Denis O'Hare : If Magazine

iF: You’ve done a lot of theatre in New York …TRUE BLOOD, HBO’s hit series about vampires assimilating into mainstream human culture, adapted by Alan Ball from the novels by Charlaine Harris, is a never-ending source of revelations. Case in point: before this week, who would have imagined that the vampires in Mississippi were ruled by a 2,800-year-old king, Russell Edgington? Okay, the people who read Harris’ books already knew about this, but even they could not have envisioned Russell as portrayed by Denis O’Hare.O’Hare, a Tony Award winner for his featured role in TAKE ME OUT (film and television credits include MILK and a recurring role on BROTHERS & SISTERS), sits down on the set for Bill Compton’s front porch between lighting set-ups for a scene elsewhere on the soundstage to talk about playing his bloody Royal Majesty.

iF: Had you ever played a vampire, a king and/or a Mississippian before? 

Well, I think when I was eight, I was a vampire for Halloween, and I was a werewolf when I was nine and I think I was Frankenstein when I was 10. A king – I’ve played the Scottish king in the Scottish play – of course, I can’t say the title [there is a theatrical superstition against saying aloud Macbeth, the title or the character] – on stage, and a Mississippian? No. I’ve played an Okie, a lot of Brits, a lot of Germans, some Irish people.

 

iF: You’re still speaking with Russell Edgington’s accent. Iis this your normal speaking voice? 

 No, this is my accent – I’m keeping it up [between takes – he switches to his real accent] My normal voice is boring.

 

iF: Where are you from originally? 

I was born in Missouri and I was raised in Detroit, Michigan, and I spent twelve years in Chicago and I’ve been in New York for a long time. I’m from nowhere. I’m from everywhere.

 

iF: Had you done much genre stuff – science-fiction, horror, fantasy – prior to TRUE BLOOD? 

 No, I haven’t. I’ve done a lot of stage, most of my work is on stage, and in the past five years or so, I’ve done a lot of film – I did Miracle, Duplicity, Michael Clayton, Changeling–Changeling was period. I just did a sword and sandals picture with Channing Tatum called Eagles of the North that’ll come out in the fall. So that’s sort of a genre thing, I suppose, but I was in one horror film, Quarantine. I got eaten by a dog in the elevator, early. No one liked me. It’s fine. But this is my first, I suppose, in the realm of fantasy.

iF: Did you have any concept of what it would be like to play a vampire before this? No. I love the show – I watched the show [as a viewer prior to being cast]. It’s a great character, because [when playing a supernatural being], you’re always trying to explore the limits of your powers. “Can I do this, can I do that, can I fly, can I read minds, can I tell the future, can I read smoke?” And this guy is particularly fun, because he may have anything, really. You can kind of be whatever you want to be and Alan Ball and the writers and I have all tossed the ball back and forth in a way. And it’s funny, because I think this show is always about more than just the plot and about more than just monsters and demons. It’s about deep philosophical questions. We’re dealing now with the idea of might makes right, the old Arthurian legend that if you have power and you can inflict violence, then you deserve to be in charge, [versus] the idea that democracy rules, or the rule of law pertains, so that we decide what is right, we empower institutions, then we believe in those institutions and we obey those institutions. He’s king because he’s powerful. He’s king because he took it. And this is a guy who is 2,800 years old, who is more powerful than any of these other vampires, so he can do things physically that nobody else can do. I don’t think I have special powers, but my powers are more concentrated, so I’m just incredibly fast.

iF: So Russell could be a great construction worker if he wasn’t King of Mississippi. 

 Exactly. I could build as well as destroy. I see another interesting topic about this show is I’m a gay vampire and my boyfriend Talbot and I, in the show, have been together for seven hundred years. So the longest-standing relationship in this world is a relationship between two male vampires. It’s like a marriage.

 

iF: So, per the second episode, he’s just interested in the Queen of Louisiana for her territory?

