Exclusive Interview: Alan Ball dishes about True Blood and his hopes for Sookie

With the True Blood premiere quickly approaching it's time for some more Alan Ball. Below are exclusive interview extas from my recent interview with the show's creator about True Blood's upcoming third season, the challenges he faces, and what his long term hopes for Sookie are.

If you're looking for some serious spoilers, check out my article in Sci Fi Wire, "9 sizzling True Blood spoilers from creator Alan Ball." However, until you read that, perhaps this less spoilery and more behind the scenes interview will whet your True Blood thirst.

KATHIE: What's been your biggest challenge this season?

ALAN: I think the biggest challenge is keeping each episode exciting and still remaining true and organic to the characters' emotions, 'cause that’s where everything’s got to come from. We’re not a movie. We don’t have a week to shoot one special effect or one stunt, and I think that’s what keeps people coming back is even with all the craziness on the show I think you actually end up caring about these characters and being invested in them. I think it’s walking that line between keeping things exciting and keeping things grounded. Because these episodes are like little movies and so getting everything that we have to get in terms of footage, special effects, prosthetic effects, visuals effects... getting it all done in the amount of time we have allotted for each episode, that is definitely the biggest challenge.

Exclusive Interview: Chris Fedak Versus Chuck's Season 3

I got a chance to talk to executive producer and co-creator Chris Fedak about Chuck's big season finale before it aired. Here's some interview extras with Chris chatting about his and his co-creator Josh Schwartz's initial take on the series, the Chuck and Sarah of it all, and what Fedak's secret plan is when it comes to creating an awesome fourth season.

If you'd like more about Monday's finale, you can check out my interview with Chris which ran in Sci Fi Wire, "10 reasons you MUST watch tonight's Chuck season finale". I got nearly 400 digs on the article, so I'm happy.

In that article, Chris gave us an early spoiler regarding next season, which he would only say, "I'll say this, season four is about family." And since we a glimpse of Chuck's mother's back, I'm guessing that he might be talking about Mama Bartowski.

Here's our conversation after Chris admitted that someone we knew and liked was going to die (which turned out to be Chuck's dad, played by Scott Bakula):

Kathie: Oh, you’re evil.

Chris: Thank you very much. You know, it’s funny. It’s not an interview these days unless someone is actually telling me that I’m evil.

True Blood's Denis O'Hare is the King... the Vampire King of Mississippi that is

To get you all whipped up into a frenzy over the August Sci Fi Magazine and my articles with Rutina Wesley, Alan Ball and Denis O'Hare of True Blood, here's a little treat.

I promised you an interview teaser with True Blood's big bad this season, Denis O'Hare, who is playing Russell Edgington, the Vampire King of Mississippi. He's a truly charming guy, and I could have talked to him all day long.

Most of the following quotes are not in the magazine. Nope, there's a whole bunch of different quotes for the article...

KATHIE: I understand you are going to be a regular on the show.

DENIS: I am. I don’t know what that means in terms how long I’ll be around [laughs]. But you know what, I’m around this year. I’m a regular this year.

EXCLUSIVE! Sci Fi Magazine's opening True Blood spread

Sigh... True Blood did not make Sci Fi Magazine's front cover of the August issue. At the last minute they decided to go with The Last Airbender. For the Powers That Be its all about what one image will sell the most magazines. It's a fair quest, especially these days when magazines are an endangered species. It is a gamble for them and they're hoping for the kind of sales they got with Avatar.

So TB no cover. But what I do have for you is an exclusive look at the True Blood opening spread (click for a larger view):


Here's a close-up of the first paragraph that's more readable:


The magazine contains two True Blood articles, one with Rutina and one with Denis O'Hare. I also have articles on the upcoming ABC series The Gates (which has vampires, werewolves and other), Matt Smith as Doctor Who, and Warehouse 13. The August issue goes on sale June 1.

Pre-finale fun - Supernatural's bad plan and 2 guys I miss

More leading-up-to-finale fun, with spoilers! It's time for an apocalyptic look at Supernatural...

Supernatural - Does anyone else think Sam's plan to say yes to Lucifer and then jump into a fiery pit of hell to be forever trapped is a good one? Yikes! Now even Dean is saying, "Whatever you want, Sammy." Seriously? What's Sam's exit strategy?

While I agree one life (along with a soul) vs. the entire human race... well, even I can do that math. There's no doubt this season is coming to a head in probably the only way it really could have. There have been some great surprises along the way and I love the addition of the demon Crowley (really somebody needs to give Mark Sheppard, who has done wonderful guest spots on just about every genre series, his own show).

True Blood's Rutina Wesley stakes out Tara, Franklin Mott, and season three

That Alan Ball... lucky for us he knows how to write great characters, and even luckier for us young Rutina Wesley knows how to play a great character when it comes to Tara, the sassy African American BFF of Sookie Stackhouse. I chatted with Rutina about her character and the third season of True Blood for one of two articles on the series in the August issue of Sci Fi Magazine, which will be on the newsstands on June 1 or so. The other article is with Denis O'Hare, and you can check out my interview with him here.

Here's a small bit of my exclusive interview with Rutina, most of which did NOT make the magazine...

KATHIE: Why do you think Tara has managed to get herself into so much trouble in the past?

RUTINA: That darn vulnerability. She’s so vulnerable and naive at times, but I think that’s just ‘cause all she knows is Bon Temps. It's a small town. Even though she’s well read and self-educated, there’s still a lot of things about life experience that Tara just doesn't know. So she’s really getting some life experience (laughs). And she’s gonna go through a lot of different emotions. They’re giving me another incredible journey, and I just can’t wait.

True Blood's Alan Ball dishes on Lafayette

Here's a teaser with some of my recent interview with True Blood creator and executive producer, Alan Ball, and what he had to say about the new people we'll meet in Lafayette's life in the show's upcoming third season, which premieres on HBO on June 13.

Yvonne Strahovski Versus the Nose Ring

Update: Check out my exclusive interview with Chuck executive producer and creator Chris Fedak with his thoughts about the season and how he's going to approach season four.

I teased a while back that I'd give you a couple tidbits about Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Sarah on NBC's Chuck.

Coming up tomorrow (Monday, April 26), Chuck comes back after a couple weeks off with "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners," and it's GREAT! Forget the whole "Chuck's a spy" or "Chuck's not a spy" business. Chuck's back and so is Sarah, but in a completely different way.

Here's part of an interview with Yvonne that was conducted BEFORE the enormous "game changing" episode, "Chuck Versus the Other Guy," where Chuck and Sarah finally got together big time. While we didn't talk about all the new developments on Chuck (like Chuck and Sarah hitting the sheets), here's some general goodies about Sarah, her American accent, and why she misses her nose ring:

ABC's V is back, interview spillage with showrunner Scott Rosenbaum

You can check out my article Tuesday on Sci Fi Wire about what's coming up on ABC's V over the next few weeks. But here was a fun bit about how executive producer Scott Rosenbaum ended up running the show and how Star Wars helped him develop characters...

"What happened was I was brought in to take over the show after the third episode. I was an executive producer on The Shield and then I was an executive producer on Chuck. And so they approached me to come take over this show, and I wasn’t expecting it. I was on Chuck and doing that and it was such a cool show and a wonderful opportunity, but I just said, 'Of course.'