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102 MARK FEUERSTEIN

Cover story, p.76 Anna Paquin on

Sookie Stackhouse,her Oscar win at age

11, and living thelife she’d only

imagined

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Anna Paquin is a true natural. Atthe age of nine she went to anopen casting call near her homein New Zealand for an indepen-dent film called The Piano, and

at 11 she won the Academy Award for BestActress in a Supporting Role for a perfor-mance that no one saw coming. She was,quite simply, astonishing as Flora McGrath,who traveled with her mother (Holly Hunter)to the home of her new stepfather (Sam Neill)in the forests of New Zealand’s South Island.The depth and command she brought to hercharacter in Jane Campion’s 1993 master-work were rare for an actor of any age, muchless a child, so it should come as no surprisethat, 16 years later, Paquin is still keepingaudiences under her spell. The veteran per-former’s character, Sookie Stackhouse, onHBO’s high-tension, supernatural escapade,“True Blood,” has leapt into the thick ofbattle as the humans and vampires strugglefor dominance in the fictional Louisiana townof Bon Temps, and beyond. On the surface,Sookie’s a waitress at the local wateringhole, but beneath that she’s a warrior, adiplomat, a spy, a lover, and everything inbetween as she fights tooth and nail to pro-tect what’s right and stay alive. Bill Compton(Stephen Moyer), her vampire beloved, hasbeen kidnapped by werewolves and broughtto the court of the power-hungry King ofMississippi (Denis O’Hare), and Sookie isforced to accept the help of the vicious yetalluring blood-drinker, Eric Northman(Alexander Skarsgard). Season three is at fullthrottle and the dance has begun.

Shortly after her Oscar triumph, Paquin tookon the role of 14-year-old Amy Alden, whoflew a flock of orphaned geese south acrossthe Canadian border, in the moving, pic-turesque, and playful Fly Away Home (1996)with Jeff Daniels. She appeared as QueenIsabella in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997)and as a mistreated drifter in Hurlyburly (1998)with Sean Penn and Kevin Spacey. It was in2000 that Paquin, now a young woman,returned to the public eye in earnest as theoutcast, insular Rogue in the superhero block-buster, X-Men, with Hugh Jackman, PatrickStewart, and Halle Berry, which spun into thesequels, X2 (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand(2006). She played one of rock band Still-water’s “Band Aids” (who were not groupies,they insisted) in Cameron Crowe’s ode to rock& roll journalism, Almost Famous (2000), andthen inhabited student Claire Spence in Gus

Van Sant’s Finding Forrester (2000). She alsoenjoyed her work with Scott Glenn in thelittle-seen Buffalo Soldiers (2001). (“He took itpretty seriously. I was slightly scared of him,which I love!” she laughs.) Paquin was inSpike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) with Philip Sey-mour Hoffman and Edward Norton, and per-formed alongside Jeff Daniels once more inNoah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale(2005). And amid all of it, Paquin found timeto spend a year at Columbia University.

As she continued her film work in the early2000s, Paquin was also making a name forherself on the New York stage in suchacclaimed productions as Rebecca Gilman’s“The Glory of Living” (2001) directed by PhilipSeymour Hoffman, Paul Weitz’s “Roulette”(2004), and Neil LaBute’s “The Distance fromHere” (2004) with Alison Pill and Melissa Leo.And in London, she performed in KennethLonergan’s “This Is Our Youth” (2002) withJake Gyllenhaal and Hayden Christensen.

In a marked departure from her purview ofyoung adulthood, Paquin took on the title rolein CBS and Hallmark Hall of Fame’s JohnKent Harrison-directed “The CourageousHeart of Irena Sendler” (2009), the true storyof a 29-year-old social worker who joined thePolish underground and saved 2,500 Jewishchildren from the Warsaw Ghetto duringWorld War II and was nominated for theNobel Peace Prize decades later. Paquin tooksome time from the set of “True Blood” toappear in brother Andrew Paquin’s directorialdebut, indie horror film Open House (2010), inwhich Stephen Moyer, Anna’s real-life fiancéwas also featured. Slated for release thisSeptember is Galt Niederhoffer’s TheRomantics, a portrait of a group of friendswho reunite after college for the wedding ofLila (Paquin) and Tom (Josh Duhamel). Lila’scollege roommate, Laura (Katie Holmes),feigns contentment as the maid of honor asshe and Tom struggle with their own tumul-tuous romantic history together. CandiceBergen, Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, and“Glee”’s Dianna Agron co-star.

