EXCLUSIVE: True Blood Confidential – Inside The Stars' Personal Lives

By Althea Wilson-Berkowitz • With the Season 3 premiere of HBO’s True Blood to air on Sunday June 13, there is a lot of speculation about what the third season will bring, and most importantly, which vampires will become involved with which mortals – and who will get naked next. Although the cast members generally avoid confirming much, they have given a few hints.

Alexander Skarsgard revealed that he recently “shot a very, very graphic scene two days ago with a man, he told TheExaminer.com. Off the show, Skarsgard is currently dating blonde waif Kate Bosworth, who he has brought home on a trip to Sweden, gone to the Coachella music and arts festival with, and brought as his date to the third season premiere of True Blood on Tuesday.

Skarsgard has been linked in the past with Evan Rachel Wood, who recently joined the cast of True Blood as vampire queen Sophie-Anne. Wood says of her character, "Her human partner is a girl, but I’m pretty sure she goes both ways [laughs]," she told the New York Daily News. "I think vampires are like that in general."

Offscreen, Wood brings to mind very vampiric associations, considering her past relationship with Marilyn Manson, who is known for his pale makeup and blood-red lips. In fact, Manson looks much more like a vampire in his day-to-day life than many of the show’s blood-sucking characters do in full stage makeup. One step away in the celebrity dating web is Manson’s ex, Dita Von Teese, whose porcelain complexion, love for corsets, and role as red lipsticks biggest spokesperson give her quite a gothic appearance.

While our culture is obsessed with vampires, True Blood’s vampires are a little different. For one thing, they’re more subtly styled than those of other successful vampire ventures such as Twilight, although the retractable fangs certainly make a statement. With only a little bit of eye makeup and of course a touch of powder, Bill is no Edward Cullen, and certainly no Marilyn Manson.

As a show with highly sexual content, the relationships and sexual preferences of its cast members are scrutinized very closely. Although its difficult for real relationships (however exaggerated in the tabloids) to be as captivating as what we see in True Blood, the world still pays close attention.

Blood star Anna Paquin recently announced that she is bisexual, stating: "I’m Anna Paquin. I’m bisexual and I give a damn,” in a video filmed for the True Colors Fund, that raises awareness on issues of sexual orientation. However, she claims that this wasn’t something she was hiding before. “It wasn’t like it was a big secret," she said recently. "It was just a cause I cared about and privately supported, but not one that I ever had the chance to speak out about in a way that would be useful. Obviously I know that one person’s voice doesn’t necessarily do that much, but I just wanted to do my bit.”

Sometimes it’s difficult to separate actors from their characters, and it’s even harder when there are such clear parallels. It’s especially easy to draw a connection between Paquin and Moyer’s off-screen relationship, and the onscreen romance of Sookie and Bill. On trublood.blogspot.com, a fan commented, “Bill is too old for Sookie!” Normally, this statement could only have one interpretation – that Stephen Moyer, age 40, is too old for Anna Paquin, who is 27. However, in the series, Bill is 174 years old, and Sookie is in her early twenties. This age difference certainly defies all typical rules for calculating age-appropriateness (girl must be at least half guy’s age plus seven, etc.) but is essential in creating the dynamic of their onscreen relationship – young, innocent girl becomes infatuated with older, more experienced man.

Paquin says of this relationship, “It is kind of disturbing, but so is putting yourself out there as far as relationships or friendships goes. It is scary and sometimes you are taking a risk. If you aren’t prepared to do that you’re going to have very safe options in your life, but they won’t be the most exciting ones.”

Moyer had more to say about the difference between the onscreen vampire romance, and a real life relationship. “They’re doing something that is outside of this world, that gives you the opportunity to say things that you might not be able to say in a normal relationship because the stakes are bigger, the emotions run higher. Its life or death at every turn,” he told Trueblood-online.com.

As for third-season spoilers, we also know that Tara, played by Rutina Wesley, will find love this season. “She does have a vampire love interest. I don’t know that I can say ‘love interest,’ maybe it’s more of a ‘dark interest.’ He’s very psychotic," she says. ”In real life, however, Wesley appreciates the stable courtship of costars Paquin and Moyer. “They’re very private and I respect that. And they’re very professional. They don’t come to set making out, they come to set to work. People pick up on the chemistry, but no one thought anything was going to come of it. I think it’s beautiful to see two actors like that who can work together and have a relationship outside of it that’s just as healthy.”

As exciting as this relationship is to fans of the show, it may be all but forgotten once the Blood drama returned last Sunday.