Question: First, thanks for your insight on all things TV. I have you to thank for many of my favorites (FNL, VM, BSG), and I was curious about the new HBO series True Blood. When I heard that Alan Ball was picking up the reins of this show, I bought the first book in the Charlaine Harris Southern Vampire series and was immediately smitten. She creates a very fun alternate world full of fascinating characters that could make for really great TV. I was further interested when it was announced that Anna Paquin was cast in the lead, though less so about Stephen Moyer (who was far from intriguing in The Starter Wife). Do you have any thoughts on True Blood?
Answer: I'm curious about this show, too, but I won't have any real thoughts to share until I actually see it. I haven't done my homework yet, but I'd like to read at least one of these books (reading, what a thought) before sinking my teeth — sorry — into the adaptation. I love the idea that HBO is getting back into the genre of the
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Anna Paquin by Ryan Born/WireImage.com
HBO has sunk its teeth into an order for the True Blood series, Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball's new drama based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels. Set in a world where vamps can live off Japanese-produced synthetic blood, the TV adaptation stars Brit Stephen Moyer (Quills) as a vampire who falls for a waitress (Anna Paquin) who can read people's minds. Though a premiere plan has yet to be detailed, production starts this fall.Related: X-Men's Anna Paquin Banks on Blood
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Rainn Wilson, Neil Patrick Harris and Sally Field are among this year's Emmy nominees.
We know what you think about the nominees for this year's Primetime Emmy Awards, but what do the lucky nominees have to say about their good fortune? Some of your favorites reveal what went through their minds as the good news got out.
Doug Ellin, executive producer of Entourage (Outstanding Comedy Series nominee) "The New York Times called Entourage the best show in its first season. If for some reason [the voters] appreciate it more and we win this time, there's nothing we've consciously done to change it.... I spoke to Jeremy [Piven], who's in London doing a movie, and I'm playing golf with Kevin [Dillon] in about two hours. Jeremy is kind of our home-run hitter, I knew he was going to get nominated, and when Kevin and Martin Landau also got nominated, it was just great."
Tim Kring, executi
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August Schellenberg in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Annabel Reyes/HBO
Nominations for the 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, to be broadcast Sept. 16 on Fox, were announced Thursday morning. Here are the major races in the miniseries or TV-movie field.Lead Actress in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Queen Latifah (Life Support)Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect: The Final Act)Mary-Louise Parker (The Robber Bride)Debra Messing (The Starter Wife)Gena Rowlands (What If God Were the Sun)Lead Actor in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Robert Duvall (Broken Trail)Tom Selleck (Jesse Stone: Sea Change)Jim Broadbent (Longford)William H. Macy (Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King)Matthew Perry (The Ron Clark Story)Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Greta Scacchi (Broken Trail)Anna Paquin (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee)Samantha Morton (Longford)Judy Davis (The Starter Wife)Toni Collette (Tsunami: The Aftermath)Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or TV-movie:Thomas Haden Church (Broken Trail)August Schellenberg (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) Aidan Qui...
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Anna Paquin, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
This Sunday at 9 pm/ET, HBO premieres Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a wrenching adaptation of Dee Brown's history of the hardships the Indian nations suffered in late-19th-century America. In it, the quirkily charismatic Anna Paquin plays Elaine Goodale, the wife of a Dartmouth-educated Sioux (SVU's Adam Beach) who devotes her life to the tribe. The Oscar winner spoke with us about the film.
TV Guide: How would you describe Elaine? Paquin: She's strong and modern. Most people weren't interested in working with native populations at that time, but she spoke the language fluently and lived on the reservation. She knew the culture from the inside.
TV Guide: Wha
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As history, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is essential, enlightening and disturbing, and has been since Dee Brown published his groundbreaking 1971 best-seller about the displacement and mistreatment of Native Americans in the late 19th century. As drama, HBO's movie (based on the book, airing Sunday, May 27, at 9 pm/ET) should only enhance and revive its reputation.
Your heart is likely to break, bleed and cry out to the Sioux, trapped in one of history's bloodiest culture clashes, long before this movie reaches its devastating climax at the 1890 massacre of Wounded Knee Creek.
It's a complex story, forcefully told (by screenwriter Daniel Giat) and directed (by Yves Simoneau) with a feel for the epic landscape of the Indians' hunting grounds and a sympathy for their diminished circumstances in reservations.
Wounded Knee opens with the Little Big Horn battle of 1876 and traces the surge toward an American holocaust through multiple points of view.
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Question: Every time I see another list of pilots and potential network schedules for the fall, I see another vampire show. What's up with that? When did bloodsuckers become the flavor of the month? I tried to watch Blood Ties on Lifetime but didn't make it through the first half hour. The HBO show with Anna Paquin sounds intriguing. Do you have any early feelings about it? Only one, if that, will likely endure, right?
Answer: Have you been in a bookstore lately? There's an entire industry built around series of supernatural romance novels, many involving vampires. Lifetime's dramatically anemic Blood Ties is based on one of them. I'm not surprised that the networks are trying to mine this vein (sorry) in hopes of generating some cult buzz. At last week's Sopranos screening, I talked to an HBO exec who was very high on the Alan Ball script for their vampire project. Could have been just hype, but you never know. Seems to me like HBO's the perfect place for something so out there to tak ...
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Oscar winner Anna Paquin is making her first foray into series television as the female lead in True Blood, an HBO pilot from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball and based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire book series about vampires inhabiting a small Louisiana town. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Paquin will play Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress who can read people's minds and falls hard for a bloodsucker. (Additional casting information within Comments.)
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Stan Lee and His Mosaic
Having celebrated his 84th birthday on Dec. 28, comic-book legend Stan Lee is still as exuberant and industrious as ever. In 2005, the man responsible for creating or cocreating Spider-Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and dozens of other Marvel characters formed POW! Entertainment with partners Gill Champion and Arthur Lieberman. The company's first release is the animated tale Mosaic, arriving in stores today on DVD. It's the story of a teenage girl (voiced by Anna Paquin) who's given the responsibility of saving the world after being transformed into a chameleon-like creature. TVGuide.com recently spoke with Lee about his plans for POW! and about the upcoming season of the Sci Fi
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Per Variety, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker and Leslie Bibb will star in Trick 'r Treat, a Halloween-set, Bryan Singer-produced horror pic.... Per the Hollywood Reporter, Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez (Domino) will play a superkiller in The Bourne Ultimatum.... Alan Arkin, hot off the success of Little Miss Sunshine, is in talks to join Rendition, playing a senator who tries to help a pregnant woman (Reese Witherspoon) find her missing CIA analyst husband (Jake Gyllenhaal)..... Lionsgate has nabbed U.S. distribution rights to a live-action feature based on the Bratz dolls. Production starts in February, no casting has been announced. (Hurry, Mary-Kate and Ashley, hurry!)
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