True Blood is awesome. We all know this. It's why we watch! With HBO airing season 2 again starting Sunday night, we wanted to celebrate with some fun True Blood related things. Wait til the liquor post. If you win the TruBlood we're giving away, you will find yourself equipped with a list of recipes to make your season 3 premier party positively debauched. Like Pam-approved levels of debauched. So, along with the chance to win a TruBlood party pack from our awesome friends at HBO and the video of that amazing kid incorporating the True Blood theme song into a medley next to the Simpsons and Firefly, we would like to offer you our exclusive sit-down with the man who portrays Bon Temps' favorite rough 'n tumble lawman, Andy Bellefleur: Chris Bauer.
Erudite Chick: So you of course have had experience with cop dramas before, and now you’re playing a police officer on True Blood, but it’s a slightly different take on it. Going into the first season’s scripts, had you read the novels in preparation?
Chris Bauer: I read the first novel, and I read the second novel, and I read some of the third. I read enough to get a sense of the atmosphere and to be responsible to the vision of the writer Charlaine Harris, so. But episodic television ends up plotting at a different tempo, developing character in a much more idiosyncratic way than a novel does, so, having shot the two seasons I kinda now feel like the world of True Blood on HBO is informed by a fifty fifty inspiration of the books and our show.
This past season had a lot of fans divided, particularly over Sookie and Bill's relationship, and the sudden fervor for Eric- but Andy Bellefleur also developed a stronger fan base. Personally, he became my favorite character on the show. And when I say favorite, I mean I favor him above all others and am kind of obsessed with him. I explained as much to Chris.
EC: Before you started filming, did you know where he was going to end up, as a character?
CB: No- First of all, thank you very much, because one of the dilemmas for me, as an actor, is that I really play the part that they write. Which means, if they write somebody who’s socially awkward, if they write somebody who’s alienating, if they write somebody who’s full of faults, that’s the character I’m going to play. Frequently, that has the effect on the audience that it has on the other characters, so in the same way that people are calling Andy crazy and they want him out of the bar? Sometimes I feel like fans have sort of a lot of critical feelings about Andy. So for you to say that you liked him is really, really meaningful for me. Because I think he’s a good guy! And I think that he’s a human being, and I think he’s evolving, and I think one of the great validations of the theme of True Blood is that it’s the circumstances of the world of Bon Temps that are sort of pushing him into more and more sympathetic and human territory.
You know, this season I think he went through some obstacles that are going to be very playable in successive seasons, and that what started as a guy who was fiercely insecure and way too into his title and authority, looking for a personality behind his badge, was humbled enough that he might- I mean, look how it ended up. He ended up essentially teaming up with his arch enemy. And what I love is, we can still play it in a super real way. They’re such great writers. And the inspiration from Allen through the whole writing staff is such that they give- if you think about it, they have 60 minutes to hand out character development to double digit characters.
EC: Yeah, it’s a huge cast.
CB: It’s huge! And we get like five and seven minutes on average to make our mark and push the character forward. You can only do that with good writing.
The rest of the interview after the jump
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