Graham Shiels Gets "True" With SOS

Graham ( Liam ) Shiels talks a little about being Liam, on of the Monroe rouge vampires in Season One of True Blood with SoapOpera source.

True Blood has garnered a lot of attention since its first season began. Why do you think it was a huge hit for HBO? What makes this vampire series stand out above the other original programming on HBO?

As for the success of TB I think it's just plain different. Alan Ball has impeccable taste and the show mixes in a lot of humor into the world of a blood-thirsty, human-killing vampire. So it's like no other vampire story ever told. I also think that's where he differs from the books, by Charlaine Harris, because though there is humor in the books, there's a LOT more in the TV show. Trying to tell the story by portraying these vampires as having real social conflict and feelings about fitting in is different--not just a horror/gore movie about vampires sucking people's necks and speaking in bad generic eastern European accents.

True Blood pushed the envelope with the nudity and the language. Every episode there was somebody having sex. Liam’s sex scenes showed full backside nakedness. Was that something that was difficult for you to do? I mean some actors are not open to showing a lot of skin and True Blood is a series that shows a lot of skin every episode.

I was very nervous when we shot that. As, I'm sure, my co-star was, too. Had it not been Alan Ball, Oscar award-winning writer, and HBO, I never would have done it. And it was just my butt. It wasn't full frontal. I'd never (never say never, Graham) do full frontal. I've done it onstage, though, in a Shakespeare play. But I knew in this case it served the story and that it would be handled with great taste seeing as it's Alan Ball. Blood taste.

There was even an episode that you were in bed with Sookie’s brother, Jason (Ryan Kwanten) during one his love scenes with a girl who had had sex with Liam. Was it uncomfortable for the two of you doing that scene together?

Working with Ryan was not uncomfortable at all b/c we both knew this was a fun "bit," so to speak. It was very fun to shoot. Ryan had this great idea he should be holding my foot and that's how he notices it's me and not the girl--and in retrospect, I think we should have gone the whole way and he could have been sucking my toes, too!

Was there a memorable event, moment, scene, episode from True Blood that maybe was intense or funny that didn’t make it on screen?

There was a funny moment in ep #7 when we're coming into Merlott's to get Bill. Ana/Sookie is chewing out Andrew/Malcolm. When we were rehearsing I laughed like I was enjoying that she was taking Malcolm down a peg and then Andrew gave me an evil glare, like, "shut-up." That whole exchange cracked everyone up. But it couldn't make it into the cut b/c it really wasn't what was written in terms of the intensity of the conflict. But it was very real--and so, funny.

read the whole interview

** good excuse to use another of Michelle Dawson's excellent TB fan art