Carrie Preston Talks 'True Blood'

She may be a barmaid waiting tables at Merlotte's, but actress Carrie Preston has been keeping herself busy in the entertainment industry. Even though she's filming the acclaimed HBO drama True Blood, she's also working on several projects for her own production company, Daisy 3 pictures. Still, it's the vampires that have gotten her the most attention and she discusses why she thinks so.

Playing the character Arlene Fowler was a crazy experience for Carrie Preston, especially since she's involved in a series derived from books. Despite that, she says True Blood is evidently veering away from the Charlaine Harris storyline and establishing itself as something that could work on its own.

"It's so interesting because they are really departing from the books right now," Preston revealed. "I mean they're sort of keeping the main kind of theme of the second book, but they've already just taken a lot of liberties. They spent the first season really establishing the characters and now they've added all these new characters, and it's getting really wild in there."

Now that the second season is nearing, it was pointed out by her co-star, Alexander Skarsgard that there may be some changes with the True Blood sets. Asked if Merlotte's suffered the same fate, Preston answered: "No, Merlotte's is good, old Merlotte's. I love it in there. It's an amazing set. You really do feel like you're in a bar."

About her character, Arlene, Preston says she is nothing like the person she plays. However, she admits that it was easy to transform herself for her. "I mean I'm not anything like Arlene. Nothing. It all has to be created, which is really fun. I go in the makeup trailer and an hour and a half later, I'm a completely different person."

"She's street smart. You know what I mean?" Preston continued. "Like she's a single mother and she's a survivor. She speaks her mind, and I don't know... I grew up with women like that so I just wanted to honor those women. Also it's a comedic role and I really always feel in my element when I'm doing comedy."

As for the appeal of True Blood, the actress confessed that she'd watch the show even if she wasn't working on the set. "I've always sort of been into sci-fi kind of stuff, so I like it. It's a show I would have watched even if I wasn't on it."

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