To kick off Dragon Con 2014, Friday’s True Blood panel was at the Westin in Downtown Atlanta. In the years since I started going to Dragon Con I’ve never had the opportunity to go to that hotel because usually the True Blood panels take place in one of the other hotels that are connected to each other. So yesterday I actually left earlier than usual to give myself time to get there. The panel started a half hour late because a panelist had trouble getting there due to traffic issues which I could completely understand. Trying to get around anywhere around where Dragon Con takes place is not easy. But it almost didn’t matter because despite being only 30 minutes long, the panel was awesome!
Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds), Michael McMillian (Steve Newlin), and Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pamela Sywnford de Beaufort) were all in attendance. One of the things I appreciated the most about this particular panel is the camaraderie between this trio of cast members. Having read and watched quite a few interviews with the cast over the years, this aspect of life on set has been mentioned quite a bit. This panel started off with a question about how each of the actors felt about the endings that their characters received. Michael said he was happy that Steve actually won in the end by getting to torture Sarah (Anna Camp). Nelsan mentioned that he was happy James (Nathan Parsons) became Lafayette’s new boyfriend. And Kristin liked the fact that her character came full circle, returning to her character’s roots as a madam and person running Fangtasia.
On the subject of costumes, Michael revealed that he used to do a “dad pants” dance during costume fittings for season 2 (see the video for this, it’s hilariously funny) and Nelsan actually wore a kilt in one of the earlier seasons of True Blood, of which he said there was a draft that he hadn’t been expecting. Kristin was also asked about a spin-off for Pam and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) which has been talked about on the internet. Of this she said it would be hard not to seriously consider it if she had the chance to have those killer lines, work with Alexander again, and have the same costumer.
Then it moved into Kristin’s last day on set wrapping Pam which was highly emotional. Kristin also got emotional talking about it. This then evolved into what the show ending meant for each of the actors beyond just working with each other. Nelsan brought up the fact that they won’t get to see fellow cast members children all the time anymore or bring their dogs to set. Those are the kind of things that got me because it again emphasized how much of a family True Blood really is. Watch the panel below:
Photos can be seen here.
Image/Video Credits: True Blood Fan Source