Interview: Christopher Heyerdahl Talks ‘Hell On Wheels’ and Acting in 2 TV Shows at the Same Time

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Christopher Heyerdahl had a great 2011.

He started it filming the last of the Twilight movies where he plays the vampire Marcus, one of the leaders of the Volturi coven. He then went off film season 2 of the SyFy hit, Sanctuary, where he starred as 2 characters (one has since been killed off). If that wasn’t enough, during filming, he got word that he booked yet another part as ‘The Swede’ in AMC’s Hell on Wheels.

Thanks to some creative scheduling, he would film Sanctuary in Vancouver, leave set and rush to the airport. At 6am the next day, he’d be sitting in hair and make-up in Calgary ready to film Hell on Wheels.

Just the normal life of a busy actor.

And, it was just announced that Heyerdahl would join the cast of True Blood for it’s upcoming season. Looks like Christopher’s 2012 might be as hectic as his last. 

I talked to Christopher about Hell on Wheels and how he got the part, working two jobs at once and more!

For the full interview (including Twilight questions), click the audio link above or download it from iTunes 

You had a great 2011 with Hell on Wheels, Sanctuary and Twilight. Has that been the best year career-wise, so far?

Christopher Heyerdahl: Well, yeah.  I guess it has been the best year so far in as much as I’m alive and well, and I’m working.  What other actor doesn’t want’ that?  It has been pretty intense. 

I mean, I started off the year doing Twilight. I got to go to New Orleans. It was a great way to start the year and then Sanctuary got renewed which is always a tenuous thing with a show that’s privately funded and within maybe two months into doing Sanctuary, I got The Swede on Hell on Wheels. 

Chad Oakes and George Horie, Chad is with Hell and George is with Sanctuary.  The two of them got together and said, “We can make this work” because it was a crazy scheduling, scheduling that I think any producer just wouldn’t normally not want to invite into their daily routine because I was getting on a plane pretty much every night after work, flying off to Calgary or vice versa, coming back to Vancouver in order to do each show.  It was crazy for them and that was a blast for me.  Read more

GLAAD Speaks Out Over Lack of LGBT Characters on TV

Every year, GLAAD releases its “Where We Are on TV” list, as a check-up of how networks are doing with regards to the amount of LBGT characters they have on scripted shows. Though the percentages may seem minor, there has been a drop in gay and bisexual characters, down 3.9% for the 2011-2012 season, in comparison to 2 seasons ago.

As of now, out of 650 characters, only 19 fit this particular category, which is approximately 2.9%. GLAAD Acting President, Mike Thompson says,”While the number of LGBT characters is down, some of the most popular shows with critics and viewers, such as Glee, True Blood and The Good Wife, weave storylines about gay and lesbian characters into the fabric of the show.”

At this time, FOX leads in gay representation with 8/117 characters while True Blood and Shameless are tied with 6 characters each.   Read more

Joe Manganiello On Losing Out On ‘Superman: Man of Steel’: “I was really, severely depressed for a few months afterwards”

True Blood star Joe Manganiello, who plays werewolf Alcide Herveaux in the David Ball’s hit  HBO vampire series, says he was “severely depressed” after missing out on the possible opportunity to play Clark Kent in Zack Synder’s Superman: Man of Steel reboot. 

The role, scored by Henry Cavill of Tudors fame, was deemed impossible to manage alongside Manganiello’s True Blood filming schedule. 

Manganiello said that “[Warner Bros] wanted me to screen test and part of the screen test process is that they actually have to settle your deal, as if you were cast going into a screen before you get the screen test. And so that involved settling of shooting schedule and the dates for shooting Superman would have conflicted with 11 weeks of season five [of True Blood]. And as it turns out they had big plans for my character in season five and they were not willing to share me with Superman.”  Read more

“True Blood” star Alexander Skarsgard on Season 4: It’s “quite different from what we’ve seen before”

HBO’s “True Blood” returned last night and Alexander Skarsgard‘s role as vampire sheriff Eric Northman will be directly involved in the story arc this season.

Thanks to a coven of witches, Northman has lost his memory and is forced to rely on Sookie (Anna Paquin), and the actor couldn’t be happier with the turn of events.

