Anna Paquin spills her guts over vampire thriller True Blood

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Truth be told, Anna Paquin looked nothing like True Blood’s Sookie Stackhouse on this day.

The Winnipeg born, New Zealand-raised actress who plays Sookie in Oscar-winning writer-filmmaker Alan Ball’s trippy, twisty vampire drama based on the popular series of novels by Charlaine Harris, appeared both resplendent and visibly relaxed in an immaculate ivory cocktail dress and sensible shoes as she made her way from the Beverly Hilton lobby to the main ballroom, through a shaft of reflected sunlight, accompanied by her beau and marriage partner of 11 months, Stephen Moyer.

The real — some would say surreal — world of Hollywood glitz and glamour is a far cry from the ill-fated telepathic diner waitress and emotional roadkill Paquin plays on TV, where her character is chased, day and night, by all manner and matter of vampires, werewolves, Wiccans, creepy babies and shapeshifters — each and every one of them hidebound determined to see that Sookie not live to see another sunrise.

In one important respect, True Blood’s onscreen fiction of star-crossed love and fortuitous fate has crossed over the factual realm. Moyer, 41, is not just Paquin’s life partner.

As followers of the TV version of True Blood well know, Moyer also plays the tragic vampire Bill Compton and a suitor for Sookie’s attentions in the four-year series, now confirmed for a fifth.

Paquin, who is slender and petite to Moyer’s manly, masculine bearing, is sunny and upbeat, if a little philosophical at times about being True Blood’s emotional punching bag.

This season is proving to be particularly arduous, with Paquin having already been on the receiving end of mock fights and physical confrontations that have, well, gotten a little out of hand at times.

Paquin is high-energy, impulsive and talkative, cheerful even, where Sookie is stubborn, self-reliant and given to sudden flashes of anger.

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