I found this on truebloodnet.com.

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Recently TrueBloodNet.com got the opportunity to interview the beautiful and talented actress who plays Tara in Alan Ball’s True Blood, Rutina Wesley. She talks a little about her past, where she is right now and what she’d like to do in the future.

TBN.com: What was it like growing up in Vegas?

Rutina: Growing up in Vegas was awesome. A lot of people give Vegas a bad name because of the strip and the gambling and stuff but I always say “Hey, I turned out ok.” (laughing) It’s a good town and I got a good education there. Vegas is changing but it’s definitely a crazy town.

TBN.com: Do you think growing up where there was a healthy entertainment industry influenced your choice of professions?

Rutina: Yes, being surrounded by my parents who were both dancers and going to the first performing arts high school in Vegas helped strengthen that choice.

TBN.com: When and how did you know that you wanted to be an actor?

Rutina: When I was in junior high I did a play called “The Case for Two Detectives”. I just liked being on the stage and telling a story…using my entire instrument to tell a story. I like to create characters and be the vessel through which they are played.

TBN.com: You have mentioned that you attended the Juilliard School along with several other cast members (Nelsan Elllis and Carrie Preston). You also had the opportunity to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London . What was that experience like?

Rutina: RADA was one of the best experiences in my education. I got engaged in London and got to play “Juliet” in “Romeo & Juliet” which is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and favorite roles. They were so gentle with us as students and I remember running home every day excited about doing Shakespeare. I remember thinking “Learning is fun!” and I wouldn’t change that experience for the world.

TBN.com: What was your very first performance and how did it go?

Rutina: “Finian’s Rainbow” and I was 7. My line was something like “Last one down to Finian’s Hill is nothing but a rotten vegata-bill!” My mom was in it too so that was fun. See? There’s theater in Vegas! I was a big old ham…pretty much did anything I could to get a laugh.

TBN.com: You have starred in the dance movie “How She Move” and have mentioned in one of your previous interviews you love watching shows that deal with dancing. Is this an avenue you would have taken had you not gone into acting?

Rutina: Definitely. Dance is my first love. Its still a passion of mine. I try to dance whenever I get a chance.

TBN.com: Are you watching “So You Think You Can Dance?” this season and if so, who is your favorite?

Rutina: Yes, I am watching and I’m rooting for all of them because it sucks to be picking and choosing who’s the best dancer when all styles of dance are so different and each is beautiful in it’s own way.

TBN.com: The various mediums of acting can have very different requirements and advantages, what medium do you prefer to work in film, TV or the stage and why?

Rutina: There absolutely are advantages to each medium. Obviously, there’s more money in Film & TV than in theater. I’m just going to be honest and say that. But as far as preferring one to the other, I don’t have a preference. I approach the work in the same way. I think of theater as the grounding place where we get to go back to be rejuvenated. It’s why I’m always dying to get back on the stage.

TBN.com: What was the hardest scene you’ve ever done and why?

Rutina: Well there’s a couple scenes that are coming up towards the end of Season 2 that were really tough. I can’t really say much about them without giving stuff away, so you’ll just have to watch.

TBN.com: What was your first impression of True Blood when you tried out?

Rutina: I read it and was like this is great…amazing. I did think that Tara was really hard and I hoped that she wasn’t just going to be this angry stereotype and, then, lo and behold the wonderful creative team has created this complex girl who i have the wonderful opportunity to play.

TBN.com: Once you had the role of Tara, how did you prepare for the role?

Rutina: Well, I read the first book but then since they really changed the character I decided to not read the rest of the books. Since they did that, I get to do my own thing which is always fun for an actor. So I just created her off my own instincts and with the help of the creative team.

TBN.com: Had you been to Louisiana prior to getting this role?

Rutina: Nope.

TBN.com: This season Tara plays a larger role with her own storyline full of intrigue, a new love interest (Eggs is pretty yummy!) and a new style. Are you happy with how Tara is evolving this season?

Rutina: Yes, very, very happy with the way she is evolving. The creative team has given her an incredible journey, as they did last season. It’s not just Tara – every character has somewhere to go. For us actors..everyone has something to work on. We actually get to come to work and work our butts off. By the end of the day, my body and mind are so tired…that’s what I trained for. It’s amazing to be on a show where you really get delve into the characters.

TBN.com: Were you prepared for the huge acclaim that the show has received, and the devoted fan following that it has?