Following her rooftop photoshoot, we walkwith the Canada-born, New Zealand-raisedthespian to a nearby Venice cafe. Having justwrapped season three and looking forward toa breather, she decompresses as we dig intoa late breakfast. “Sometimes I feel like myfood is just a vessel for me to use hot sauce,”she grins. We launch into the interview andare quickly struck by the Oscar- and GoldenGlobe-winning talent’s cheerful candor.

Venice: I’ve spoken with a few “TrueBlood” cast members and I’ve been reallyimpressed. Is this just the nicest group ofpeople to work with?

Anna Paquin: I can’t think of a group ofpeople that I would rather spend the next fiveyears of my life with. It’s a wonderful ensemblein the truest sense, where everyone is equallyimportant and necessary and it doesn’t workwithout the whole group. Every single part isfilled with such interesting, wonderfully tal-ented, great people. It’s a dream. Everyone’sso into it and we all feel so lucky to be there.

What did you think of the script when youfirst read it? ?

I read the cover letter that said “HBO” and“Alan Ball.” I was like, “Please! Yes! Thankyou!” [laughs] Then I read it and I was like,“Okay, well they’re never going to cast me asblond and Southern.” So that was nice, but —never gonna happen. And I went in anyway aspale, dark, brooding girl and managed to con-vince them that it was a coloring issue, not aninability to do it. A lot of times people have noimagination when it comes to things like whatyou look like. As in, “Brunette girls are seriousgirls and blond girls are perky girls.” That sortof complete B.S. And thankfully Alan has animagination — clearly! [laughs]

I thought it was funny and smart andtwisted — which are all things I love in enter-tainment of any sort — and I couldn’t see whatwas coming next. I didn’t really know what toexpect, and again, that’s something I love. Thewhole world that Charlaine Harris, who wrotethe books, and Alan had adapted — I justloved all of it. It was something I’d never seenor thought of before, and that’s really exciting.And there were so many possibilities of whereit could go. I feel like we could keep going forquite some time in this particular world beforeit would run out of weird shit. [laughs] That’sthe whole thing with these genre shows, orfilms, is that anything is possible, and cre-atively that’s really exciting because it’srooted in being about people and their rela-tionships and their hardships and their emo-tional story, but when the plot points can bereally out there, it’s more exciting — and it’sendless fun for us!

You seem like the natural choice forSookie. Was it a long audition process?

For TV it always is. It took quite a while forthe process to finish but I was excited aboutevery step of it. I really wanted it. I feel like a lot

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IT’S IN HER BLOODFrom Child Prodigy to Supernatural Heroine,

Anna Paquin Has Us Under Her Spell


78 venicemag.com summer 2010

of times, as a person, one has a tendency notto tell anyone how much you want somethingbecause when it doesn’t happen you’ll feeldisappointed, and I’ve sort of decided thatthe other option is to put it out there. And it’sfunny how sometimes that actually works. It’sjust like, “I want this and I want it really badly.I love it and this is what I want to spend thenext few years of my life doing.” And I thinkthat’s also part of growing up, being moreconfident about the possibility of, “What ifsomeone knows I want it and then I don’t getit?” Oh, well! What does that really mean? Ifyou never ask for anything, the odds areyou’re never going to get anything. And tryingto play it cool? What is the point?

So you visualized it?

[laughs] Yes! I know that sounds really... youknow? But you put it out there. And weirdlyenough, before the show had even comeanywhere near me, I had been talking forprobably the last few years, like, “I would loveto get one of those shows!” Like one of thoseHBO or Showtime or one of the good cablenetwork shows because I think the quality ofthe product is so high. And as far as an actingjob, you know where you’re going to be forseveral months out of your year. You get towork with the same people and reallydevelop those relationships. To me that wasalways something I thought would be reallyfun. So the positive visualization had actuallystarted probably two years earlier. [laughs] Ihad started to actually tell people this maybesix months before the script showed up!

When you got what you asked for, was itas you’d imagined?

It was even better! I don’t know if you’veever spoken to Alan Ball, but he’s one of thefunniest people you will ever meet. He’sreally dry and he tells funny stories andeverything he says is laced with this slightlysubversive, twisted, very cool, very smartsense of humor. He’s like everyone’s favoriteuncle. When he’s on set, everyone wants tosit and chat with him, or listen to him chat.He’s just a cool guy! And there’s a trickle-down effect, you know? If big boss-man isinteresting and smart and funny and nice,then that tends to be the kind of people theyhire, or who want to work with them.

