As the lead up to the True Blood season 6 premiere continues, cast members are doing interviews more and more in which they tease the new season and discuss other projects in the works. Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse) recently spoke to Manhattan Magazine about this and opened up about the challenges of being a working mother. Working and raising children is difficult no matter what job you hold. But as Paquin admits to interviewer Scott Huver, between her children and a busy production schedule, sleep is low on her list of priorities:
“Sleep’s not a very big part of my life right now. But that’s fine. It’s kind of part of the deal. This is one of the jobs where you don’t get to pick the timing, and when it rains, it pours, When there are interesting things happening and interesting people you want to work with, you kind of jump on it and figure out the details, which thankfully have all kind of fallen into place. And then I’ve had a really, really awesome last few months.”
These last few months have also included working on True Blood. The series is of course based upon Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mystery series and Anna brings the role of Harris’ heroine Sookie to life onscreen. She says that while she did read the books and found them helpful, the Sookie she plays is different because she has been created by Alan Ball and her development over the life of the series has been a very collaborative process. So what will this season bring for the girl who Paquin calls a danger magnet? Well new love for one thing in the form of Rob Kazinsky’s Ben, looking into her parents death, and of course escaping from the Authority first and foremost with Bill (Stephen Moyer) now Billith in hot pursuit. But showrunner Brian Buckner tells us to expect a more introspective Sookie:
“This season, the writers and I have been making a concerted effort to help Sookie grow up, become a little bit darker, more accepting of her fate, more self-knowing. [Anna] is able to tell us so much with her eyes… I don’t think there are very many actors out there who could pull off what we’re asking of her this season… Her performances literally hold [True Blood] together as a show.”
To Anna it means never being bored at work:
“[This] translates into something pretty dramatic happening to her most of the time, which means it’s pretty much impossible to ever get bored on the job. It’s entertaining to watch, and it’s really entertaining to do. Because [the show falls] under the umbrella of what I guess you could call ‘genre,’ we get to kind of make up rules for our universe and you’re not just limited to what actually exists in reality.”
And in truth Paquin is able to be part of a very interesting time in television where there are as many compelling roles being written for women as there are for men. This equality is something that she’s glad to see. This kind of success has spilled over into other projects Paquin has going. The most well known is X-Men: Days of Future Past where she is reprising her role as Rogue. Thanks to understandings by True Blood and the X-Men productions, she has been able to shoot for X-Men while working on True Blood.
But even more compelling is the other project Anna took on with husband and True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer, an indie film called Free Ride which they produced together. It recently got picked up for distribution and though it took a lot of work, the film was something that Anna found very satisfying:
“We just thought it was a fascinating piece of material and a really exciting new talent to work with [writer-director Shana Betz]… we kind of muscled on through and got it done. Small indie films that are labors of love are not easy, but absolutely worth it on every level once you’ve got the final product….I’ve been really blessed. I’ve never really been drawn to things because I wanted to be famous or huge or anything. I’d rather do one day’s work on a movie that is really creatively interesting than be in every single frame of something that I find a little dull. I feel like that guided my choices a lot and I’ve consequently been drawn to people who, in the best possible way, kind of kicked my ass, because I didn’t want to be the weak link.”
Having been one of the youngest women ever to win an Oscar might also fuel Anna’s hard working ethic because while it was an unbelievable event in her life, Anna is grateful for it because it gave her opportunities that she may not have had otherwise. It has become a part of who she is, but in the 20 years since, it’s not everything.:
“I kind of just put my work in and see where it gets me… I’ll see [what] the universe offers up.”
To read more about Anna in Manhattan Magazine, click here.
Source: Modern Luxury.com- “True Star”
Image Credit: Manhattan Magazine
