Nelsan Ellis recently did an interview with Bullett Media regarding his character Lafayette Reynolds and what he’ll encounter this season. As we’ve already seen, Lafayette has already inherited some demon magic. He also revealed who he likes working with on set and what he likes best about working on True Blood.
Picking castmates he likes to work with depends on the season for Nelsan. In seasons 1, 2, and 4 it’s Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton). Season 3 gave him the opprotunity to work more with Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse) and Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman). This season, he’s gotten to work more with Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse) who he says is always prepared and wonderful to watch as an actress. Working on set in general is a great experience as well. The freedom is something Ellis appreciates tremendously:
“The freedom. Alan just lets you do whatever you want and that is marvelous. In all aspects, make up, costumes, hair, you are allowed to do whatever you want to do. You can command your creative thoughts to play that part.”
At this point the interview took an interesting turn with Megan Matuzak asking what sin (of the seven deadly ones) Lafayette would be guilty of. His answer?:
“Gluttony. He just wants and wants and wants. Being a hustler, you have these hustles because you want stuff. You want money, you want sex, materials and you don’t want to have a regular job to be what you do to get that. Lafayette just wants shit and he figures out ways to get it.”
When asked if anything about Lafayette’s character resonated with him personally, Nelsan revealed that things like the way Lafayette walks has crept into his personal life at times. But when he has to find things to put into the character to address more serious issues like losing a loved one it was slightly more difficult:
“When you are dealing with sadness, you are sad. Going into a sad dark place isn’t too fun for me. You have to sort of ponder up the sadness that is already lives inside yourself and no one wants to do that. Lafayette is a jovial, fun character in the beginning so having to judge up sadness is sort of on the cusp of my mother passing. You don’t really want to unearth sadness within yourself. Actually it was hard for me because I was dealing with my own stuff and not wanting to do it publicly but me trying to you know, use a little bit of it to give the character some ground. I was in the angst of emotional turmoil, so there were things that I had to deal with inside myself and yet try to use a little bit to get into character some realness. I prepared for it and tried to prepare not to do it…if that makes sense.:
On the lighter side of things, the actor revealed that some of his character’s mannerisms are influenced by his mother because she was a tomboy and Lafayette is a combination of feminine and masculine. And if he could switch roles with actors on another show, it would be Peter Dinklage or Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones.
And what will be seeing from Lafayette for the rest of the season?:
“You are going to see Lafayette come out of his black hole and start to be his old self again. He has some tricks up some sleeves to protect himself from another bout with the supernatural.”
Source: Bullett Media.com- “‘True Blood”s Nelsan Ellis Reveals the Inspiration Behind Lafayette”
Image Credit: HBO, Inc.