Secrets of the True Blood Set
EW has the secrets of the True Blood set thanks to set designer Suzuki Ingerslev who gave them the scoop on several different parts of the set, including the King of Mississippi’s mansion, Merlotte’s, Lafayette’s house, and Fangtasia:
Fangtasia: Definitely another fun one. “We found that poster, I think it was from The Colbert Report, with Bush biting into the Statue of Liberty, so we put that in there,” she says. “We found a guy somewhere in the Midwest who usually paints serial killers, and we convinced him to paint some of these velvet paintings of our crew members for us and send them over.” In addition to a lot of anti-religious artifacts — “We have a Last Supper that lights up,” she notes, with a laugh — they figured Eric would make it look like Disneyland. “He’s stereotyping what vampires are just to draw people in and make money, and so we did a souvenir stand, too,” she says. “We created these little postcards, and apparently, every time we have extras in there, half of them disappear because everyone takes them as souvenirs.”
Eric’s office they keep pretty plain because he keeps his personal life hidden from everybody. “We tried to make it look functional. Like bar owners will lock up their alcohol in there. There’s Tru Blood boxes. We had Hot Sauce on his desk in the first season, and that was a joke from my decorator since vampires don’t eat.” What did he use it for? “I don’t even want to know with him,” she says. We’re guessing maybe for what he used the basement for earlier this season. “Yeah, we worked with the props on that one,” she says of Eric’s memorable sex scene with Yvetta, “and we’re all trying to figure out: Is it ropes, is it metal, a chain, what is it that they’re using [as constraints]? It’s so funny having these discussions trying to figure out how to torture people, or hang them, or have sex with them. That was a crazy set to build anyway. We started with brand new metal, brand new concrete, and then we aged it all down. And then we do a wet-down [before shooting] so that it seems even more dank and disgusting. When you’re in that set, you feel like you need to shower afterwards.”
Eric and Pam do have homes away from Fangtasia, but we won’t be seeing them this season, Ingerslev says. “Eric’s would be a tough one,” she imagines. Really, we just want to see Pam’s closet. “I know, right?” she concurs. “That’s probably the entire space. And she has a little casket she sleeps in.”
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