Stephen Moyer and Deborah Ann Woll as Bill Compton and Jessica Hamby in “Sunset”/John P. Johnson, HBO, Inc.
Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton) recently chatted with TV Line’s Michael Ausiello to discuss his character’s latest turn in development. In this past week’s episode, “Sunset,” Bill asked his progeny Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) to turn her friend and on/off again lover Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten). When Jessica couldn’t bring herself to do so, Bill struck her causing her to fly across the room. Ausiello talked with him about this, increased amounts of time working with Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman) and not working with co-star and wife Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse) much this season. While some may feel that Bill has turned evil, Stephen changes the perspective saying that he feels like he’s doing the right thing. The previous season Bill felt lost due to his break up with Sookie and now he’s found something that he feels is the right way forward. Finding the authenticity in that allows Moyer to play that angle even if it might come across as evil. But even he admits that there were tough scenes to play; including throwing Jessica across the room. He feels that there is love in that relationship but Jessica did go against Bill so his reaction was genuine. Stephen admits that he and many of his co-stars had moments of “I have to do what” when seeing this season’s scripts. But says that he had to ask himself if he was doing these things for the right reasons:
“Yeah, we all have those moments. There have been moments that Alex [Skarsgard] and a couple of the other people have questioned this year just to make sure that the reason it happened in the writers room works in our heads. You just have to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Of course I questioned it. Deborah and I adore working together and I wanted to make sure that this was the correct route. The scene in Episode 10 where Bill tries to explain to her that he’s read this book and it’s made a real difference – that was tough as well. That was a really difficult scene because we’re seeing Bill truly believe, and I remember I had a conversation with Alex about it. And he was saying, “What do you think? Are you okay with that?” And I said, “I think I am.” Bill has this belief that what he is doing is right. Whether it is right or not we won’t know until the end. But he is like anybody who goes into a cult. He’s a victim. He’s brainwashed. But to get back to your first question, is it fun to play? Hell yeah.”
Stephen Moyer as Bill Compton in “Save Yourself”/John P. Johnson, HBO, Inc.
Once he determined that and committed to it, there was a lot of fun stuff to play like how Deborah wanted to be thrown (over the shoulder, across etc…) At that point it becomes like any other fun part of the show. Also a fun part of this year was to spend more time with Alexander Skarsgård with their characters getting along instead of arguing like in seasons past. Stephen hasn’t been working with wife Anna Paquin as much the past few years which means opposite schedules. But it isn’t really a topic of conversation since they love what they do. One advantage of working on the Authority set most of this season according to Stephen is a lot of day shoots, which is unual since he plays a vampire:
“It’s interesting that you should say that. We have a great exterior for the Authority headquarters, which is this massive electrical complex outside of Los Angeles. But we’re rarely there. The [interior] of the headquarters is at the lot where we shoot. Consequently, [nearly all of the main] vampires this season are shooting during the day; we had no night shoots. [Laughs] We’re going home at 7 or 8 o’clock at night, which is not the norm. And all the other characters are running around in the dark. If you can think of a time that you saw me and Alex in the dark this season — outside — then it’s probably around Episode 2 or 3. And Episode 5 when we go to the Scooby-Doo haunted mansion. Thankfully, [the Authority set] is so f—ing big.”
The True Blood season 5 finale, “Save Yourself” airs this Sunday.
Source: TV Line.com- “True Blood’s Stephen Moyer Defends Evil Bill, Recalls Turmoil of Slapping Deborah Ann Woll”
Image Credits: HBO, Inc.