Do you remember where you werewhen you found out you were cast?

I was at lunch with my brother and his wifeand it was his birthday. And I was desper-ately trying to not just sit and stare at myphone. It was a few hours after I left the HBOoffice, so that was mercifully short.

Did you freak out?

I was so happy, are you kidding me? Itwas amazing.

One of the great things about Sookie isthat no matter what she gets pulled into,she always takes full responsibility forbeing where she is. Like when Bill apolo-gizes to you for bringing you into thebattle between humans and vampires,you’re like —

“I knew what I was doing!” I think youcould look at her one of two ways. Eithershe’s really stupid or she’s actually verybrave. And I like to think of her as very brave.It’s not that she doesn’t know she’s going toget in trouble; she just doesn’t necessarilycare. And it’s not about her. She doesn’t mindsticking her neck out for things she believes

in, and I really like that. You’re not sitting onthe sidelines waiting for somebody else to goget their hands dirty. She jumps right on in.And yeah, ends up getting in trouble a lot. Itwouldn’t be as fun if she didn’t. [laughs]

If everyone got along it wouldn’t be avery interesting show.

You mean if I showed up in a nice smalltown where a vampire walks in and every-body welcomes him warmly and then heand Sookie live happily ever after with notrouble ever? That’s nice but it’s not goodtelevision, or terribly representative of reallife. [laughs]

It’s still a show about characters andrelationships, as well as being a metaphorfor accepting people who are different.

Pick a group that’s relegated to the side-lines and discriminated against. I think thatdepending on what people who watch theshow have strong feelings about, they cansee whatever that is in the show. But it’s nota “messagey” show. It’s also just really fun towatch. And weird and crazy and wildly out-rageous. [laughs]

Do you still get star-struck?Yes, but usually with people who are not

necessarily the obvious people. Usually it’sjust ones who are really great actors andwhose talent I really admire.

I know what you mean. I was so jazzedto meet Bill Sanderson [“True Blood”Sheriff Bud Dearborne] last year, thisgreat character actor who’s been in somany movies.

He’s a seriously talented, real, real actor —and just the sweetest dude. It’s those sortsof people on our show who elevate it. Evenwhen it’s a character who maybe isn’t inevery single episode, but is played by some-body like that. Or like Lois Smith, who was

my grandmother for a season. These reallyserious, madly experienced actors. It makesus young’uns feel kind of in awe.

Is it possible for human beings andvampires to live in peace?

Oh, gosh. I don’t know. Certainly not onour show — otherwise we’d all be goinghome! [laughs] “And they lived happily everafter. Eric opened a really nice school foryoung vampires, where he lovingly talkedthem through the early stages of vampirismand how not to kill people. And Pam cov-ered makeup tips for hiding the blood.” It’sjust never gonna happen, is it? Although itwould be funny! It would be funny for oneepisode and then it would be like, “Just kid-ding, that was a dream.”

I want to see someone carry on Godric’svision of peace. I was sad to see him go. Hewas the last hope!

Well, read into that what you will. The lasthope for peace committed suicide becausethere was no hope for peace. [laughs]

Of everyone, I think it’s Bill who really feltthat Godric had some good ideas.

Yes. Well, Eric, too. But Eric is very tornbecause he’s this sort of maniacal, twistedfucker who some of the time is kind of lovelyand some of the time is completely usingpeople. [laughs]

You’ve done a lot of work through theyears, but “True Blood” is huge.

There’ll be some films that get noticed andsome films that don’t, and you do theater andfive people see it. You work and then sud-denly you do something that it seems likeeveryone has either seen or heard of. Beingfamous is not really, specifically, somethingI’ve ever factored into my decision-makingprocess. If people know who I am, I want it tobe because I’ve done work that they foundcompelling in some way. So when you pick ajob because of the creative stuff and then itends up taking off, it’s pretty trippy.

What do you see as the attractionbetween Sookie and Bill, in terms of what’sgood and what’s problematic?

Well, she can’t hear his thoughts, which wasa really big plus on the first meeting. [laughs]It’s like, “Finally! Quiet!” And he’s been otherplaces and seen other things, and has moreview of the world than anyone else she’s evermet. And in a lot of ways, even though she’snever left her small town, she’s had somegrow-up-fast life experiences. I think thesimple fact that he’s worldly and not freakedout by her, and she’s not freaked out by him.And then he’s incredibly good looking! Vam-pires in general seem to be cast as people

Those people who look like they have it all together are usually just as neurotic as the rest of us.