“I was excited. It was quite different from what we’ve seen before. It’s been difficult because he doesn’t …  it was difficult finding the right tone. He doesn’t know who he is, so all that baggage is gone, 1,000 years of resentment and bitterness, the whole, like, loathing humanity kind of stuff is gone. But there has to be an element of danger there still. I didn’t want him to become too much of a little puppy. It was about finding that balance, because he has to be extremely vulnerable now,” Skarsgard says.

He also enjoyed trying out his comedic skills throughout the first few episodes.  ”I had fun with it. It was just important to make it real. The humor had to come out of the situations more than him trying to be funny.”
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Watch the First 6 Minutes of “True Blood” Season 4!

You know summer is almost here because True Blood is about to premiere. I had no intention of making that rhyme, by the way.

Catch the first 6 minutes of the season below where Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is in the land of fairies, meets her grandpa and gets into a bit of trouble.

Watch till the end. It looks like the season is going to start off with a bang!

Anybody know where I can get a light-fruit?

True Blood premieres June 26 on HBO.

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Alexander Skarsgard discusses “True Blood” and the differences of being an actor in Sweden and Hollywood

Alexander Skarsgard is an imposing figure at six feet four, blond and blessed with romantic Viking chiseled good looks that make women swoon and men green with envy. While the True Blood star is not all that famous, he is admired by HBO viewers where he plays 1,000 year old vampire Eric Northman, the “sheriff” of a district in Louisiana. A relatively minor character in season one, Skarsgard’s Northman now threatens to eclipse the nominal romantic leads.

The eldest child of actor Stellan Skarsgård ( Mamma Mia!) the younger Skarsgard grew up with a father who was the only internationally famous actor in the entire country.

“I don’t think I came to acting to compete with my father. But, you know, he wasn’t around as much as normal dads, and seeing his passion…Maybe it was a way to get his attention,” Skarsgård says with a grin that reminds one of his tiny but memorable role as a male model in Zoolander. “I mean, if anything, we’re trying to take care of him. He’s over the hill.”

In True Blood‘s ever expanding ensemble of fairytale folklore creatures, Skarsgard’s character is the only one to display the quality shared by great HBO antiheroes past: genuine unpredictability. Skarsgård’s deadpan delivery makes him the funniest and most frightening of the show’s undead . “He does this thing with his eyes,” says Alan Ball, creator and show-runner. “It’s like they become slightly unfocused and all of a sudden they’re mirrors to this ancient, 1,000-year-old soul.”

Fans rooting for Northman in the explicit love/blood triangle between him,  Anna Paquin’s Sookie Stackhouse and Stephen Moyer’s Bill Compton are surely aware of the extra tension created by Paquin and Moyer’s real-life marriage.
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Ryan Kwanten: “I’m not here to be famous”

Ryan Kwanten, first came on the public’s radar during the first season of True Blood where he plays ‘Jason Stackhouse’. He plays such a good dimwit that it’ll be interesting to see him play a different character in his new film, Red Hill, where he plays a police officer trying to survive his first day of work in a small country town.

He talked with stuff.com.nz about his life as an actor, career and his non-audition with Steven Spielberg.

On an ill-fated audition for Steven Spielberg:
He had a meeting with the director and rode his bike onto the lot. “There were no poles at DreamWorks. It’s a very ergonomic place. I just remember wrapping this huge bike chain around this bamboo post, then I ran inside. Two seconds later, an assistant comes running in. ‘Someone’s parked in Mr Spielberg’s spot! Is it anyone here?’ And I’m looking around the room going, ‘Wow, somebody’s really in trouble.’

“Nobody owned up. Two seconds later he runs back in and yells, ‘Who’s got a bicycle?’ I said ‘It’s me.’ He grabbed me by the wrist, ushered me outside, and who should be sitting in his big SUV but Spielberg. I’ve actually wrapped the bike chain over the top of the ‘S’ on Spielberg’s name, which is plastered on the bamboo post. Needless to say, I did not get that audition with him.

“I’m a believer in karma, mate. It’ll come around at some point. What goes around, comes around.”

Read more

True Blood’s Carrie Preston on Broadway, her career and how she got the role of “Arlene”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:52 — 13.8MB)

Even if you haven’t watched True Blood, you’ve seen Carrie Preston before.

Carrie has the remarkable ability to transform herself – her looks and mannerisms – in each role she does. She’s been in Duplicity and My Best Friends Wedding with Julia Roberts. Doubt, Vicky Christina Barcelona and even an episode of Sex and the City that I totally remem

ber her in. She even played Ben Linus’ (her husband, the great Michael Emerson) mother on an episode of Lost! I could go on but my fingers will get tired from all the typing.

