True Blood Season 3

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First published on 20 Aug 2010. Updated on 23 Nov 2010.

Alan Ball Let's go for the throat here, Alan - spill it on True Blood Season 3.
We'll meet werewolves for the first time. Sam will meet some blood relatives of his. Sookie and Bill's relationship will be put to the ultimate test. And we'll find out why Jason wears a cougar on his cap.

Why are vampires so hot right now?
Sex. Immortality. Eroticism. People love to fantasise about being ravished by powerful supernatural creatures. Vampires make dark impulses safe – they're hot, sexy dangerous outlaws who transcend morality and conformity. They never say ‘no' to themselves.

Except in Twilight...
Look, I'm aware of Twilight but I've never seen the movies or read any of the books. Frankly, the story leaves me cold - why do a vampire story about abstinence?

What do you imagine vampire blood tasting like?
In True Blood we've tried to establish vampire blood as a really volatile organic force that reacts according to the person taking it and the state of mind they're in. It's definitely an aphrodisiac that heightens reflexes and senses... a mysterious fountain of youth.

Did your own drug experiences inspire True Blood?
I wasn't a big druggie - I did cocaine a few times and thought I was going to have a heart attack and took acid once with a group of strangers and never did it again. But, as a kid who grew up in a repressed environment, marijuana definitely opened my mind up.

Death found you early when your 22-year-old sister died beside you in a car crash. How did that cataclysm inform your work?
I'm not thankful in any way for what happened to my sister but it did shape me and alter my perspective and make me a deeper person. I was 13 when it happened and I may have gone on to become a guy who got conditioned to what society wanted from me. Instead, through American Beauty and Six Feet Under and now True Blood, I've made my living exploring the nature of grief and accepting my own mortality on a very cellular level.

Do you believe in an afterlife?
I don't believe in any particular definition of the afterlife but I do believe we're spiritual creatures and more than our biology and that energy cannot be destroyed, but can change. I don't know what the afterlife is going to be but I'm not afraid of it. Angus Fontaine

True Blood Season 3 premieres on Showcase on Thu 19 Aug, 8.30pm. True Blood Seasons 1& 2 are on DVD through Warner Home Video.