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with exceptionally good cheekbones.[laughs] In all shows! It seems to be sort of aprerequisite. Pale and chiseled.

Do you see similarities between yourrelationship on-screen with Bill and off-screen with Stephen?

No, not really. I mean, aside from just thebasic fact of attraction, that’s pretty muchthe only thing they have in common. It’s sortof impossible to say. I’m actually trying tocome up with a really good compare-and-contrast here, and I don’t even know whereto start. [laughs]

It must be nice to go to work with some-body every day who’s also your life-mate.

Well, I think it’s really amazing to find thosepeople in general. Someone you want to spendthe rest of your life with. I think that’s a blessing.And to be on the dream job, and find thatperson, and have the dream job continue. Youknow, life is pretty great. I’m pretty damn lucky,and I know it. I’m aware that this is not, like, anormal amount of good shit at one time. [laughs]It’s quite a special little setup. And the peopleand the friendships; it’s one of those things thatmay or may not ever come together in that wayever again — and if it never does, I feel incred-ibly blessed that I got this. All the stars kind ofaligned. I know what a good thing I’ve got.

In terms of the stars aligning, let’s goback into your history. You were a kid inNew Zealand and you went with your sisterto an open-call audition for The Piano.

I got to miss a half a day of school. I waspsyched. [laughs] They were doing opencasting calls all over New Zealand. They hadalready cast Holly Hunter and they neededsomeone that was small enough to be hernine-year-old daughter, and she’s a very tinylady so that eliminated any of the girls whohad had a growth spurt. [laughs] It was for girlsnine through thirteen, and I was nine. And I gotcalled back and called back, and after, like, thethird one, they offered me the job.

Do you ever wonder, “What if I hadn’tgone to that audition?”

I mean, I’ve been asked it! I’m sure I wouldhave wondered about it at some point anyway,but I don’t really know what my authentic, realthoughts about that are because I’ve beenasked it so many times. [laughs] It’s like, doyou remember the birthday party when youwere three, or do you remember it becauseyou’ve seen the photograph a hundred times?People ask you certain questions. No ideawhat would have happened. I’m sure I wouldhave been doing something creative. I can’tsee myself sitting in an office somewhere.

None of the things that I’ve been interested inwould have led me to that kind of life. I used towant to be a courtroom lawyer when I waslittle. But again, there’s a kind of a perfor-mance-art aspect to that, which considering Iwas so freakin‘ shy is kind of odd to me.

Did you find your shyness dissipatewhen you started acting?

It dissipated by the time I finished highschool. [laughs] It still creeps up every nowand then when I’m in social settings where Idon’t know anyone and I really just want togo sit in the corner and hide.

Do you remember when you won theOscar and gave your acceptance speech?

It’s pretty much a blur, but again it’s some-thing that I’ve been asked about so manytimes that I have a pretty good reconstructedmemory of it.

Your life really changed after that. Did itfeel like a huge deal at the time?

Well, no. That’s the thing. When you’re akid, things don’t feel extraordinary and big.It’s just what’s happening. You don’t havethat... Like for me in the last few years,watching the whole “True Blood” thing takeoff, that’s been a bigger “Oh wow!” than anyof the stuff that happened when I was a kid,because I didn’t know what that meant. Ididn’t understand all the signs and cluesalong the way [that were saying], “This isactually something kind of big.” But now it’slike, “Aaand there’s another one of our bill-boards. And there’s another one! Oh my God,that’s like the 75th bus stop that has ourfaces!” That ... it’s weird! And, frankly, kind ofcool. To me, that’s been more big andexciting. And I imagine if I’d been older whenall that stuff happened when I was a kid, thatthat’s probably how I would have felt.

You were a very intense child, at least interms of what people saw on screen.

I’ve always been pretty serious. Not asserious as I think people think! But I’m notsomeone who smiles all the time unlesssomething makes me smile or laugh. Thatwasn’t me, so I didn’t get cast like that. So Igot to actually learn how to be an actorbecause I was cast to be an actor on jobswhere I had to figure out how to really dowhat they wanted me to do, that weredemanding. And working with real and expe-rienced actors who I very quickly tried toemulate. And I think that changes the courseof one’s career, who you’re surrounded bywhen you’re really young and really impres-sionable. Truthfully, I’ve always worked withpeople who are really amazing and inspiring

and wonderful, but I think particularly whenyou’re so young. It’s a hell of an apprentice-ship, and I’m grateful for that.

