm far from the first person to say this, but I'm starting to worry "True Blood" has spawned too many plots in its third season. Look at tonight: You've got Sookie heading off with her new pal, Alcide, to find Bill. But that's only after she and Eric do a little werewolf detecting. You've got the adventures of Bill in his Mississippi prison with Lorena and Russell, but you also get to look into his past again. You've got Sam doing ... something with his birth family. Tara continues to go through the stress of losing Eggs and attracting a new suitor. Arlene is pregnant again, but the baby is farther along than it should be if it's Terry's. Jason is trying to become a cop while still dealing with the leftover feelings from last season. Jessica continues to attempt to hide that dead body. And the vampire PI is just generally making everybody's life miserable. And that's to say nothing of plots that basically don't turn up at all, like, say, Eric and Godric in World War II.
All of these storylines more or less shared the same hour, but they didn't really have a lot in common, beyond just featuring characters who exist in the show's universe. On most other shows with this large of an ensemble, the storylines are either pared down each week, or they all share some sort of thematic link. On "True Blood," the writers just come up with a bunch of crazy stuff for the characters to do, then toss their scripts in the deep end. This is not a bad thing, mind you. Part of the fun of the show is seeing what crazy stuff the writers can cram into every episode. But there comes a point where there's just too much going on, and "True Blood" is toeing that line. Realistically, how much more can the show put in there? I expect we're about to find out.

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True Blood Star Admits Shocking Sex Twist Was "Kind of Uncomfortable"

Warning: Don't read if you haven't seen tonight's new episode of True Blood.

And if you have, may I offer you a a Brillo pad to scrub out your brain? 'Cause I think I speak for fans everywhere when I say...ick!

After tonight's stomach-churning, head-spinning (sorry) sexual twist (again, sorry)—the shocking scene that Stephen Moyer called a "watercooler moment for the next 20 years"—I'm sure many of you fellow fans don't think you'll never be able to look at a certain True Blood star the same again.

Well I spoke to that star (not pictured with this story--'cause that would be too spoilery) and she wants you to know:

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True Blood S3E3 "It hurts me too" subtitles

What did they say ? Did you miss something ? Here is what was said including such gems as:

Pam : Spit it out, cupcake. I'm in the middle of something.
Lie back, sweetheart, and think of Estonia.

Alcide : My name's Alcide Herveaux. I'm here to look after you

Be glad that Sam was adopted and Merlotte's isn't called "Mickens' Chicken and Chitlins.

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