Rutina: No. I was not prepared for it but I knew it had a huge fan base so I thought it would do well. But, no, I didn’t know people were going to flip out for like they have done.

TBN.com: What changes have you noticed between season 1 and season 2 of working on True Blood?

Rutina: Season 2 is more raw. We’re really coming at you. It’s more of everything you got and loved in season 1 just…MORE. It’s more “True Bloodier,” if you will.

TBN.com: What have you enjoyed the most about working on True Blood and what’s been the most challenging thing about it for you?

Rutina: Some of the stuff in Tara’s storyline this season has been really challenging…having to go there emotionally — but that’s why i love it. If it’s too easy, it’s not for you. It should be hard. The most enjoyable part is working with the cast, crew and creative team. We all love each other and get along. I couldn’t ask for better ensemble. I feel very lucky.

TBN.com: You have mentioned before that you are different from Tara yet you can relate to her. What do you admire most about Tara ? Where are you most different?

Rutina: I’m most different in that I don’t go around cussing people out all the time! (laughing) I do admire her tenacity and gumption though…the fact that she can speak her mind right there in the moment. I tend to avoid confrontation myself and I like that she is not shy about standing up for herself. I also love that she’s self educated. She’s basically taught herself.

TBN.com: We know that a lot of acting on a TV or movie is waiting. Do you have one particular activity you like to do while waiting?

Rutina: I play solitaire or read.

TBN.com: Are there types of roles that you’re hoping to do, that you haven’t had the chance to do yet?

Rutina: Yes…i would love to play more ingenue roles like “Juliet”. I love romantic comedies, particularly “Notting Hill”. I would love to do a film like that. I also would love to do some big action movie, in a catsuit toting an AK-47 side-by-side with Angelina Jolie!

TBN.com: We saw you at the Paley Fest and must say that you are absolutely stunning in person. Do you have a philosophy or approach to fitness or skin care?

Rutina: Wash your face, wash your face, wash your face! No matter how tired you are at the end of the day, wash your face! And moisturize and use sunscreen! I also like to try and do 20 minutes of cardio a day to stay healthy…and not eat at “In and Out” as often as I’d like!

TBN.com: Also it was obvious that the cast seem to be very tight. Do you guys have fun behind the scenes or is it a fairly serious atmosphere? Do you have any behind the scenes stories you’d like to share?

Rutina: Yes, the cast is extremely close. We had a late shoot last night and around 3 am, you just get a little bit punchy and we all got the giggles. Ryan Kwanten was on a roll last night, he had us all laughing so hard.

TBN.com: Do you find yourself being easily recognized on the streets? How do you handle that if so?

Rutina: Yes, just recently I’m starting to be recognized. I try to handle it like any other thing. It’s really nice to know you have fans…to know that someone has been touched in some way by my work is a really nice feeling.

TBN.com: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time (if you have any!)?

Rutina: I like hanging out with my husband and our kitty. I’ve been going to the batting cages a lot recently.

TBN.com: Has True Blood reshaped how you think of good and evil?
Rutina: In a sense…Just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have rights and don’t still have human qualities. In a way it’s a parable for our society right now. Some of the people on the show who are “do-gooders” are actually bad and vampires, who are usually thought of as “bad”, are actually good.  Alan Ball puts so much subtext in the show, it really does make you stop and think.

TBN.com: If Tara died what would you want on her headstone?
Rutina: “For Tara: May her little flower bloom and be nurtured through this earth, and grow in spirit. Now may she rest”.

TBN.com: Do you have a favorite charity?

Rutina: Save Darfur because of a play I did at the Public Theater (in New York) a few years back called “In Darfur”.  [Editor's Note:  Winter Miller's play, "In Darfur", is a compelling tale of 3 lives woven together at an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp in Darfur, Sudan.  The triad of a protector, a survivor and a witness tell story of what is continuing to happen in Darfur.  The protector, an aid worker striving to save lives in this modern day genocide tries to assist a Darfuri woman seeking safety from the daily abomination that is life in the Sudan while a journalist experiences the horror firsthand while writing for his hometown paper.  To learn more, go to savedarfur.org]

TBN.com: Do you twitter and, if so, would you like your fans to know what your twitter name is?

Rutina: No, but I do have a fan page on Facebook.
Rutina’s Facebook Fan Page

We want to thank HBO and Rutina for a wonderful interview. We absolutely love Rutina and Alan’s interpretation of Tara and can’t wait to see what happens to her this season on True Blood. Tara has the only storyline which isn’t woven through with vampires and seems to ground everyone to the day-walkers of Bon Temps. Wherever the story line goes this season and into the future we’re sure that Rutina will continue to bring it to life in touching and intimate detail.

