A TV show which features vampires, werewolves and bartenders who can change into dogs, should not equal cult viewing for adults. Artificial blood, fangs and skin which burns – literally – in the sun are plot specifics which should, in theory, be reserved purely for the adolescent teen. But when you throw into the equation a telepathic hotpant-wearing waitress (Sookie Stackhouse), a 174-year-old southern JOBgent (Bill Compton) who casts a sexual spell over her, a powerful 6ft 4in vampire sheriff and the sexiest love triangle on TV, you can begin to see why True Blood is actually one for us adults.

Then there’s the incredibly stylish cinematography (the credits alone look like a Hieronymus Bosch painting); plotlines which simultaneously deal with politics (albeit fictional ones, the series is set just after the Vampire Rights Amendment has been passed which allows vampires to live freely in the US and Scandinavia); popular culture (Angelina Jolie has supposedly adopted a vampire baby) and the type of raw, realistic sex you’ve probably never seen on television. And suddenly you have a show – which is just about to show its fourth series on next Tuesday on Channel 4 – that revolutionised TV.

In fact, on its release in the US three years ago, it sent shockwaves through the fairly conservative country thanks to its graphic sex scenes, nudity and a barely disguised political subtext – vampire bashing standing in for homophobia and racism (the show’s opening credits feature the sign: “God hates fangs”). It now has a cult following of two million viewers in the UK, the first series produced $17 million in US DVD sales in its first week, has its own jewellery and make-up line and the lead actors have become worldwide stars.

Perhaps True Blood’s success is less surprising when you discover the man behind the show is Alan Ball; the genius who wrote the equally dark 1999 Oscar-winning film American Beauty and the lauded TV series Six Feet Under. Ball has a talent for challenging conventions and teasing viewers’ boundaries and immortal vampires, who possess a potent sexual energy which can send humans into a drug-like sexual high, and live a life without boundaries is the perfect vehicle for his dark and addictive vision. His vampires may be dead, and survive by drinking the blood of humans, but the viewer can still empathise and live their extreme lives vicariously.

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Anna Paquin, who is married to her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer, says in the new issue of V magazine, out July 7, that people shouldn’t care that she is bisexual, something she opened up about last year).

« Frankly no one had ever asked me before … There is a lot of prejudice against us but the more people talk about it, the less of a deal it will be. Who people choose to sleep with – or spend their lives with-shouldn’t matter, not that anyone particularly cares who I’m attracted to. »

Other highlights from her V interview:

-  » While I have always, felt like an outsider, it’s because of the professional choices I have made, so it’s not like I am planning to throw myself a giant pity party. »

- « On stage you don’t have anything to hide behind. I have never felt so naked. »

- »Sookie is always in distress, it wouldn’t be True Blood if someone wasn’t trying to kill her. »

-On sleeping with her husband on set: « Maybe it should be weird, simulating sex with your husband in front of people. But it’s really not. When it’s a love scene with someone you actually love it’s no ‘Can I touch him here, can I touch him there?’ You know what your boundaries are – or aren’t. »

- About her husbands fans: « There is probably something wrong with me, but I find it amusing to watch these men and women fawn all over him. It’s not like anyone is really trying to do anything inappropriate. They just want him to hug them… or bite them. »

The three American Gothic-themed collector’s covers of Entertainment Weekly’s behind the scenes preview of season 4 out tomorrow. Here are the full scans of the issue with the Anna Paquin and Alexander Skarsgård cover. Thanks to TrueBlood-news.com

Related Links > : Entertainment Weekly – July

Playing the smoking hot vampire Eric Northman is humbling, to say the least, for Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard. So to say that he’s used to the adoration from female fans of True Blood, the subject of this week’s Entertainment Weekly cover story, would be a bit of an understatement. (For proof, consider this little detail that EW dug up from Charlaine Harris, the author of the extremely popular Sookie Stackhouse novels that serve as the inspiration for True Blood: She says that fans often ask her to autograph the tomes to “Mrs. Alexander Skarsgard.”)

“I’ll never get used to that,” Skarsgard said of his googly-eyed fanbase. “It’s just very, very humbling and flattering. The character Eric means so much to me and I’m having so much fun playing him. Of course it means a lot when you meet fans and you can actually tell there are people out there who really do care about the character. It means something to you, then. That’s kind of why you do this whole thing.”

Eric fans could have plenty to salivate over this season, which begins June 26 on HBO. This year, True Blood is inspired by book four of the Stackhouse series, Dead to the World, which features a steamy shower scene between Sookie and the tall, light and handsome vamp. Unfortunately, Skargard isn’t in the mood to kiss and tell. He will say, however, that sex this year is, um, a little more down to earth. “I did some crazy stuff last year. I almost had sex with a Greek man and I was covered in his goo. Everything from here on is pretty childish. Everything’s quite innocent.”

For lots more about Eric and the other hot men in Sookie’s complicated life, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on stands Friday, June 24. And what’s that you say? You’re not a Skarsgard fan? No worries: We published two other collectible covers to satiate those who prefer Stephen Moyer and Joe Manganiello. No thank you necessary. It was our absolute pleasure.

