Stephen Moyer

TRUE BLOOD'S 174-YEAR-OLD VAMPIRE TALKS ABOUT HIS ON-SCREEN-OFFSCREEN LOVE AFFAIR, HUMAN-ON-UNDEAD SEX AND WHAT HE REALLY THINKS ABOUT TWILIGHT

Q1

We're about to see you in your third season of .plav ing Bill Compton, the hot-blooded, brooding, reformed 174-year-old Southern vampire on True Blood. Having sharei many of the show's steamiest sex scenes with AnnaPaquin who plays Sookie Stackhouse, a vampire-loving telepathic waitress, what can you tell us about human-on-undead sex? Unlike werewolves, who are very hot, vampires are steely cold, so sex with the undead isn't going to get hot ( and crispy. There's no heartbeat, no adrenaline rush as you get close to the moment. But in terms of speed and timing, you may be able to have sex that lasts for days. Vampire sex is muscular and physical, so it could be tir­ing for a human guy to have sex with a female vampire. I often think a lot of women's attraction to vampires is based on the fact that vampires come from centuries ago, from eras of chivalry and courtly virtues. So it's about being treated like a lady but being physically overtaken in the sack.

Q2

Is the sexual dynamic you just described anything like the one you have in real life with Paquin, whom you met, fell in love with and became engaged to since the two of you started doing True Blood in 2008?

She doesn't pull punches. I'll taRe 74,000

words to express an emotion because I fear rturting

someone's feelings. Anna will do it in three words. But

we trust each other so (continued on page 1}S)t

STEPHEN MOVER

(continued Jrmn page 50) implicitly that there's never anything hurt­ful; it always comes from a loving place. It's not as though people I've been with before haven't been loving, but with Anna it's just about pure trust, on camera and off. I have never trusted anybody like I trust Anna.

Q3

PI-AYBOY: Before you two went public with your relationship, many critics, bloggers and online fans commented on your on­screen chemistry. When did you realize the chemistry wasn't merely on camera? MOYF.R: During the show's first season I had to go back to London and she went back to New York. I wish I had bought shares

in Skype, because we Skyped every night for three or four hours. It felt as though part of me had been removed when Anna and I were apart.

Q4

playboy: Anna recently declared her biscxuality in a public service announce­ment for gay rights. Were you taken by surprise?

MOYER: I've never been in a relation­ship before in which, literally within the first three days, all the cards were laid out. I knew who she was when I met her; she knows eveiything about me as well. It wasn't something that was kept from me. I condone what she has done 100 percent, and it's her busi­ness to talk about it, not mine. We talked about it in quite a lot of detail. It doesn't change anything. I'm proud of who she is.

Q5

PIAYBOY: What have been some of the more interesting responses you've gotten since the news aired?

MOYKR: \Laughs\ I love the idea that some people think, So that must mean she's look­ing for somebody else, or Wow, he must be so excited to have somebody else to play with. Or that some might say our relationship is a sham or that she made the announce­ment for publicity. I honestly don't know what's being said because I haven't looked at a single website. I don't like to look at the Internet anyway, because I'm generally self-loathing and melancholic. When the news broke, we had just moved into a new house three days prior. I've been far too busy with day-to-day decisions such as whether to get

real turf or Astroturf. Astroturf has come a long way—that's all I'm going to say.

Q6

playboy: With so many recent revela­tions about infidelity and sex addiction among famous people, should we rethink monogamy?

MOYF.R: I'm not going to speak for or judge anybody else. I'm just trying to keep my side of the street as unbumpy as possible. I found the person I want to spend my life with, and I've been looking in a lot of places. She's everything and more than I ever thought I would get.

Q7

PIAYBOY: At the end of last season's True Blood, your character and Paquin's charac-

ter are taken away from each other. What's in store for this season? MOYF.R: 1 don't want to give anything away in case 1 get in trouble for it, but last season loads of stuff happened with the whole town being under threat. 1 he stakes are higher this year because everything that happens is about the characters, and eveiy single character has to react to situations that are veiy personal. It has created a muscular, more visceral storytell­ing mode that should be exciting to watch.

Q8

PIAYBOY: When it comes to diverse sexual couplings and sensuality, the series is way more provocative and graphic than most current feature films. Have you ever caught the makers of the series pulling their sex­ual punches?

moykR: Last season had one quite graphic moment when my character would have had his head between Anna's character's legs. It was scrapped because of" technical difficulty getting the shot with the number of"camera setups they had planned—as opposed to because it was too graphic. Sex on our show is like a big muffin that's heating up, over­flowing and expanding in an oven. Iliis time last year I was thinking, What the fuck are we going to do next year to top this? Well, I can tell you it's weird and exciting this year. As I said, the show is more character-centered— and I'm not saying it's better or worse for it—but there's certainly just as much, if not more, interesting sex because of it.

09

PLAYBOY: People should never mistake an

actor for the char­acter he plays, but you were cast as a tormented guy strug­gling to reform from his past. Any real-life parallels?

MOYKR: I've lived. I've done a fair amount. I'm awfully glad the opportunities I've had in the past few years didn't come along 10, 15 or even five years ago, when I was much less pre­pared for them.

