Australian actor, Ryan Kwanten is very humble when it comes to discussing just how lucky he is to score the long time role of Jason Stackhouse in HBO’s True Blood. His acting break may have come in Australia with the soap opera, Home And Away, but when it came to signing on for the unknown American vampire series, True Blood, he was not sure how the US would react:
We worked in this weird cloud … We shot the show in complete seasons before it premiered so we were not aware at first if the audience would attach themselves to it … We came out of the gate slowly, but as people started to understand the world and the characters I think we picked up speed. Each season that would pass I’d notice more and more people looking at me on the street and stopping me.
It was a chance offering that paid off for Ryan. However, he attributes HBO’s success with their long standing dedication to working from the top job down and making sure every single person was right for the role, be it the showrunner or the cast extras. it also helps that the US are more dedicated to their television shows than in Australia.
Seven years may seem like a long time in the one role for an actor but Kwanten insists it wasn’t really hard work at all:
Jason had his own storyline as part of about four or five others, so I was never working every single day of every week. When I did films in hiatus I’d work harder, True Blood was really my cruising time because it was such an ensemble cast.
Even though the cast was close during filming, it seems they have all taken flight in different directions since True Blood wrapped up. Ryan likened it to high school graduation and the assurance that they will all probably still meet up again further on down the track.
While Truebies are now consoling themselves with the fact they will have to indulge in reruns and DVDs to get their True Blood fix – that there will be no ‘meeting up down the track’ – for Ryan, he is holding off to watch the TV series again:
There’s definitely going to be a time when I sit down and watch it all at once, back to back … Not right now, because it’s all still a little close to the chest, but at some point down the line I wouldn’t mind checking it out and looking at the boy I was back then.
What do you think, was Jason Stackhouse just a boy while on True Blood? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!
Source: The New Daily – What is it like to work on a hit HBO show?
(Photo Credit: HBO Inc.)
