Small Screen Scoop recently sat down with Carrie Preston to talk about her work on True Blood as waitress Arlene Fowler. On this season of True Blood, Arlene is facing a rough patch as her husband, Terry Bellefluer (Todd Lowe), has to deal with some demons of his past. As Terry spirals further downward after the arrival of Patrick (Scott Foley), with whom he shares a dark secret.
“As we’ve already seen this season,” Carrie says, “Patrick’s arrival has put a great strain on the marriage. Arlene’s family comes first, so she will do what she needs to do to protect that.”
And speaking of her family, where is Baby Mikey, who had quite a role last season when he was possessed by a ghost?
“This season is really more about Terry’s past than the kids. As we saw at the end of the season 4, Mikey was just a normal baby who was being controlled by a troubled ghost. Once Mavis was reunited with her own baby, Mikey was released from whatever hold she had on him.”c
The Arlene of the Southern Vampire Mystery books is much different than the Arlene on the show. Creator Alan Ball and the writers of True Blood have created their own version of the character, a process brought to life by Preston’s on-screen portrayal.
“At this point, the writers have taken the premise of the novels and totally run with it. I trust them to take Arlene where she needs to go. I don’t have any input with the writing, but once I get to set, they trust me to interpret the words how I see fit. At this point, there’s a natural flow.”
While most of the other characters on True Blood have something going on in the realm of the supernatural, Arlene is one of the only fully human, fully non-supernatural people in Bon Temps, it would seem. Does Preston think it’s true that vampires have more fun?
“I definitely think the vampires have more fun on our show! I used to amuse myself by picturing Arlene as some kind of supernatural. But there are too many of them now. I think they need someone to hold down the human fort. And I think Arlene is the woman for the job.”
And in the end, how would Preston like to see her character go out?
“I would like her to start her own restaurant or her own nail salon or something like that. She’s practically running Merlotte’s at this point, so I think she would be ready to be the boss!”
The rest of the interview will be up on Small Screen Scoop’s site soon. In part 2, she will discuss her character on CBS’ “The Good Wife” and her directorial debut in “That’s What She Said.” In the meantime you can catch Carrie Preston every Sunday night at 9pm on HBO’s True Blood.
Source: Small Screen Scoop.com- “True Blood Season 5 – Arlene as boss? – EXCLUSIVE Interview with Carrie Preston”
Image Credit: HBO, Inc
