True Blood Star Bares All

The wild and otherworldly antics on True Blood are fraught with life and death, and undead scenarios amid an often-naked cast are just another day at the office for principal actors Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer.

One might consider, with all that excitement, their off-screen relationship, presumably devoid of blood-drinking, vampire killing or supernatural sex, would seem comparably dull.

Not necessarily so. If you ask Moyer, 40, who appreciates the everyday minutia of life with his betrothed, even the milestone many men fear - meeting one's future mother-in-law - was approached with enthusiasm.

"It was late last year," he said. "I flew to Wellington to meet her mum for the first time. Without Anna."

Grinning, he continues: "It was lovely, actually. I was picked up at the airport at nine in the morning, driven around for hours, introduced to all Anna's friends and family. I had lunch with her mum, and then at four o'clock she stuck me back on the plane to go back to Auckland where I was filming [the upcoming adventure flick, Ice]."

Aside from the regular nerves and stresses one experiences when enduring scrutiny from future family members, another dimension is surely added when each of them have seen you near-naked, let alone conducting acts, albeit simulated, that are usually conducted in private.

He laughs. "You mean, you're asking me if it was weird that Anna's mum had obviously seen a lot of me before we met? Well, I don't know. I didn't ask Mary that.

"But you need to realise that she's a very spunky, very modern, evolved woman. She's very aware of what it is that we do and what it is that Anna does.

"Remember, she was with Anna was she was 14 or 15 and doing all those provocative movies like Hurly Burly and 25th Hour."

Now in season three, the award-winning series has an influx of new characters, including a pack of werewolves. The "hot" quotient of True Blood's cast has been amped up this season with the addition of Joe Manganiello, who plays werewolf Alcide Herveaux.

The newcomer to the series explains: "It's hard to believe, but, after a while, standing naked in a field in the middle of the afternoon with a wild animal 10 feet away becomes second nature. What was difficult was how my character was described in the book as having 'biceps as big as boulders that Sookie could do pull-ups on'. So I have to match that, which means a lot of time in the gym."

For Moyer, now a seasoned veteran of nudity and on-screen intimacy, "the naked aspect is part and parcel of the show. And honestly, when I'm doing a sex scene, all I think about is the food I'm going to eat after the scene is finished.

"Everybody has to starve themselves so if they put the sex scene after lunch, it's a f***ing nightmare. Believe me, there's nothing exciting about doing those scenes."

He pauses. "Actually, I nearly came in naked today, with a cock sock on, just to make your day." Moyer is nothing if not entertaining.

Despite his cavalier attitude, he's not completely blase when it comes to this season's controversial episode featuring the was-it-or-wasn't-it rape scene between Bill and Lorena (Mariana Klevano).

"I certainly questioned Alan Ball about some of the content in this season," Moyer admits. And how does Paquin deal with watching it? Moyer sighs. "It's an odd thing we do. We know that there are things that are going to happen which are going to be slightly odd or provocative, and we have to deal with them like any other couple would.

"I mean, at least we're a couple who work together on the same show and understand the plotting of it. It must be incredibly difficult for couples where the partner isn't an actor."

But Moyer is not impervious to the effects. "It's tough for me to watch Anna do it with anybody else. But we read the scripts and talk about it before we attack those scenes. And bottom line is we trust each other implicitly and we deal with shit when it comes up straight away. We're far healthier because of it."

Moyer has two significant past relationships which have resulted in two children, Billy, 10, and Lilac, 8. Interestingly, he hadn't felt the impetus to marry until he met Paquin.

"It felt ridiculous to call the person that you really are going to spend the rest of your life with your girlfriend," he explains.

"And so I felt like it should be something more than that with Anna. I felt like she should have a title, even if it means I could just joke around and call her 'the missus' and make lots of wife gags.

"It certainly surprised me more than anyone else. I mean, my friends are beyond shocked. Marriage was something that I was never, ever going to do. Nobody was more shocked than Paq was. I should have got the [St] John's Ambulance crew when I proposed," he says.

Despite the high divorce rate for regular folk, let alone couples whose careers push such extreme boundaries, Moyer is confident their relationship will stand the test of time.

"How am I sure? I don't know. I honestly don't know. But I know that it's different, and I know that it's a solid unit. No one knows anything for sure and either of us could change our minds at any point.

"But I'm as sure of this relationship as I've ever been of anything in my life."

By Michele Manelis