When television viewers were introduced to Sookie Stackhouse, three years ago in real time but only a few weeks ago in the chronology of “True Blood,” she was a guileless Louisiana waitress with telepathic powers but without much knowledge of how the world worked, and – oh, right – she was a virgin.

How times have changed.

Over the first three seasons of “True Blood,” Sookie has grown into a take-charge heroine who can contend with shapeshifters, maenads, werewolves and – in Season 4 – witches, but no longer depends on her vampire paramour, Bill Compton, or his fanged rival, Eric Northman. During that time, Anna Paquin, the 28-year-old actress who plays Sookie, has evolved, too, into an increasingly central figure on this increasingly popular, explicit-in-all-kinds-of-ways HBO series, who has comfortably outgrown her former status as a precocious phenomenon (and is now married to co-star Stephen Moyer, who plays vampire Bill).

As anticipation builds for the June 26 season premiere of “True Blood,” Ms. Paquin spoke recently for this Arts & Leisure article about her maturation on the show. In these excerpts from that conversation, she talks about her time on “True Blood,” what Season 4 holds in store for Sookie, and the unusual gift she and Mr. Moyer gave to the crew.

Question: I noticed that you seem to have squeezed all the New Zealand out of your accent, whether or not you’re on camera.
Anna: Absolutely. It switches in and out a bit, depending who I’m talking to. It gets a little boring when you’re going about your daily life and you end up having multiple conversations with random people, when you’re just trying to run errands. They’re like, “Oh, my God! Where are you from?” I’m like, “Can I just buy my milk and go home?” Sometimes if I’m feeling a little more antagonistic, I’ll give people a bit of a hard time. Like, “Where are you from?” I’ll be like, “Here.” “You don’t sound like it.”

Question: You do have a sarcastic side.
Anna: I like to poke people. I do. But I like to hang out and play with people that will poke back. And our set has a lot of that. It’s a very, very loving environment, and the way most of us express our affection is by gentle-to-severe ribbing. It’s a bad sign if you’re not someone that anyone teases on set. It usually means that no one knows you that well.

Question: One of the words I most often heard your colleagues use to describe you was professional. Was there concern when the series started that, because of your youth, you might be somehow unprofessional?
Anna: I’ve always worked incredibly hard, and for me sometimes to a fault, my job comes first. I’ve never really been treated as if I was the kid that didn’t know better or didn’t know enough, or wasn’t good enough or working hard enough. But I was an incredibly hardworking kid. You just don’t want to be the flaky, weakling teenager. If I didn’t feel like I had anything to contribute I’d just keep my damn mouth shut, you know?

Question:Even so, does it ever get tedious to hear yourself described as being “wise beyond your years”?
Anna: That’s an easy way to describe somebody, but it’s more that I had a job that is traditionally an adult job, from a young age. It’s not like I actually knew more about the world in general or had a better handle on life than other people my age. Maybe when I was 16 or 17 and other kids were going out and doing dumb [things] on the weekends, if I had work the next day, or a junket, I’d be like, “I need to get to some sleep.” You grow up unevenly, so there was probably a lot of social stuff that I hadn’t done or experienced as much of, because I was busy doing very adult work. It all balances out in the end.

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Horiwood.com: Anna Paquin is Hollywood’s resident reigning face of Oscar winners with Kiwi ties.LA loves this girl!

Recently, Greg Dixon sat down and chatted to Paquin and actor Martin Henderson on their surreal Hollywood-Kiwi lives in a telephone interview. Here’s what they had to share.

Writes Greg – “The accents aren’t giving them away. On the phone from Los Angeles, their prolonged vowels, convoluted Yankee syntax and warm and positive vibes sound like pure Californian sunshine must feel. But if Anna Paquin and Martin Henderson don’t sound very much like us these days”… they still are.

The two New Zealand actors, talked by speaker phone in a conference room on the True Blood lot in West Hollywood. I tease them by suggesting that, when things go wrong, they’re New Zealanders-on-call. “We’re circling the wagons,” Paquin says, then laughs. Technology connects, but the physical distance with “home” remains of course. Both Paquin, 28, and Henderson, 36, have long since, as their accents disclose, made their homes where they have had the best chance of pursuing what actors like to call “the work”.

“If you make some specific product, you go to the town where they make it the most if you want to get a lot of jobs,” Paquin says. “[LA] is the factory town for movies and television. I kind of gradually, then suddenly, ended up in America. I ended up spending so little time at home that eventually it made more sense to have my base out here.”

LA has seen the sense in the move too. Paquin has arguably become the most successful New Zealand actor in Hollywood right now – Russell Crowe (and his ambiguous New Zealandness), aside. Since winning the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1994 for her pre-teen turn in The Piano, Paquin has worked constantly, and with some extremely talented people. She’s done a blockbuster franchise – the three X-Men films – appeared in indie hits like 2000′s Almost Famous and 2005′s terrific The Squid And The Whale, and has worked for directors Steven Spielberg and Spike Lee.

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