True Blood – More Series To Come?
In the second book of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse Series, Lafayette is killed. However, towards the end of Season Two of True Blood, the character is back to being alive and well onscreen. “Lafayette is very small in the book,” Ball says. “Nelsan Ellis, the actor we cast, channeled something from somewhere that is kind of amazing.
According to Ball, what is necessary to preserve from the books of Harris? “The main story is the same. We diverge mostly in the secondary characters. The books are sort of Sookie’s story, what happens to her. The other characters disappear if they’re not in a scene with her. And so we have diverged, certainly in the storylines for Tara [played by Rutina Wesley] and Lafayette [played by Nelsan Ellis], but we’ve tried to remain very true to the spirit of the world.”
As far as the supernatural elements are concerned in True Blood, it is fair to say that they are naturalistic. On this subject, Ball says, “Certainly the supernatural element of the show is a character in the show. We didn’t want to make it seem like something that is outside of nature, we wanted to make it seem like it was something that was a more primal aspect of nature.
However, some of the fans of Harris’ book are startled by the True Blood series. The series is more violent and sexual than the books. Even if it is tender romance between Moyer’s vampire Bill Compton and Paquin’s Sookie, Ball relates, “Certainly, the first time that they get together, we made it pretty bloody.” Unlike the Harris’ prose, these episodes are surely harder-edged, he adds. “It’s a little more violent.
The books are violent, but I think it’s one thing to hear about it and another to see it.” So far, he says, HBO has not objected to what has been depicted on the show. “I have never had a situation where they’ve said, ‘You can’t show that.’ Obviously, there’s a lot of sex in this show, but it’s never going to be pornographic. But I’m sure if I did something graphically pornographic, they would say, ‘Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?
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