(Photo credit: Actors: Rutina Wesley, Mehcad Brooks: HBO/ John P. Johnson, Rutina Wesley: HBO/ Jaimie Trueblood, Paley Center: Kasandra Rose)

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♥ Debbie

Diana, from Paranormal Romance, sent us the following information:

She (A.P.) talks about how she “feeds” off a fake arm etc. It’s kind of fun to hear how they film stuff. Think this was done June 10, 2009.

Here’s the link to Anna’s interview …… http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105174915 or CLICK HERE.

Have a great 4th of July!!!

Diana
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Thanks Diana!

~M.

Hello Everyone…

Actually this is directed to the A.S. fans. I know you are out there. Anywho, I was updating the site and I listed TV Guide’s sexiest stars of the Summer… and they listed Rutina, Ryan, S.M. and Anna Paquin. I did not think of the omission of A.S. until a couple commented about that fact. Than it dawned on me… why just complain to each other? Why not complain to TV Guide. So, you A.S. fans, I have a challenge for you… contact TV Guide. Here is the link to contact TV Guide: http://www.tvguide.com/services/CustomerForm.aspx

Tell them that LBP sent you and want your voices heard (isn’t this fitting with the holiday coming up and all). Tell them that you forgot to list your favorite Vampire. Let’s see what happens.

~M.

If you like Chris Bauer, and I know you do after seeing his snazzy dance moves in TB, you can listen to him on TV TALK today on #BlogTalkRadio – http://tobtr.com/s/566956

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~M.

US Weekly, 7/13/09 – The men of HBO’s hit vampire drama are a feast – for the eyes:

Ryan Kwanten - As lusty, oft-shirtless Jason Stackhouse, the Australia native, 32, effortlessly beds a bevy of women. In real life, however, Kwanten doesn’t have it so easy. The actor (who declines to say if he has a mate) laments to Us, “dating is hard!”

Sam Trammell – Playing brooding bar owner Sam (a shape0shifter who can morph into animals) brough the New Orleans-born actor, 38, a role he’s adjusting to: hunk. “It makes for awkward conversation with the relatives,” Trammell, who has a girlfriend tells Us.

Stephen Moyer – Even onscreen love interest Anna Paquin, 26, couldn’t resist the smoldering U.K. native, 39, who plays Vampire Bill.: The two began dating in 2008 after meeting during their audition for hte show. Their chemistry, Moyer has said, “was unstoppable.”

Alexander Skarsgard - Creator Alan Ball calls the 6-foot-4 Swede, 32, “gorgeous.” But the single star, who plays Moyer’s villainous vampire nemesis Eric – “a predator in a Versace suit,” Skarsgard tells Us – balks at being called a asex sympol: “James Dean was a sex symbol.”

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Just got it in the mail and I could not help but share…

~M.

By Amy Amatangelo –
bostonherald.com

Michelle Forbes isn’t playing a villain on “True Blood.”

At least, that’s what she says.

Forbes joined the cast of the HBO vampire drama (Sunday at 9 p.m.) at the end of last season as the mysterious Maryann Forrester. This season, Maryann is poised to wreak some serious havoc.

“She’s not human. She has a definite myopic quest that she is on. And she is going to have one hell of a time achieving that quest. Maryann is definitely a character that’s about perspective in the sense that she sees her goal as beautiful and blissful and of the divine and pure, so she doesn’t consider what she is doing as being bad at all. It’s quite a beautiful thing, and she’s graciously allowing everyone to come with her. I don’t perceive her as a villain.”

Forbes admitted she first was perplexed by the character.

“I was initially confounded and a bit intimidated and uncomfortable in Maryann’s expansiveness,” she said. “She’s so expansive that it was almost suffocating. I didn’t know where or how to move and then that little bulb goes off. And then you realize, ‘Oh, my God. This is so much fun.’ When else do I get to play something like this?”

It’s been a busy year for Forbes, who went from playing a forensic psychologist in crisis in the Canadian series “Durham County” to reprising her role as Gabriel Byrne’s wife in the HBO drama “In Treatment” and then moving on to “True Blood.”

Viewers will recognize her from roles on such series as “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “24” and “Battlestar Galactica.” She credits her long career of varied roles to sheer rebelliousness.

