Usually, we give you a glimpse of what’s included in Steve’s interviews as part of the intro, but it’s not gonna happen this time, there’s way too much great stuff here. I wish we could give a heart felt high five to the person in charge of this one.

Today he’s [Steve] in Beverly Hills to promote the show [True Blood]. In a good mood, he talks a little about becoming a father again, and the future of True Blood, now in Season 5.

Q: So how nervous are you about being a dad again?

Not at all, l love it.

Q: How has Anna been?

She’s great. She’s very excited.

Q: Has she been sick?

I’m not going to answer any questions for my wife. You can try and get stuff out of her.

Q: Are you going to do anything different this time as a dad having practiced it twice already?

I don’t think so, I’ll just try and be the best dad I can, that’s all I’ve ever tried to be, and I think you learn as you go.

Q: If it came down to a fight between Bill and Eric [Alex Skarsgard], who would win? And if it was between you and Alexander?

If it was between Eric and Bill, Eric would definitely win, because he’s like 830 years older. And in our mythology, that means a lot. And between me and Alex, I don’t know, I think I’d bite his knee caps and cut his legs off.

Q: Have you had a laugh at Joe Manganiello’s expense about Magic Mike?

Well haven’t really needed to, he’s done it all for us. [laughter] And any time you ask him about it, he will do the moves. And it got to the point actually on set where Anna would go, so hang on a minute, what did you do? And then he would do it again. And not quite realize it I think, but it was the seventeenth time he’d showed us in two days. [laughter] And that was funny. And it got to the point in the end where the cameraman, our crew, was like, ‘No, he’s not going to do it again. He’s doing it again.’ [laughter] He would dry hump a chair, or dry hump the camera, he’s had a lot of fun.

Q: He’s pretty impressive at dry humping.

Yeah, he’s very good at dry humping. [laughter] Apparently he’s been good at that since he’s been ten. [laughter]

Q: You have a pretty good gig.

I can’t imagine a better one.

Q: You can lead a fairly normal life, it’s not a 9 to 5 but I’m sure your call times are different, but at least it’s a pretty regular life, so when you guys go off hiatus and you guys go off for three months and relax?

When we first started the job, it was six months, this gig. It’s now eight months for twelve episodes, nothing else shoots as long as we do, and we are talking about Mad Men or Breaking Bad, or Justified or any of those shows, they shoot eight days per hour. Mad Men usually starts when we are about two months into our show and then four months later they are done, and two months later, we are still going. We shoot 20 day episodes.

Q: So are you a guy who calls an agent and goes, “I need to have another gig,” during your hiatus or are you a guy who says, “I’m going to just relax?”

You know, I’m the guy who says he’s going to relax and then works the whole time. [laughs] Last year, I had ten days off. And we started, I did two movies and I produced a movie, and we literally we finished the movie that we were producing on the 24th Anna was in, and we started up again on the 28th of November, and I was fried. And I can’t do it again this year. So yes, my intention was to literally sit for a month or two, but I’m not, I’m doing a film. [laughs]

Q: Is it hard not to talk about work when you are home with Anna?

No. The last two seasons, we have not had that much time together, so we are really not together on set as much. So I’ll get home and it will be, “Hello darling, how was work?” And it was, “Fine. Thank you. What do you want for dinner?” Simple. And the same thing back. That said, sometimes we will break it apart and talk about it because of something that’s happened or because of a storyline that’s impacting both of our characters or something like that, and what do you think we should do with the so and so, and do you think it would be interesting to play it like this or play it like that? We will have those conversations, but we have both been doing this for a similar amount of time, 21, 22 years for me, and would you believe Anna is like in her 20th year? And so it’s very easy to leave it behind. There’s a lot of other stuff going on and I wonder about my old dog’s arthritis most of the time. And we’ve been laughing a lot of that lately, because my irascible old fucker who is 13, will only do anything if there’s a big pile of meat in front of him. My dog is an angry old man.

Q: Is it a relief not to be doing as many sex scenes as you used to in terms of working out and what you are eating?

Yeah. I went straight back to the chocolate croissants this year. [laughter] As soon as I knew that it was about politics, I was like all right, we’re not going to be having any sex and then of course the next thing is, you get a script and it’s like, “Oh fuck,” and it just means, when you are as busy as I’ve been this year, it means getting up an hour earlier at five, which is annoying, cause you have to do it.

Q: You get up at four?

You do when you are doing six o’clock call times and you have to go and run on the beach for an hour, yeah. So it’s really nice not to have to do it. But when they come around, I’m eating a lot of fruit at the moment, which, anybody who sees me having breakfast will know when a sex scene is coming. [laughter] Because I am a bacon and eggs boy, and so if you’ve seen me this morning with my fruit, you’d be going ah, that means he’s about two days away from getting his shirt off. [laughter]

Q: Do you get feedback about how the show is impacting people?

Yeah, it is a big deal isn’t it? It’s crazy. I mean, I don’t think anybody would have ever believed in Season Five at the pilot. It’s one of our highest episodes. Season Four, Episode Ten, was the biggest audience we’ve ever had. It’s crazy. It’s enormous and not without good reason in my opinion. I don’t think there’s anything like it on television, there’s a lot of great stuff, and I am a lover of a lot of it, but I don’t think there’s anything like our show. I don’t think anybody does what we do. You think, ‘Oh, it’s going to peak, it will peak and it will start going back down again,’ but it really hasn’t. It’s extraordinary.

Q: How do you want to meet your true death?

We have an amazing death this year coming up with one of our characters and I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s one of the best I’ve read, and that’s one of the joys that I think of being a writer on this show, is that they have to try and come up with new stuff. Cause as I said earlier, Alan [Ball] is not into repetition at all. You will not see anybody doing anything the same, because it’s just not what our show has become. Somebody pitched something and I can’t tell you what it is, I think one of the boys pitched something this year, that would be something that I don’t think has ever been done before, which…

Q: You can’t even hint?

I can’t, because it’s an idea, it’s not even written. And I don’t know, I think Bill, being the old romantic that he is, would like to meet the true death, in some sense of contentment. There’s a really nice scene coming up actually in my episode where we go back again to him visiting Bonton years ago, and he meets somebody. I think that he still has a lot of guilt about his children, and about abandoning them. Not that he chose it, because he was plucked away from his children, and I think there’s still a huge guilt there, and I think he’d like to see that okay before he was ripped away.

Q: What part of Anna’s personality will make her a good mom?

Her warmth. She’s amazing.

Q: You mentioned Breaking Bad and Bryan Cranston. Are you a big fan of Breaking Bad?

It’s my favourite show.

Q: So what’s up for you now in the hiatus?

I’m going to try and take some time off this year. I don’t think I took any time off last year and I can’t wait to put my feet up and do nothing.

Q: Until the baby arrives.

Indeed, I’ve got to have some time off for that. /Viva Press

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