Dragon Con 2013: True Blood Panel Day 2 Cooter Joins in

The second day of True Blood at Dragon Con 2013. moved over to the Marriott Marquis Atrium Ballroom and began in the late afternoon. Joining Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton), Lauren Bowles (Holly Cleary), Tara Buck (Ginger), Jim Parrack (Hoyt Fortenberry), and Janina Gavankar (Luna) was Grant Bowler (Cooter). Since his turn on True Blood on season 3, Bowler’s star has risen quite substantially and he now leads the Syfy show Defiance. We weren’t sure what to expect with Grant on the panel. But he was very charming and funny particularly about playing Cooter and the fact that the character was so bad there was almost no redeeming him.

As with most Saturday panels, this one was pretty lively and crowded. Since the majority of the panel joined the cast after the first season, the panel opened with a question about coming onto an already established show. The conclusion among all of the panelists was that True Blood is truly one of the nicest places to work and the cast really does get along with one another and takes care of each other. But this is not necessarily the norm on other shows. The question of whether or not Brian Buckner changed the dynamics of the show after replacing creator Alan Ball as executive producer also came up. Everyone said that things stayed relatively the same. Because Buckner had been on True Blood since the beginning, he didn’t make any huge changes when he took over.

Interestingly enough, Jim Parrack admitted that he wasn’t sure if he wanted Hoyt to return due to the fact that his character’s exit was written so beautifully. Janina on the other hand said she wouldn’t be opposed to Luna returning even though her death seemed to be finite because Luna could give Sam (Sam Trammell) a hard time about Nicole (Jurnee Smollett). But she thinks Jurnee has done an amazing job.

The panel also touched on the fact that True Blood features many strong female roles and cast audition stories.I found Rutina’s answer to be one of the most interesting because her role had initially been given to another actress and she was brought in after the pilot to take over the role. Because of this all of the scenes featuring Tara had to be reshot in one week, prompting Rutina to really want to be on top of her game for everyone. But then when it came to playing opposite her real life friend Nelsan Ellis, with whom she attended Julliard, that helped her find the Tara that we see her playing today. Tara Buck also told us that Ginger’s scream didn’t become a running gag until the show started shooting.

Watch the entire panel below and enjoy the photos!