HOLLYWOOD, CA - MAY 30: Actor Stephen Moyer arrives at the Premiere Of HBO's 'True Blood' 5th Season at ArcLight Cinemas Cinerama Dome on May 30, 2012 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Stephen Moyer is an English actor and director. He has worked in theater, film and television, but is best known for his role as Bill Compton in the HBO fantasy drama series True Blood.
Stephen Moyer, born Stephen John Emery, was born on October 11, 1969, in Brentwood, Essex (Stephen Moyer age: 51). For secondary school, Moyer attended St Martin’s in Hutton, Essex. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
Moyer spoke exclusively with uInterview in June of 2021 about the origin of his passion for acting and directing.
Moyer explained that when he was young “the escape that [he] got in life was from acting.” After playing parts in community theater, amateur groups, and school plays, he realized that acting is “where [he] found the most freedom, as a human.”
“It’s always been a part of me, being able to lose myself in a character, and not be me for a bit,” said Moyer.
Moyer also explained how his passion for directing began when he started this own theater company with some friends at the age of 16. The company, Moyer noted proudly, is “still going 35 years later.”
Since 2014, Moyer has produced four films and one television series. He spoke with uInterview about the experience of directing as opposed to acting.
“I love being on the other side of the camera and creating, and watching actors create,” Moyer said. “Some tiny thing that you say or do can change something, and it takes on a whole new life, and I just love the creative element of it.”
Catch the full interview at the top of this page.
For five years after graduating from LAMDA, Moyer worked exclusively in the theater. He played roles in productions for the National Theatre Wales, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Oxford Stage Company.
In 1993, Moyer made his first venture into television with the starring role of Philip Masefield in the TV adaptation of the play Conjugal Rites. His next major role was in the 1996 television film Lord of Misrule, alongside Richard Wilson, Emily Mortimer and Prunella Scales. Moyer made his big-screen debut in the 1997 Irish-British sword and sorcery film Prince Valiant, where he starred opposite Katherine Heigl. Also in 1997, Moyer held the main role in the first season of the British drama series The Grand.
In 2000, Moyer played Bouchon in Phillip Kaufman’s period film Quills, which starred Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine and Kate Winslet.
Moyer’s next significant role was alongside Keira Knightley in the 2001 TV movie Princess of Thieves. Also that year, he starred in the Channel 4 TV movie Men Only. Moyer ventured into American television with his role as Simcha “Kazik” Rotem in the NBC war drama miniseries Uprising. The cast included Donald Sutherland, Jon Voight and David Schwimmer, among others.
From 2002 to 2007, Moyer held several main roles in television films and series, including Menace (2002), Perfect (2003), Entrusted (2003), NY-LON (2004), The Final Quest (2004), Lilies (2007) and Empathy (2007).
2007 was a big year for Moyer. He held a main role in the 2007 television miniseries The Starter Wife, starring Debra Messing. The show was nominated for 10 Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
Moyer landed his most well-known role in 2008 when he was cast as Bill Compton in the HBO fantasy television series True Blood. He starred alongside his now-wife Anna Paquin. The show has won several Emmys and a Golden Globe. The show concluded after seven seasons in 2014.
From 2008 to 2017, Moyer starred in five television shows (Ice in 2011, The Bastard Executioner in 2015, Shots Fired in 2017 and Safe House in 2017), was featured in two more (Phineus and Ferb in 2010, Jan in 2012), and starred in the 2015 television film Killing Jesus.
2017 saw another of Moyer’s more well-known roles with the part of Reed Strucker in the superhero television series The Gifted, based in the Marvel Comics’ X-Men universe. Fox canceled the show after two seasons in 2019.
In 2020, Moyer starred in the first season of Fortunate Son, a Canadian espionage drama television series.
Moyer currently works as a director and executive producer on Amazon’s show Flack, which stars his wife Paquin.
Moyer spoke with uInterview about working on the show Flack, which first premiered in February 2019. Moyer serves as an executive producer on the show and has directed two episodes in the first season (“Danny & Deepack” and “Alexa”). While Moyer mostly commonly works in front of the camera, this is not his first foray into directing. He previously directed episodes of True Blood as well as the 2017 film The Parting Glass (also starring Paquin).
Moyer explained his relationship with Paquin by saying, “I think that just as a couple we have such a great working relationship. We met each other working, we did eight years of that, we have our own production company, [and] I directed her in my film debut in 2017.”
As a result of their marital bond and their long history of working together, the two developed “a sort of familial shorthand,” according to Moyer.
Moyer also explained how in the creation of Flack, he and Paquin were looking to create a “diametric opposite” to Paquin’s character Sookie from True Blood. Robyn, Paquin’s character in Flack, reaches new emotional depths in season two. Moyer said, “We knew we that we were taking her literally into Dante’s Inferno – we were taking her to the bottom.”
This, according to Moyer, is where their close relationship became especially beneficial.
“It’s a very emotionally-wrought two episodes for Robyn, and so I’m really glad it was me, I think Anna was glad it was me that was doing it, because of our comfort level together,” Moyer said. “And it meant we could be authentic and go to the place that you need to go to shoot that kind of stuff.”
Flack is a dramedy that follows Robyn (played by Paquin), an American PR executive, as she navigates the missteps and controversies of her famous clients along with her own personal trials.
Moyer explained to uInterview that the show fits into the greater “golden age of television,” which has seen shows “scraping away at the surface of humanity.” Flack in particular features many female leads, which Moyer explains as an attempt to talk about “how women are dealing with the everyday complexity of being a woman in the world.”
The show, in Moyer’s words, tries to show the standards that women are held to not just by the patriarchy, but by other women. He explained that the show attempts to talk about these issues “in a way that’s complicated and difficult and dark… but also really fucking funny.”
When describing the darker aspects of the show, Moyer explained, “It’s not supposed to be easy… it is not just a comedy, it’s a dramatic piece of work that happens to be quite funny, and dark as shit.”
Watch the full interview below.
Moyer married Paquin, his current wife, in 2010. They met in 2007 while filming the first season of True Blood. The couple has two children together (twins Charlie and Poppy) who were born in 2010. Moyer also has a son, Billy, from a previous marriage and a daughter, Lilac, from his seven-year relationship with journalist Lorien Haynes. The family currently lives in Venice, California.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are expected to battle it out in court next year…
Filmed through two different timelines, George reflected on the thriller series’ unusual narrative and what…
Shunted slightly to the side of Kardashian's sultry pose, a shocking amount of internet users…
Asked if his sight was permanently altered, Leno, from behind an eyepatch, assured, “It’ll be…
Walmart was given 24 hours to remove the merchandise from their website and floor.
Jelly Roll joked about giving Harry a neck tattoo, but Harry responded, “I was thinking…