Q10

1'IAYBOY: lias the show made you think more about thorny subjects such as, say, death and the afterlife? MOYKR: I have no faith per se. I used to have a very black-and-white approach to it, but a few years ago I decided to make a simple change from being a staunch nonbeliever to just stopping not believ­ing. It's as simple as that. The answer is I still don't know what I think. My opinion

can bend in the wind with all the other great questions out there.

Q11

PLAYBOY: When did you begin thinking seri­ously about acting?

moyf.R: Karly on I remember wanting to go to a specific sports college even though I didn't know what the bloody hell I was going to do there. But I was doing plays from the age of 10, and by 14 I thought acting would be a great career. When I told my parents, they said, "Finish high school, then we'll think about it." I went to my school career advisor, but no one had ever talked with him about a career in acting. There was no Internet then; I had to go and find out what drama school was and then go do it.

(concluded, on page 118)

STEPHEN MOVER

(cimtirvued jrorn page 115)

Q12

playboy: When did you most put your fam­ily through the wringer? MOYF.R: When I was 13 and my mum and dad would lx' out for the evening, I'd take out their car, pick up my best friend and go rac­ing around. For my 15th birthday I was given the opportunity to drive at a racetrack, and before I could drive legally, I bought a Mini and put racing stuff all over it. Then three weeks after passing my driving test I got a DUI and lost my license for a year.

Q13

piayboY: We assume girls had already come into the picture before your racing career. I low young were you when you lost your viiginity? MOYKR: I was quite young when I started doing all right, below legal age and with somebcxly I knew well. It happened outdoors and was very naughty and unexpected. In my little village some girls reached maturity at a young age, and there was a lot of "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" stuff happening, lots of looking and a little bit of touching too, from a very young age.

014

PLAYBOY: Did that give you confidence with women?

moyf.R: I didn't even know how to chat any­body up or ask anybody out. I didn't have that kind of self-esteem. I can tliink of few tilings more visceral or heart pounding than to get that adrenaline nish and finally work up the courage to ask someone out—at any age. Once I got through those initial moments of self-paralysis I was fine. I was lucky to always be guided by older girls at school. But apart from my current missus, as I call her, I went out with older women all the way up until I was 30.

Q15

playboy: Did you eventually develop any pickup lines or smooth moves? MOYKR: My state of melancholia was so great I used to write crap poetry for years and years. I sometimes wouldn't even go over to talk to somebody. That way I knew I would end up with a better poem.

Q16

playboy: Most Americans discovered you when True Blood first aired, but from 1993 through the end of that decade you played on many British TV series and in some lesser-known movies. Has all the American attention felt like starting over again? MOYKR: I've never had the Hollywood dream. I just wanted to be an actor. I worked at bars while I was in drama school, but luckily I've been acting for nearly 20 years and have never been unemployed for more than five

or six months. When True Blood came along, I had returned to London to take a chill alter four back-to-back gigs that had taken me away from home for four and a half months. I told my manager, "Don't send me any more scripts. I'm not interested." She said, "Read just this one for me," and three days later I was sitting in [scries creator] Alan Ball's office with Anna, talking about True Blood.

Q17

playboy What are some of the more bizarre responses you've gotten from fans? moyf.R: I think it's pretty well documented that I'm English, not Southern, yet I'm always amazed to meet people who go, "Oh my Clod! Oh my Clod! Where are you from?" As many times as I get people coming up to me and asking, "Say 'Sookie' like you do to Anna on the show," I'm sure Vivien Leigh spent the rest of her life being asked to say "Fiddle-dee-dee" the way she did in Gone With the Wind.

Q18

playboy Fans and the press seem fascinated by the prosthetic fangs you wear on the show. When you put them in your mouth, how do you know where they've last been? MOYKR: \lMugks\ I have a set at home and about three more sets at work. They're insured, and they get locked up every night but not before a lovely assistant readies a cup of I jstermint they go into. They get a little scrub, and then they get put back into a wallet.

Q19

pi.ayboY: Your TV show delivers scares along with sex, dark comedy and social commen­tary. What scares you? MOYKR: Something happening to my daugh­ter or son, who are eight and 10, respectively. The first time I had my picture taken with my daughter was after we'd gone to get pizza, and 20 paparazzi were running back­ward with their cameras. My initial impulse was to drop the pizza and fucking smash those cameras. I'd never felt that before. My daughter hasn't chosen to do what I do for a living. Those guys are just doing their job, and if they're taking pictures of Anna and me, then somebody's watching the show. I've got nothing to hide. I'm very happy in my life. I don't go to big parties. I'm out there every morning picking up my dog's shit, so if they want to take that shot, line.

Q20

playboy: In a battle royal between the 'lim-lighl movies' vampires and True Blood's, who would come out on top? MOYKR: Tliat's like comparing Monterey [ack and Roqueibrt. If my eight-year-old daughter conies to me when she's 13 and says, "Dad, what would you rather I got into, 'Iwiligfil or Black Sabbath?" I'd be stuck between the two but would probably pull for 'Imiliglit. I love Black Sabbath, but that can wait until my daughter turns 16. The Iwilight movies fill a niche. In her liiilight novels Stephenie Meyer has cho­sen a similar vampire framework to tell a stoiy about burgeoning sexuality. What's interesting about our show is that sexuality has already burgeoned. I wish 'luulight the best of luck, but I'm veiy happy to be doing True Blood.