Early in her career, she famously turned down a starring role in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.”

“I guess I was sort of stubborn and defiant right out of the gate,” she said. “I just knew I was too young to do one thing for seven years. I think, like most actors, I want to be challenged. The most important thing to me is I just want to be scared when I go to work.”

After she wraps up filming on the HBO supernatural drama, she hopes to take a well-deserved vacation. And what can viewers expect for the rest of the season of “True Blood”?

“This year does get really insane, and everyone is in for quite a ride,” she said. “We are having so much fun on this show, I can’t even tell you. It’s a beautiful, disciplined playground. It’s going to get pretty out there. It truly is a roller coaster.”

(Ted Casablanca/E! Online) Is there another vampire stud out there about to dethrone R.Pattz? We asked you to decide the R.Pattz equivalent—aka the hottest dude in the bunch—on the other hot ‘n’ heavy vamp-entertainment show True Blood? And surprisingly, lead fanger Stephen Moyer didn’t even come close!

It was golden-haired hottie Alexander Skarsgard, who plays vampire sheriff Eric, who won with more than 50 percent of your drooling votes! Is it ’cause Eric’s a total badass on the show (even if he does dye his blond locks) that he makes your mouths water, or were you superpissed at Moyer picking on Pattinson’s Edward?

You guys can sure hold a grudge. And what’s with your perhaps slightly faulty stud radar? We woulda gone with…

The totally taut, real-life Aussie Ryan Kwanten, who came in dead last. Ry doesn’t play a vampire on the show, but ya never know who’s about to be bitten at any moment. You know, all that delicious, suspenseful stuff is so much hotter—not this over-the-top rippled-bod business. Why do you think we’re so into Pattinson, anyway?

By they way, you all sure like your fanged types! Is that why barely any of you went to go see Rob play Salvador Dali in Little Ashes?

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I know you A.S. fans are jumping for joy… and I have to agree with you. There is no way you can compare S.M./Bill to A.S./Eric.

~M.

By RUTH LA FERLA The New York Times

THE symptoms are unnerving: a taste for fresh meat — rare, if you please; an aversion to sunlight; and a passion for spectral-looking, fine-boned rakes. All are indications that the sufferer has been bitten by the vampire bug.

Sookie Stackhouse, the feisty young heroine of “True Blood” on HBO, risks doom whenever she visits with her otherworldly beau. And Oskar, the adolescent misfit of the Swedish art film “Let the Right One In,” a favorite in fashion circles, courts extinction each time he ventures out with Eli, the eerily ageless shape-shifter he befriends.

Sookie and Oskar are in the throes of vampire lust, a pop-culture contagion being spread via television, films and fiction. What began with the Twilight Saga, the luridly romantic young-adult series by Stephenie Meyer, followed by “Twilight,” the movie, has become a pandemic of unholy proportions.

Is it a wonder?

Rarely have monsters looked so sultry — or so camera-ready. No small part of this latest vampire mania seems to stem from the ethereal cool and youthful sexiness with which the demons are portrayed. Bela Lugosi they are not.

“The vampire is the new James Dean,” said Julie Plec, the writer and executive producer of “The Vampire Diaries,” a forthcoming series on the CW network based on the popular L. J. Smith novels about high school femmes and hommes fatales. “There is something so still and sexy about these young erotic predators,” she said.

This generation of undead prowls high school hallways and dimly lighted dance clubs as menacing — and as seductive — as they have ever been. The June premiere of the second season of “True Blood,” in which Sookie, played by Anna Paquin, is reunited with her imperious fanged suitor, drew 3.4 million viewers, making it HBO’s most-watched program since the “Sopranos” finale in 2007.

Charlaine Harris has just published “Dead and Gone,” the ninth novel in her Sookie Stackhouse series, variations on Southern Gothic fiction on which “True Blood” is based. The publishing world has been intrigued by “The Strain,” a first installment in a planned trilogy written by the film director Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, about bloodthirsty predators run amok in Manhattan.

The style world, too, has come under the vampire’s spell, in the shape of the gorgeous leather- and lace-clad night crawlers who have crept into the pages of fashion glossies.

Vampires, of course, are part of a hoary tradition that harks back to Nosferatu and Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” at least. Anne Rice updated the genre, introducing the ghoulishly aristocratic vampire Lestat. But the undead are returning with a vengeance, in part because they “personify real-world anxieties,” said Michael Dylan Foster, an assistant professor in the department of folklore at Indiana University in Bloomington.

