Carrie Preston Video Interview On ‘True Blood’ Season 5

It’s been really been fun for me now because Arlene has definitely been designed to be the comic relief in the series and she is sort of responsible for maybe a more narrow-minded view of the world. One can even say that she stands for a little bit of intolerance, which we see a lot in society. But what has been fun for me is seeing how the writers have started to trust me as the seasons have gone on with more dramatic story line, a deeper story line, more emotional accessibility to Arlene and from Arlene. That has been really wonderful that they’ve been able to help find that balance. I always want to find the humor in it. I definitely love that side of her, but I think it makes all characters more interesting when you have the other side as well. As far as the evolution of her beyond season five I don’t know. Like I say, I put myself in the writer’s hands and trust them to come up with things. I never would have never even though that Arlene would get pregnant, much less have a baby that was being possessed by a ghost.

I think it’s wonderful that we’ve been able to stay together. I think that in a show where sometimes I think the writers and the audience feel like they have to change things up all the time, it's nice to have the consistency of their relationship. Arlene is someone who wants to always have a man in her life and Terry is the best one yet. So she does everything she can to fight for it. This season we’re going to see some tests to the marriage because of Terry’s past. I can’t really say what is going to happen, but they do love each other.

Well, the show I think in order for it to really work in this world of supernatural vampires, werewolves and fairies is that it has to be grounded and it has to have a context and the context needs to be real human beings. So I think the show doesn’t work if you don’t put those super natural characters in a world of reality, and albeit it is a fictitious depiction of reality, but it is nonetheless human to begin with. I’m very happy that I am part of the few that is providing that context for the audience.

That’s a great question. I certainly haven’t considered the mash-up of the worlds, but there’s definitely a mash-up of the fans. When Michael and I are out and about, we notice that a lot of people who were fans of one of the shows are also fans of the other. So we like to have that consistency. I guess both of the shows have a fantastical element to them so I wonder what the smoke monster would have done if Eric and Bill got a hold of it. One would wonder.

Hopefully I’ll never have to chose between producing, directing and acting. I kind of feel like they are all of a piece. One feeds the other. I learn a lot by doing one thing and turning around and applying it in the other. The fact that I started off as an actor, I think was very helpful once I started wanting to direct and produce. I certainly take advantage of being on set all the time and watching the camera crew and watching the director of photography and watching even other directors. I have the great benefit of watching tons of directors. Whereas those people who aren’t actors, they really only know their way of working or maybe they had a couple of mentors along the way, but I had tons of mentors. I kind of steal from them when I can. I love it, I love doing it, I love being able to see something start from an embryonic stage and then just grow into a full-grown being, so that’s very exciting. I directed a film a year and a half ago on hiatus, it’s called 'That’s What She Said.' It stars Anne Heche and it’s written by my friend Kelly Overbey. It stars Anne Heche, Marcia Debonis, and Alia Shawkat. It just extraordinary because for about eight years I was trying to get this made and finally I was able to figure out how to do it and make everything happen. Now we’ve premiered at Sundance and we’ve been at all these festivals and we got distribution so we’ll be able to share it with a lot more people come late September hopefully.