True Blood’s Stephen Moyer aka Bill talks to SkyGuide about naked handstands, power and Season 4 as it is about to begin airing in February in the UK on FX.
Below are excerpts from their interview with Stephan that we think would be interesting to our readers where he talks about Bill’s new look, the changes to the Compton House and a few other fun things that came out during the discussion.
I’ve got some interesting questions for you today.
Yay. Have I got to do a handstand naked or something?
That wasn’t on the agenda but you can do that if you like! I’ll get my video camera out.
You can do anything with an iPhone.
In the new fourth series of True Blood Bill has gained…shall we say, ‘a position of power’ to prevent spoilers? Has he let it all go to his head?
He sleeps with as many virgins as he can find and does things that he doesn’t care will p*** people off or not because he’s got power and he’s going to abuse it.
So the romance is dead?
Yeah, romance is dead, let’s screw everything! No I think that what happens is that he’s learnt from his experiences with Sookie that he has to be honest and he has to tell the truth. There are decisions he has to make as a politician which are difficult but he knows that ultimately he’s being commanded from on high. There will come a point where he will break and it’s been really interesting.
So Bill has transformed?
Yeah, one of the things about this series was how we were going to make Bill different this year. Any person who is in power has a thing like “well I should do this and I should do that” and at some point they stop thinking “I should do this” and they become the answer to the question, they become the thing, the role. I think anybody in power probably goes through that.
Does he look different?
Yes! Me and Audrey Fisher who is the costume designer and Dennis Parker who does the hair and Brigette Ellis who has been our make-up person from the beginning, we all sat down and decided how we wanted him to look. He’s probably got a better quality of blood that he’s been tapping, even though we say we drink True Blood, he doesn’t have to now, he’s got thousands of people volunteering to give him blood. So maybe because he’s on a better quality of blood, his complexion has changed, maybe he’s looking better, looking healthy. We played with that in Season One and Two, certainly Season One, that just after a vampire has fed they’re more rosy cheeked. There’s so much detail, you wouldn’t believe the crap that we talk about. So that was one thing, then would he still look like someone from the civil war?
Taken outside the set when filming Season 4 in downtown LA – read more here
Well we’ve established that you don’t have to have the same hair as you had because of Alex [Eric] losing his long hair. So lets cut his hair, lets get rid of the diggers [sideburns], he’s not from 1870 anymore, he’s in the present day, so that’s immediately changed the way he looks. Lets talk about clothes, instead of having him in jeans and stuff now he’s a patrician, even though the public don’t know about his position of power, they know that he is a local benefactor. I never wear suits, but we sat down and we decided, lets wear suits. There is a suit designer that does a lot of stuff for me, they came to me and they offered to make Bill’s suits and so me and Audrey sat down with 200 swatches and we talked – would he be a double breasted man? Would he be a single breasted man? Would he have three buttons, would he have two buttons? We had five suits made out of the fabrics that we’d chosen and then we had to decide what kind of shoes he’d wear, would he wear cufflinks, would he have French cuffs, would he have cut away collars… I can’t tell you how detailed it is but you do that for every series. Alex will have done it for his look this series after his changes too.
Has anything else changed for Bill? Any surprises for you?
The biggest thing for me was walking into Bill’s house and seeing what Suzuki Ingerslev our set designer had done with Bill’s house, because I don’t have a say in it. The idea is that he has collected things from all around the world that possibly he has had in storage and finally he has been able to do the house up. But is it what Bill would have done or is it what Bill thinks someone in his position should have? I think in the beginning he’s thinking “I’ve got to make it look like I am doing this job properly, make it look how I think people think it should look.” It’s really interesting because its psychological, ultimately would Bill have 25 security guards running around after him? No, he doesn’t want to live like that but he knows that politically he’s in this position where he has to protect himself because God knows that’s how he got the job in the first place! So it’s really interesting stuff and Alan [Ball, True Blood's creator] and HBO encourage that level of detail.
New look of the Compton House foyer, read more here.
If you could be any kind of supernatural creature what would you be?
Shifter! I want to fly. I want to fly! There’s a great moment in Season Three where Sam is running as a dog with Tommy and this truck suddenly comes in the way and he turns into a bird and he flies and I want to do that.
To read the more of this interview including the parts about Season 4, go to: skyplustv.sky.com