“Especially during these post-9/11 times of increased vigilance, representations like the ‘Twilight’ series reflect a kind of conspiracy-theory mentality, a fear that there is something secret and dangerous going on in our own community, right under our noses.”

Given all that baggage, what keeps vampires so alluring?

One might point to their combination of deathless good looks and decadent sexuality. Their faces, as described in “Twilight,” “were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine.”

Vampirelike glamour figures strike come-hither poses in a flurry of recent fashion publications. Portrayed as androgynous creatures in the June issue of W, they affect killer glares, their menace accentuated by their chalky pallor. In the magazine’s current issue, Bruce Willis appears about to be raked by the talons of his new wife, Emma Heming, in a series of photographs by Steven Klein.

Italian Vogue has also succumbed to the vampire’s cold charms: In the June issue, the latest to arrive on American newsstands, models pose as willfully spooky night crawlers like those who once haunted Manhattan clubs; one image captures a female stalker whose supper, the smear of scarlet on her cheek suggests, has just been interrupted.

The vampire’s attraction is “all about the titillation of imagining the monsters we could be if we just let ourselves go,” suggested Rick Owens, a fashion bellwether whose goth-tinged collections sometimes evoke the undead. “We’re all fascinated with corruption, the more glamorous the better” and, he added, with the idea of “devouring, consuming, possessing someone we desire.”

That sort of predatory glamour is personified by Catherine Deneuve in “The Hunger.” In that morbidly stylish 1983 cult classic, directed by Tony Scott, Ms. Deneuve is Miriam, a bloodsucking seductress in sharp-shouldered suits married to a pallid David Bowie and drawn to Susan Sarandon, a tomboyish specialist in sleep and longevity. (According to Mr. Scott, a sequel is in the writing stage.)

The undead of “The Hunger” were blessed — or cursed — with riches, hauteur and the kind of indestructible good looks aspiring glamazons can only dream of. Their modern counterparts come from every stratum of society and appeal to an array of psycho-sexual preferences.

Comely upper-crust demons haunt the corridors of Duchesne, the Upper East Side private school of “Blue Bloods,” a young-adult vampire series by Melissa de la Cruz. In “The Strain,” Mr. del Toro’s gory tale, which is framed like a police procedural, the vampires are lowlifes, unremittingly vile. Saya, the eternal schoolgirl of “Blood: The Last Vampire,” a supernatural action film that will open July 10, is a reluctant monster in a middy blouse, living a Spartan existence. Eli, the bloodsucking waif of “Let the Right One In,” based on a much-talked-about novel of the same name, is gorgeous but apparently destitute and needs only the occasional sanguinary fix to keep from shriveling. (Vampires, too, can be done in by their addictions.)

The most up-to-date — and least menacing — of this nocturnal breed are, well, deathless romantics who pine like their mortal companions for a love that lasts through eternity. Stefan, the handsome archfiend of “Vampire Diaries,” which will be broadcast on the CW network in September, keeps his lust for the human Elena resolutely in check.

“Edward has rejected all humanity, but he is struggling to be human,” Ms. Plec said, adding: “There is always the question, ‘Does this person have it in him to be good, to make the right decision?’ It’s a theme that works like gangbusters in films and television.”

Impulse-control is an especially resonant theme in the current era of conflicts and cutbacks. “Periods of war, economic downturns and cultural turmoil all give rise to the production of vampire and fantasy fiction,” said Thomas Garza, chair of the department of Slavic and Eurasian studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and a specialist in vampire lore. “With a recession and war, the conflict has indeed seemed to turn inward, as we question our fiscal, political and moral status. ‘Have we been too excessive? Do we need to be more restrained?’ We seem once again to be questioning these very fundamental values.”

And, at the same time, renewing a flirtation with the dark side. Emily Rose, a performance poet in Chicago, is a devotee, she said, of “the wantonness, the gorgeousness that is the vampire.” She went on to catalog its exquisite charms: “eternal youth, invulnerability and, of course, the night life — staying up way past your bedtime.”

Surely there are worse things. “There are monsters so much bigger and more realistic in our day-to-day lives,” Ms. Rose said. “Having somebody clamp onto your neck and drain you — that doesn’t seem so scary anymore.”

“It wouldn’t be on my top 10 list of ways not to die,” she added, “especially if that vampire is at all attractive.”