She’s currently filming season 3 of True Blood and she took some time out to talk to me about Broadway, how she prepares for a role and yes, True Blood.

So, you’re from Georgia and you got started doing plays as a kid?
Yeah, I’m one of those, like I like to say I’m a “lifer.”  I’m in it for life.  My brothers also an actor, and we started doing plays in Macon, Georgia community theater when we were pretty young.  My brother, John, his name’s John Preston, he got the first play.  He’s older than me by two years, so I watched him, and I was like, “I want to do what John’s doing.”  And then before we knew it, we were completely ensconced in doing plays growing up.

And then I even started my own street theater company when I was in the 7^th grade with all the neighborhood kids, and I would charge 25 cents.  We would make up skits and sing songs and do it in the front yard.  I mean, that was pretty much… it was very clear that that was what I wanted to do with my life.  I just didn’t know that you could make a living at it.

Was there any one show or one specific moment that you were like, this is it?
I definitely got bitten by the bug, immediately, you know, when I was in the 4^th grade. Just doing the school, the community theater production of some play, it was called, The Lion Who Wouldn’t.  You know how they write those plays for kids and stuff?

The director who was running the community theater, he pulled my mom aside and he said, “Your child’s an actor”, and my mom said, “Oh thank you, she’s having a good time.”  And he said, “No, no, no, no. You’re not hearing me.  Your children are actors.  That’s what they are.”  So he encouraged us at a young age and sort of brought it up to my parents in a way that they had to kind of sit up and listen.  And thankfully my parents were very supportive and never tried to talk us into becoming accountants or anything like that.

Yeah, my mom said that to me more than once.  And I said, mom I can’t even count.
Exactly!  There’s no back up here.  This is it.  This is what we’re doing.

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True Blood, the sitcom

This is pretty funny for the first couple minutes but it gets old pretty quick.

Evan Rachel Wood on 'Whatever Works', Larry David and 'True Blood'

Evan Rachel Wood might be my new favorite young actress.

She was great in The Wrestler. She’s going to be Mary Jane in the upcoming Spider-Man musical on Broadway and now she’s appearing in this seasons True Blood?

She’s going to be every geeks goddess.

From Moviefone:
This is your first true comedy. Was that intimidating for you? And what attracted you to this movie?
Yeah, absolutely — especially a Woody Allen comedy. Everything appealed to me about it really. The character was so different from anything I’d ever done. She was Southern, and I’m from North Carolina. When I first read it, I didn’t know who else could do the part except Woody Allen, but then when I met Larry, I was like: “Perfect!” I mean, how many chances would I get to play Larry David’s wife? Come on [laughs].

Was working with Larry and Woody at the same time like a little slice of hilarious sarcastic Jewish guy heaven?
[Laughs] It was amaaaaaaazing. It was really great. It was weird. I loved just watching them talk and go over the script and stuff. I would just stare. People are like, “What funny things did they say?” or “What did they talk about?” I said: “I don’t know. I was just in shock the whole time that I was actually there.”

A big theme of ‘Whatever Works’ is to do what’s right for you no matter what other people think. Is that an idea that guides you? And do you think the offshoot of that — that love can bloom in the craziest of places — is plausible?
Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I always say — not in those words, but don’t let anybody tell you what makes you happy. Just figure out what works for you and hold onto it. That’s the way to go. I think [love] happens when you least expect it, and that’s usually the best, you know, when love finds you because — I don’t know — I believe in fate in a weird way, I guess. I’ve always met people or had something like that happen to me at the weirdest times and just … I don’t know. Stuff I wasn’t planning on doing and at the last minute decide to do, and then something monumental and crazy happens and just changes my whole life.

Have you done anything to prepare for your role as Queen of the Vampires on ‘True Blood’ this season?
No, not yet … but I got fitted for the fangs, and that’s good enough for me. I’ve just been — there’s so much dialogue, she’s got a lot to say. So I’ve just been doing that. But no, I’ve been preparing for this role my whole life [laughs]. I’ve been waiting to play a vampire for so long. So, I’m just, I’m ready to go. [I'm in] the last two episodes. I’m a little upset that I know how the season ends already because I was a fan of the show. But she’s fierce, she’s very scary. And after the last two episodes, I think I kind of have to [return next season]. But we’ll see

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