Image Credit: John P. Johnson/HBO
On this week’s True Blood, we met the other four vampire sheriffs of Louisiana when King Bill summoned them to discuss their witch problem. One of the vampires, Blackburn (pictured), is played by Aaron Perilo, who celebrated his debut by watching the show with friends — a circle of dedicated True Blood fans. (They hushed the fool who “Ooh!”ed when he made his first appearance, he reports. There is no talking during True Blood.) Though Perilo is under the usual cast orders to stay spoiler-free, here’s what we gleaned from our chat this morning:
• Blackburn has been an acquaintance of Bill and Eric’s for “a very long time,” and he’s friends with Eric (at least the one who’d remember him). He doesn’t have a job in the human world, and “he doesn’t really care too much about the human race,” Perilo says.
• At his wardrobe fittings, Perilo was told Blackburn’s style was being based on Tyler Durden, Brad Pitt’s character in Fight Club. “I was like, ‘Okay. I don’t think you can get much cooler than that. So I’m okay with that,’” he laughs. “That seems pretty badass.” For his part, he drew inspiration from a couple of hoodlums from his hometown, Omaha. “I feel like [Blackburn] is a little bit of a lower-denominator type,” he says. “He’s very animalistic.”
• Blackburn will get blood on his hands. Perilo won’t say when, but don’t look for it in the next episode — he’s not in it. (He’ll appear in four more episodes this season.) For those wondering, actors auditioning to play vampires on True Blood are not asked to simulate a bite during their reading. “That would be really funny. No, I think they just trust your biting skills,” he says. He will admit to biting into a lot of apples for practice, and to wearing his fangs pretty much his entire first day on set just to get used to speaking with them in, which he’d been warned would be difficult. “You do have a little bit of a lisp, and that’s the last thing you want. It’s a very unintimidating thing to have a vampire lisp,” he says.
One of his biggest surprises on set: “The blood doesn’t taste very good. You’ve got to do some serious acting for that. It’s not the O-negative I’m used to,” he jokes. “I don’t know what it’s made of, but it tastes like concentrated plum juice. Really thick.”
Read more:
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Anybody with half a brain can tell that all 4 of those characters are being introduced so that they can get killed.
Are you kidding? The way Alan Ball introduces new characters? I thought that about Holly, Tommy, Jesus, and even Hoyt when they were first introduced, but Alan Ball just loves creating 1 billion characters with 1 billion storylines
This season is suffering because there is WAY too much going on!
I hope he kills Beel, but that ain’t gonna happen, sadly.
I’m right behind you! I don’t think he will but Bill will die before the series ends.
God, I hope somebody kills Bill and kills him long before the series ends!! Totally can’t stand him, and he’s still playing a much bigger part than he does in the books. I think Alan Ball has a thing for Moyer.
I agree completely that Ball is way too in love with Bill. That’s one thing for sure that I wish they would follow the books more closely on. Bill’s a d-bag.
Exactly they are straying so far from the books. Bill is a loser!
In last night’s episode they mentioned how powerful Fox News was. Because of this I will never watch the show again. I will not watch a show that supports inbred republicans.
If you paid attention to the line, they’re referring to evil running major corporations. So you should keep watching because that is SO true.
Yeah,they definitely weren’t giving a big 2 thumbs up to FOX News (or Google!!)so rewatch that scene to see what you didn’t “get” the 1st time around.
And if you saw the Comic-Con panel Ball said that the one true evil which all of the supernatural creatures of Bon Temps can unite against is Michele Bachmann. So you are free to keep watching.
Oh no. Rich people are so evil. Nothing is fair. Why won’t they share all of their stolen money? Why do I have to work for a living? Life should be more fair. Give me your money so I can stay at home and watch TV. Yes, they are evil. I know better. I pontificate on EW. Now that’s a forum for change. Great place for a political comments.
Irony is underrated.
That was a really ridiculous comment, clearly you weren’t paying attention to what Bill was really saying…
Although I wish the left-leaning creators of True Blood and other TV programs would leave the digs about conservative-minded individuals and organizations out of their shows, they don’t “preach” their beliefs so much that I feel the need to turn the channel. Overall True Blood is a Gothic soap opera and very entertaining, so I take the jabs at Fox News, et.al., with a grain of salt. And, in a way, the dig they made at Fox this week was recognition of just how wide-reaching and influential the network has become. Even people who don’t agree with the content of Fox’s programming find themselves watching the channel. That says something, don’tcha think?
So which is it?? A dig or recognition?
There goes the right again, trying to cover all the bases!
i would really like if Blackburn could kill bill!!!
totally!
But Mandi, how will he look with his shirt off? Are you just dying to see that and devote the majority of your recap to it, telling us how he looks in slow-mo and rewind and fast forward?
Mandi,
Ignore this fool. If I had a DVR our rewind moments would match almost scene for scene!
I was in the ‘I Hate Bill’ club for the first 3 seasons but I find his character more interesting now that he’s King looking sharp in those suits.
what a great interview, love the new characters on true blood! and this was a good one, excited to see this actor on the show!
I think everyone needs to stop complaining about “True Blood” straying so far from the book. It has been announced from the very beginning that the show is LOOSELY based on the books (Ball and Harris have talked this out and the author understands his vision). So honestly, complaining about it is not going to change anything, and everyone is still going to watch the show so how about we try enjoying Ball’s interpretation and appreciate the differences between the show and the books? Okay?
I am not saying nonsense. This is awesome information. I have already came to similar conclusion.It is a real eye opener and may prompt me to make some serious changes to my current strategies.
If all that is true, your boss should fire you and you need to move out of your mom’s house.
LOL! Excellent!