Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton) recently took five with Artizia giving them five facts about herself from her dancing roots to what it’s like being a vampire having played a human for most of the series on True Blood. Wesley admits that she has a thing musical theater which isn’t surprising since she grew up singing and acting. But there were times when she struggled:
“I’m a huge musical theater buff. I wanted to be a dancer for a really long time. I went to high school for dance and theatre, but decided that I should focus on one or the other. And, also, I got made fun of when I would bring my pointe shoes to class because I had such flat feet; the girls thought it was ‘cute’ that I even brought my shoes. So that kind of discouraged me from ballet.”
Rutina didn’t forget about dancing all together. It was her dancing skills that helped her in the film How She Move which came out in 2007. She garnered some of those skills from her parents, both of whom were professional dancers:
“My dad was a tap dancer, and he was on Star Search in the ’80s. He’s done the Cotton Club, he did Black and Blue in Paris. He’s a true tapper at heart. My mom was a showgirl for a while. I grew up knowing that I was going to be [involved with] the arts in some shape or form.”
And she is, having gone to Julliard where she met and studied with True Blood co-star Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds) who was thrilled when she landed the role of Tara:
“I remember on set he couldn’t believe I was there. It was really great to go on True Blood and have someone that I knew and so close to me, which is why in our scenes I seem so comfortable with him. I know that he has my back.”
Rutina’s character Tara has gone through a lot and while the actress says there are lots of things she can identify with about her character, she tends to be a bit more positive about life:
“I would say that I’m a very strong woman, but I’m also incredibly insecure and I can be defensive at times, because of my insecurities. I just get her in a way because I feel like our spirits are alike. I feel like I understand how it is to grow up in a family or have a background that’s kind of messed up, or crazy, and then learning how to survive through that. I’ve had to work really hard to get where I am. I had this drive, and Tara has that too. But I also feel like I’m a little more positive than Tara is. She’s just so, like, Fuck the world!”
Now that Tara has become a vampire, Rutina says that her co-stars Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pamela Sywnford de Beaufort) and Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman) have been helpful showing her how to be a vampire.
“They’re all very supportive and have been showing me the ropes of being a vampire, and it’s really cool, but it’s actually tough work! The [directors] will be like, ‘Uh, vampires don’t breathe….There’s all this stuff that makes me want to go back to being human! But It’s given me a chance to be challenged in a new way. I’ve sort of gotten to recreate Tara.”
But it hasn’t always been that easy. While she was a natural at vamp speeding, talking with fangs was a whole other story as she found out during a scene with Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse):
“I’m really good at vamp speeding because I love to run—like I actually think I was a track star in another life! When I had to run vamp speed for the first time, [the crew] was like, ‘Oh well, I guess we don’t have to speed your feet up, Rutina. You really don’t have to run that fast,’…Anna [Paquin]—she and I are very close—held my teeth for me. I just couldn’t get them in fast enough! And she looked at me, you know the camera’s rolling, and she said, ‘Take your time, we’re all here, we’ll wait.’ I almost started crying because all eyes were on me. And my line was, ‘Seriously Sookie,’ which is like, the worst with S’s. It’s really hard to talk with those fucking things!”
And believe it or not, Rutina did actually let a fan bit her once. But she made it clear they were only acting:
“She had her little fake fangs and everything. We took a picture of it—it was really weird, but what do you say?! So I let her pretend to bite me. I was like, ‘Don’t bite me for real. We’re gonna pretend. This is acting.’”
Shop the looks from Rutina’s Aritzia story by clicking the source link below.
Source: Aritzia.com- “TAKE FIVE: RUTINA WESLEY”
Image Credits: Magda Wosinska