 Exactly. It’s like an old-fashioned political alliance in medieval times. A king or a queen did bring those houses together. It wouldn’t necessarily mean that they were in love, but it’s a political alliance.

 

iF: In the books, the Queen of Louisiana marries the King of Arkansas, rather than Mississippi, and there’s an entire novel about the fallout … 

 You know what’s funny – with all of these things, Charlaine Harris’ books are always a jumping-off point, and then where Alan [Ball] goes is unpredictable. And I think he does follow a lot of the details closely, but ultimately, he follows his own scent, he follows his own heart. And so I’m not quite sure how much it’s going to [resemble the books], because Russell as written in the book is very different. He’s sort of small and doesn’t seem particularly powerful. He doesn’t seem that old and his boyfriend is mortal in the book and here it’s a very, very different thing. This guy is old and much more of a power broker.

 

iF: What’s the set of Russell’s mansion like? 

 They’ve made a plantation house for me, which is based on a house in Natchez, Mississippi, called Lionwood Plantation, which I went down and looked at. That is a [Hollywood-area studio] called Ren-Mar. And then we have about four rooms. And over here [at the soundstage at The Lot Studio in West Hollywood], we have my bedroom, where I keep people – where guests stay.

 

iF: Is there any difference between playing a character where your character has sets that are “your” sets and playing a character who’s visiting somebody else’s sets? 

 You know, it’s funny, because when we go there [to Russell’s sets] – we come there a lot and all of the crew are kind of going, ‘My liege,’ ‘Oh, the king is here,’ ‘Welcome home,’ and everyone’s joking, but after awhile, it does begin to have an effect. It helps you in a good way – it makes you feel like you have the power that’s attributed to you. So that’s actually fun, I actually enjoy that.

 

iF: Have you done the True Blood thing of having your fangs suddenly pop out? 

 I have. I’ve done my fangs at least three or four times.

 

iF: Do they stop the camera and have somebody hand them it to you, or do you do the thing where you’re holding your hand up for them to stop camera and you take them out of a pocket on your costume? 

 I’ve done them both. At one point, I had them hidden in a cigar box, I’ve had them hidden behind a chair, I’ve had them hidden in my pocket, and I’ve had them handed to me, depending on the situation.

 

iF: Do you feel any different when you’re performing with the fangs in? 

 You know, they add a little boost to everything, because you know that you look fearsome. It’s counteracted by the fact that they’re difficult to speak with, so it kind of undermines you a little bit, so it takes a little bit of practice, but the fangs are fun. They tell what you’re feeling in a strange way, they’re a way of telegraphing, I am now angry, lustful, hungry, whatever.

In the second part of our interview with TRUE BLOOD's Denis O'Hare, the actor talks about his previous acting gigs, working with the cast of the show, actual wolves and much more.

iF: You’ve done a lot of theatre in New York …

O’HARE: Yeah. I went to school in Chicago and I did all my early theatre work in Chicago, kind of where I learned to act, and then I moved to New York in the early Nineties and that’s what I did. I’ve been a stage actor, I’ve done a lot of Broadway, I’ve done four Broadway musicals, a lot of Broadway straight plays. That’s kind of my thing, that’s what I did, was Broadway. And then I’ve always done TV here and there because ofLAW AND ORDER in New York, but then this [TRUE BLOOD, which films primarily in Los Angeles]came along last fall and I was thrilled, because I love it.

iF: Had you worked with Alan Ball before?

O’HARE: I hadn’t.

 

iF: Do you know if he was a fan of your stage work prior to casting you in TRUE BLOOD?

O’HARE: I think he’d seen me in TAKE ME OUT [O’Hare won a Featured Actor Tony for his work in the production in 2003] and all those years, it kind of percolated, and when this part came up, I think it was a good fit. A whole lot of us are from New York – Carrie Preston [Arlene] is from New York, Sam Trammell [Sam] is from New York, Rutina Wesley [Tara] is from Juilliard from New York, Kristin Bauer [Pam] is from New York – a lot of these actors, we all come from the same place. Michael Hall, who did SIX FEET UNDER [with Ball], I knew him when we didROMEO AND JULIET together in Baltimore years ago, when he first got out of Juilliard. So it all kind of comes full circle, which is really interesting.