You did Fly Away Home shortly after ThePiano. Running around with those littlegoslings must have been fun.

Yeah, they’re really stupid-cute whenthey’re that small. But like most things whenyou’re a kid, sometimes you’re just not in themood. Sometimes you’re like, “That sucker bitme again!” It’s like, “Stop eating my hair!”[laughs] Most of it was fun, but, honestly, themost fun I had was that the guy [Bill Lishman]

whose story it basically was, his real-lifedaughter was my age and it was the first timeI’d gone away to work and there was anotherkid. And there would be weeks when wewould be waiting for the geese to growenough to start shooting with them for thenext lot, so I had someone to play with andthat to me was the coolest. Not necessarily theserious work, but having someone else to playwith, I was like, “Awesome!” Wild and free,running around this beautiful farm in Ontario.That was the stuff that I was really into.

“The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler”is an important story. Were you excitedabout bringing it to life?

Well, that’s pretty intimidating, actually,when you’re getting into telling real storiesabout real people. It was exciting, but I didspend the first week [thinking], “What am Idoing? I’m a fraud and they’re all going tofigure it out at some point, and it’s going to bereally embarrassing!” [laughs] But ultimatelyyou think, “Well, fine, they cast me. This is whoit is. I’m just going to do my best.” It was areally amazing experience. And then when thefilm premiered, meeting a few people whosaid, “I was smuggled out.” It’s so over-whelming. “I’m alive because of her.” Andwhat’s extraordinary when you think about it isbecause it was on CBS, obviously there’s alimit to what you’re allowed to show on a net-work, and if you think of how upsetting someof the stuff that we did was, and just howmuch worse it really was. Every once in awhile, you do things that are not just enter-tainment. It feels good to bring people a storylike that out of hiding, and to get to be part ofthat does feel meaningful. What’s interestingabout that story, which I didn’t actuallybelieve until I did my own research, was thatshe did escape. She and Stephan did marry.I was so shocked! It’s actually incrediblyuplifting, the fact that that really was the waythat things panned out. She did escape fromprison and escape being executed. God, itkind of gives me goosebumps.

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I think you could look at Sookie Stackhouse one of two ways: Either she’s really stupid or she’s actually very brave,

and I like to think of her as very brave.


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I know it’s an odd transition, but canyou tell us about working on the X-Menmovies?

Again, it was another great cast, especiallythe second one where they cast some otherpeople my age and I had other people to playwith — that’s kind of a theme in my career.[laughs] I suppose I got pretty sick of being thekid, and then finally I had people roughly myown age in various jobs and it was alwaysgreat. But you hit a certain 20-something andthen age stops meaning anything.

You co-starred with Breckin Meyer inBlue State (2007), which your brotherproduced.

[Breckin]’s another one of those can’t-help-but-be-funny people. He’s very brightand very nice and very funny. My brother andI had been talking about wanting to producefilms. A friend of his [Marshall Lewy] wrotescripts and wanted to direct it. My brother[Andrew Paquin] raised all the money and wedid it! It was such a great experience. We’re avery close family and getting to work withhim, I found out every day just how similar wereally are, as far as our tastes and our sensi-bility in terms of what we wanted out of thefilm. I think if you can work with your family,it’s the coolest thing ever.

[Writer’s note: Paquin plays Jeff Daniels’s13-year-old daughter in Fly Away Home andhis 20-year-old illicit love interest in The Squidand the Whale.]

I had no idea what I was getting into, butduring my research I watched The Squidand the Whale right after Fly Away Home.

[Burst of laughter] Did you feel dirty? Prob-ably not as dirty as Jeff felt. It’s funny, though.In reality, it wasn’t weird for me because it feltlike a lifetime ago, like a different person, butfor him, I think, who is this very boundaried,proper, good, wholesome family man fromMichigan, with his kids, and his wife, and hisreally wonderful career, and his theater com-pany, I think it was more awkward for him thanfor me. But you know, [laughs] it is what it is.

A strange confluence of events. Goodmovie.

It is a good movie!

