Anna Paquin

Anna Helene Paquin (/ˈpækwɪn/; born 24 July 1982) is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Her first film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in March 1994 at the age of 11, making her the second youngest winner in Oscar history. She later appeared in a number of successful films, including Fly Away Home, She's All That, Almost Famous, The Squid and the Whale, 25th Hour and the X-Men franchise as Rogue from Marvel Comics. Paquin is also known for her role as Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama in 2009.

Early life

Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of Mary Paquin (née Brophy), an English teacher and native of Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a high school Physical Education teacher from Canada. Paquin has two older siblings: Andrew (born 1977), a director, and Katya (born 1980), whose partner is the Green Party of New Zealand's former co-leader Russel Norman. Paquin's family moved to New Zealand when she was four. She attended the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School until she was eight or nine. Her musical childhood hobbies in New Zealand included playing the viola, cello and piano. She also participated in gymnastics, ballet, swimming and downhill skiing, though she did not have any hobbies related to acting.

Stephen Moyer

Stephen Moyer (born Stephen John Emery; 11 October 1969) is an English film and television actor and director who is best known as vampire Bill Compton in the HBO series True Blood. Moyer's first television role was in 1993 as Philip Masefield in the TV adaptation of the play Conjugal Rites, written by actor/playwright Roger Hall. This was followed by the television film Lord of Misrule, filmed in Fowey, Cornwall, which also featured Richard Wilson, Emily Mortimer and Prunella Scales. In 1997, Moyer made his big-screen debut landing the lead role in the film adaptation of the long-running comic strip Prince Valiant by Hal Foster, working alongside Ron Perlman and Katherine Heigl.

Early life and career

Moyer was born in Brentwood, Essex. He attended St Martin's School, a comprehensive school in Hutton, Essex, and graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He became Brentwood Theatre's first patron in October 2007, especially supporting their "Reaching Out, Building On" campaign to help fund the 2008 completion of backstage facilities.

Sam Trammell

Sam Trammell (born January 29, 1969 or May 15, 1971; sources differ) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Sam Merlotte on the HBO vampire series True Blood, and has appeared in numerous films, television shows and TV-movies.

Early life

Trammell was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Career

Trammell has worked in theater, Broadway, Off-Broadway, film, and television. He is an accomplished New York stage actor whose credits include a Tony nominated performance in Ah, Wilderness! at Lincoln Center. Off-Broadway, he starred in Dealer's Choice, My Night with Reg, If Memory Serves, and Ancestral Voices, as well as in Kit Marlowe at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, where he received outstanding reviews.

Trammell's big break came when he landed the role of Sam Merlotte on the HBO series True Blood. In 2013, Trammell played Darrell Mackey in the drama film White Rabbit. Trammell played Hazel's (Shailene Woodley) father, Michael Lancaster, in the 2014 film The Fault in Our Stars, based on the novel of the same name by John Green.

True Blood

True Blood is an American television drama series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional small town in northwestern Louisiana. The series centers on the adventures of Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress with an otherworldly quality.

The show was broadcast on the premium cable network HBO, in the United States, and was produced by HBO in association with Ball's production company, Your Face Goes Here Entertainment. The series premiered on September 7, 2008 and concluded on August 24, 2014, comprising seven seasons and 80 episodes. The first five seasons received highly positive reviews, and both nominations and wins for several awards, including a Golden Globe and an Emmy.

Series overview

The fictional universe depicted in the series is premised on the notion that vampires exist, unbeknownst to the majority of humans until two years before the series premiere, when the creation of synthetic blood ("Tru Blood") by Japanese scientists, which eliminated vampires' need for human blood to survive, allowed vampires to "come out of the coffin" and reveal their existence to the world. This so-called "Great Revelation" has split vampires into two camps: those who wish to integrate into human society (i.e., "mainstream") by campaigning for citizenship and equal rights, and those who think human-vampire co-existence is impossible, because it conflicts with the inherently violent nature of vampires. Throughout the series, other supernatural creatures are introduced, among them shapeshifters, werewolves, faeries, witches, and a maenad.

True Blood (season 3)

The third season of the television series True Blood premiered on June 13, 2010 simultaneously on HBO and HBO Canada. It concluded its run on September 12, 2010 and contained 12 episodes, bringing the series total to 36. It loosely follows the plot of the third novel of The Southern Vampire Mysteries series, Club Dead.

Plot

The third season loosely follows the plot of the novel Club Dead, which finds Sookie teaming up with a werewolf sent by Eric, named Alcide in Mississippi in order to track down Bill, who has been kidnapped and is being held hostage by a vampire King. Season three is set throughout the course of 10 days.

Cast and characters

Episodes

Production

On January 20, 2010 HBO released a teaser trailer announcing that a third season of True Blood was in production, aiming for a Summer 2010 release date. The teaser featured images of bottles of TruBlood being manufactured on an assembly line. This was followed by a trailer featuring new footage and the song The Difference Between Us by The Dead Weather. This was released by HBO on May 13.

True Blood (season 1)

The first season of the American television drama series True Blood premiered on September 7, 2008 and concluded on November 23, 2008. It consists of 12 episodes, each running approximately 55 minutes in length and was, for the most part, based on the novel Dead Until Dark, the first entry in The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. The story takes place in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, two years after vampires have made their presence known to mankind, and follows telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse as she attempts to solve a series of murders that seem to be motivated by a hatred of vampires.

HBO broadcast the first season on Sunday nights at 9:00 pm in the United States, with a repeat showing at 11:00 pm. The complete first season was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 19, 2009.

Plot

Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is a waitress with telepathic abilities. Stephen Moyer plays her love interest, vampire Bill Compton. Sookie works for Sam Merlotte, played by Sam Trammell, owner of Merlotte's bar and a shapeshifter who has a crush on Sookie. Rutina Wesley plays Sookie's best friend Tara Thornton, begins bartending at Merlotte's after quitting her job at the Super Save-A-Bunch. Also working at Merlotte's are Tara's cousin Lafayette Reynolds, played by Nelsan Ellis, a short order cook and hustler, and Arlene Fowler, played by Carrie Preston. Arlene is a thrice-divorced waitress with two children who, over the course of the season, becomes engaged to Rene Lenier, played by Michael Raymond-James, a Cajun labourer who works on a road crew.

List of True Blood episodes

True Blood is an American television drama series created by Alan Ball and based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries (also known as The Sookie Stackhouse novels) by Charlaine Harris. It aired on HBO from September 7, 2008 to August 24, 2014. A total of 80 episodes of True Blood were broadcast over seven seasons.

The series revolves around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress who is living in the rural town of Bon Temps, Louisiana two years after the invention of a synthetic blood called Tru Blood that has allowed vampires to "come out of the coffin" and allow their presence to be known to mankind. Now they are struggling for equal rights and assimilation, while anti-vampire organizations begin to gain power. Sookie's world is turned upside down when she falls in love with 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and for the first time must navigate the trials, tribulations and terrors of intimacy and relationships. Other characters include Tara Thornton (Rutina Wesley), Sookie's tough-talking best friend, her womanizing brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten), thousand year old vampire and Sheriff of Area 5, Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgård), and her shape-shifting boss Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell). True Blood follows a serialized format, with every episode ending on a cliffhanger that leads directly into the next. Episode titles are taken from the name of a song that appears on the soundtrack of that episode.