 

 

iF: A lot of the actors in TRUE BLOOD are called upon to disrobe at some point. Do you have that?

O’HARE: No. Not yet. [laughs] It hasn’t happened. I’ve gotten this far in my career without having to do that, it’d be nice to keep some things private, you know what I mean? If I’m called upon to, I will gladly, but Russell has dignity. I think he needs to keep his dignity.

 

 

iF: Well, most of the characters who disrobe have dignity …

O’HARE: Yeah. They’re 25 years old [laughs].

 

 

iF: Do you perform any stunts and/or chomp anybody?

O’HARE: They don’t want us doing anything that’s dangerous, so even though we want to, they’re going to ask us to pull back. I have chomped somebody, I’ve ridden a horse.

 

 

iF: When Russell bites another character, do you discuss with the other actor, “I’m going to be chomping you now”?

O’HARE: Yeah, any actor thing you do when you’re being physical with someone in any way, you always check in with them and go, “Okay, I’m going to go here in the neck, you let me know if that’s all right.” You want to check in with them and make sure they’re not hurt and then it’s always a little surprising when you actually do it, because your adrenaline kicks in and you start making funny noises. We were doing one bit where we were attacking a girl and she kept giggling [laughs]. We were nuzzling her neck and making weird noises and she kept giggling.

 

 

iF: Are there any aspects of TRUE BLOOD that you found surprising? 

O’HARE: I have to say, I am bowled over by how friendly everyone in the cast and crew is, how hard everybody works, how professional everybody is. Everybody comes here to work. They do a really, really, really good job. Everyone is prepared to go, ready to go, and yet they manage to have fun while doing it. And it’s a really amazing balance. There’s no attitude from anybody, there’s nobody who has any sort of diva position. Everyone is great. It’s pretty amazing.

 

 

iF: In the scene you’re filming today, the other actors are comparatively deadpan and Russell is decidedly, well, not-deadpan. What’s that like?

O’HARE: You know what? I’m just going to stand out a whole lot more. I have no problem with that. Everyone’s got their own style, everyone’s got also their own thing going on, and Alan, when he first told me about this character, said, “He’s very charming and he’s very Southern.” And in other scenes, I have been deadpan and I have been quiet, but in the scenes where you’re called upon to have some kind of passion, I love that. [Russell] knows what he wants, he knows what he wants to achieve. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get there. He always improvises. He is not a careful person. He’s a planner and he is somebody who plots, but he’s very, very passionate and he’s very, very spontaneous. So he does things [laughs] in the moment. He’s also hotheaded. This is a person who has a temper – a big temper.

 

 

iF: This season, they’ve had some real wolves, playing the werewolves in animal form, on set. Were you around for any of that?

O’HARE: I was. My very first episode shooting, I was on a horse and there were wolves on set and I got to meet a couple of the wolves. I got to hang out with them, and I got to meet the wolf trainer and the wolves are extraordinary, unbelievable animals. They are so otherworldly. And as the wolf trainer kept saying, “They’re not just big dogs. They’re very different animals. Do not think of them as dogs [laughs].”

 

 

iF: Do you have to stand very still when the wolves are working?

O’HARE: The wolves are almost always separated from us. You’re not interacting with them very much. We worked with them outside. They had a wire that kept them separate from us, a wire that was electrified. They are a different kind of animal and you don’t know what they’re going to do, and they’re incredibly capable of incredible things. Mostly they’re just very skittish, so the problem with them is not that they’re going to hurt us, it’s that they’re not going to be able to focus.

 

iF: Is there anything else you’d like to say about  TRUE BLOOD or your work on it? 

O’HARE: I’m so thrilled to be here – I never expected or planned it, but now that I’m here, I don’t ever want to leave.