Horror fans love Trick ’r Treat (2008).I honestly don’t know why that had so

much difficulty getting a theatrical release. Idon’t understand. My friend who wrote anddirected it, Mike Dougherty, who was one ofthe writers on X-Men 2 and is a dear friend ofmine, did an awesome job with that. It’s anold-school horror anthology, and it’s weirdand twisted and visually stunning, and I think

he did an amazing job with it. It ended upbeing one of those cult films. We subse-quently had little screenings and DVDreleases and people have seen it and theresponse has all been incredibly, incrediblypositive. Usually you can kind of tell whichthings are maybe never going to see thelight of day, and that one actually surprisedme. He’s such a talented, talented man.Mike is a horror fan. At his heart he’s one ofthem, and he made a fabulous film. [At least]the people he was making the film for sawthe film and loved it.

All I can do is give it some press. [whispers] Trick ’r Treat! Trick ’r Treat!

Let’s move on to The Romantics. I think Galt [Niederhoffer, writer-director]

did a really beautiful job with it. She’s a coollady, very smart, very talented.

What a good movie. It’s got a Big Chillvibe to it.

And also that thing of, “Do you really haveanything in common with the people youwere friends with back in the day — in col-lege or in high school?” When that ends,things are not necessarily as happy andloving as they once were. [laughs]

Especially between you and KatieHolmes. I didn’t find myself picking sidesbetween you two, though.

What I love about the way [Galt] con-structed that story is that there isn’t a bad guyand there isn’t a good guy. There are a lot offeelings and there’s a lot of love, and there’s alot of power struggle and head-butting andcomplexity to those really intense relation-ships between friends and lovers and ex-lovers. It all felt very real, as far as themessiness of it. Those two girls — in a waythe love story is about their relationship. It’s asmuch about the disintegration of that as it isabout the disintegration of the relationshipbetween guy and girl. The intensity of thosereally close friendships. I love the way shedoesn’t make one person the bad guy.Because that’s usually not how it is! It’s veryrare that one person is just Satan [laughs], andjust set out to screw with everyone. There areusually a lot of angles on the story. What I loveabout my character [Lila] is that she is almostthe person that she presents, and in this oneweekend you see it crumble. There are littlecracks and then it all just completely fallsapart. And in my experience, that’s, again,kind of lifelike. Those people who look likethey have it all together are usually just asneurotic as the rest of us. And all her controland how things need to be a certain way, andthat way of structuring one’s life — andwatching it all go to shit. [laughs]

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing,for everyone involved.

Nope. The truth is that none of them nec-essarily end up together, and they possiblydon’t go on to be great friends. And theyprobably go off and actually really start theirlives, and find actual meaningful relation-ships and things they want to do elsewhere,and sometimes that’s the best thing. Just ripthe fuckin’ band-aid. It feels comfortable andfamiliar but it’s like chasing one’s tail, inthose circular relationships.

You’ve been acting for a long time.What do you love about it? What keepsyou passionate?

I love storytelling. It kind of comes downto that. I love being engaged in a story andwatching it unfold and being excited. And Ilove being part of the storytelling process.I love the various ways in which, visually,you bring the stories to people — be thatstaging or cameras. I’m interested inpeople and all the weird and ooey andgooey and gnarly emotional shit. [laughs] Ifind that stuff interesting. And what makespeople tick and why people do things thatthey do. And how they get themselves inand out of situations and what the reper-cussions are for them. All that stuff inter-ests me. Also it can be pretty cathartic. Youcan get a lot of stuff out, sometimes inplaces that you didn’t even know [about].You end up tapping into something andyou’re like, “Oh, that felt real!” I just love it.I love working with people that I findexciting. I love it best when you get to playand you find someone who will play withyou. They chuck it to you one way one timeand then chuck it to you another way, andyou’re both just trying to figure out whatfeels good and what works, and thefinessing of it. That to me is fun andintrigues me. I think that the way that itstays interesting and the way that I staypassionate is that I always try to surroundmyself with people who I want to do thebest work I can so that I don’t disappointthem. People who I look up to. People youfeel like you need to stretch to keep upwith. Maybe that’s because I’m a youngestsibling; I want somewhere to head to andsomeone I have to run to keep up with. Youcan’t get bored if you’re constantly trying topush yourself. ▼

Season three of “True Blood” is nowairing on HBO and HBO on Demand. Sea-sons one and two are available on DVD. TheRomantics debuts in theaters nationallySeptember 10th. Purchase Trick ’r Treat atamazon.com or rent it at Cinefile Video inWest L.A.

If people know who I am, I want it to be because I’ve done work that they found compelling in some way.


summer 2010 venicemag.com 85BLACK LEATHER JACKET BY VEDA / LACE AND GREY BAMBOO TANKS (2) BY SUNDAY ROCKS / NECKLACE BY NICOLINA ROYALE


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