True Blood’s sexy vampire, Kristin Bauer van Straten is interviewed below. Outspoken, intolerant of B.S. and full of attitude, fan-favorite Pam frequently steals any scene she appears in on the HBO drama and below she discusses Pam and about what we can expect from Pam and her maker, Eric.
In this final season, they’ve pulled out all the stops, and Pam has been off tracking Eric halfway around the world. What is your take on their relationship?
At the end of Season 6, when Pam decided to leave everybody and her prodigy Tara and go looking for him, it just reinforced for me what we’ve seen in the past years about how important Eric is to her. I think she took a look at her life without him and couldn’t face it. She was even willing to die as we saw in the Russian roulette game, just for the possibility of finding him. At that point, she didn’t even know if she would find him. What I was playing was relishing every moment with not only her strongest relationship, but her only relationship.
Did you ever consider Pam the fifth piece in the Bill/Eric/Alcide/Sookie love pentagon?
For many years, I was playing a crush on Sookie because I am a vampire and she smells really good. It was really fun to be flirting with Anna Paquin. We had this great scene in the bathroom at Fangtasia where I say, “You have vampire in your cleavage.” I pull out a piece of goo from her boob. I loved that dynamic. It changed in Season 4, because Eric really fell for Sookie and picked her over me. Then all of a sudden, it became, “I hate Sookie and her precious fairy vagina.” Last week, I called her a fungus. It’s fun to play a character that openly hates other people and doesn’t feel the need to hide it.
What has Eric being infected by this virus allowed the writers to explore with Pam?
The depth of her vulnerable side. To have Eric weaker and to know that their time is limited makes Pam more human. We see their child/father relationship. We really don’t have relationships like this as humans. Our relationships can’t be so multi-faceted. You can’t be a lover and then also a maker and a father and an enemy and then go back to being a lover. Also, our human relationships can’t span over a century. I can imagine if I had over a 100 years with my father, who was one of my greatest allies, and that’s something that is hard to lose. It was hard for me to lose my dad after 30 years, much less a 100 years. I can layer that with my friendship with Alex Skarsgard.
Pam is usually such a hard-ass. Are you enjoying those more vulnerable moments?
As I was driving yesterday, I was thinking I’ve gotten to play the hardest, edgiest female. Certainly the edgiest female I’ve ever played, but also one of the edgiest on television. Then, I’ve also gotten to play these vulnerable scenes. How unbelievable to get to play both of those. Plus, there’s the humor, the clothing and different decades. I was just feeling so grateful for this experience. I had no idea, and I don’t think any of us did, that this could be. It’s such an incredible gift as an actress.
Pam hasn’t processed Tara’s death yet. How will she handle that tragedy?
Yeah, there’s so much going on and her priorities are focused on Eric. I was glad when Pam mentions it in episode 2 or 3. There’s actually a few other mentions of it. We’re going to see different ways Pam deals with it. It affected her. She’s just got her hands full at the moment. She’s also not the type of person to have a lot of ways to express herself.
Can we suggest violence and murder?
Yes, revenge. She deals with her emotions in a more outward manner.
Speaking of, how floored were you by Tara and Alcide’s deaths?
We are always really floored. Even people we don’t know…We all wake up and you find out that Philip Seymour Hoffman is dead. It just seems inconceivable. Because we’re really invested in these True Blood characters, that happens to us as well when we read the scripts. Then we all remember that it’s fiction and television and that it does keep it exciting for the viewers. We realize it’s True Blood.
I’m watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and apparently that’s one of the first shows that killed a series regular. It started a new paradigm for TV where it makes it a lot more interesting and a lot more dramatic when anything can happen.
Read the complete interview with Kristin by going to: spinoff.comicbookresources.com
