True Blood's Michelle Forbes on Maryann: She's Not a Villain

From TV Guide

Sunday's revealing episode of True Blood confirmed for us that the bull-headed monster who is stalking Bon Temps' ladies and Maryann are one and the same! How does the very pleasant Michelle Forbes reconcile her sunny portrayal of Maryann, "that Ibiza party girl," with the clawed she-beast who ripped out Miss Jeannette's heart? "Maryann lives in a different moral construct than the rest of us," she says, emphasizing that Maryann doesn't think of herself as a villain. Earlier, Forbes hinted that True Blood might look like Animal Farm by the season's end. Here, she talks about becoming the monster, why Maryann does what she does and, gulp, bestiality?

TVGuide.com: All right, level with us: What is Maryann really?
Forbes: I am maenad. [Wikipedia has a quick primer on what a maenad is.]

TVGuide.com: Is that really you under all those prosthetics?
Forbes: It is!

TVGuide.com: What kind of process did you have to go through to get into all that?
Forbes: Maryann, and what she turns into, was really created as we went along. They knew about the prosthetics for the claws, but it became something more as we went along. Some of the sounds the creature made were developed in post-production. But the claws just made everything come together, without a doubt.

TVGuide.com: How long did it take to get into all that?
Forbes: It really only takes an hour and a half, but it's very uncomfortable for the rest of the evening. You can't text; you can't make phone calls. People have to feed you sandwiches.

read on