Great True Blood Paleyfest recap

Thanks to KorbiTV

"True Blood" is the sort of show the Paley Festival is really about. People flew in from other states, camped out in lawn chairs on the pavement by the Arclight theater and went fully insane when they finally made it inside and the cast was trotted onstage for their viewing pleasure. There was an entire row of women wearing "Bill's Babe" t-shirts. It was fun.

Show runner Alan Ball was introduced last, but was first to speak, telling the audience how he stumbled upon Charlaine Harris' "True Blood" book series completely by accident. He was 20 minutes early for a dentist appointment and decided to kill some time at the book store. He spied "Dead After Dark" and the tagline -- "Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend wasn't such a bright idea" -- caught his attention. He bought it on impulse and shortly thereafter became obsessed, ordering book after book from Amazon. "It was like crack," he said. "I became a crack addict."

He didn't go to HBO with the idea right away because he wasn't sure if it was going to be a TV show or a movie at first. Instead, he went to Charlaine, got the rights and later brought HBO into the picture.

Yes, when you're Alan Ball, you have the luxury of bringing HBO in.

And then HBO and Alan started bringing the actors in.

Read on

http://blog.zap2it.com/korbitv/2009/04/true-blood-paley.html