Video:Denis O'Hare Interview - True Blood Season 3 at Comic Con
with Rebecca MurrayDenis O'Hare plays the powerful King of Mississippi in the 3rd season of 'True Blood.' O'Hare joined some of his fellow cast members on the red carpet at the EW/Syfy Party at the 2010 Comic Con to chat up what it's like working on the popular show.
Transcript:Denis O'Hare Interview - True Blood Season 3 at Comic Con
Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con Entertainment Weekly/Syfy Party Red Carpet.
Denis O'Hare - True Blood
All right you told me that you weren't evil when I talked to you a few months ago.Denis O'Hare: "Did I lie?"
Well, kind of. He's pretty evil.
Denis O'Hare: "Evil is subjective. Come on, you must admit."
That's true.
Denis O'Hare: "I have a point of view and I have a goal, and I have things to do. And if people get in my way, they must be either persuaded or removed."
How much fun is it to play such a powerful vampire?
Denis O'Hare: "It's fantastic. I have a scene coming up where someone attacks me and I kind of like shrug my shoulder and they go flying into the ceiling. That was a riot to do. I love that. I got to give a look...I kind of gave a little irritated look."
The dialogue is different than anything else you've ever had to do. What is that like? How do you handle that?
Denis O'Hare: "The dialogue is fantastic. The only problem with the dialogue is when you've got fangs in your mouth, and suddenly you're trying to figure out how to talk. But the lines beautiful. Alan Ball is a fantastic writer. A guy named Alex Woo is a fantastic writer. Bucky [Buckner]'s fantastic, Nancy Oliver's fantastic. It's a joy to say these words. I mean every time you get a different script, you kind of look at it and... All the different strengths and different things that go down. And Alan Ball's episode is coming up tomorrow night and his are always, always really special. I love saying his words. It's not just funny stuff. They have a lot of philosophy in it and there's also a lot of heart. There's a scene we did in episode 10 that was so heartbreaking I literally could not get the lines out. I had to keep stopping because it was such a beautiful sequence of lines, beautiful, beautiful stuff."
No spoilers but who's it with?
Denis O'Hare: "It's with a for rent person in a bedroom in a flop house."
What's it like on that set?
Denis O'Hare: "It's a great set. I mean the camera crew, everyone is friendly. Everyone is a team and everyone kind of takes care of you. Joe Manganiello's done this, you're wearing a little tiny jockstrap or whatever, and I had my days. I was wearing a little tiny jockstrap and everyone's totally cool. Everyone makes you feel normal as you're running around and jumping in and out of these beds. So they're fantastic people."
We see more of your character than we do in the books.
Denis O'Hare: "Definitely. Definitely. In the books they kind of diverge. He seems to be kind of a flippant, fun character in the books. And we've definitely taken him to a different route. He's incredibly powerful and he's definitely a plot mover in this."
How has Comic Con been for you because True Blood fans - it's like the big panel of this weekend?
Denis O'Hare: "You know, dull, dull, dull. It's like, 'Where are people?' It's kind of overwhelming. I was warned about it and nobody could ever warn you enough. It's crazy. I've never in my life had people scream at me - besides my mother. But people are actually screaming. It's fun but also terrifying."
Are they approaching you in the halls?
Denis O'Hare: "They are, but they're not quite sure because you know I wear a wig in the show and, I don't know, I kind of have an every-man look about me. So people kind of go, 'Are you...?' And I usually try to keep walking and they go, 'No, no, you're the King! You're the King!' I go, 'Oh, yes I am.' But it's lovely. It's good to be the king."
Is it still a little surreal to get scripts that are about vampires and werewolves after everything you've done in your career?
Denis O'Hare: "You get used to it pretty quickly after a while. I've played a leprechaun on Broadway. What else have I played? I've played a bunch of serial killers. I played an EPA investigator in a play called Pig Farm. I played an assassin in Assassins, so I've had my fair share of bizarre stuff. But this may rank up there with the most bizarre, I think, yeah."
What is it that draws people to these characters?
Denis O'Hare: "Because they're not all about one thing. They are multi-layered and complicated so they may be a vampire, but they have emotional lives. They have fears. They have wants, they have needs, and they are not all bad or all good. They're flawed like anybody else. They get tricked. They fall in love. They get infatuated. I think in this season I kind of get infatuated at least twice with two different characters - major characters - who then betray me. So it's a very human thing in a lot of ways. I love that."
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